The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920, 1910-10-29
Vll.-Snapshots of Japanese Life and
Philosophy.

Well, suppose you should wake up in one of
these towns tomorrow morning and find Yourself
In plight like this: In the first place FORTY
nine people out of fifty have put on such unheard
OF clothing as to make you rub your eyes in won
der as TO whether you asleep or awake. next
your fat friends and your tall friends have die
appeared-everybody has become six inches short
er-and all these hundred-thousand ivefoot men
ana tour-foot women have unanimously developed
most violent sunburn-bronzed almost beyond
recognition. Moreover, the high buildings you
once knew have all disappeared and wilderness
chiefly or tiny one and two-story houses has
taken their plaees-the first story. even in two
story buildings. so low that you must duck your
head In going through the doors, and the second
story usually little more than a garnet. Next,
wild jargon OF unmeaning voices strikes your
ear and you discover that nnety-nine people out
OF a hundred have forgotten how to speak Eng
lish; and more than this the English signs are
no more. and on the biboards and before the
business Offices are marks that look as IL a thou
sand ostriches fresh from thousand tar barrels
had been set to scratching new signs to take the
places of the old, You pick up a book the
morning paper. and the same thing has happened
pig tracks. chicken tracks and double bow-knots
Enthusiastically tied instead OF English type. and
everybody begins at the back OF the book and
reads toward him instead OF reading the way you
have grown used to- And the buggies. carriages,
and automobiles-what on earth has become OF
themF InereS hardly morse In sight, put
dozens scores OF men with bare legs and funny
clothes each flying around pulling a light two
wheeled jinriksha man or woman seated in IL,
and dozens of other bare-legged men laboriously
pulling heavy loads of vegetables, freight and
even lumber and giant telegraph poles You
jump into of these 'rikshas and forget your
strange little Puck-like steed in the marvel OF
your surroundings till n voice from the shafts
make you feel like BALKAN when the ass spoke
to him
BY this time you begin TO get hazy idea as to
how the people dressed. and as nearly as you
can make out. II Is something like this: Evident
ly all the inhabitants OF an ancient Roman city,
modern American town. haf-dozen Hindoo viii
lagos and several thousand seashore bathers, have
all thrown their clothes-or the lack OF them!-
into ono tremendous pile, and everybody has
rushed In pell-mell and put on the first thing, or
the first two or three things, that came to hand
There is every conceivable type OF clothing but
perhaps the larger number have landed something
like light bathing suit and a sort of gingham-
looking dressing gown belted 1t; and IL one
has less than this, why then, the Japanese
say Shikata ma gai' CAN right: 1t can't be heip-
ed'D. In the shops and stores one passes Few
men clad only in their own integrity and a loin-
cloth, and both children and grown people dress
with hundred times more disregard or conven-
ton than our negroes in the South or shoes,
there Is an equally great variety as OF clothing,
but the majority OF men, women and children Tin
muddy weather at least) have compromised on
the "getas." sort OF wooden sole strapped on
the foot with wooden pieces put each side
OF the instep. these pieces throwing the foot
and sole about three inches above ground.
IL looks almost as difficult to walk In them
as to walk stills, but away the people go,
young and old, the clatter Of the "getas be
ing perhaps the loudest noise on the streets (for
the Japanese are remarkably quiet: in Toxic to-
day saw a thousand of them waiting to see the
Empress and an American crowd would literally
have made more noise in a minute than they