Japanese girl

“ To see these little Japanese girls gliding through the streets—gliding, for their walk is such a funny little trot that that is the only word to describe it—I say, to see them gliding along makes a man ashamed of his own uncouthness when he chances to meet one of them, and must, for manners' sake, walk up the street with her. One girl I knew was born in Hilo, but her parents would not let her wear clothes of American fashion, so she looked like any native Japanese, but spoke excellent English. ”

“ No Japanese woman is ashamed to show that she is getting along in years, but all take pains that every detail of the dress and coiffure shall show the full age of the wearer. The baby girl is dressed in the brightest of colors and the largest of patterns, and looks like a gay butterfly or tropical bird. As she grows older, colors become quieter, figures smaller, stripes narrower, until in old age she becomes a little gray moth or plain-colored sparrow. ”

“ The little children are the most characteristically Japanese of all Japanese sights. Babies are carried about tied to the mothers’ back, or to that of their small sisters. They sleep with their heads rolling helplessly round, watch all that goes on with their black beads of eyes, and never cry. Their shaven crowns and gay little kimonos, their wise, serene countenances, make them look like cabinet curios. As soon as she can walk, the Japanese girl has her doll tied on her back, until she learns to carry it steadily and carefully ”

“ Nowhere, perhaps, in the world does one find a more ideal ‘lady’ than amongst the wives and daughters in fair Japonica.
A Japanese lady reminds me of a delicate sea-anemone, which at the first approach of a rough hand shrinks into itself, avoiding contact with the practical hardness of everyday life.
She is almost morbidly sensitive, but her natural pride and politeness forbid her in any way to retaliate. How little we understand her feelings! ”

“ So far we have spoken only of the domestic training of a Japanese girl. That part of her education that she gains through teachers and schools must be the subject of a separate chapter. Japan differs from most Oriental countries in the fact that her women are considered worthy of a certain amount of the culture that comes from the study of books ”

“ JAPANESE LADIES Their habits and ways--Home life--The Honourable Bath--Count Ito and his wife--Old Japan--Loyalty to husbands--A mixed marriage--Curious customs--Japanese sayings.
The fair sex in Japan are the most simple and, at the same time, the most complicated creatures imaginable. In their general ideas and knowledge of the world they are like children--delightful children, too--and in their love of enjoyment and simple pleasures they retain their youthful simplicity all their lives.
But, on the other hand, it is almost impossible for a foreigner really to understand their natures. ”

“ This is in effect the story of a liaison between a man and a Japanese girl of the lower classes, with, of course, a large amount of local colouring, and rendered generally charming by the writer’s brilliant literary style. Unfortunately, that large number of Europeans who have never visited Japan have taken the French academician’s study of a girl of a certain class as a life picture of the typical Japanese woman who is, accordingly, deemed to be more or less, to use an accepted euphemism, a person of easy virtue. ”

“ On the other hand, how diamond-hard the character of the American woman becomes under the idolatry of which she is the object. In the eternal order of things, which is the higher being, the childish, confiding, sweet Japanese girl, or the superb, calculating, penetrating, Occidental Circe of our more artificial society, with her enormous power for evil and her limited capacity for good?"—That Japanese women are charming, either because or in spite of the disadvantages of their position, is a fact which the admiration of foreign lady travellers proves more conclusively than aught else ”

“ When we know that the average Japanese girl is brought up strictly by her own mother, and thoroughly drilled in obedience and in all that is proper as regards etiquette and the duties of woman, we can imagine the narrowness of the education of the daimiō's poor little daughter, surrounded, from early childhood, with numerous attendants of the strictest sort, to [178] teach her all that is proper according to the highest and severest standards. ”

“ Consequently there is no fine tradition of ethical values established in Japan and the poor girl herself is not to blame. Nor is she blamed; for it is not at all an uncommon thing for a [107] Japanese girl to marry out of a house of prostitution into a fine family.
One of the terrible Feminine Flash-lights that every careful traveler discovers in the Orient is the presence of Japanese girls in the segregated sections of Shanghai, Seoul, Peking, Nanking; and even so far away as Singapore. ”

“ The younger the girl the more gay is her hair. Their kimonos, of the most exquisite material, trail all around them, and are loosely held together at the waist with an obi-sash; their long flowing sleeves fall back, showing their dimpled arms and baby hands. Upon their tiny feet they wear cunning white linen socks cut with a place for the great toe. When they go out they wear wooden sandals. The Japanese are the only women I ever saw who could rouge and powder and be not repulsive, but the more charming because of it. ”

“ Among these there is probably none more difficult and perplexing than that which grows out of the need of adapting the old ideas of early marriage for the daughter of a family to the growing demands and the enlarged opportunities for female education.
The Japanese girl has better opportunity to experience the pleasurable side of life than have girls of most Oriental lands. ”

“ In hundreds of Japanese romances the daughter, who for the sake of her parents has sold herself to shame, is made the theme of the story and an object of praise. In the minds of the people there may be indeed a feeling of pity that the girl has been obliged to give up her home life for the brothel, but no one ever thinks of questioning the right of the parent to make the sale of the girl's body, any more than he would allow the daughter to rebel against it. ”

“ The mouth of an aristocratic Japanese lady must be small, and the lips full and red; the neck, a conspicuous feature always when the Japanese dress is worn, should be long and slender, and gracefully curved. The complexion should be light,—a clear ivory-white, with little color in the cheeks. The blooming country girl style of beauty is not admired, and everything, even to color in the cheeks, must be sacrificed to gain the delicacy that is the sine qua non of the Japanese beauty. ”

