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CHEERFULNESS—INDUSTRY—TRUTHFULNESS—SUSPICIOUSNESS

Many writers have dwelt with delight on the cheerful disposition that seems so common in Japan. Lightness of heart, freedom from all anxiety for the future, living chiefly in the present, these and kindred features are pictured in glowing terms. And, on the whole, these pictures are true to life. The many flower festivals are made occasions for family picnics when all care seems thrown to the wind. There is a simplicity and a freshness and a freedom from worry that is delightful to see. But it is also remarked that a change in this regard is beginning to be observed. The coming in of Western machinery, methods of government, of trade and of education, is introducing customs and cares, ambitions and activities, that militate against the older ways. Doubtless, this too is true. If so, it but serves to establish the general proposition of these pages that the more outstanding national characteristics are largely the result of special social conditions, rather than of inherent national character.

The cheerful disposition, so often seen and admired by the Westerner, is the cheerfulness of children. In many respects the Japanese are relatively undeveloped. This is due to the nature of their social order during the past. The government has been largely paternal in form and fully so in theory. Little has been left to individual initiative or responsibility. Wherever such a system has been dominant and the perfectly accepted order, the inevitable result is just such a state of simple, childish cheerfulness as we find in Japan. It constitutes that golden age sung by the poets of every land. But being the cheerfulness of children, the happiness of immaturity, it is bound to change with growth, to be lost with coming maturity.

Yet the Japanese are by no means given up to a cheerful view of life. Many an individual is morose and dejected in the extreme. This disposition is ever stimulated by the religious teachings of Buddhism. Its great message has been the evanescent character of the present life. Life is not worth living, it urges; though life may have some pleasures, the total result is disappointment and sorrow. Buddhism has found a warm welcome in the hearts of many Japanese. For more than a thousand years it has been exercising a potent influence on their thoughts and lives. Yet how is this consistent with the cheerful disposition which seems so characteristic of Japan? The answer is not far to seek. Pessimism is by its very nature separative, isolating, silent. Those oppressed by it do not enter into public joys. They hide themselves in monasteries, or in the home. The result is that by its very nature the actual pessimism of Japan is not a conspicuous feature of national character. The judgment that all Japanese are cheerful rests on shallow grounds. Because, forsooth, millions on holidays bear that appearance, and because on ordinary occasions the average man and woman seem cheerful and happy, the conclusion is reached that all are so. No effort is made to learn of those whose lives are spent in sadness and isolation. I am convinced that the Japan of old, for all its apparent cheer, had likewise its side of deep tragedy. Conditions of life that struck down countless individuals, and mental conditions which made Buddhism so popular, both point to this conclusion.

Again I wish to call attention to the fact that the prominence of children and young people is in part the cause of the appearance of general happiness. The Japanese live on the street as no Western people do. The stores and workshops are the homes; when these are open, the homes are open. When the children go out of the house to play they use the streets, for they seldom have yards. Here they gather in great numbers and play most enthusiastically, utterly regardless of the passers-by, for these latter are all on foot or in jinrikishas, and, consequently, never cause the children any alarm.

The Japanese give the double impression of being industrious and diligent on the one hand, and, on the other, of being lazy and utterly indifferent to the lapse of time. The long hours during which they keep at work is a constant wonder to the Occidental. I have often been amazed in Fukuoka to find stores and workshops open, apparently in operation, after ten and sometimes even until eleven o'clock at night, while blacksmiths and carpenters and wheelwrights would be working away as if it were morning. Many of the factories recently started keep very long hours. Indeed most of the cotton mills run day and night, having two sets of workers, who shift their times of labor every week. Those who work during the night hours one week take the day hours the following week. In at least one such factory, with which I am acquainted, the fifteen hundred girls who work from six o'clock Saturday evening until six o'clock Sunday morning, are then supposed to have twenty-four hours of rest before they begin their day's work Monday morning; but, as a matter of fact, they must spend three or four and sometimes five hours on Sunday morning cleaning up the factory.

In a small silk-weaving factory that I know the customary hours for work were from five in the morning until nine at night, seven days in the week. The wife, however, of the owner became a Christian. Through her intervention time for rest was secured on Sunday long enough for a Bible class, which the evangelist of the place was invited to teach. After several months of instruction a number of the hands became Christian, and all were sufficiently interested to ask that the whole of the Sabbath be granted to them for rest; but in order that the master might not lose thereby, they agreed to begin work at four each morning and to work on until ten at night. With such hours one would have expected them to fall at once into their beds when the work of the day was over. But for many months, at ten o'clock in the evening, my wife and I heard them singing a hymn or two in their family worship before retiring for the night.

