Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1888-09-05
IN A JAPANESE INN.
Bath Regulations That Are Apt to Confuse
Travellers from Abroad.

IN a JAPANESE INN,
Bath Regulations That Are Apt to Confuse
Travellers from Abroad.
There is no general dining room and
no set hour for meals at a Japanese inn.
The guest claps his hands AMI orders
his food at any hour of the day or
night, and it is brought to his room on
q lacquer tray, and set on she floor
before him, or, at most, elevated on a
table, Or Oxen, about four inches high.
In q small room, opening from the
Office and entrance room of the tea
house, two girls were sorting the land
lords tea, just brought in from the
country. They sat before a large
table, raised only few inches from
the floor, and from heap of tea at
one end scattered little handfuls of tea
leaves out thinly over the lacquer top.
With their deft fingers they slid off to
one side the smallest and finest leaves
from the tips of the new shoots of the
tea plant; and the larger and coarser
leaves were slipped to the other side
into a box by themselves. They did it
so quickly and with such a sure, quick
touch that it was a pleasure to
watch them, and to Judge by
the coy giggling and conscious
tittering, it was a pleasure
to the two pretty maids to be watched
so attentively. In another corner of
the vestibule place two other little
maids were at work at what COR
responds to putting on clean pillow
cases in other countries. The Japanese
pillow is wooden box with a little
padded roll on top, and at inns the pad
is covered with a fresh bit of soft, white
mulberry paper each day.
The bathroom of Japanese inn is
as public and open to the world as the
kitchen, generally without any door,
and with glass walls or screens at the
most. In passing through to the rooms
back or going upstairs one always has
the bath in view; often large tank,
where three Or four can socially dip
together. From the late afternoon
until midnight, or later, there is always
splashing in the bathroom and
steam issuing from its open door, as
the natives stand immersion in boiling
water with the greatest glee, and
always have it at geyser temperature.
Often the tub is a small one, and then
several people take turns in the same
bath water. Foreigners being known
to be queer on the subject Of bathing,
preferriug to battle alone and unseen,
and to have fresh water each time, are
generally invited in first.
The master, as they call the mascu-
line head of our party, was invited Ito
the bathroom at Mishima at five
o'clock the first afternoon. He found
it a doorless, glass-sided apartment,
but the landlord quoted him by bring
ing in folding screen about three
feet high and setting it between the
tub and the general view of the Office,
corridor, garden and main street. A
too vigorous sweep of the bathers
arm knocked the screen down, and the
foreigner had to drop to his chin in
the water and call for help. The two
girls who were sorting tea ran in and
set the screen up, as coolly and as
much without thought as home serv-
ant would go in to put up the blower
on the parlor CRATE. There are har-
rowing stories still handed down OF
the experiences of early travellers in
the interior, who had the whole tea
| house and town crowd to the bath
room of an inn, and filed the air with
their admiration of the beautiful white
skin of the foreign bather.
| In the old times the bath tub used
quite as often to be beside the door
step, and he who travelled the country
roads might see the inhabitants in the
oct of nearing goodness as he rode by
at shutdown, and the people lost moth
ing that passed by.-Cor. st. Louis
| Globe-Denaocrdt.