Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-07-01
EXCELLENT CUSTOMS.

Social and Business Habits of the Ex-
tremely Deliberate People of Japan.
There is no such brief and hurried
salutation used in japanese society as:
Il am glad to see YOU" or; 81 am
pleased to meet you" Instead of thus
abruptly greeting an old friend or new
acquaintance, the japanese say, to
translate them freely: 81 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 fashions: dearest Lump
ofSweetness: I am filled with excru-
ciating Impotence to reach your side,
so that | may hang myself upon your
bliss-dispensing, sugar-coated lips four
thousand six hundred and ten million
times, and perhaps few times more for
good count.
[ AIN not sure that the social customs
of Japan permit a young man TO kiss
his little betrothed peachblow Yum Y UNI
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 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: at will give
me pleasure to dine with you, as you
suggest" But: Il shall have great de-
light in putting myself upon the out
side of all the luxuries of the season I'M
der which your hospitable board is ac-
customed to groan." That is merely a
free translation of one of the very ssim-
plest forms of accepting an invitation
to 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 ear 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 w acquire StcIc-LcctI Ill otlIIf
life, and to become nation of dyspep-
tics.
As girIs, we are in hurry to be wom-
en- with ali abnormal hustle and beau;
as boys, we are in hurry to wear
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
hurry to pocket the Doodle and get away
from the police.
We should strive to hive more calmly,
if not so sumptuously, and to die with
greater elaboration, even though we
must be buried with less eciat. We
should not crowd nature by eating a
dinner of thirteen courses in seven min
utes and three seconds, and expect to
escape remorse and a bald-headed doc
tor. 1t seems to me that we could use
some of the Japanese sit-down-and-t take
it-calm-ativeness and for-time-I-don't
care-a-dang-ative in our domestic
economy to our great and lasting adj
vantage.
In America every body tries with all
his might to hurry every body else.
One hurries US up in the morning. an