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

The little gozen-taki, or rice-cook, who works all day in the kitchen, may be a fat, red-cheeked, frowsy-haired country girl,—patient, hard-working, and humble-minded,—willing to pother about all day with her kettles and pans, and sit up half the night over her own sewing, or the study of the often unfamiliar art of reading and writing; but entirely unacquainted with the details of etiquette, a knowledge of which is a necessity to the higher servants,—sometimes even thrown into an agony of diffidence should it become necessary to appear before master or mistress.

Some of the customs of the household, in regard to servants, are quite striking to a foreigner. When the master of the house starts out each morning, besides the wife and children who see him off, all the servants who are not especially occupied—a goodly number, sometimes—come to the front door and bow down to bid him good-by. On his return, also, when the noise of the kuruma is heard, and the shout of the men, who call out "O kaeri!" when near the house, the servants go out to greet him, and bowing low speak the customary words of salutation. To a greater or less degree, the same is done to every member of the family, the younger members, however, receiving a smaller share of the attention than their elders.

When, as very often happens, a guest staying for any length of time in a family, or a frequent visitor, gives a servant a present of money or any trifle, the servant, after thanking the donor, takes the white paper bundle to the mistress of the house, and shows it to her, expressing his gratitude to her for the gift, and also asking her to thank the giver. This, of course, is always done, for a gift to a servant is as much of a favor to the mistress as a present to a child is to its mother.

When a servant wishes to leave a family, she rarely goes to her mistress and states that she is dissatisfied with her position, and that some better chance has been offered her. Such a natural excuse never occurs to the Japanese servant, unless he be a jinrikisha man or bettō, who may not know how to do better; for it is a very rude way of leaving service. The high-minded maid will proceed very differently.

A few days' leave of absence to visit home will be asked and usually granted, for Japanese servants never have any settled time to take holiday. At the end of the given time the mistress will begin to wonder what has become of the girl, who has failed to return; and the lady will make up her mind she will not let her go again so readily. Just when she has a sharp reproof ready, a messenger or letter will arrive, with some good excuse, couched in most polite and humble terms. Sometimes it will be that she has found herself too weak for service, or that work at home, or the illness of some member of the family, detains her, so that she is not able to come back at present. The excuse is understood and accepted as final, and another servant is sought for and obtained. After several weeks have passed, very likely after entering a new place, the old servant will turn up some day, express her thanks for all past kindnesses and regrets at not returning in time, will take her pay and her bundles, and disappear forever.

Even when servants come on trial for a few days, they often go away nominally to fetch their belongings, or make arrangements to return, but the lady of the house does not know whether the woman is satisfied or not. If she is not, her refusal is always brought by a third person. If the mistress, on her side, does not wish to hire the girl, she will not tell her so to her face, but will send word at this time to prevent her coming. Such is the etiquette in these matters of mistress and maid.[*]

Only by a multiplicity of details is it possible to give much idea of the position of servants in a Japanese house, and even then the result arrived at is that the positions of what we would call domestic servants vary so greatly in honor and responsibility that it is almost impossible to draw any general conclusions upon this subject. We have seen that there is no distinct servile class in Japan, and that a person's social status is not altered by the fact that he serves in a menial capacity, provided that service be of one above him in rank and not below him. This is largely the result of the grading of society upon other lines than those on which our social distinctions are founded, and partly the result of the fact that women, of whatever class, are servants so far as persons of the opposite sex in their own class are concerned. The women of Japan to-day form the great servile class, and, as they are also the wives and mothers of those whom they serve, they are treated, of course, with a certain consideration and respect never given to a mere servant; and through them, all domestic service is elevated.[*]

