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The Foundations of Japan by J.W. Robertson Scott

J >> J.W. Robertson Scott >> The Foundations of Japan




SCATTERING ARTIFICIAL MANURE IN ADJUSTED
PADDIES

PLANTING OUT RICE SEEDLINGS

PUSH-CART FOR COLLECTION OF FERTILISER

MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE'S EFFORTS TO KEEP PRICE OF RICE DOWN

MUZZLED EDITORS

"THE JAPANESE CARLYLE"

MR. AND MRS. YANAGI

CHILDREN CATCHING INSECTS ON RICE-SEED BEDS

MASTERS OF A COUNTRY SCHOOL AND SOME CHILDREN

CULTIVATION TO THE HILL-TOPS

IMPLEMENTS, MEASURES AND MACHINES, AND A BALE OF RICE

MOVABLE STAGE AT A FESTIVAL

FARMHOUSE AT WHICH MR. UCHIMURA PREACHED

TENANT FARMERS' HOUSES

AUTHOR AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"

SOME PERFORMERS AT THE "SPIRIT MEETING"

IN A BUDDHIST NUNNERY

JAPANESE GRASS-CUTTING TOOLS COMPARED WITH A SCYTHE

CHILD-COLLECTORS OF VILLAGERS' SAVINGS

NUNS PHOTOGRAPHED IN A "CELL"

STUDENTS' STUDY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

TEACHERS OF A VILLAGE SCHOOL

GIRLS CARRYING BALES OF RICE

SERICULTURAL SCHOOL STUDENTS

SILK FACTORIES IN KAMISUWA

VILLAGE ASSEMBLY-ROOM

ARCHERY AT AN AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL

CULTIVATION OF THE HILLSIDE

RAILWAY STATION "BENTO" AND POT OF TEA

A SCARECROW

THE BLIND HEADMAN AND HIS COLLECTING-BAG

MR. YANAGHITA IN HIS CORONATION CEREMONY ROBES

PORTABLE APPARATUS FOR RAISING WATER

VILLAGE SCHOOL WITH PORTRAIT OF FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

RIVER-BEDS IN THE SUMMER

SCHOOL SHRINE FOR EMPEROR'S PORTRAIT

AUTHOR ADDRESSING LAFCADIO HEARN MEETING

A PEASANT PROPRIETOR'S HOUSE

GRAVESTONES REASSEMBLED AFTER PADDY ADJUSTMENT

TEMPLE IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN

FIRE ENGINE AND PRIMITIVE FIGURES

YOUNG MEN'S CLUB-ROOM

MEMORIAL STONES

ROOF PROTECTED AGAINST STORMS BY STONES

OFF TO THE UPLAND FIELDS

FARMER'S WIFE

MOTHER AND CHILD

A CRADLE

FIRE ALARM AND OBSERVATION POST

RACK FOR DRYING RICE

VILLAGE CREMATORIUM

DOG HELPING TO PULL JINRIKISHA

AUTHOR, MR. YAMASAKI AND YOUNGEST INHABITANTS

"TORII" AT THE SHRINE OF THE FOX GOD

TABLETS RECORDING GIFTS TO A TEMPLE

INSIDE THE "SHOJI"

AUTOMATIC RICE POLISHER

AUTHOR IN A CRATER

A TYPE OF WAYSIDE MONUMENTS

GIANT RADISH OR "DAIKON"

CUTTING GRASS




CURRENCY, WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
AND OFFICIAL TERMS


The prices given in the text (but not in the footnotes and Appendix) were
recorded before the War inflation began. The War was followed by a
severe financial crisis. Professor Nasu wrote to me during the summer of
1921:

"You are very wise to leave the figures as they stood. It is useless
to try to correct them, because they are still changing. The price of
rice, which did not exceed 15 yen per koku when you were making your
research work, exceeded 50 yen in 1919, and is now struggling to
maintain the price of 25 yen. Taking at 100 the figures for the years
1915 or 1916--fortunately there is not much difference between these
two years--the prices of six leading commodities reached in 1919 an
average of about 250. After 1919 the prices of some commodities went
still higher, but mostly they did not change very much; on the other
hand, recently the prices of many commodities--among them rice and raw
silk especially--have been coming down and this downward movement is
gradually extending to all other commodities. From these
considerations I deduce that the index number of general commodities
may be safely taken as 200 when your book appears. _The reader of your
book has simply to double the figures given by you--that is the
figures of_ 1915 _and_ 1916--_in order to get a rough estimate of
present prices._"