In certain weaving factories I have been told that the girls are required to work sixteen hours a day; and that on Sundays they are allowed to have some rest, being then required to work but ten hours! The diligence of mail deliverers, who always run when on duty, the hours of consecutive running frequently performed by jin-irikisha men (several have told me that they have made over sixty miles in a single day), the long hours of persistent study by students in the higher schools, and many kindred facts, certainly indicate a surprising capacity for work.

But there are equally striking illustrations of an opposite nature. The farmers and mechanics and carpenters, among regular laborers, and the entire life of the common people in their homes, give an impression of indifference to the flight of time, if not of absolute laziness. The workers seem ready to sit down for a smoke and a chat at any hour of the day. In the home and in ordinary social life, the loss of time seems to be a matter of no consequence whatever. Polite palaver takes unstinted hours, and the sauntering of the people through the street emphasizes the impression that no business calls oppress them.

In my opinion these characteristics, also, are due to the conditions of society, past and present, rather than to the inherent nature of the people. The old civilization was easy-going; it had no clocks; it hardly knew the time of day; it never hastened. The hour was estimated and was twice as long as the modern hour. The structure of society demanded the constant observance of the forms of etiquette; this, with its numberless genuflections and strikings of the head on the floor, always demanded time. Furthermore, the very character of the footgear compelled and still compels a shuffling, ambling gait when walking the streets. The clog is a well-named hindrance to civilization in the waste of time it compels. The slow-going, time-ignoring characteristics of New Japan are social inheritances from feudal times, characteristics which are still hampering its development. The industrious spirit that is to be found in so many quarters to-day is largely the gift of the new civilization. Shoes are taking the place of clogs. The army and all the police, on ordinary duty, wear shoes. Even the industry of the students is largely due to the new conditions of student life. The way in which the Japanese are working to-day, and the feverish haste that some of them evince in their work, shows that they are as capable as Occidentals of acquiring the rush of civilization.

The home life of the people gives an impression of listlessness that is in marked contrast to that of the West. This is partly due to the fact that the house work is relatively light, there being no furniture to speak of, the rooms small, and the cooking arrangements quite simple. Housewives go about their work with restful deliberation, which is trying, however, to one in haste. It is the experience of the housekeepers from the West that one Japanese domestic is able to accomplish from a third to a half of what is done by a girl in America. This is not wholly due to slowness of movement, however, but also to smallness of stature and corresponding lack of strength. On the other hand, the long hours of work required of women in the majority of Japanese homes is something appalling. The wife is expected to be up before the husband, to prepare his meals, and to wait patiently till his return at night, however late that may be. In all except the higher ranks of society she takes entire care of the children, except for the help which her older children may give her. During much of the time she goes about her work with an infant tied to her back. Though she does not work hard at any one time (and is it to be wondered at?) yet she works long. Especially hard is the life of the waiting girls in the hotels. I have learned that, as a rule, they are required to be up before daylight and to remain on duty until after midnight. In some hotels they are allowed but four or five hours out of the twenty-four. The result is, they are often overcome and fall asleep while at service. Sitting on the floor and waiting to serve the rice, with nothing to distract their thoughts or hold their attention, they easily lose themselves for a few moments.

Two other strongly contrasted traits are found in the Japanese character, absolute confidence and trustfulness on the one hand, and suspicion on the other. It is the universal testimony that the former characteristic is rapidly passing away; in the cities it is well-nigh gone. But in the country places it is still common. The idea of making a bargain when two persons entered upon some particular piece of work, the one as employer, the other as employed, was entirely repugnant to the older generation, since it was assumed that their relations as inferior and superior should determine their financial relations; the superior would do what was right, and the inferior should accept what the superior might give without a question or a murmur. Among the samurai, where the arrangement is between equals, bargaining or making fixed and fast terms which will hold to the end, and which may be carried to the courts in case of differences, was a thing practically unknown in the older civilization. Everything of a business nature was left to honor, and was carried on in mutual confidence.

