--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Taylor, Alma O. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 11 published: 1902-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Alma O. Taylor, "How It Is Done in Japan," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 11 (September 1902): 881–885.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0511unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0511unse start_page: 881 end_page: 885 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0511unse publication_year: 1902 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # How It Is Done in Japan HOW IT IS DONE IN JAPAN. BY ELDER ALMA 0. TAYLOR, OF THE JAPAN MISSION. [Writing from Tokio to the officers and members of the Y. M. and Y. L. M. I. A., of the Thirteenth Ward, Salt Lake City, Utah, Elder Alma 0. Taylor treats upon some of the customs of Japan in eating, transporta- tion and hair-dressing, that will interest young readers of the Era. — Editors.] Dear Associates: —Every time comb my I hair, the little set of toilet implements which you presented me, just before I left home, remind me of the many pleasant hours I have spent in your society, and conscience has been stinging me severely of late for neglecting my duty in writing to you, just because what I write may be an oft-told tale. This reminds me: I went down town to the photographer's yesterday to see about eome snap-shots that were taken on the day of President Grant's departure for Zion. While going along the largest and perhaps one of the busiest streets in Tokio, I saw something which struck me as being rather odd. On the sidewalk, just outside of a large wholesale paper store, there was a young man sitting on a small stool having his hair cut. The one who was performing the operation was dressed in a long, white, linen suit which looked, except in color, like the outer robe of an English country pastor. The barber had just finished his work of ampu- tation, which had evidently been done with the clippers, for there was little on the young man's head but the scalp and the left phrenological bumps, and was applying the Japanese cure for dand- ruff. This treatment is evidently not pleasant. The barber had a little round comb, perhaps two inches in diameter, cut from a bam- boo stick, hollow in the center, and having teeth like the ordinary hair comb. This he was rubbing over the victim's scalp with con- siderable speed, and looking out at the passers-by with so little at- tention to what he was doing that perhaps his pressure was rather hard, for the young man was pulling a face like we generally make when our hair is suddenly jerked the wrong way. This process put me in mind of a carpenter sand-papering a board, and I ven- ture to say a person's head must become pretty much like a block of wood to stand such treatment once a month. I inquired at the photographer's if such a thing were common here. He told me that these "traveling barber shops," as I call them, get nearly as much patronage as those regularly established. With a satchel, con- taining tools, in hand, and an occasional screech which sets the fruit vender of Salt Lake City in the shade, these fellows in their white robes wander through the business parts of the city, paus- ing to do their work whenever hailed by the busy merchant who has no time to leave his store to go to a barber shop. Many, so I am told, of the prominent business men think it no disgrace to sit outside the front door of their establishments and have their hair trimmed by these men. To the young men in Zion, who sit in beautifully upholstered chairs and look into mirrors surrounded with elaborately silvered or gilded frames, while some skilled hair- dressers work for an hour over each person to please the stylish fancies of the civilized, such a thing as a seat on a stool in the street would appear as being altogether too crude. And as one of those youths of Zion, I do feel to criticize such luxuries. Thus far I have escaped the curry-comb treatment administered for six sen (three cents) in these open air parlors, and if good fortune continues to come my way, I will always hunt the place that adopts the foreign system of cutting hair. Of the thousands of male students who attend the schools in Japan, but a very, very few have hair long enough to comb. They say long hair makes them weak-minded. It seems to me that such a statement fitly suits some of the "tin-horn sports" at home who are so particular about the lay of their locks that they are only good for mirror smashers and idle posers. When I left home there was a gread fad among the girls in regard to a new way of wearing their hair. They nearly went wild over "rats." And while they would climb a perpendicular HOW IT IS DONE IN 'JAPAN. 883 brick wall to get away from a mouse, they would spend the last penny they had for a "rat," and take delight in building a comfort- able nest for it in their hair. This idea of "rats" for the hair was undoubtedly originally taken from the Japanese women who have used such things under the name "maga," for ages. Here they have little "rats," big "rats," oblong "rats," round "rats," flat "rats," and a dozen other kinds of "rats," all of which are used to make the women attractive to the sterner sex. If a drawing were to be made of the outlines of every fold of hair on a native female's head, the result would compare very favorably with the most complex Chinese character, which, to the stranger, looks like a confusion of marks. By the use of a perfumed, oily lotion, the naturally coal-black hair of the women is made to shine like a piece of varnished