Letters from China and Japan

								

nobody is sufficiently civil that you won't know us either. Mr. X----
took me in his car and brought me back. When we got to the hall there
were five maids bowing and smiling to get our slippers and hang up our
coats and hats. Just going in or out is like going to a picnic; I think
the maids enjoy this change in their regular work, for they really
smile, as if they were having the time of their lives. If it is
perfunctory and put on, they have me fooled.
Well, I'll spare you all any philosophical reflections this trip.
Besides, I've been too busy having a good time to think of any. They
will probably grow spontaneously in China. I forgot whether I told you
in my last letter that the Minister of the Interior has given me a
monthly and renewable pass first class on the Japanese railways. A
friend here asked him for one for Mamma, too, but he said he was very
sorry, that privilege could not be extended to a woman. So I'm the only
grafter in the family. I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but shall
make one at the first opportunity in order to get the sensation.

TOKYO, Friday, February 28.

I don't get much sightseeing done except in the way of seeing street
sights. I am generally accompanied when I take a walk for exercise and
always taken by some new way. The other evening we went out after dinner
and took a walk to a lively street not far off--booksellers with their
things spread out on the sidewalk or rather road, little lunch wagons,
crowded streets and shops--they have electricity everywhere, and some
geisha girls trotting along with maids to carry their samisens. We went
into a Japanese movie beside rubbering at everything and then went into
a Japanese restaurant. Their eating places here are specialized--this
was a noodle shop, and we tried three kinds, one wheat in a soup, one
buckwheat with fried shrimps, and another cold with seaweed. For the
entire lot for the two of us it cost 27 cents American money, and the
place, which was an ordinary one, was cleaner than any American one,
even the best. The movie story seemed more complicated than any of ours,
and was certainly slower, because there is a man and a woman in a little
coop near the curtain who say what the actors are saying whenever their
lips move, this gives a chance of course for more talk. There were a few
knockouts and a murder and a villain and a persecuted damsel, and an
attempted suicide to provide thrills, but I couldn't make out what it
was about even with the aid of the guide with me. Such are simple
pleasures here, save that when we walk in the daytime we generally go to
a temple where on the whole the people are more interesting than the
temples, though sometimes the layout of trees is beautiful and gives
much the same effect of religious calm as a cathedral. In general the
similarity between worship here and the country Italian Catholicism is
more striking than anything else. They are slightly more naïve here--to