Where exact statements of area and yield are necessary, as in the
study of the intense agriculture of Japan, local measures are
preferable to our equivalents in awkward fractions. Further, the
measures used in this book are easily remembered, and no serious study
of Japanese agriculture on the spot is possible without remembering
them. While, however, Japanese currency, weights and measures have
been uniformly used, equivalents have been supplied at every place in
the book where their omission might be reasonably considered to
interfere with easy reading. The following tables are restricted to
currency, weights and measures mentioned in the book.


MONEY[9]

_Yen_ = roughly (at the time notes for the book were made) a florin or half
a dollar = 100 sen.

_Sen_ = a farthing or half cent = 10 rin.


LONG

_Ri_ = roughly 2-1/2 miles.

_Shaku_ (roughly 1 ft.) = 11.93 in.

Ri are converted into miles by being multiplied by 2.44.


SQUARE

_Ri_ (roughly 6 sq. miles) = 5.955 sq. miles.

_Cho_ (sometimes written, _Chobu_) (roughly 2-1/2 acres) = 2.450 acres =
10 tan = 3,000 tsubo.

_Tan_ or _Tambu_ (roughly 1/4 acre) = 0.245 acres = 10 se = 300 bu.

_Bu_ or _Tsubo_ (roughly 4 sq. yds.) = 3.953 sq. yds.

An acre is about 4 tan 10 bu or 1,200 bu or tsubo (an urban measure).
The size of rooms is reckoned by the number of mats, which are ordinarily
6 shaku in length and 3 shaku in breadth.


CAPACITY

_Koku_ (roughly 40 gals, or 5 bush.) = 39.703 gals, or 4.960 bush. =
10 to. According to American measurements, there are 47.653 gals,
(liquid) and 5.119 bush, (dry) in a koku. A koku of rice is 313-1/2 lbs.
(British).

A koku of imported rice is, however, 330-1/2 lbs. The following koku must
also be noted: ordinary barley, 231 lbs.; naked barley 301.1 lbs.; wheat
288.7 lbs.; proso millet, 247.9 lbs.; foxtail millet, 280.9 lbs.; barnyard
millet, 165.2 lbs.; brickaheat, 247.9 lbs.; maize, 289.2 lbs.; soya beans,
286.5 lbs.; azuki (red) beans, 319.9 lbs.; horse beans, 266.6 lbs.; peas,
306.5 lbs.

_Hyo_ (roughly 2 bush.) = 1.985 bush. = 4 to = bale of rice.

_To_ (roughly 4 gals, or 1/2 bush.) = 3.970 gals, or .496 bush, or
1.985 pecks = 10 sho.

_Sho_ (roughly 1-1/2 qts.) = 1.588 qts. or 0.198 pecks or 108-1/2
cub. in. = 10 go.

_Go_ (roughly 1/3 pint) =.3176 pints or 0.019 pecks.

Rice is not bagged but baled, and a bale is 4 to or 1 hyo.


WEIGHT

_Kwan_ or _kwamme_ (roughly 8-1/4 lbs.) = 8.267 lbs. av. or 10.047 lbs.
troy = 1,000 momme.

_Kin_ (catty) = 1.322 lbs. av. or 1.607 troy = 160 momme.

_Momme_ = 2.116 drams or 2.411 dwts. According to American measurements
a momme is 0.132 oz. av. and 0.120 oz. troy.

_Hyakkin_ (_picul_) = 100 kin = 132.277 lbs.

A stone is 1.693, a cwt. is 13.547, and a ton 270.950 kwamme.


LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE TERMS

_Ken_.--Prefecture. There are forty-three ken and Hokkaido. Ken
and fu are made up of the former sixty-six provinces. Sometimes the name
of the ken and the name of the capital of the ken are the same: example,
Shidzuoka-ken, capital Shidzuoka.

_Fu_.--Three prefectures are municipal prefectures and are called not
ken but fu. They are Tokyo-fu, Kyoto-fu and Osaka-fu.

_Gun_ (_kori_).--Division of a prefecture, a county or rural district.
There are 636 gun. Gun are now being done away with.

_Shi_.--City. There are seventy-nine cities.

_Cho_.--A town or rather a district preponderatingly urban. There are
1,333 cho.

_Machi_.--Japanese name for the Chinese character cho.

_Son_.--A village or rather a district preponderatingly rural. There are
10,839 son.

_Mura_.--Japanese name for a Chinese character son.

A true idea of the Japanese village is obtained as soon as one mentally
defines it as a commune. There may be a rural community called son
or a municipal community called cho. The cho or son consists of a number of
oaza, that is, big aza, which in turn consists of a number of ko-aza or
small aza. A ko-aza may consist of twenty or thirty dwellings, that is,
a hamlet, or it may be only one dwelling. It may be ten acres in extent
or fifty. I found that the population of a particular municipality was
10,000 in seven big oaza comprising twenty-two ko-aza.

[Illustration: THE ROOM, OVERLOOKING THE PACIFIC, IN WHICH MUCH OF
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
The feet of the chair and table are fitted with wooden slats so as not
to injure the _tatami_. Electricity as a matter of course!]

[Illustration: THE MERCY OF BUDDHA
The worshippers in the front row lost relatives by a flood.
This is not the priest referred to in Chapter I.]




THE
FOUNDATIONS OF JAPAN

STUDIES IN A SINGLE PREFECTURE
(AICHI)[10]

CHAPTER I

THE MERCY OF BUDDHA

The only hard facts, one learns to see as one gets older, are the
facts of feeling. Emotion and sentiment are, after all, incomparably
more solid than any statistics. So that when one wanders back in
memory through the field one has traversed in diligent search of hard
facts, one comes back bearing in one's arms a Sheaf of
Feelings.--HAVELOCK ELLIS.


One day as I walked along a narrow path between rice fields in a
remote district in Japan, I saw a Buddhist priest coming my way. He
was rosy-faced and benign, broad-shouldered and a little rotund. He
had with him a string of small children. I stood by to let him pass
and lifted my hat. He bowed and stopped, and we entered into
conversation. He told me that he was taking the children to a
festival. I said that I should like to meet him again. He offered to
come to see me in the evening at my host's house. When he arrived, and
I asked him, after a little polite talk, what was the chief difficulty
in the way of improving the moral condition of his village, he
answered, "I am."

We spoke of Buddhism, and he complained that its sects were "too
aristocratic." When his own sect of Buddhism, Shinshu, was started, he
said, it was something "quite democratic for the common people." But
with the lapse of time this democratic sect had also "become
aristocratic." "Though the founder of Shinshu wore flaxen clothing,
Shinshu priests now have glittering costumes. And everyone has heard
of the magnificence of the Kyoto Hongwanji" (the great temple at
Kyoto, the headquarters of the sect).[11] "Contrary to the principles
of religion and democracy," people thought of the priest and the
temple "as something beyond their own lives." All this stood in the
way of improvement.

The fashion in which many landowners "despised exertion and lived
luxuriously" was another hindrance. These men looked down on
education, "thinking themselves clever because they read the
newspapers." Landlords of this sort were fond of curios, and kept
their capital in such things instead of in agriculture. Sellers of
curios visited the village too often. A wise man had called the
curio-seller the "Spirit of Poverty" (_Bimbogami_). He said that the
Spirit visited a man when he became rich--in order to bring curios to
him; and again when he became poor--in order to take them away from
him! After he became poor the Spirit of Poverty never visited him
again.

Yet another drawback to rural progress was petty political ambition.
People slandered neighbours who belonged to another party and they
would not associate with them. Such party feeling was one of the bad
influences of civilisation.

