The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1886-07-10
EXCELLENT CUSTOMS.
Social and business Habits of tho Ex
tremely Deliberate People Of Japan.

Social and business Habits of tho Ex-
trenely Deliberate People of Japan.
There is no such brief and hurried
salutation used in Japanese society as:
Il am glad to see YOU" or; II am
pleased to meet you" Instead of thus
abruptly greeting an old friend or new
acquaintance, the Japanese say, to
translate them freely: II am thorough
ly saturated with happiness at having
the pleasure of hanging myself upon
your honorable eyelids." That sounds
like something. Again, when a young
man writes to his sweet little japanese
girl, away in the country, for instance,
instead of sending her one thousand
kisses, as we hurried and fretful United
States young men do, he writes some-
what in this fashion,: dearest Lump
ofSwcetness: l am filled with excru-
ciating impatience to reach your side,
so that l may hang myself upon your
bliss-dispensing, sugar-coated lips four
thousand six hundred and ten million
times, and perhaps Il few times more for
good count"
am not sure that the social customs
of Japan permit a young man to kiss
his little betrothed peachblow Yum Yum
that many times at one session of the
court; but he is allowed to promise that
number of kisses, anyway, and if he is
not in u hurry, and the Japanese are
never in hurry he will do his best to
keep his promise.
In accepting an invitation to dinner
the Japanese do not say: 'lt will give
me pleasure to dine with you, as you
suggest" But: al shall have great de-
light in putting myself upon the out
side of all the luXuries of the season un-
der which your hospitable board is ao-
customed to groan." That is merely \
free translation of one of the very SIM
plest forms of accepting an invitation
10 dinner in Japan.
rather like the Japanese style of
polite intercourse. There is nothing
hurried or abrupt it. 1t makes one feel
as if the undertaker's bill were far off,
and that there is really no necessity for
hurry and painful commotlon. And it
is much more pleasing to the car than
our brief style of social communication.
OF course, we are all in very much of
a hurry in America. But hurry is the
thing that is keeping us awake OF nights,
causing us to acquire store-tecth in early
life, and to become nation of dyspep-
tics.
AS girls, we are in hurry to be wom-
en- with an abnormal hustle and beau;
as boys. we are in hurry to wear a
mustache and plug-hat; as women, we
are in hurry for hundred new things
that the treasury department is i'll pre-
pared to provide; as men, we are in q
hurry to pocket the Doodle and get away
from the police
We should strive to live more calmly,
If not so sumptuously, and to die with
greater deliberation, even though we
must be buried with less eciat We
should not crowd nature by eating u
dinner of thirteen courses in seven min
utes and three seconds, and expect tc
escape remorse and II bald-headed doc
tor. 1t seems to me that we could nst
some of the Japanese sit-down-and-take'
it-calm-ativeness and for-timerl-don't
oare-a-dang-atiyeness in our domestic
economy TO our great and lasting adj
vantage.
In America every body tries with al
his might to hurry every body else
One hurries us up in the morning, m