CHAPTER XI.

Among the recreations most fondly indulged in on the New Year holidays

is kite-flying. This is so well known here that I have often been

overwhelmed with questions regarding it by little Americans. Our kites

are mostly rectangular, with heroes or monsters painted on them in most

glaring colors. A wind instrument looking like a bow is sometimes

fastened to the kite, and when the kite is in the air the wind strikes

the string and makes a humming noise. At a kite fight the combatants

bring their flying kites in juxtaposition and strive to cut the string

by friction. Now and then an unfortunate, hero or monster, is seen

tossed about at the disposal of the wind, finding its fate upon the

water, the tree-tops, or I know not where. At the height of kite-flying

even those with more discretion enter into the full spirit of the young

and build prodigious kites. I have actually seen one so large that, when

flown high up on a fair windy day, the combined efforts of several men

could scarcely hold it. It was a hard-fought tug-of-war; after much ado,

with the aid of wrestlers and athletes, I remember, the monster was at

length secured to the main front oaken pillar of a great building. The

string fastened to such a kite is a strong twine hundreds of yards

long, yet it often gives way. And to fly such a kite on the streets of a

city is next to an impossibility; it will bump hard at houses and rake

down the tiles (our houses are roofed with tiles) over the heads of

passers-by; for which reason, it is always taken out to the open country

and afterwards brought into town when it has gone well up in the air.

What a mass of curious children surge beside the men who hold the kite

by the string as they walk home!

I have sat many an afternoon after school whittling the bamboo frame for

a modest kite. It was my most interesting employment; my father calls me

into another room to run on an errand for him; I hear him plainly, but

pretend otherwise and make him call repeatedly--ungrateful son! Upon

hearing him approach and perceiving longer delay to be impossible, I

break away from the agreeable occupation and emerge as cheerfully as I

can, "Yes, sir, father." He inquires what I was about, reproves me for

not answering him quickly and gives me to know that if I do not heed his

behest he will surely throw my kite into the fire. After such

interruptions, however, the important frame-work is done. Oh, what

satisfaction I feel over it! Then I go to the kitchen and wheedle Osan

into giving me a bit of boiled rice, which I make into paste on a piece

of board with a bamboo spatula. With the paste I put white paper on the

frame and leave it to dry. There are many little technical points in

kite construction, but those I refrain from entering into in detail.

When it is dry, I write on the kite confidentially with my own hand some

appropriate word, say, Zephyr, in lieu of picture. I now tie the string

and try its flight; it dashes at the eaves this way, pitches into the

latticed windows that way, twirls in mid-air like a tumbler-pigeon, and

in general behaves badly. Thereupon I take it down, add weight to the

lighter side, attach a tail and do all to insure balance and

equilibrium, and, then try it again.

Since coming to this country, the request has been put to me more than

once by little friends that I should make them a genuine Japanese kite.

But the want of tenacious paper and bamboo has always prevented me from

complying with their wish.

As I write on, by the association of ideas I call to mind an event which

greatly provoked me. I was fond of poking into and turning over old

things up in the garret, as I hinted before, or I had archæological

taste, to give it a dignified name. One day, much to my surprise, I came

upon an old kite frame perhaps six feet by five, good for further use. I

found it hidden behind a worm-eaten chest of drawers; it was

constructed, I discovered, when my uncle was a boy; everybody in the

house had forgotten all about it. I was instantly possessed with the

desire to boast of a big kite, now that the frame was ready; and as if

to help out my plan, some one recollected that the reel of string that

went with the kite was put away in one of the drawers. This I

immediately sought and found. These relics I guarded with great care

until a visit from my uncle, who resided in the same town, when I

produced them and got him to tell me about his kite. I could not have

done a better thing; his old playthings before him put my uncle in mind

of his boyhood; they created in him the wish to see them restored once

more to their former usefulness; and he promised me he would attend to

them himself.

Attend to them himself he did in a few days, taking as lively an

interest as I did. Having papered the frame, we carried it to a man who

painted show-bills. He painted on it a squatting Daruma in scarlet

canonical robe, holding the high-priest's mace, a staff with a long tuft

of white hair at one end, while the white untouched margin left by this

large figure was stained blue. It was a glorious kite; the picture of

Daruma, who was a great light of Buddhism, the founder of a new sect,

who sat and thought through his whole life, suffering no disturbance

from matters temporal--hence his _papier-mâché_ image on a hemisphere of

lead for the toy "tumbler;" Daruma, I started to say, looked out from

our kite with a pair of immense goggle eyes, shaded by prominent shaggy

eyebrows; a furrow ran down on either cheek from the side of his nose

toward the corners of his mouth; large Hindoostanee ear-rings hung from

the enlarged lobes of his ears; and I may here add that, notwithstanding

his reputed sedentary habits, he is always drawn as a holy man of strong

physical features.

