Japanese Girls and Women by Alice Mabel Bacon (best e reader for epub .txt) 📕

[42] O miagé must be given, not only on the return from an evening of pleasure, but also on the return from a journey or pleasure trip of any kind. As a rule, the longer the absence, the finer and more costly must be the presents given on returning.

To the foreigner, upon his arrival in Japan, the status of household servants is at first a source of much perplexity. There is a freedom in their relations with the families that they serve, that in this country would be regarded as impudence, and an independence of action that, in many cases, seems to take the form of direct disobedience to orders. From the steward of your household, who keeps your accounts, makes your purchases, and manages your affairs, to your jinrikisha man or groom, every servant in your establishment does what is right in his own eyes, and after the manner that he thinks best. Mere blind obedience to orders is not regarded as a virtue in a Japanese servant; he must do his own thinking, and, if he cannot grasp the reason for your order, that order will not be carried out. Housekeeping in Japan is frequently the despair of the thrifty American housewife, who has been accustomed in her own country to be the head of every detail of household work, leaving to her servants only the mechanical labor of the hands. She begins by showing her Oriental help the work to be done, and just the way in which she is accustomed to having it done at home, and the chances are about one in a hundred that her servant will carry out her instructions. In the ninety-nine other cases, he will accomplish the desired result, but by means totally different from those to which the American housekeeper is accustomed. If the housewife is one of the worrying kind, who cares as much about the way in which the thing is done as about the accomplished result, the chances are that she will wear herself out in a fruitless endeavor to make her servants do things in her own way, and will, when she returns to America, assure you that Japanese servants are the most idle, stupid, and altogether worthless lot that it was ever her bad fortune to have to do with. But on the other hand, if the lady of the house is one who is willing to give general orders, and then sit down and wait until the work is done before criticising it, she will find that by some means or other the work will be accomplished and her desire will be carried out, provided only that her servants see a reason for getting the thing done. And as she finds that her domestics will take responsibility upon themselves, and will work, not only with their hands, but with the will and intellect in her service, she soon yields to their protecting and thoughtful care for herself and her interests, and, when she returns to America, is loud in her praises of the competence and devotion of her Japanese servants. Even in the treaty ports, where contact with foreigners has given to the Japanese attendants the silent and repressed air that we regard as the standard manner for a servant, they have not resigned their right of private judgment, but, if faithful and honest, seek the best good of their employer, even if his best good involves disobedience of his orders. This characteristic of the Japanese servant is aggravated when he is in the employment of foreigners, for the simple reason that he is apt to regard the foreigner as a species of imbecile, who must be cared for tenderly because he is quite incompetent to care for himself, but whose fancies must not be too much regarded. Of the relations of foreign employers and Japanese servants much might be said, but our business is with the position of the servants in a Japanese household.

Under the old feudal system, the servants of every family were its hereditary retainers, and from generation to generation desired no higher lot than personal service in the family to which they belonged. The principle of loyalty to the family interests was the leading principle in the lives of the servants, just as loyalty to the daimiō was the highest duty of the samurai. Long and intimate knowledge of the family history and traits of character rendered it possible for the retainer to work intelligently for his master, and do independently for him many things without orders. The servant in many cases knew his master and his master's interests as well as the master himself, or even better, and must act by the light of his own knowledge in cases where his master was ignorant or misinformed. One can easily see how ties of good-fellowship and sympathy would arise between masters and servants, how a community of interest would exist, so that the good of the master and his family would be the condition for the good of the servant and his family. In America, where the relation between servant and employer is usually a simple business arrangement, each giving certain specified considerations and nothing more, the relation of servant to master is shorn of all sentiment and affection; the servant's interests are quite apart from those of his employer, and his main object is to get the specified work done and obtain more time for himself, and sooner or later to leave the despised occupation of domestic service for some higher and more independent calling. In Japan, where faithful service of a master was regarded as a calling worthy of absorbing any one's highest abilities through a lifetime, the position of a servant was not menial or degrading, but might be higher than that of the farmer, merchant, or artisan. Whether the position was a high or a low one depended, not so much on the work done, as the person for whom it was done, and the servant of a daimiō or high rank samurai was worthy of more honor, and might be of far better birth, than the independent merchant or artisan. As the former feudal system is yet within the memory of many of the present generation, and its feelings still alive in Japan, much of the old sentiment remains, even with the merely hired domestics in a household of the present day. The servant, by his own master, is addressed by name, with no title of respect, is treated as an inferior, and spoken to in the language used toward inferiors; but to all others he is a person to be treated with respect,—to be bowed to profoundly, addressed by the title San, and spoken to in the politest of language. You make a call upon a Japanese household, and the servant who admits you will expect to exchange the formal salutations with you. When you are ushered into the reception-room, should the lady of the house be absent, the head servants will not only serve you with tea and refreshments and offer you