learning sukoshi Japanese, let us say, and having takusan fun doing it. But let's face it. sentence construction.
I shall never learn the proper Not when "If it's convenient to you this morning" becomes, literally, "Your convenience if good today morning how is it?" Not when Kyobashi Cousin, as king Goto-san for a drink of water, says, "Water one glass wish to receive the thing is."
Tondemonai-never hoppen!
Tokyo, I rove you, and approach to you having become glad am, but cart the horse putting before confusing is....
Long
After
Lafcadio
JAPAN is many things to many people, but so are the colors in a kaleidoscope. When Papa-san came, long after Lafcadio Hearn, there was industrial soot on the landscape, and huge cities sprawled drably over what must have been green and flowering hills. There is little of loveliness about humanity in the mass anywhere, and Japan is sorely overpopulated. But here and there, even in the crowded metropolis, beauty peeps out of the tiny, walled gardens, and it is all the more appealing for being done in miniature and with a great simplicity. And almost everywhere in the cities, the centuries clash in a battle of vivid contrasts.
Papa-san's tour here probably would be considered wasted time by many a seasoned globe-trotter or serious student. He tried to learn the language, and failed. He will take with him no glossy memories of travel folders and resort hotels, escalator-equipped department stores on the Ginza, or chromium and combo night clubs in Shimbashi. He has visited neither museums nor art galleries, and not many historical shrines. Any culture Papa-san may have absorbed is of a humbler brand. The Japan he will remember is that of small, poverty-ridden villages along roads that are always either dusty or muddy; of people incessantly stooping, incessantly toiling in the tiny fields; of millions of umbrellas blossoming somberly in the slanting rain; of multitudes of sober-faced, button-eyed children in school uniforms, each with knapsack; of bicycles carrying incredible burdens; and of people, people, people....
There are a thousand districts in Tokyo which resemble a ukiyoe print at twilight, when the little un-painted houses seem to huddle closer together against the approaching dark, each with its translucent, latticed window. Wood-smoke smells drift from thousands of hibachi's; the purple shadows deepen; and geta's make their ringing click-clack on cobblestones—each pair somehow managing to sound like a shod horse in a walk. Then the noodle flutes lift their haunting, sad-sweet cry down the dusty alleyways, and the dogs start barking.
It is in such a district that Goto-san and Richi-san and all the many cousins live. Until you know them, out of all the millions, it is a little difficult to think of the Japanese as individuals; the mass of humanity is too great.
One doesn't knock. Papa-san slides back the shoji and stands on the cold cement of the entrance, among rows of parked geta's. He puts down four or five conversation dictionaries and other language aids, along with the box of Stateside cookies brought as his contribution to the evening's refreshment, and essays to announce his arrival in Japanese:
"Komban wa!"
That much is easy, because anyone can say "Good evening" without getting all mixed up in the construction.
Richi-san answers, "Komban wa! Yoku irasshai-mashita," which means that I am welcome. It is just as well that we drop all pretense at that point and attempt to converse in broken English, because when I remove my shoes and am offered a cushion, I am supposed to say—in Japanese—"Ever various kindnesses I receive." And she would come back with, "Don't mention, this side that owes," and hand me a cup of honorable tea, saying, "Tea even just take do." That way, as you can readily see, lies madness....
The class assembles. It has taken Papa-san a while to understand that his zabuton, or cushion, is in a very special place, and that he would offend his hosts if he failed to sit there. This is in front of the alcove, called tokonoma, and in it hangs a scroll, or kakemono, just to confuse Papa-san so that he can never remember which is which.
We drink the honorable tea. Goto-san, with all the pride of a small boy, presents Papa-san with an enlarged crayon portrait made from a small photograph. It is an excellent job, and Papa-san tries to express his thanks. They are all the more sincere because it was through a friend's recommendation that Goto-san be allowed to do the portrait that Papa-san met these people in the first place. And Goto-san, in Japanese, says, "Your thanks to apologize do," which is a modest if slightly confusing way of telling me the portrait is really very unworthy.
Then some light conversation. Richi-san chats for a moment with Goto-san and Yoshi-san, both of whom seem worked up about something. She translates:
"Papa-san?"
"Yes?"
"Housemaster ba-ad heart, I sink so."
"Bad heart? You mean the landlord—the owner of this house? You mean he's sick? I'm sorry to hear that."
"Not sickness, Papa-san! Papa-san not sorree speaking! Ba-ad heart!"
The meaning become clear. Goto-san is a private chauffeur for a well-to-do man who owns this stonewalled enclosure and lives in the bigger house next to this small cottage. He is plainly an evil man and probably grinds the faces of the poor. He has a bad heart?
"Yiss, Papa-san. Housemaster too muchee money making, but verree stingee, Papa-san! Verree small car—cheap car!"
Goto-san laughs, and draws his finger across his throat suggestively. I understand that—so I think. What laborer worthy of his hire has not longed to do that to his boss?
"Housemaster's wife, Papa-san, verree—'hat you say? Japanese speaking netamashii. Understand, Papa-san?"
Quick, Watson-san, the dictionary! Nessuru, heat; nesugosu, oversleep—here we are—netamashii—envious, jealous.
"Jealous?" I ask.
"Yiss, Papa-san—verree jerrous. Beecause Papa-san's car verree nice, cost too muchee money. She's speaking Papa-san's car don' stay this prace."
"Oh!" I say. "You mean the housemaster's wife doesn't want me to park my car inside the gate? Well—all right. I'll move it. I'll put it outside in the street."
"No, Papa-san. Tonight all right, can stay. Today morning Goto-san speaking, verree angry, don' stay housemaster's job."
Again Goto-san makes that gesture, and I realize, with some horror, that he has just quit his job—he has just cut his own throat, economically speaking—out of loyalty to a friend of two weeks, and a foreigner, at that! Even worse, perhaps, is the fact that he will lose this house, which went with the job, at a time when there simply are no houses to be found.
"But, look—you can't do that, Goto-san! I'll go to the housemaster and apologize—I'll tell him the car will never be inside the gate again. You must not quit your job!"
"Already finish, Papa-san," Richi-san says. "Papa-san 'ant more koppu of tea?"
Weakly, I have another "cuppa" of tea, wondering if I have not just had thrust upon me the responsibility for support of a Japanese couple. Luckily, Goto-san and Yoshi-san have no children, but only a bobtailed cat named Chako. Goto-san, however, seems singularly un-worried. He is eyeing me and rattling off a stream of Japanese at the interlocutor.
"Papa-san?"
"Yes, Richi-san?"
"Goto-san speaking iffa Papa-san in Japanese army, maybe sergeant, Beecause Papa-san verree tar."
"Very what?"
"Tar!" and she makes a gesture to indicate height. Tall.
Which may prove that the old Japanese army was like old armies the world over—the sergeant was the man big enough to beat hell out of any of the corporals and privates. Things have changed....
There is a single flower in a vase on the table, and Papa-san, who doesn't know much about flowers in the first place,