Daily new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1897-1906, 1899-10-17

dies-CustOms that are Little Under
stood by Us-The Spartan Character
of the NatiYes-Some Instances to
Show it.
II 1SARAGo MACH,
SHIBA, TOKYO, Japan,
September s, 1899.
To the Editor of the NEW DOMINION:
Ny promise to write you some inn
pressions Of Japan has long been on
my conscience. Exacting university
work and the facilitating effects of
gastrine influenza. which has been
epidemic here, have left me neither
energy nor inclination for correspon-
dence. A letter published in the
New DOMINION and written from
Nagasaki, gives me now a special mo-
tive for writing. / have no doubt
that your correspondent was perfectly
conscientious in describing what he
saw. Unfortunately, he probably had
little opportunity TO see. His letter
certainly conveys an impression of
Japan that is as unjust as it is liable
to be misleading.
Your correspondent says: THE
| Japanese are quite different in looks
and speech from the Filipinos, but in
actions and habits are similar. The
poor class of the Filipinos live in lit
tie dirty bamboo shocks and go al
most nude. The poor class of the
japanese live mostly in straw and
mud houses and go almost naked.
| What either class would consider
mansion house the people of the Uni
ted States would consider u very COM
mon dwelling such as you see in the
rural districts.
As for the Filipinos, persons with
different motives give strangely con-
! ficting accounts. But this quotation
at best, suggests the pernicious half
t~,'t', IF similarity of factions and
habits be intended to suggest that
Japanese live in dirty houses, it is
libel. japanese are noted for cleanli-
ness. In this, they far excel Ameri-
cans and Europeans. The houses,
even of the poorest, are kept perpetu-
/ ally and absolutely clean. AS for the
people, not one of the poorest fails to
take a daily bath-Would that as
much might be said for Americans,
The statement that japanese of the
poor class go almost naked" is false.
At most, it can be applied only to
part Of the children and to part of the
men of the poorest class. l nave nev-
er yet seen girls or women whose dress
was not intended to cover almost the
entire form. The style of dress is
such that puff of wind may expose
the lower limbs. 1t also permits
women and men alike, in excessive
heat, to expose the breast. The poor
sometimes do this. Sometimes very
old persons will expose, especially in
! their own open houses, the entire
body as far down as the girdle. But
this is in no sense indecent, for they
have not the slightest conception of
prurient Western ideas about the hui
man body. Be it said to their credit,
however, | have never, under any cir
cumstances, seen japanese of either
sex even glance, consciously, at stran-
gers of the opposite sex. In the
words of another, "Japan is country
in which the nude is seen, but not
! looked at"
1t is equally incorrect to state that
1.-THE poor class of the japanese live
mostly in straw and mud houses"
/ On recent trip of over thirteen hum
dred miles in Japan, | do not remem-
Der seeing one straw house. The vast
ma jority of houses, even of the poor,
are constructed Of wood or equally
good materials, such us stone, brick
and actual plaster. Perhaps half of
them, in rural regions the majority Of
them, have matched straw roofs.
A relatively small number were coat
ed with a cheap sort of plaster that
might perhaps be called mud. !"
Many of the rural Japanese Villages,
with their matched roofs, reminded
me of some villages that | saw in
Hungary, on the banks Of the Danube
the river along which some Of the
early streams of European civilization
are said TO have moved. Furthermore
any house that could suggest to your
! correspondent "a very common dweel-
ing such as you see in the rural dis
tricts" (of the u. S. was manifestly
no japanese house, but house built
in imitation Of foreign style. Ger
tainly the merest glimpse of the in
terror of a well to do japanese mans