The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1936-03-20

! Prepared by the National Geographic society,"
I Washington, D. C.-WNU Service
n T OF many years ago it was held
! nj up against the Japanese that
| " they never INDUCED in ath'
letics. Today there are in
Tokyo two huge stadiums, one origi'
nally seating $4,000 people, but en-.
larged in 1881 to accommodate $4,000
the other 10000, and on the days OF
baseball games there are few vacant
seats.
With the exception of wrestlers
there are no professional athletes in
Japan. Teams are made up largely OF
undergraduates in the various univer-
stiles, and it is the intervarsity games
which draw the largest crowds.
Baseball, skillfully and intelligently
played, is as popular in Japan as in
the United States, but it is not the
only popular athletic sport. Rugger
football is played everywhere and
played we'll. AS it is part of the army
training and as something like 100000
young men go through this training
! uHlludiiys IuSSCl may "Cii SupCioSuS
baseball in popularity. Hockey and
association football are played more
and more and boxing is becoming pop
ular. Wherever there is space in
Tokyo, there is a tennis court. The
Y. NJ. c. A. pool is always full of swim
mers, as are the great outdoor pools
in summer, and Japanese swimmers
hold some world records. More and
more rowing crews in racing shells are
appearing on the rivers and lakes.
Golf clubs are springing up, and, as
in America, the links are used largely
by business men. At the army ma
neuver field, on the outskirts of the
city,. you can see magnificent riding
So the old accusation of lack of in
terest in athletic sports can no longer
be made.
These modern games have not en-
| tirely driven out the old, purely Jap
,anese sports. Thousands gather, as OF
old, to watch the wrestling matches
where the immensely fat men so well
known in Japanese prints carry or
their strange matches under the an
cient rules. Archery is also popular
among the chosen few, and the great
matches are almost always sponsored
by some of the imperial princes. II
takes strong man even to bend some
of the tough old bows.
Athletics Build Up the Race.
1t would be impossible to estimate
what athletics are doing for the Jap
anese as a race. The Bible says thai
no man by taking thought can ado
cubit to his stature, but there is nc
doubt that succeeding generations Of
Japanese are taller. When you meet
young men in Tokyo, dressed in gym
nasium costume, running through the
streets; when you see the finely pro
portioned bodies of the boys in the
Y. NJ. c. A. pool; when you go to a
university graduation and see the stu
dents all together, you no longer think
of the Japanese as particularly lit
tie people" With better-regulated
and better-balanced diet and with phys
ical training from the earliest years
through all grades of school, the Jap
anese are growing up physically. They
grew up mentally long time ago.
1t is said that the generation now
reaching maturity is, on an average
an inch taller than the preceding gen
Grafton. AS generalization, one
should doubt this, but at the same time
one feels sure it is true in the cities
where modern ideas of exercise ant
diet are prevalent.
There is probably no phase of life
Tokyo which more clearly shows the
contrast between the old and the new
than do the theaters. You go to the
Kabuki-za or to the splendid Tokyo
theater and there see ancient dramas
| given in the old style of acting; OF
you go around the corner to a movie
theater and see the latest Hollywood
production. One seems just as popu
lar as the other and just as crowded
The Kabuki and Tokyo theaters are
enormous, thoroughly modern, hand
some buildings. The orchestra seats
are like those in an American thea
ter, except that they are lower. The
boxes have no seats, because people
seem to prefer to sit on the floor, II
the old style. The plays begin-thert
are generally three or four given II
succession-from two until four O'Clock