Our Little Japanese Cousin — Part 5
The children go to school again, but that does not trouble them.
They love their teacher and try to please him.
The school is closed at noon.
Lotus Blossom and Toyo start out every morning with little satchels over their backs.
In these they carry their books, a cake of India ink, and a paint-brush.
When they arrive at their schoolroom, they are met by a quiet, kindly man with big glasses over his eyes.
The children instantly bow down to the ground before him, for he is their teacher.
Of course the low bow is to show great respect.
Japanese children are taught to treat their instructors, as well as their parents, with honour and regard.
And now they enter the schoolroom.
But what a schoolroom!
No desks, no platform, no seats!
The teacher sits down upon a mat with a small lacquered stand beside him.
The children squat on the floor around him and begin to study.
What queer letters in the books!
You would not be able to read one word.
Lotus Blossom and Toyo have already learned their alphabets.
You smile, perhaps, and think, "H'm!
that isn't much."
Well, just wait till I tell you there are forty-seven different characters in one alphabet, while in another there are several times as many.
The easy alphabet is the only one that girls must know, while boys learn both.
But Lotus Blossom is a very bright child, so she studies the more difficult characters as well.
Japanese books are printed very differently from ours.
The lines run up and down the page, and keep the eyes of the reader busily moving.
The children don't have many examples to perform, for the Japanese do not consider arithmetic so important as Americans do.
Do you sigh now, and wish you could get your education in that far-away land where long division is not a daily trial?
But wait till I tell you about the writing, or rather painting, lessons.
You will certainly be envious.
When the schoolmaster gives the signal, the children take the brushes and the cakes of India ink from their satchels.
They mix a little of the ink with water, and then are ready to paint their words on the beautiful paper made in their country.
Many people think that the Japanese are such fine artists because their hands are trained to use the brush from the time they are babies.
It would make you laugh if I should tell you how the teacher directs the children to write letters to their friends.
They must begin by writing something very poetical about the weather.
They must then compose some very flowery compliments to the friend who is addressed;
a sheet or two, at least, must be used in this way before they are allowed to tell the news, etc. But throughout the letter, as in fact in all conversations, Lotus Blossom and Toyo are taught to speak of themselves as very mean and humble creatures.
Their kind school-teacher ends the morning lessons with proverbs.
You know what these are, of course, but the ones which our Japanese cousins learn are especially about duty to their parents, and kindness to all living creatures.
It would be a great sin for Toyo to tease the cat or kill a fly.
His parents would be shocked beyond expression.
[Illustration: A LESSON IN ARRANGING FLOWERS.
] "How about punishment in the Japanese school?"
I hear a little boy ask.
My dear child, it is hardly ever needed, but when it does come, it is not being kept after school; it is not a whipping.
The child is burned!
The teacher takes a moxa, which I told you is a kind of pith, and sticks it on the naughty child's hand.
He then sets the moxa on fire to burn slowly.
It is a long, sad punishment for any one who is so bad as to deserve it.
It does not need to be given every day.
Lotus Blossom and Toyo, as well as their little schoolmates, are very attentive to their work, and try their hardest to please the teacher.
When school is done, what will the children do throughout the long afternoon?
Lotus Blossom must work a certain time in embroidery, and take a short lesson with her mamma in arranging flowers.
Why, there are whole books on this subject in Japan.
The people are very fond of flowers, and study how to arrange them in the most graceful manner.
They would never think of bunching many together without their leaves in an ugly bouquet, nor would they dream of cruelly twisting wires around their poor little stems.
In Japan it is thought an art to know how to place one spray in a vase in such a way as to show all its beauty.
While his sister is doing her work, Toyo is practising on his koto.
This is a musical instrument of which the Japanese are very fond.
It looks much like a harp.
Toyo strikes the strings with pieces of ivory fastened on his finger-tips.
Listen!
Do you call those sounds music?
It is enough to set one's teeth on edge.
Yet Toyo's music-teacher says that he is doing finely and shows great talent.
If that is so, I fear we would not care to go to many concerts in Japan, for the Japanese idea of music is very different from ours.
Hurrah!
The children are now ready for play, and there are so many nice things to do.
If it is winter and there is snow on the ground, Lotus Blossom and Toyo gather together with their little friends to make a snow man.
Not an Irish gentleman with a pipe in his mouth, such as you like to build, but a figure of Daruma, who was a disciple of Buddha.
It is easy to make this, for it is believed that Daruma lost his legs from sitting too long in one position.
So the snow man has no legs.
When it is made, the children knock it down with snow-balls, just as you do.
Spring comes, and with it, tops, and kites, and stilts.
The stilts are very high, and Toyo puts his toes through parts of the wooden lifts.
He and the other boys run races and even play games on stilts, and think it great fun.
But the kites!
Yours are just babies beside them.
Some of them are so large that it takes two men to sail them.
In fact, grown-up people, in Japan, seem as fond of kite-flying as the children.
Many of these toys have neither tails nor bobs.
You wonder how they manage to get up in the air at all, till you see that the strings are pulled in such a way as to raise them.
They are of all shapes.
The boys sometimes play a game with their kites.
They dip the strings in glue and afterward in powdered glass; then they run with the kites and try to cross each other's strings and cut them.
The boy who succeeds wins the other's kite.
Toyo lost his the other day, and what do you think he did?
Pout, or exclaim, as you sometimes do, "I don't care, that isn't fair?"
By no means!
He made three beautiful bows and gave up his kite with a polite smile.
Maybe he did not feel any happier about it than you would, for it was a fine new one, but he wouldn't show his grief, at any rate.
Toyo sometimes wrestles with the other boys, but they are not rough and noisy about it.
They wrestle gently, if you can imagine such a thing.
They have often seen the trained wrestlers at the shows; such big, fat men.
They must weigh at least three hundred pounds.
The fat fairly hangs upon them.
The Japanese people are generally slim and rather small, but if a man is going to train himself to be a wrestler, he eats everything that will help to make him fat.
I should think they could not get hurt, for they look as though they were cushioned in fat.
The boys of Japan have marbles and tops, just as you do; in fact, nearly all the games which you like best were played by your far-away cousins long before there was a white child on this great continent of ours.
"Blind man's buff," "Hide the thimble," and "Puss in the corner," are great favourites with the Japanese.
Instead of hiding the thimble, however, they use a slipper, and instead of puss in the corner, they play that it is the devil.
You must not forgot that the Japanese believe there are many devils, or bad spirits, as well as good ones who are ready to help.
They even think of them in their games.
