The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese peopleRobertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
General
The foundations of Japan : $b Notes made during journeys of 6,000 miles in the rural districts as a basis for a sounder knowledge of the Japanese people
Robertson Scott, J. W. (John William)
Agriculture -- Japan; Country life -- Japan; Japan -- Description and travel; Japan -- Social conditions
I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in
a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain
addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The
diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined
and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are
Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and
music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to
the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family
which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s
"old people are respected and comforted." More than one association
has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at
the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and
at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according
to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have
been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto
shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more
efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good,
to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with
more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of
ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder
brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses."
One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation
with a geisha shall be fined 20 yen. There is even a village in which
the young men's association and the young women's association have
united to issue a regulation providing that at night time members, in
order that their doings shall be public, shall carry lanterns painted
with the ideographs of their societies.[20]
With regard to the young women's associations, I found that one of
them studied domestic matters and good manners, "asking questions and
receiving answers." The motto of the organisation was "Good Wives and
Good Mothers." A member, this Society believes, should be "polite,
gentle and warm-hearted, but with a strong will inside and able to
meet difficulties." Her hairdressing and clothes "should not be
luxurious," and she "must not run after fashions." She must "respect
Buddha and abandon sweet-eating," for "taking food between meals is
bad for your health, for economy and for your posterity."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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