lacquerware, and no head of hair is considered beautiful, or even a good black color, unless it glistens like the feathers of a crow on a rainy day. The "rats" are not the only things for which the American women are indebted to Japan, but many of their most beautiful tea gowns, and morning costumes, are a feeble attempt to duplicate the elegant attire of the stylish Japanese ladies. The people here ride mostly in "jinrikishas," (little carts drawn by human beings), and it is interesting to observe the mo- tions of the men as they run along. In the horse kingdom there are what we call trotters, pacers, runners, single-footers, etc. It is just so with the men who take the place of horses, in Japan. Brother Ensign and 1 were returning from a visit to the hotel where Elder Kelsch is now staying, and we noticed, while walking a quarter of a mile, some "rikisha-men" who moved like trotting horses, others like pacers, and still others had a galloping gait, but it struck me on the funny spot when Elder Ensign said, "Look at the single-footer coming down the street!" and, on looking up, sure enough here came a little fellow pulling his load, and "step- ping it off" like the best trained animals on our race tracks. To see human flesh thus subjected to the labor, which, in other lands, isperformed by horses or machinery, excites our sympathy and some sights connected with raises our indignation, but there are these crude methods that are most laughable, and which lead us to make such comparisons as the above. Elder Ensign and I are still located in a native hotel, and I do not suppose that I, at least, will return entirely to foreign style for some years. This fact does not worry me, for I have become so accustomed to nearly all things Japanese that such a life is quite pleasant. We have our chop-sticks and our rice every day, and have become proportionately skillful in the use of the former, to the increase in capacity and appetite for the latter. We very often have native guests to eat with us. On these occa- sions we frequently get a beefsteak or some other kind of meat not in the regular diet, and are provided with a knife and fork with which to handle it; but; we always give these tools to the visitors— sometimes (according to the toughness of the meat) doing so out of preference and other times for courtesy's sake. ! * * * Night before last we sent out for some bowls of "kisoba:" This is a sort of noodle soup; the noodles, however, being nearly a foot long, and about the size of a small straw in diameter. The Japanese method of eating this dish (which method we have also adopted) is in open rebellion to the rules of foreign table etiquette, but quite in harmony with oriental thought. We take up the noodle on the chop-sticks, and put one part into our mouths, but as the remaining part reaches down into the bowl, it is not at all easy to wiggle at such long substance with teeth and lips alone, so,like the rest of Japan, we give a prolonged suck, accom- panied by the usual peculiar sound, and, the noodle being greased, the tail end soon reaches our mouths and flops out of sight like a wet eel. The other night Elder Ensign was going to show me how skillful he had become in this art, but he sucked a little too hard, causing the tail end to flip up and hit him in the eye, and he has behaved himself ever since. The first time I ever ate this food was in an eating house that served nothing else. I was invited to the place by our native interpreter. In the room next to the one in which we sat was a party of six or eight persons all sucking at the same time. The partition between being only paper pasted over a wooden frame, we could hear the sound distinctly. The noise was horrible. But the gentleman who was with me assured us that it was not considered proper to eat this kind of food with- out sucking it into the mouth, and I soon learned that he was a man of his word. A party of two dozen "kisoba-eaters" would HOW IT IS DONE IN JAPAN. 885 stand a good show of being arrested for disturbing the peace, if they attempted to hold a reunion in the thickly settled portions of an American city. I am not yet a professor of the Japanese language. I can tell when I am hungry, what I want to eat, what I like, and what I don't like; when 1 want my bed made; that I am a "Mormon," that God is our Father, that Jesus is the Savior of mankind, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Bible and the Book of Mor- mon are sacred and inspired records, and a few other things; but, if by the use of a word or two a person forms the idea that I am thoroughly versed in the language, and so commences to talk to me, I can stay with him for about ten seconds, but after that I feel like running. This language, according to an American ex- pression, is a "fright," It is the most formidable stone in our path ; yet, by the help of the Lord, we are gradually crushing and hauling it away. I rejoice in the reports that come to us oi the faith that is being exhibited for us by the people in Zion, especially by the Saints of the Thirteenth Ward, whose interest in this mission is naturally great. God bless you for your prayers. We need them and are striving to be worthy of the blessings in- voked. * * * Letters received at different times from the bishop and other ward folk give glowing accounts of this year's success in your Mutual work. The desires which I have had in the past for the success of this organization are still the same, and I ask God's upon you associationally and individually. richest blessings to rest With united and energetic work you cannot fail. Your brother and associate, Alma 0. Taylor.