Manchester Democrat. [volume] (Manchester, Iowa) 1875-1930, 1919-03-05
MANCHESTER boy
WRITES FROM JAPAN
ALONZO A. WELLS TELLS OF HIS
EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVA-
TIONS WHEN IN JAPAN
BIG CHEMICAL co.
Finds Many Things In Japan to Inter
est An American, Of Which He
Speaks In His Letter.

Through the kindness Of Mrs
Alonza Wells of this city, The Dem
ocrat is able to give its readers an in
teresting letter, written by her hus-
band, upon his arrival in Japn. Mr.
Wells, is an expert chemist, and has
been sent to Japan by an eastern COM
pany. Upon his arrival there he OBJ
served many interesting sights, which
he tells Of in the following letter:
Tokyo, Japan, Jan. 26th,1919.
Well, here am at last at the end
of my Journey and believe me l am
glad Of it. l sent message in to-
days cable to New York office asking
them to telegraph you that ! had ar
rived safely. The reason for doing
that was that it could be sent in code
to them in two words and If I had
cabled you direct it would have been
at least nine words to have said Ear
rived" as it Is necessary to pay for ad-
dress and signature.
l certainly have had some great ex-
periences and have seen great many
things which cannot be realized until
they are once seen; pictures and
stories do not begin to tell them.
We arrived at Yokohama at 9 P. NJ.
two days late, due to the storm we had
at sea. Some of the passengers had
mi 1acc OF x,op pinno hnfalc
and received reply that all rooms were
taken as there were two other steam
ers in port at the same time. In
view of this had expected to stay on
the ship for the night, and was very
much surprised when one Of the men
from this office came on board and
said l was to spend the night with
him. He and another man from here
have an apartment in Yokohama.
Well, to make long story short, we
had dinner together at 10:3O and spent
the remainder OF the evening ~ get
ting acquainted, ETC., and came up here
the next morning. am to stay at
the Imperial hotel, where l am writ
ing this, and which is one of the finest
If not the finest hotel in Japan. have
a lovely room, with a small porch and
everything Is perfectly grand. The
dining room is tremendously big
affair, paneled in white, with the top
panels filled with paintings. Every
afternoon we have tea served in the
reception rooms and /, having been
accustomed to having tea while on
board the liner, sit in and take my
tea just like an old timer. 1t is not
bad idea either. for l have lunch
at 1890 and dinner at 700. The
company furnishes lunch in the office
building and think shall 60 through
for time at least as it is good place
to become acquainted.
The men in the Office are all fine
and l like them very much. Mr..
Frazer, the head Of the company, is
returning tonight from Russia. where
he has been, doing Red Cross work.
There are a great many Japanese
in the Office and most Of the business
is done in their language. so it is not
impossible that l may learn to speak
it before l come home.
Jan. 9th. I got sleepy last night
and went to bed. don't think it will
make and difference for there is no
mail out until sometime next week,
if then. The stormy weather has de-
layed all the boats until they are now
several days behind shedule, but l
suppose there will be mail some
time soon. ..-
You remember when we were talk
ing about kimonas one day, ! said that
l was a little doubtful If l should sec
one over here; we'll that is all mis-
take, at least in one sense; for men,
women and children wear them here
but not the kind we think Of at home.
The kind they wear here are not gay
in color, except those worn by the girls
who serve teas in the hotel and some
ladies when they are dressed up for
dinner or some special occasion. The
ones that are commonly worn are
dull, such as black or brown. The
men also wear dark kimonas and some
of them a skirt coming to the ankle.
It surely looks funny to see man
with a kimona, derby hat, bone-rim
spectacles and Japanese shoes, OF
which there are several types. The
shoe most common on the street is
straight wooden sandal with two
pieces coming down to the ground
each piece being about one-third the
distance from the end, so when they
walk they roll over, usually until the
toe touches the ground. The shoe
is held on by strap which goes be-
tween the large toe and the remand
er of the toes and then over the sides
of the foot fastening at about the cen
ter, Besides this they have shoes
with low center pieces about one
inch, the others being about four inch
es. When on the street a crowd
sounds like LOT of horses and the
ground is all marked Like the front
calks of horse shoe. This, OF
course, is the winter clothing, what
they wear in summer remains to be
seen, but one of the boys at the office
told me that they wear next to nath-
ing.
There are few horses here and
most of the hauling is done by men
who hitch themselves to two-wheeled
carts, and if the load is especially
heavy there will be two or three men
If there happens to be horse the
driver leads it in place of driving it
There are a great many autos here