There are two employments which I have mentioned among those of domestic servants because they would be so classed by us, but which in Japan rank among the trades. The jinrikisha man and the groom belong, as a rule, to a certain class at the bottom of the social ladder, and no samurai would think of entering either of these occupations, except under stress of severest poverty. The bettōs, or grooms, are a hereditary class and a regular guild, and have a reputation, among both Japanese and foreigners, as a betting, gambling, cheating, good-for-nothing lot. An honest bettō is a rare phenomenon. The jinrikisha men are, many of them, sons of peasants, who come to the cities for the sake of earning more money, or leading a livelier life than can be found in the little thatched cottage among the rice-fields. Few of them are married, or have homes of their own. Many of them drink and gamble, and sow their wild oats in all possible ways; but they are a well-meaning, fairly honest, happy-go-lucky set, who lead hard lives of exhausting labor, and endure long hours of exposure to heat and cold, rain, snow, and blinding sunshine, not only with little complaint or grumbling, but with absolute cheerfulness and hilarity. A strong, fast jinrikisha man takes great pride in his strength and speed. It is a point of honor with him to pull his passenger up the steepest and most slippery of hills, and never to heed him if he expresses a desire to walk in order to save his man. I have had my kurumaya stoutly refuse, again and again, my offers to walk up a steep hill, even when the snow was so soft and slippery under his bare feet that he fell three times in making the ascent. "Dai jobu" (safe) would be his smiling response to all my protestations; and, once in a jinrikisha, the passenger is entirely at the mercy of his man in all matters of getting into and out of the vehicle. But though the jinrikisha man is, for the time being, the autocrat and controlling power over his passenger, and though he will not obey the behests of his employer, except so far as they seem reasonable and in accordance with the best interests of all concerned, he constitutes himself the protector and assistant, the adviser and counselor, of him whom he serves, and gives his best thought and intelligence, as well as his speed and strength, to the service in which he is engaged. If he thinks it safe, he will tear like an unbroken colt through the business portions of the city, knocking bundles out of the hands of foot passengers, or even hitting the wayfarers themselves in a fierce dash through their midst, laughing gayly at their protests, and at threats of wrath to come from his helpless passenger; but should hint of insult or injury against kuruma, passenger, or passenger's dog fall upon his ears, he will drop the jinrikisha shafts, and administer condign punishment to the offender, unchecked by thoughts of the ever-present police, or by any terrors that his employer may hold over his head. In no other country in the world, perhaps, can a lady place more entire confidence in the honor and loyalty of her servant than she can in Japan in her kurumaya, whether he be her private servant, or one from a respectable stand. He may not do what she bids him, but that is quite a secondary matter. He will study her interests; will remember her likes and dislikes; will take a mental inventory of the various accessories or bundles that she carries with her, and will never permit her to lose or forget one of them; will run his legs off in her service, and defend her and her property valiantly in case of need. Of course, as in all classes there are different grades, so there are jinrikisha men who seem to have sunk so low in their calling that they have lost all feeling of loyalty to their employer, and only care selfishly for the pittance they gain. Such men are often found in the treaty ports, eagerly seeking for the rich foreigner, from whom they can get an extra fee, and whom they regard as outside of their code of morals, and hence as their natural prey. Travelers, and even residents of Japan, have often complained of such treatment; and it is only after long stay in Japan, among the Japanese themselves, that one can tell what a jinrikisha man is capable of.[*]

If you employ one kurumaya for any length of time, you come to have a real affection for him on account of his loyal, faithful, cheerful service, such as we seldom find in this country except when inspired by personal feeling. When you have ridden miles and miles, by night and by day, through rain and sleet and hottest sunshine, behind a man who has used every power of body and mind in your service, you cannot but have a strong feeling of affection toward him, and of pride in him as well. It is something the feeling that one has for a good saddle-horse, but more developed. You rejoice, not only in his strength and speed, put forth so willingly in your service; in his picturesque, dark blue costume with your monogram embroidered on the back; in his handsomely turned ankles; in his black, wavy hair; in his delicate hands and trim waist,—though these are often a source of pride to you,—but his skill in divining your wants; his use of his tongue in your service; his helping out of your faltering Japanese with explanations which, if not elegant, have the merit of being easily understood; his combats with extortionate shopkeepers in your behalf; his interest in all your doings and concerns,—remain as a pleasant memory, upon your return to a land where no man would so far forget his manhood as to give himself so completely and without reserve to the service of any master save Mammon.

As old Japan, with its quaintness, its mediæval flavor, its feudalism, its loyalty, its sense of honor, and its transcendental contempt for money and luxury, recedes into the past, and as the memories of my life there grow dim, two figures stand out