Further, "a mercenary spirit and materialism" had to be fought in the
village. There was not, however, much trouble due to drink, and there
was no gambling now. There might still be impropriety between young
people--formerly young men used to visit the factory girls--but it was
rare. Lately there had been land speculation, and some of those who
made money went to tea-houses to see geisha.

There was in the neighbourhood, this Buddhist pastor went on, a temple
belonging to the same sect as his own, and he was on friendly terms
with its priest. It was good discipline, he said, for two priests to
be working near one another if they were of the same sect, for their
work was compared. In answer to my enquiry, the old man said that he
preached four days a month. Each service consisted of reading for an
hour and then preaching for two hours. About 150 or 200 persons would
attend. He had also a service every morning from five to six. In
addition to these gatherings in the temple he conducted services in
farmers' houses. "I feel rather ashamed sometimes," he said, "when I
listen to the good sermons of Christians."

As the priest was taking leave he told me that he was going to a
farmer's house in order to conduct a service. I asked to be allowed to
accompany him. He kindly agreed, and invited me to stay the night in
his temple.

When I reached the farmhouse there were there about two dozen kneeling
people, including members of the family. On the coming of the priest,
who had gone to the temple to put on his robes, the farmer threw open
the doors of the family shrine and lighted the candles in it. The
priest knelt down by the shrine and invited me to kneel near him. In a
few words he told the people why I was in the district. Whereupon the
farmer's aged mother piped, "We heard that a tall man had come, but to
think that we should see him and be in the same room with him!"

When he had prayed, the priest read from a roll of the Shinshu
scripture which he had taken reverently from a box and a succession of
wrappings. Afterwards he preached from a "text," continuing, of
course, to kneel as we did. A flickering light fell upon us from a
lamp hanging from a beam. The room was pervaded with incense from an
iron censer which the farmer gently swung. The worshippers told their
beads, and in intervals between the priest's sentences I heard the
murmur of fervent prayer. The priest preached his sermon with his eyes
shut, and I could watch him narrowly. It is not so often that one sees
an old man with a sweet face. But there was sweetness in both the face
and voice of this priest. He spoke slowly and clearly, sometimes
pausing for a little between his sentences as if for better
inspiration, as a Quaker will sometimes do in speaking at meeting. His
tones were no higher than could be heard clearly in the room. There
was nothing of the exhorter in this man. His talk did not sound like
preaching at all. It was like kind, friendly talk at the fireside at a
solemn time. "Faith, prayer, morality: these alone are necessary," was
the burden of the simple address. "We have faith by divine providence;
out of our thanksgiving comes prayer, and we cannot but be good." It
was plain that the old women loved their priest. In the front of the
congregation were three crones gnarled in hands and face. When the
sermon of an hour or so came to an end they spoke quaveringly of the
mercy of Buddha to them, and of their own feebleness to do well. The
old priest gently offered them comfort and counsel.

After the service, in the light of the priest's paper lantern, I made
my way along the road to the temple. At length I found myself mounting
the lichened stone steps to the great closed gates. The priest drew
the long wooden bolt and pushed one gate creakingly back. We went by a
paved pathway into the deeper shadow of the temple. Then a light
glowed from the side of the building, and we were in the priest's
house. It was like a farmer's house only more refined in detail.

About half-past four in the morning I was awakened by the booming of
the temple bell. It is the sound which of all delights in the Far East
is most memorable. I got up, and, following the example of my host,
had a bath in the open, and dressed.

Then I was lighted along passages into the public part of the temple.
The priest with an acolyte began service at the middle altar.
Afterwards he proceeded to a side altar. At one stage of the service
he chanted a hymn which ran something like this:

From the virtues and the mercies of divine providence we
get faith, the worth of which is boundless.
The ice of petty care and trouble which froze our hearts
is melted.
It has become the water of divine illumination, bearing
us on to peace.
The more care and trouble, the greater the illumination
and the reward.

I knelt on the outside of the congregational group. It was cold as
the great doors were slid open from time to time and the kneeling
figures grew in number to about forty. Day broke and a few sparrows
twittered by the time the first part of the service was over.

