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Letters From China And Japan By John DeweyWell, if you want to see one mammoth, muddy masquerade just see Tokyo to-day. I am so amused all the time that if I were to do just as I feel, I should sit down or stand up and call out, as it were, from the housetops to every one in the world to come and see the show. If it were not for the cut of them I should think that all the cast-off clothing had been misdirected and had gone to Japan instead of Belgium. But they are mostly as queer in cut as they are in material. Imagine rummaging your attic for the colors and patterns of past days and then gathering up kimonos of all the different colors and patterns and sizes and with it all a lot of men’s hats that are like nothing you ever saw, and very muddy streets, and there you have it. The ‘ricksha men have their legs fitted with tight trousers and puttees to end them, and they are graceful. They run all day, through the mud and snow and wet in these things made of cotton cloth that are neither stockings nor shoes but both, and they stand about or sit on steps and wait, and yet they get through the day alive. I am distracted between the desire to ride in the baby cart and the fear of the language, mixed with the greater fear of the pain of being drawn by a fellow-being. They are a lithe set of little men and look as if they had steel springs to make them go when you look at their course. Still I have been only in autos, of which there are not many here.I get tired with the excitement of the constant amusement. This morning a man came out of a curio shop. Bow. Exguse me, madame, is this not Mrs. Daway? I knew you because I saw your picture in the paper. Will you not come in and look at our many curios? I shall have the pleasure of bringing them to your hotel. What is the number of your room, madame? Bow. No, please do not bring them to my room, for I am always out. I will come in and see them sometime.
Thank you, madame, please do so, madame, we have many fine curios. Bow. Goodmorning, madame. The looks of the streets are like the clothes, just left over from the past ages. Of course Tokyo is the modern city of Japan, and we shall watch out for the ancient ones when it comes their turn. I wish I could give you an idea of the looks of the poor. The children up to the age of about thirteen appear never to wipe their noses. Combine this effect (more effect than in Italy) with several kimonos, one on top of the other, made of cotton and wool of bright colors and flowered, with a queer brown checked one on top this wadded and much too big, therefore hitched up round the waist. Swung in this outside one a baby is carried on the back, the little baby head with black bangs or still fuzzy scalp sticking out, nose never yet touched by a handkerchief, wearer of the baby with a nose in the same condition if at a tender age-I scream inside of me as I go about, and it is more exciting than any play ever. We are as much curiosities to them as they are to us, though we live where the most foreigners go. Now on top of it all we can no more make a car driver understand where we want to go than if we were monkeys.