So far, so good. My uncle, as might be anticipated, wanted to see how

our kite would fly. Accordingly, we got a big boy to hold it up for us

against the wind, and my uncle at a distance hold the string ready to

dash at a run. The signal was given, and away my uncle ran, and up rose

the kite. Breathlessly I was watching. But it no sooner rose than it

pitched sidewise and struck on the spikes upon the fences of the Mayor's

house. I lost my heart! I did not cry just yet; the catastrophe was too

big for utterance and too sudden: there was no time to weigh the

calamity. The men pulled at the kite, which, I say, had stuck fast on

the pointed black wooden bars bristling unmannerly in all possible

directions. I bore the spikes an inveterate enmity ever after, till one

day they were every one of them pulled down with the house, at which I

felt extreme satisfaction. The tearing noise of the kite, however, rent

my breast then; and the men, being persuaded at last of the futility of

their proceeding, brought forward a ladder, and my uncle mounted it

deliberately. I could not contain myself any longer; I ran into the

house, threw myself on the floor and wept bitterly. After that I turned

over the whole affair in my mind at leisure, lying on my back, studying

the ceiling and sucking my finger in baby fashion. The phantom of the

broken kite rose before me; I swallowed down my grief with difficulty.

Who brought it about? Nobody else but uncle; yes, if uncle had not

wished to try the kite it would not have happened. I whimpered afresh at

the painful thought; I now reproached my uncle as much as I formerly

thanked him. After a considerable lapse of time my uncle came in,

crestfallen, with the tattered kite. But in dudgeon I would not speak to

him or look at him: he very awkwardly endeavored to console me and with

difficulty coaxed me to accept his atonement in patching the rents. The

moisture of the glue, nevertheless, scattered the original colors and

disfigured the beautiful picture. I forget how I forgave him that.

But to resume the holiday games. Boys play a sort of ball--the "pass and

catch" part--with a good-sized dai-dai (lemon); we call it dai-dai

rolling. We give each other the "grounder" repeatedly, so that even the

hard-rinded Japanese fruit gets ruptured in a little time; then our

business is to beat about for a supply of the new balls, which we

invariably accomplish by knocking down the fruit from the unguarded

arches. The people generally take the prank in good part.

Girls play out-of-doors with battledore and shuttlecock; they also play

with cotton-balls, which they toss with their dainty hands against hard

floors. They keep the ball bounding rhythmically between the palm of

their hand and the floor, and hum songs in time with it.

At home and in the evening we play cards and other games. The favorite

game of cards consists in giving out the first lines of couplets and

endeavoring to pick out from the confusion of cards, in competition with

others of the company, the particular cards on which are written the

following lines; the one with the largest number of cards in the end is

declared the winner. This game has the commendable feature of impressing

on the mind celebrated poems; it is not merely time thrown away.

Japanese poems, I remark in passing, are short and pithy; the classic

"a Hundred Poems from a Hundred Poets" are characteristic and are

consequently printed for the purpose of the game. The selected poems of

the Tō dynasty, which in the annals of Chinese literature correspond to

the English Elizabethan period. I mean in development and not in

chronology, are substituted by scholars for the Japanese poems. We also

play a kind of parchesi and a form of the game of authors, but whist,

poker, casino, euchre, cribbage, etc., we know nothing of. Chess and

checkers the Japanese are expert in, but they are not New Year games.

Fireside conversation, kind words and hearts constitute the quiet

enjoyment and sunshine of the holidays. All things conspire to produce

in us serene and tranquil pleasure, but nothing worth recording occurs

in the remaining days. Some business-like briskness is manifested in the

early hours of the second morning, for tradesmen observe the ancient

custom of inaugurating the commerce of the opening year and give out

presents to their customers.

Later in the spring--I forget the exact date--all the straw ornaments,

withering wreaths and the like used in the decoration are brought

together and burnt up with religious care on a broad sandy river flat

just beyond the town. The day appointed for the rite is another gala-day

of the calendar, at least in Imabari. For some time previous to the

occasion, the straw relics of all the houses of a street are carefully

collected in one spot, and then such as are artists exercise ingenuity

to produce some recognizable shape out of the heap that may catch the

eye of spectators, on its way to the place of combustion. Street vies

with street in originality in fashioning the straw stack and takes care

not to divulge what it is constructing until the day of display, then it

ostentatiously raises the finished work, whatever it may be, on a high

movable platform or pedestal on wheels, which takes its position in the

line of march with those of the other streets. The whole town is curious

to know what is in the parade and rushes out to behold.

I recall only one among many things which my own street produced on such

occasions; it was a military cap and a trumpet joined together.

Innumerable sheets of gilt paper were wasted in giving the monstrous

form of a trumpet the appearance of bright, shining brass; the cap, too,

was wonderfully like the real imported thing. These barbarian outlandish

articles, having been adopted by the Japanese government at the time,

were exciting the attention and comments of the people; hence, the

striking reproduction of them on a greatly magnified scale made

everybody utter a little cry of surprise and admiration. I forget to

which of us the inspiration came.

The pedestal or platform has two large massive iron rings in front, to

which are tied stout ropes: the younger part of the inhabitants of the

street hang together in two rows and haul the decorated burden. Song and

chorus, and the heavy wheels creak onward a short distance, then stop:

song again and chorus; then another pause. Among the crowd we

occasionally meet a man carrying a bamboo stick, one end of which is

split and holds half-a-dozen hardened mochis. He intends to scorch the

cakes in the flames of the relics and, upon returning home, to divide

them among his family and eat them for the miraculous power they are

then believed to possess.

This is, in short, the manner in which we observe and end our great

national holiday of New Year. Of late, it is to be regretted, many of

the old customs are omitted by the people who have got modern notions

into their heads. Innovations of the latter days not very desirable or

in good taste are fast gaining ground. A few years more, and, I fear,

the neglect of time-honored observances will be complete in Japan.