The priest then took up his lamp and low table, and, coming without
the altar rail, knelt down in the midst of the congregation. In this
familiar relation with his people he delivered a homily in a
conversational tone. Buddha was to mankind as a father to his
children, he said. If a man did bad things but repented, his father
would be more delighted than if he got rich. The way of serving Buddha
was to feel his love. To ask of the rich or of a master was
supplication, but we did not need to supplicate Buddha. Our love of
Buddha and his love for us would become one thing. Carelessness, an
evil spirit, doubt: these were the enemies. Gold was beautiful to look
at, but if the gold stuck in one's eyes so that one could not see, how
then? The true essence of belief was the abandonment of ourselves to
divine providence.

So the speaker went on, pressing home his thoughts with anecdote or
legend. There was the tale of a woman whose character benefited when
her husband became a leper. Another story was of an injured lizard
which was fed for many days by its mate. We were also told of a
mischievous fellow who tried to anger a believer. The ne'er-do-weel
went to the man's house and called him a liar. The believer thanked
him for his faithful dealing, and said that it might be true that he
was a liar. He would be glad, he said, to be given further advice
after his wife had warmed water in order that his visitor might wash
his feet. "The mind of the vagabond was thereupon changed."

The rays of light from the lamp illumined the large Buddha-like shaven
head and mild countenance of the priest and the labour-worn faces of
his flock around him. Two weatherbeaten men curiously resembled
Highland elders. I saw that they, an old woman and a young mother with
a child tied on her back kept their eyes fixed on the preacher. It was
plain that in the service they found strength for the day.

I was in a reverie when the priest ended his talk. To my
embarrassment he begged me to come with him within the altar rail and
speak to the people. I had been quickened to such a degree by the
experience of the previous night and by this service at dawn that I
stood up at once. But there seemed to be not one word at my call, and
my knees knocked because of cold and shyness. I grasped the chilly
brass altar rail, and, as I met the gaze of friendly, sun-tanned,
care-rutted alien faces, which yet had the look of "kent folk," I
marvellously found sentence following sentence. What I said matters
nothing. What I felt was the unity of all religion, my veneration for
this rare priest, a sense of kinship with these worshippers of another
race and faith, and a realisation of the elemental things which lie at
the basis of international understanding. Several old men and women
came up to me and bowed and made little speeches of kindness and
cordiality. Six was striking on a clock in the priest's house as the
doors of the temple were slid open, the great cryptomeria[12] which
guard the village fane stood forth augustly in the morning light, and
the congregation went out to its labour.

As I knelt at breakfast and ate my rice and pickles and drank my
_miso_ soup,[13] the priest, after the manner of a Japanese with an
honoured guest, did not take food but waited upon me. He asked if the
English clergy wore a costume which marked them off from the people.
He liked the way of some of our preachers who wore ordinary clothes
and eschewed the title of "reverend." He was also taken by the idea of
the Quaker meeting at which there is silence until someone feels he
has a message to utter. As to the future of Buddhism, he deeply
regretted to say that many priests were a generation behind the age.
If the priests were "more democratic, better educated and more truly
religious," then they might be able to keep hold of young men. He knew
of one priest in Tokyo who had a dormitory for university students.

The priest presented his wife, a kindly woman full of character. "This
is my wife," he said; "please teach her." I spoke of a kind of
kindergarten which I had learnt had been conducted at the temple for
five years. "We merely play with the children," she said. "I had the
plan of it from the kindergarten of a missionary," her husband added.
The priest and his wife were kneeling side by side in the still
temple-room looking out on their restful garden. Behind them was a
screen the inscription on which might be translated, "We are to be
thankful for our environment; we are to become content quite naturally
by the gracious influence of the universe and by the strength of our
own will."

I could learn nothing from the priest concerning several helpful
organisations which I had heard that the villagers owed to his
influence and exertions. But the manager of the village agricultural
association told me that for a quarter of a century Otera San (Mr.
Temple) had superintended the education of the young people, that
under his guidance the village had a seven years' old co-operative
credit and selling society, 294 families belonged to a poultry
society, 320 men and women gathered to study the doctrines of Ninomiya
(whom we in the West know from a little book by a late Japanese
Ambassador in London, called _For His People_), and the young men's
association performed its discipline at half-past five in the morning
in the winter and at four o'clock in the summer.

