Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories

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Ayrton Matilda Chaplin. Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories

INTRODUCTION

SEVEN SCENES OF CHILD-LIFE IN JAPAN

FIRST MONTH

THE CHRYSANTHEMUM SHOW

FISHSAVE

THE FILIAL GIRL

THE PARSLEY QUEEN.14

THE TWO DAUGHTERS

SECOND SIGHT

GAMES

THE GAMES AND SPORTS OF JAPANESE CHILDREN20

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In almost every home are Japanese fans, in our shops Japanese dolls and balls and other knick-knacks, on our writing-tables bronze crabs or lacquered pen-tray with outlined on it the extinct volcano [Fuji San]1 that is the most striking mountain seen from the capital of Japan. At many places of amusement Japanese houses of real size have been exhibited, and the jargon of fashion for "Japanese Art" even reaches our children's ears.

Yet all these things seem dull and lifeless when thus severed from the quaint cheeriness of their true home. To those familiar with Japan, that bamboo fan-handle recalls its graceful grassy tree, the thousand and one daily purposes for which bamboo wood serves. We see the open shop where squat the brown-faced artisans cleverly dividing into those slender divisions the fan-handle, the wood-block engraver's where some dozen men sit patiently chipping at their cherry-wood blocks, and the printer's where the coloring arrangements seem so simple to those used to western machinery, but where the colors are so rich and true. We see the picture stuck on the fan frame with starch paste, and drying in the brilliant summer sunlight. The designs recall vividly the life around, whether that life be the stage, the home, insects, birds, or flowers. We think of halts at wayside inns, when bowing tea-house girls at once proffer these fans to hot and tired guests.

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The games and sports of Japanese children have been so well described by Professor Griffis, that we give, as an Appendix, his account of their doings.

Some of the tops are formed of short pieces of bamboo with a wooden peg put through them, and the hole cut in the side makes them have a fine hum as the air rushes in whilst they spin.

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