Japanese

“ Where did those Japanese get their exquisite taste for color and tint-contrasts?—is their sky so divinely blue?—are their sunsets so virginally carnation?—are the breasts of their maidens and the milky peaks of their mountains so white? ”

“ Western civilization has taken a firm hold on the Japanese people. They have been rapidly adopting, and, in fact, improving on, Western methods, customs, and manners. The fear of the globe-trotter of to-day is whether he will be in time to see the Japan of his dreams and of romance, before this great Western wave of progress and reform has divested the Land of the Rising Sun of its quaint originality and fascinating charm. ”

“ But the rare charm of Japanese life, so different from that of all other lands, is not to be found in its Europeanized circles. It is to be found among the great common people, who represent in Japan, as in all countries, the national virtues, and who still cling to their delightful old customs, their picturesque dresses, their Buddhist images, their household shrines, their beautiful and touching worship of ancestors. ”

“ He who really understands Japan, has gained the magic key for unlocking the social mysteries of China and the entire East. But the Japanese people, with their institutions and their various characteristics, merit careful study also for their own sakes. For the Japanese constitute an exceedingly interesting and even a unique branch of the human race. Japan is neither a purgatory, as some would have it, nor a paradise, as others maintain, but a land full of individuals in an interesting stage of social evolution. ”

“ The tale, so simply told, so vivid, so characteristically Japanese in spirit and in execution, is the work of a man of twenty-five who sees the world with all the glow and courage and enthusiasm of youth. ”

“ The Japanese show a refined taste in the coloring and decoration of rooms; natural woods, painted and polished, are common; every post and board standing erect must stand in the position in which it grew. A Japanese knows at once whether a board or post is upside down, though it would often puzzle a Westerner to decide the matter. The natural wood ceilings and the soft yellows and blues of the walls are all that the best trained Occidental eye could ask. ”

“ The first exception of any consequence is the wonderful rise of Japan within the last generation—a phenomenon unexampled in history; for both in blood and in culture the Japanese line of ancestral descent is as remote as possible from ours, and yet Japan, while hitherto keeping most of what was strongest in her ancient character and traditions, has assimilated with curious completeness most of the characteristics that have given power and leadership to the West. ”

“ Europe and America, with their railways, their telegraphs, their gigantic commerce, their gigantic armies and navies, their endless applied arts founded on chemistry and mathematics, were to the Japanese a wonder-world of irresistible genii and magicians. ”

“ I’ll miss it adorning my small head, while I’m away from home.
I have often thought that Japanese display Oriental rhetoric—only oppressive rhetoric that palsies the spirit—in hair dressing. Its beauty isn’t animation. ”

“ Indeed, no Occidental-born could manage a purely Japanese household, or direct Japanese according to his own light. Things are so opposite, so eccentric, so provoking at times,—so impossible to understand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Usually when one makes an inquiry a Japanese puts on a stupid look, giggles, tucks his thumbs into his girdle, hitches up his garments, and either professes perfect ignorance or gives one some vague second-hand information, though it is quite possible that he may have been over every foot of the ground himself more than once. ”

“ Japanese affection is not uttered in words; it scarcely appears even in the tone of voice: it is chiefly shown in acts of exquisite courtesy and kindness. ”

“ It is at once the centre of business, and the scene of uproar, riot, and confusion. In the comparative nakedness of the women, in the noise and violence of the shopkeepers, in the litter of the streets, there is nothing to suggest the delicate culture of Japan. The modesty, cleanliness, and politeness, so characteristic of the Japanese, are conspicuously absent in their settlements in this country. ”

“ To that phase of the illustrations and interpretation of the folk-lore of Japan, as well as to its increasing literature, we invite all those who enjoy the study of the Japanese mind as it blossomed out in days long distant from ours. In general, it may be said, that the forms which folk-lore take are the witnesses of processes of thought which are outlived, and which have emerged into higher and nobler methods of illustration and reasoning; but in the progress of the race these steps in advancement are not to be ignored. ”

“ My contention is not that Japanese brains are never imperfect or peculiar, but that their imperfections and peculiarities are precisely those found everywhere else in the world. And the same rule applies, of course, when one compares the great intellects of Japan with the great intellects of other nations. ”