“ The little girl must sink herself entirely, must give up always to others, must never show emotions except such as will be pleasing to others about her; this is the secret of true politeness and must be mastered if the woman wishes to be well thought of and to lead a happy life. The effect of this teaching is seen in the attractive, but dignified manners of the Japanese women,--even of the very little girls. They are not forward or pushing, neither are they awkwardly bashful; there is no self-consciousness, neither is there any lack of savoir faire ”

“ But the young girl, who has finished this pleasant school life, with all its advantages, is not as well fitted as under the old system for the duties and trials of married life, unless under exceptional circumstances, where the husband chosen has advanced ideas. To those teaching the young girls of Japan to-day, the problem of how to educate them aright is a deep one, and with each newly trained girl sent out go many hopes, mingled with anxieties, in regard to the training she has had as a preparation for the new life she is about to enter. ”

“ Nothing can be more delightful than a Japanese child with Japanese manners; nothing, I grieve to say, more objectionable than one with European manners. Why is it, I wonder, that bad habits are so much more easily learnt than good ones?
In spite of all this, however, one must admit that much still remains, especially amongst the girls, of that grace, that gentle politeness and courtesy, which has ever given such a charm and attracted one so much to the children of Japonica. ”

“ But compared with the girls in their homes they have lost that air of modesty and reserve which is so important an element in the charm of Japanese womanhood. The hotel and tea-house girl belongs rather to the geisha class, whose loud, harsh voices and artificial, coarse laughter are distinguishing characteristics. Girls of both these classes however have an advantage enjoyed by no other women in Japan, namely: that of meeting large numbers of [Pg 60] men of various occupations and interests. ”

“ This idea has led to grave misunderstanding abroad, and indeed no phase of Japanese life has been so misrepresented as this. I have heard it stated, and seen it printed, that it is no disgrace for a respectable Japanese to sell his daughter, that men of position and family often choose their wives from such places as "The Three Sea-coasts," and that up to the time of her marriage the conduct of a young girl is a matter of no importance whatever. Nothing could be more unjust or more untrue. ”

“ Beauty, from a Japanese standpoint, consists in a long, oval face, regular features, almond-shaped eyes sloping slightly upwards, a high, narrow forehead, and abundance of smooth, black hair.
Their movements are graceful, although the style of their dress prevents them walking with ease; 71their feet and hands are delicately formed, and their manners unquestionably charming.
A JAPANESE LADY OF THE UPPER CLASS (p. 68) .
They take hardly any exercise, and one wonders sometimes how the little ladies employ their time. There seems so little to be done in a Japanese house. ”

“ This is regarded as of greater honor to the visitor than if a servant had performed the task. The eldest girl of the family must learn to act in the place of the parents, should a visitor appear in their absence, or when the younger children need the care and oversight of an elder. In such matters as sweeping the rooms, preparing the meals, washing the dishes, purchasing viands, and sewing, the Japanese girl finds ample scope for a practical education to make her ready for the exactions of the life of a housekeeper when she herself shall become a wife and mother. ”

“ The Japanese are notably and effusively polite in their deportment. Japanese girls are especially kind-hearted and obliging. Their religion denies them immortality, and they believe that their paramount duty in life is to please.
Their education imbues them with an intense love of flowers, bright colors and all that is beautiful; it inculcates the extreme of social etiquette in every-day deportment; it adds words of compliment in the commonest phrases of conversation, and, moreover, teaches them to rely on signs, omens and tutelary gods, both good and evil. ”

“ Singing-girls. The charms of the Japanese singing-girl, or geisha, as the Japanese term her, have been dwelt on so often that we gladly leave them to her more ardent admirers. Deprived of her, Japanese social gatherings would lose much of their vivacity and pleasing unconstraint, and many a match, interesting to the gossips, would never be made; for quite a number of prominent men have shown their partiality for the fair warblers in the most practical of ways, namely, by marrying them. The singing-girl's talk, more even than her songs, helps her to such occasional good fortune ”

“ The biggest girl carries baby brother on her back. He is just as interested in what is going on as anybody. The children all smile, and bow very low. It is not polite in Japan to look unhappy or to say cross words. In a minute a little girl will rub her velvety, gold-colored cheek against yours. That is a Japanese kiss. She will put her arm around your waist. Then you are dear friends. She will want you to ride in the same jin-rik-i-sha with her.
Jin-rik-i-shas are like big baby cabs on two wheels. They are pulled by men. ”

“ Their social customs are very simple. Girls never marry before the age of seventeen, or men before twenty-one. When a man wishes to marry he thinks of some particular girl, and asks the chief if he may ask for her. If leave is given, either through a “go-between” or personally, he asks her father for her, and if he consents the bridegroom gives him a present, usually a Japanese “curio.” ”

“ A Japanese never forgets. Sometimes revenge is impossible, but I have heard of more than one case when a foreigner’s official position has been lost owing to his wife’s 68indiscretion, though he and his wife also may be entirely ignorant of the cause of his dismissal.
In appearance, a Japanese woman is smaller and of slighter build than a European. Many are distinctly pretty when young, but they age very quickly, and with their youth every vestige of good looks departs. ”

“ The Japanese girls grow fast under the Southern sun, and many of them, at the age when little girls in Europe play at dolls, are married materfamilias. I see philosophical-looking babies, with a button of hair at the top of their head, strapped on their mother’s back by a scarf, their bald heads falling backwards as though they would drop off. I am unable to recall any single occasion on which I saw a Japanese baby smile. Little children straddle astride on the hip of bigger children, who run after the passers-by with unencumbered hand outstretched. ”