Dragons and Cherry Blossoms

								



DRAGONS
AND
CHERRY-BLOSSOMS

Copyright, 1896,
BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY.


All rights reserved.

  University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

  TO
MY HUSBAND.

Many have been before me, and the theme of this volume can hardly be
called new, for Japan has been viewed from every side and through all
kinds of eyes. This, however, has not deterred me from jotting down
a few observations and experiences of my own, hoping that in them my
readers may feel some rays of the Orient sunshine and beauty.
I desire to thank Mr. Burton J. Hendrick for the kind and sympathetic
aid given upon the manuscript.

CONTENTS.

                                           PAGE


Foreign Residents                          15


Shopping                                   49


Our Dinner at Kioto                        81


Miyako Odori                              109


The Rise and Fall of the Kakemono         141


A Glimpse of Royalty                      173


Fin de Siècle Japan                       209


Cho and Eba                               239

FOREIGN RESIDENTS.

Your visit to Japan is likely to be a succession of surprises. Our
discovery of the country is so recent that the large amount of
literature on the subject frequently fails to change your childhood
impression of that distant land. European travellers often entertain us
with their ideas of America as an uncultivated waste with an occasional
hastily constructed town, in which the red man is still to be seen;
and my notions of the land of the Mikado were somewhat similar. I could
never think of the Orient without thinking of the mushroom hat; and for
me Japan meant a succession of bamboo huts, almond-eyed men with long
and low-hanging moustaches, an occasional china cup, and now and then a
strangely decorated fan. I was not at all sure that it was a hospitable
shore to visit; I understood that heads were removed there upon the
slightest provocation. My earliest knowledge was gained from the
paper lanterns that were the delight of Fourth-of-July celebrations,
and those remarkably adorned napkins familiar to patrons of church
fairs. I was also frequently called upon to make Sunday-School
contributions for the conversion of these abandoned souls, and have
vivid recollections of listening to many addresses by daring spirits,
who had actually returned from the dangerous soil. After such occasions
as these, I always looked upon the principal occupation of the Japanese
as the stoning of missionaries. As I grew older, I tried to educate
myself into different ideas, but all the books that I read, and even an
occasional Japanese friend that I made, did not succeed in doing away