[Illustration: "TO ROUSE THE VILLAGE YOU MUST FIRST ROUSE THE PRIEST"
(Autograph of Otera San)]

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Exchange in 1916; in 1921 the yen is worth 2s. 8d.

[10] The chapters in this section are based on notes of several visits
paid to Aichi, which is in the middle of Japan, and agriculturally and
socially one of the most interesting of the prefectures. It is three
prefectures distant from Tokyo.

[11] Throughout this book an attempt has been made to preserve in
translation something of the character of the Japanese phraseology.

[12] _Cryptomeria japonica_, or in Japanese, _sugi_, allied to the
sequoia, yew and cypress.

[13] _Miso_, bean paste.




CHAPTER II

"GOOD PEOPLE ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY PRECAUTIOUS"

Je ne propose rien, je n'impose rien, j'expose.--_De la liberte du travail_


He had been through Tokyo University, but his hands were rough with
the work of the rice fields. "I resent the fact that a farmer is
considered to be socially inferior to a townsman," he said. "I am
going to show that the income of a farmer who is diligent and skilful
may equal that of a Minister of State. I also propose to build a fine
house, not out of vanity, but in order to show that an honest farmer
can do as well for himself as a townsman."

When I asked the speaker to tell me something about himself he went
on: "My father was a follower of a pupil of the great Ninomiya.
Schools of frugal living and high ideals were common in the Tokugawa
period.[14] The object sought was the education of heart and spirit.
At night when I was in bed my father used to kneel by me,[15] his
eldest son, and say, 'When you grow big you must become a great man
and distinguish our family name.' This instruction was given to me
repeatedly and it went deeply into my heart."

"When I became a young man," he continued, "I had two friends. We made
promises to each other. One said, 'I will become the greatest scholar
in Japan.' The second said, 'I will become the greatest statesman.'
The third, myself, said, 'I will be the greatest rice grower in this
country.' If we all succeeded we were to build beautiful houses and
invite each other to them.

"I did not graduate at the University because, by the entreaty of my
father, when I reached twenty-one, I left Tokyo in order to become a
practical farmer. It is twenty-one years since I began farming. I
consulted with skilful agriculturists and then I saw my way to make a
plan. Rice in my native place is inferior. I improved it for three or
four years. I gained the first gold prize at the prefectural show.
Some years later I obtained the first prize at the exhibition which
was held by five prefectures together. Later still I received the
first prize at the exhibition for eighteen prefectures, also the first
prize at the exhibition of the National Agricultural Association.
Further, I was appointed a judge of rice and travelled about.

"I consumed a great deal of time in doing this public work. One day I
was made to think. A collector for a charity said in my hearing that
he expected larger subscriptions from practical men because though
public men were esteemed by society their economic power was small. I
at once resolved that before doing any more public work I should put
myself in a sound financial position.

"As I thought over the matter it seemed to me that it was not to be
expected that a public man should be able to do his really best work
if his financial position were not sound. Again, could he have lasting
influence with people in practical affairs if his own practical
affairs were not in good order?[16] At any rate I determined not to go
out to any more exhibitions or lectures except those which were
remunerative, and I resolved to devote myself as my first duty to my
farming.

"I set to work and managed my land, 3 _cho_ (a _cho_ is 2-1/2 acres),
so as to obtain the gross income of an M.P. [The reader could scarcely
have a more striking illustration of the intensity with which Japanese
land is cultivated--the average area is under 3 acres per family.] I
am now working about 4 _cho_ (10 acres). Later on I am going to farm 7
_cho_ (15-1/2 acres) and from that I am expecting the income of a
Minister.[17] I have already collected the materials for my villa, for
I am approaching my goal. One of my two friends, who is also forty
years of age, is a distinguished chemist in the Imperial Agricultural
College. My other friend, who is forty-four, is Secretary of the
Korean Government."

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