



Produced by Andrea Ball and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org





A JAPANESE BOY

BY

HIMSELF


NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1890




_COPYRIGHTED_, 1889.

By SHIUKICHI SHIGEMI.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

MY BIRTHPLACE--MY GRANDFATHER--TENJINSAN.

CHAPTER II.

OLD-FASHIONED SCHOOL--MY SCHOOLMASTER--THE SCHOOL-HOUSE.

CHAPTER III.

THE KITCHEN--DINNER--FOOD.

CHAPTER IV.

GAMES--NEW SCHOOL--IMITATING THE WEST--MORE ABOUT MY SCHOOLMASTER
--PUNISHMENTS AT SCHOOL.

CHAPTER V.

BATHS--EVENINGS AT HOME--JAPANESE DANCING AND MUSIC.

CHAPTER VI.

AMATEUR ACTORS AND REAL ACTORS AND ACTRESSES--JAPANESE THEATRE.

CHAPTER VII.

WRESTLING--STORY-TELLERS--PICNIC AND PICNIC GROUNDS--AN OLD CASTLE
AND A TRADITION.

CHAPTER VIII.

ANGLING--A PIOUS OLD LADY AND HER ADVENTURES.

CHAPTER IX.

THE YAITO--A WITCH-WOMAN--AUNT OTSUNE, MISS CHRYSANTHEMUM AND
MR. PROSPERITY.

CHAPTER X.

NEW-YEAR'S DAY--THE MOCHI-MAKING--OLD-TIME OBSERVANCES.

CHAPTER XI.

KITE-FLYING--HOW I MADE MY KITE--MY UNCLE AND HIS RIG KITE
--OTHER NEW-YEAR GAMES--HOW WE END OUR NEW-YEAR HOLIDAYS.

CHAPTER XII.

OTHER JAPANESE HOLIDAYS--TANABATA AND INOKO, THE BOYS' DAYS
--THE SHINTOISTIC AND BUDDHISTIC ABLUTION MASS.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR PRIEST AND BOY-PRIEST--OUR DOG GEM--SHAKA'S BIRTHDAY.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE FESTIVALS OF LOCAL DEITIES--SCHOOL AGAIN, AND SOME ACCOUNT
OF MY SCHOOL-FELLOWS--CONCLUSION.






PREFATORY LETTER.


PROF. HENRY W. FARNAM:

_Dear Sir:_--My motives in writing this jejune little volume are, as you
are aware, two:

1st. There seems to be no story told in this country of the Japanese
boy's life by a Japanese boy himself. The following rambling sketches
are incoherent and extremely meagre, I own; but you must remember that
they are a boy's talks. Give him encouragement, and he will tell you
more.

2d. The most important of my reasons is my desire to obtain the means to
prosecute the studies I have taken up in America. Circumstances have
obliged me to make my own way in this hard world. If I knew of a better
step I should not have resorted to an indiscreet juvenile publication--a
publication, moreover, of my own idle experiences, and in a language the
alphabet of which I learned but a few years ago.

To you my sincere acknowledgments are due for encouraging me to write
these pages. This kindness is but one of many, of which the public has
no knowledge.

                                        I am, sir,
                                          Yours very truly.
                                            SHIUKICHI SHIGEMI

  NEW HAVEN. CT., September, 1889.




A JAPANESE BOY.




CHAPTER I.


I was born in a small seaport town called Imabari, which is situated on
the western coast of the island of Shikoku, the eastern of the two
islands lying south of Hondo. The Imabari harbor is a miserable ditch;
at low tide the mouth shows its shallow bottom, and one can wade across.
People go there for clam-digging. Two or three little streams empty
their waters into the harbor. A few junks and a number of boats are
always seen standing in this pool of salt-water. In the houses
surrounding it, mostly very old and ramshackle, are sold eatables and
provisions, fishes are bought from the boats, or shelter is given to
sailors.

When a junk comes in laden with rice, commission merchants get on board
and strike for bargains. The capacity of the vessel is measured by the
amount of rice it can carry. The grain merchant carries about him a
good-sized bamboo a few inches long, one end of which is sharpened and
the other closed, being cut just at a joint. He thrusts the pointed end
into bags of the rice. The bags are rice-straw, knitted together roughly
into the shape of barrels. Having taken out samples in the hollow inside
of the bamboo stick, the merchant first examines critically the physical
qualities of the grains on the palm of his hand, and then proceeds to
chew them in order to see how they taste. Years of practice enable him
to state, after such simple tests, precisely what section of the country
the article in question came from, although the captain of the vessel
may claim to have shipped it from a famous rice-producing province.

About the harbor are coolies waiting for work. They are strong, muscular
men, thinly clad, with easy straw sandals on. Putting a little cushion
on the left shoulder, a coolie rests the rice-bag upon it and walks away
from the ship to a store-house; his left hand passed around the burden
and his right holding a short, stout, beak-like, iron hook fastened in
the bag. In idle moments the coolies get together and indulge in tests
of strength, lifting heavy weights, etc.

At a short distance to the right from the entrance of the harbor is a
sanitarium. It is a huge, artificial cave, built of stone and mortar and
heated by burning wood-fires in the inside. After it is sufficiently
warmed the fire is extinguished, the smoke-escape shut, and the oven is
ready for use. Invalids flock in with wet mats, which they use in
sitting on the scalding rocky floor of the oven. Lifting the mat that
hangs like a curtain at the entrance, they plunge into the suffocating
hot air and remain there some time and emerge again into daylight,
fairly roasted and smothered. Then they speedily make for the sea and
bathe in it. This process of alternate heating and cooling is repeated
several times a day. It is to cook out, as it were, diseases from the
body. For some constitutions the first breath of the oven immediately
after the warming is considered best, for others the mild warmth of
later hours is thought more commendable. I, for myself, who have
accompanied my mother and gone through the torture, do not like either
very much. The health-seekers rent rooms in a few large cottages
standing near by. In fact, they live out of town, free from business and
domestic cares, pass time at games, or saunter and breathe pure air
under pine-trees in the neighborhood. The establishment is opened only
during summer time. A person ought to get well in whiling away in free
air those glorious summer days without the aid of the roasting scheme.

To the left of the harbor along the shore stands the main body of
Imabari. Mt. Myozin heaves in sight long before anything of the town can
be seen. It is not remarkable as a mountain, but being so near my town,
whenever I have espied it on my return I have felt at home. I can
remember its precise outline. As we draw nearer, white-plastered
warehouses, the sea-god's shrine jutting out into the water, and the
castle stone walls come in our view. You observe no church-steeple, that
pointed object so characteristically indicative of a city at a distance
in the Christian community. To be sure, the pagoda towers toward the sky
in the community of Buddhists; but it is more elaborate and costly a
thing than the stee