Japanese people

“ But from the earliest days of the new intercourse it was hardly possible to misconstrue the seriousness of the Japanese people, though their refinement of taste, especially in art, their pleasant vices, and their addiction to light and frivolous recreation, often masked their more solid qualities. One word may possibly reconcile the seeming contradiction. They are an intensely vital people, living every part of their lives earnestly, which, however, is no synonym for solemnly. ”

“ The Japanese mind was fully developed and enlightened, at the time when they came in contact with foreigners, to fully grasp western civilization. Mentally, the Japanese people were so enlightened as to be able to digest European science and art at one glance. ”

“ They are well-worth reading, both for the lifelike silhouette of the writer which stands out from their quaintly spelt pages, and for the picture given by him of Japan as it then was, when the land swarmed with Catholic friars and Catholic converts, when no embargo had yet been laid on foreign commerce, and when the native energy of the Japanese people had not yet been numbed by two centuries and a half of bureaucracy and timid seclusion. ”

“ In such a state of transition are the Japanese people themselves, as truly as the government, that it is difficult to describe their personal characteristics. Different observers reach different conclusions as to their personality. One affirms that great quickness of imitation and judgment in discovering what is worth imitating, seem to be the prominent characteristics of the Japanese. ”

“ The Japanese of to-day look, as it were, upon a new earth and a new heaven. Those of forty years ago would be amazed, not only at the enormous changes in the externals, life and government, but also at the transformation which has overtaken every element of the older civilization. Putting it rather strongly, it is now not the son who obeys the father, but the father the son. The rulers no longer command the people, but the people command the rulers. The people do not now toil to support the state; but the state toils to protect the people. ”

“ The character of the Japanese underwent very marked modification during the first sixteen centuries of their history. At the time of their arrival as invaders they were hardy, fierce people, fond of fighting and ready to reduce to slavery every one that they overcame by force of arms. But by degrees the comparatively genial climate of their new home, its soft scenery, the introduction of Chinese civilisation with its endless codes of ceremony and etiquette, and the spread of a literature which occupied itself chiefly with tender sentiments and scenic charms, produced enervating effects. ”

“ No impartial historian would fail to observe that there is some capacity [Pg 10] not borrowed but inborn in the Japanese people, by force of which they were able to consolidate themselves as a compact nation, possessing striking characteristics quite different from those of China. And it is especially to be noted to the honour of the Japanese, that the more we helped ourselves to Chinese culture, the wider became the divergence between the two countries. Could such a way of introducing an alien civilisation be designated a servile imitation? ”

“ THERE is no race of people in whose origin we are more interested than in that of the Japanese. Their history going so completely back for nearly two thousand years, their civilization, which in so many respects parallels our own—the various epochs in our history being typified again and again by similar ages in Japan—all excite our deepest interest. ”

“ Americans sacrifice life to get a living: Japanese, by simply living, enjoy life.
And this leads to another impression and characterization of the Japanese people as merry, lighthearted, and vivacious. Careless, even to an extreme; free from worry and anxiety, because easily satisfied with little, and because inclined to be excessively fatalistic,—they not only are faithful disciples of the Epicurean philosophy, that happiness or pleasure80 is the summum bonum of life, but they succeed in being happy without much exertion. ”

“ Then began such a story of Japan and of Tokio that the past lived and the present blossomed for them. The Japanese, he said, had never been a roving people. They did not live by conquest. Japan’s rulers are well beloved, guiding their industrious subjects with kindly wisdom, as they forge ahead in agriculture and the arts on a high plane of civilization. Centuries ago, while all the rest of the world was new and racked by conflict, civil and foreign, the Japanese were taught to read and write. ”

“ If he has erred in his facts or if his interpretations reflect unjustly on the history or spirit of Japan, no one will be more glad than he for corrections. Let the Japanese be assured that his ruling motive, both in writing about Japan and in spending his life in this land, is profound love for the Japanese people. The term "native" has been freely used because it is the only natural correlative for "foreign." It may be well to say that neither the one nor the other has any derogatory implication, although anti-foreign natives, and anti-native foreigners, sometimes so use them. ”

“ Let us, then, drop all idea of the Chinese, and suppose that that race can be put aside in our consideration of the prehistoric Japanese without glaring unnaturalness. Still the question remains unsettled, whether the bulk of our ancestors from the continent contained within it the ruling class, who gave a unity to the heterogeneous population of this Island Empire. One would say that a certain stock among many, who had their abode in northeastern Asia, might have become predominant over the kindred people of various stocks settled previously in Japan. ”

“ CHAPTER II JAPANESE TRAITS AND PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE
The national traits of different peoples are, like our faces, similar in rough outline but infinitely different in the finer details. The people of Japan are in the larger characteristics not different from any other people; they are part of the aggregate of human beings and they possess all the instincts and desires which are common to humanity. But, as distinguished from other peoples, they display certain individual characteristics which are the product of a unique environment and history. ”

“ Their incapacity for conceiving sorrow is one of the most characteristic features of the Japanese. Perhaps this psychological phenomenon is due to the influences amidst which this happy people have the privilege of living. It is an indisputable fact that where nature is bright and beautiful the inhabitants themselves of that particular spot, like the scenery, seem to expand under its sweet influence and to become bright and happy. Such is the case with the Japanese, who while yielding almost unconsciously to these influences, deepen them by their eager pursuit of all things gay and beautiful. ”