“ The exordium and the whole tone of a public speech by a Japanese differ palpably from one by an Anglo-Saxon. The Japanese never dwells on himself, his own attainments, or his own qualifications; he keeps carefully out of sight everything pertaining to the Ego. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Japanese written language, the language of Japanese literature, tends to assimilate itself to Chinese, and fresh Chinese words and expressions are continually taking root in Japan. The Japanese are a people quite abnormal and incalculable, with a touch of romance, a conception of honour, a quality of imagination, and a clearness of intelligence that renders possible for them things inconceivable of any other existing nation. ”

“ The Japanese whom most of the world knows are townified, sometimes Americanised or Europeanised, and, as often as not, elaborately educated. They are frequently remarkable men. They stand for a great deal in modern Japan. But their untownified fellow-countrymen, with the training of tradition and experience, of rural schoolmasters and village elders, and, as frequently, of the carefully shielded army, are more than half of the nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ While among us they gracefully adapted themselves to our ways, and doubtless enjoyed them, but always in the back of their minds was the knowledge that they were Japanese and that they would ultimately return to Japan, there to become a part of the finely adjusted mechanism of Japanese homogeneity. I know many such men and women and find them very interesting. They have passed through an extraordinary mental and spiritual experience, generally without being confused by it. Instead of mixing their Japanese and American selves, they acquire a perfect duality. ”

“ The Japanese, who are Past Masters of the difficult art of living gracefully, pleasantly, satisfactorily, and with dignity, meet death with more self-control than any of their fellow Asiatics. There is nothing in their funeral customs to offend the most fastidious European or the most prejudiced American. ”

“ Many travelers come to our country; they pass through from one end of the Empire to another; they go through the streets and squares; they see the people and buildings, and when they come home they say "the Japanese are copyists and they are a race of imitators," because they only see the outward appearance of our activity, but, unfortunately, never study the inner workings of our minds; therefore I have selected tonight this subject to present before you— the inner workings of the Japanese mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Japanese can draw pictures. Short poems and aphorisms written in large characters by famous men are mounted on gold mats and hung like paintings in the homes of those so fortunate as to possess them. A scription from the hand of General Count Nogi or Prince Ito would be treasured by a Japanese as we would treasure one from the hand of Lincoln or Roosevelt—possibly even more so, for where a letter from one of our great men has a sentimental and historical value, a piece of writing from one of their great men has these values plus the merit of being a work of art. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Japanese give the double impression of being industrious and diligent on the one hand, and, on the other, of being lazy and utterly indifferent to the lapse of time. The long hours during which they keep at work is a constant wonder to the Occidental. ”

“ In such works the Japanese have been happiest, able as they are in them to give us their inimitable descriptions of nature, and their delicate emotional responses, without the necessity of a formal plot. ”

“ Nor does the Japanese feeling for form by any means stop where art ends. It permeates the entire fabric of Japanese life. The formal courtesy of old French society was as nothing to the formal courtesy of the Japanese. The whole life of the average Japanese is so regulated by form that his existence seems to progress according to a sort of geometrical pattern. ”

“ We are perpetually being asked questions about Japan. Here then are the answers, put into the shape of a dictionary, not of words but of things,—or shall we rather say a guide-book, less to places than to subjects?—not an encyclopædia, mind you, not the vain attempt by one man to treat exhaustively of all things, but only sketches of many things. ”

“ Imitative as the Japanese are, and borrowers from other nations in every department of plastic, fictile, and pictorial art, as well as in religion, politics, and manufactures, the poetry of Japan is a true-born flower of the soil, unique in its mechanical structure, spontaneous and unaffected in its sentiment and subject. ”

“ To Japanese readers the writer wishes to say that although he has not hesitated to make statements painful to a lover of Japan, he has not done it to condemn or needlessly to criticise, but simply to make plain what seem to him to be the facts. ”

“ The commonest Japanese charms are scraps of paper with an inscription for the reversal of bad luck, the attainment of good luck, protection from the perils of the sea or of war, from fire, from sickness, and in child-bearing. ”

“ The feeling of gratitude of Western peoples is as real and as strong as that of the Japanese, though it does not find expression in the worship of the dead. That the Japanese are profuse in their expressions of gratitude to the past and to the powers that be is beyond dispute. It crops out in sermons and public speeches, as well as in the numberless temples to national heroes. ”