New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-07
TOXIC IN VAR TINE.
VictOry Is Celebrated There in an
Oddly Orderly Manner.
BY Vel Theo. Ozakl.

To strangers and travellers the quiet way in
which the news of great victories is received by
the japanese is a matter of wonder and COM
ment. The self-control which is such marked
characteristic of the peculiar psychology of the
race has perhaps never been more strikingly
Illustrated. 1t might have been expected that
Toxic would have gone mad with excitement
and enthusiasm over the capitulatiOn of Port
Arthur or the fall of Moukden. but the city
at large seemed to take these two great events
rather as matters of course than otherwise.
No excited groups of people filled the streets.
shoutings rent the air.
Are the japanese an expressiOnless people?
Does this passive reception of the most glorious
news that can ever reach a belligerent country
the news that its army has defeated the larg-
military power in the world, and hith-
erto feared by all the great powers-does this
mean stupidity lack Of feeling?" said an
American correspondent to me. Had it been
our soldiers who had such a succession of
victories unmarried mind you by a single re-
verse, country would have abandoned it
self to one long celebration of wild exuberance
OF spirits and boundless joy. I do not under
stand these people. I want to find some en-
thusiasm Where is it? Doesn't it exist?"
You must not judge the Japanese from any
Western standpoint if you wish to understand
them in the least 1 answered. 1.-THE civiliZa-
ton of the West has cultivated the develop
ment. independence and expression of the in
dividual while for centuries and centuries
Japan by its unique family and feudal system
has inculcated repression. Repression of self
is the keynote to the japanese character-in life
it is the repression and sacrifice Of the ind
vidual to the family and clan"
All the wild ungoverned demonstrations of
feeling exhibited by the Westerners in such
crises as our nation is now passing through are,
TO the Japanese essentially vulgar and undigni-
fed and it is with disdainful amusement, min
gled with disgust, perhaps, that he looks on at
Nuch proceedings. So you find excited
s5owds making the streets echo with VOciferous
cries of exultation the downfall of the
enemy the military triumphs which rebound
to the credit of the country-yOu find instead
reticence and calm, unresponsive calm, beneath
which, however are hearts beating with a pas
sOnate patriotism.
For the victory of Moukden the houses of
Toxic quietly and decorousty hug out their
flags and lanterns on all sides the sombre
chrysalis city burst into butterfly of color and
bright ornamentation. From every gateway
futtered the wings of the two flags of the Ris-
ing Sun one the ordinary national flag. tho
other the flag, a radiating sun, also on q
white ground. Lanterns were hung out, and the
streets formed vistas of futtering pennanfs and
bobbng lanterns. Halfway up the principal
thoroughfares two huge flags were crossed tied
together by sken cords and tassels, and under
this huttering and impromptu arch the whole
traffic of the street, jnrikishas, pedestrians car
riages and primitive carts drawn by men, passed
M and down and to and fro in the ever vary
ing and ceaseless flow Of city life. The order
illness everywhere was striking; shops were open,
and in the daytime business went on undis-
turbed beneath the futter of triumphant war
hammers. and at night under the glow of mellow