“ There are, of course, large portions of Japan, many millions of its population, upon whom the opening up of the country has, as yet had little, if any, effect. Many of the Japanese people have hardly ever seen a foreigner, or, if they have, have viewed him with no little curiosity. ”

“ The Japanese people, since the war, has undergone the greatest reformation recorded in modern history with a commendable will, eagerness to learn, and mark capacity to understand, they have from the ashes left in war's work, erected in Japan an edifice dedicated to the primacy of individual liberty and personal dignity, and in the ensuing process there has been created a truly representative government committed to the advance of political morality, freedom of economic enterprise, and social justice. Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nation of the Earth and will not again fail the universal trust. ”

“ The deepest impression made upon me by the Japanese was that they are all so active, healthy, and strong; always good-tempered, their manners are exquisite, even the plain people bowing to each other, and many young people saluted me on the street. The infinite variety in their shops is noticeable. ”

“ What sort of people are the Japanese?
They are a very polite people—much politer than the Chinese, but very proud. They are a learned nation, for they can read and write, and they understand geography, arithmetic, and astronomy. There is a college where many languages are taught, even English. ”

“ On a cold day one would imagine the Japanese were a nation of armless people. They fold their arms up in their long, loose sleeves. A Japanese woman's sleeves are to her what a boy's pockets are to him. Her cards, money, combs, hair pins, ornaments and rice paper are carried in her sleeves. Her rice paper is her handkerchief, and she notes with horror and disgust that after using we return our handkerchiefs to our pockets. I think the Japanese women carry everything in their sleeves, even their hearts. ”

“ The Japanese people are now much more highly civilized—according to western notions—than they were half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than they were then. ”

“ The Japanese are very progressive people. They cling to their religion and their modes of life, which in many ways are superior to ours, but they readily adopt any trade or habit that is an improvement upon their own. Finding the European male attire more serviceable than their native dress for some trades they promptly adopted it. ”

“ Nor can we find any peculiar characteristic in the Japanese people, to which we may ascribe their progressive tendency. The only predominant characteristic that we know is their imitative power. This they have remarkably exhibited in their adoption of the Chinese civilization, 444which they modified and made their own, and more remarkably in their recent adoption of the Western civilization. ”

“ Many of these continued for scores and even hundreds of years—proving that, in the modern sense, of the word, the Japanese were not yet a nation, though, through inter-marriage, through the adoption of important elements of civilization brought from China and India via Korea, through the nominal acceptance of the Emperor as the divinely appointed ruler of the land, they were, in race and in civilization, a fairly homogeneous people. ”

“ The way in which the Japanese are working to-day, and the feverish haste that some of them evince in their work, shows that they are as capable as Occidentals of acquiring the rush of civilization.
The home life of the people gives an impression of listlessness that is in marked contrast to that of the West. ”

“ Granting that the Japanese can hurl back the Slav and that the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race do not despoil him of his spoils, the Japanese dream takes on substantiality. Japan’s population is no larger because her people have continually pressed against the means of subsistence. But given poor, empty Korea for a breeding colony and Manchuria for a granary, and at once the Japanese begins to increase by leaps and bounds. ”

“ Then, too, ideals of beauty differ from land to land. We Anglo-Saxons consider ourselves a handsome race. But what are we still, in the eyes of the majority of the Japanese people, but a set of big, red, hairy barbarians with green eyes?
The Japanese women are, on the whole, better-looking than the men, and have, besides, pretty manners and charming voices. ”

“ In former ages the Japanese were a barbarous insular people, and as in our own civilization the traditions and habits of rude Aryan ancestors still color our fundamental thoughts so in Japan we find evidences of a culture essentially similar to that of the Pacific Islands of to-day. The ancient ancestor worship of Japan is strangely like that of the tropical Pacific with its gods, the ghosts of long departed chiefs, and its high chief a living god to-day. ”

“ The Japanese, in short, are a fighting race who have scorned the haggle of the market and sworn fealty to the god of war. The character of the Chinese is in this respect the antithesis of the character of the people of Japan. ”

“ Together with the climate, the race stands forth as an indispensable factor in the promotion of its civilisation. Then to what race do the Japanese belong? Can all the people of Japan be homogeneously comprised under a single racial appellation, or must they be treated as an agglomeration of several different races? Are the Japanese, or the bulk at least of the Japanese, indigenous or immigrant? If the Japanese are an immigrant race, then whence did they originate, and what is the probable date of their immigration into this [Pg 28] country? ”

“ The dominance of China and India has been largely displaced by that of Europe. Western literature, language, and science, and even customs, are being welcomed by Japan, and are working their inevitable effects. But it is all perfectly natural, perfectly spontaneous. The present choice by Japan of modern science and education and methods and principles of government and nineteenth-century literature and law,—in a word, of Occidental civilization,—is not due to any artificial pressure or military occupancy. But the choice and the consequent evolution are wholly due to the free act of the people. ”

“ The Japanese think they have; and what foreigner can say that, under the circumstances and in view of the conditions of the people, they have not? One point is clear, that on the whole the nation has made great progress in recent decades, and that the conduct of the government cannot fail to command the admiration of every impartial student of Oriental lands. ”