A few illustrations of this spirit of confidence from my own experience may not be without interest. On first coming to Japan, I found it usual for a Japanese who wished to take a jinrikisha to call the runner and take the ride without making any bargain, giving him at the end what seemed right. And the men generally accepted the payment without question. I have found that recently, unless there is some definite understanding arrived at before the ride, there is apt to be some disagreement, the runner presuming on the hold he has, by virtue of work done, to get more than is customary. This is especially true in case the rider is a foreigner. Another set of examples in which astonishing simplicity and confidence were manifested was in the employment of evangelists. I have known several instances in which a full correspondence with an evangelist with regard to his employment was carried on, and the settlement finally concluded, and the man set to work without a word said about money matters. It need hardly be said that no foreigner took part in that correspondence.

The simple, childlike trustfulness of the country people is seen in multiplied ways; yet on the whole I cannot escape the conviction that it is a trustfulness which is shown toward each other as equals. Certain farmers whom I have employed to care for a cow and to cultivate the garden, while showing a trustful disposition towards me, have not had the same feelings toward their fellows apparently.

This confidence and trustfulness were the product of a civilization resting on communalistic feudalism; the people were kept as children in dependence on their feudal lord; they had to accept what he said and did; they were accustomed to that order of things from the beginning and had no other thought; on the whole too, without doubt, they received regular and kindly treatment. Furthermore, there was no redress for the peasant in case of harshness; it was always the wise policy, therefore, for him to accept whatever was given without even the appearance of dissatisfaction. This spirit was connected with the dominance of the military class. Simple trustfulness was, therefore, chiefly that of the non-military classes. The trustfulness of the samurai sprang from their distinctive training. As already mentioned, when drawing up a bond in feudal times, in place of any tangible security, the document would read, "If I fail to do so and so, you may laugh at me in public."

Since the overthrow of communal feudalism and the establishment of an individualistic social order, necessitating personal ownership of property, and the universal use of money, trustful confidence is rapidly passing away. Everything is being more and more accurately reduced to a money basis. The old samurai scorn for money seems to be wholly gone, an astonishing transformation of character. Since the disestablishment of the samurai class many of them have gone into business. Not a few have made tremendous failures for lack of business instinct, being easily fleeced by more cunning and less honorable fellows who have played the "confidence" game most successfully; others have made equally great successes because of their superior mental ability and education. The government of Japan is to-day chiefly in the hands of the descendants of the samurai class. They have their fixed salaries and everything is done on a financial basis, payment being made for work only. The lazy and the incapable are being pushed to the wall. Many of the poorest and most pitiable people of the land to-day are the proud sons of the former aristocracy, who glory in the history of their ancestors, but are not able or willing to change their old habits of thought and manner of life.

The American Board has had a very curious, not to say disastrous, experience with the spirit of trustful confidence that was the prevailing business characteristic of the older civilization. According to the treaties which Japan had made with foreign nations, no foreigner was allowed to buy land outside the treaty ports. As, however, mission work was freely allowed by the government and welcomed by many of the people in all parts of the land, and as it became desirable to have continuous missionary work in several of the interior towns, it seemed wise to locate missionaries in those places and to provide suitable houses for them. In order to do this, land was bought and the needed houses erected, and the title was necessarily held in the names of apparently trustworthy native Christians. The government was, of course, fully aware of what was being done and offered no objection. It was well understood that the property was not for the private ownership of the individual missionary, but was to be held by the Christians for the use of the mission to which the missionary belonged. For many years no questions were raised and all moved along smoothly. The arrangement between the missionaries and the Christian or Christians in whose names the property might be held was entirely verbal, no document being of any legal value, to say nothing of the fact that in those early days the mention of documentary relationships would have greatly hurt the tender feelings of honor which were so prominent a part of samurai character. The financial relations were purely those of honor and trust.

Under this general method, large sums of money were expended by the American Board for homes for its missionaries in various parts of Japan, and especially in Kyoto. Here was the Doshisha, which grew from a small English school and Evangelists' training class to a prosperous university with fine buildings. Tens of thousands of dollars were put into this institution, besides the funds needful for the land and the houses for nine foreign families. An endowment was also raised, partly in Japan, but chiefly in America. In a single bequest, Mr. Harris of New London gave over one hundred thousand dollars for a School of Science. It has been estimated that, altogether, the American Board and its constituency have put into the Doshisha, including the salaries of the missionary teachers, toward a million dollars.

In the early nineties the political skies were suddenly darkened. The question of treaty revision loomed up black in the heavens. The politicians of the land clamored for the absolute refusal of all right of property ownership by foreigners. In their political furore they soon began to attack the Japanese Christians who were holding the property used by the various missions. They accused them of being traitors to the country. A proposed law was drafted and presented in the National Diet, confiscating all such property. The Japanese holders naturally became nervous and desirous of severing the relationships with the foreigners as soon as possible. In the case of corporate ownership the trustees began to make assumptions of absolute ownership, regardless of the moral claims of the donors of the funds. In the earlier days of the trouble frequent conferences on the question were held by the missionaries of the American Board with the leading Christians of the Empire, and their constant statement was, "Do not worry; trust us; we are samurai and will do nothing that is not perfectly honorable." So often were these sentiments reiterated, and yet so steadily did the whole management of the Doshisha move further and further away from the honorable course, that finally the "financial honor of the samurai" came to have an odor far from pleasant. A deputation of four gentlemen, as representatives of the American Board, came from America especially to confer with the trustees as to the Christian principles of the institution, and the moral claims of the Board, but wholly in vain. The administration of the Doshisha became so distinctly non-Christian, to use no stronger term, that the mission felt it impossible to co-operate longer with the Doshisha trustees; the missionary members of the faculty accordingly resigned. In order to secure exemption from the draft for its students the trustees of the Doshisha abrogated certain clauses of the constitution relating to the Christian character of the institution, in spite of the fact that these clauses belonged to the "unchangeable" part of the constitution which the trustees, on taking office, had individually sworn to maintain. Again the Board sent out a man, now a lawyer vested with full power to press matters to a final issue. After months of negotiations with the trustees in regard to the restoration of the substance of the abrogated clauses, without result, he was on the point of carrying the case into the courts, when the trustees decided to resign in a body. A new board of trustees has been formed, who bid fair to carry on the institution in accord with the wishes of its founders and benefactors, as expressed in the original constitution. At one stage of the proceedings the trustees voted magnanimously, as they appeared to think, to allow the missionaries of the Board to live for fifteen years, rent free, in the foreign houses connected with the Doshisha; this, because of the many favors it had received from the Board! By this vote they maintained that they had more than fulfilled every requirement of honor. That they were consciously betraying the trust that had been reposed in them is not for a moment to be supposed.

It would not be fair not to add that this experience in Kyoto does not exemplify the universal Japanese character. There are many Japanese who deeply deplore and condemn the whole proceeding. Some of the Doshisha alumni have exerted themselves strenuously to have righteousness done.

Passing now from the character of trustful confidence, we take up its opposite, suspiciousness. The development of this quality is a natural result of a military feudalism such as ruled Japan for hundreds of years. Intrigue was in constant use when actual war was not being waged. In an age when conflicts were always hand to hand, and the man who could best deceive his enemy as to his next blow was the one to carry off his head, the development of suspicion, strategy, and deceit was inevitable. The most suspicious men, other things being equal, would be the victors; they, with their families, would survive and thus determine the nature of the social order. The more than two hundred and fifty clans and "kuni," "clan territory," into which the land was divided, kept up perpetual training in the arts of intrigue and subtlety which are inevitably accompanied by suspicion.

Modern manifestations of this characteristic are frequent. Not a cabinet is formed, but the question of its make-up is discussed from the clannish standpoint. Even though it is now thirty years since the centralizing policy was entered upon and clan distinctions were effectually broken down, yet clan suspicion and jealousy is not dead.

The foreigner is impressed by the constant need of care in conversation, lest he be thought to mean something more or other than he says. When we have occasion to criticise anything in the Japanese, we have found by experience that much more is inferred than is said. Shortly after my arrival in Japan I was advised by one who had been in the land many years to be careful in correcting a domestic or any other person sustaining any relation to myself, to say not more than one-tenth of what I meant, for the other nine-tenths would be inferred. Direct and perfectly frank criticism and suggestion, such as prevail among Anglo-Americans at least, seem to be rare among the Japanese.

In closing, it is in order to note once again that the emotional characteristics considered in this chapter, although customarily thought to be deep-seated traits of race nature, are, nevertheless, shown to be dependent on the character of the social order. Change the order, and in due season corresponding changes occur in the national character, a fact which would be impossible were that character inherent and essential, passed on from generation to generation by the single fact of biological heredity.