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Updated: June 5, 2025
Meantime they all stand, gaily expectant, smiling affably. I explain to Yosoji that we can't undress before the crowd, and he seems to think my ideas most extraordinary. In Japan people always bathe in a garment and have not the least objection to doing it in full view of the street.
Later in the afternoon, coming out again from our hotel, we find Yosoji waiting for us, and we tell him we want to walk about on foot to look at some of the shops. He protests, and we can see he thinks us almost out of our minds to suggest going on foot. He pleads earnestly that rickshaws are very cheap.
It is a good thing we have Yosoji with us, for certainly we could never have discovered the name of the station for ourselves. We see a long scroll covered with Chinese characters, and other smaller scrolls ornamented in the same way, these are, of course, the name of the station and the inscriptions on various waiting-rooms, but they leave us none the wiser.
The man opposite does not for a moment think really that England is to be compared with Japan, but in Japan people are taught to talk like that, and must often think us very rude and abrupt. It is not a long journey, and after an hour or so of passing through pretty, hilly country, with many bushy pine trees dotted about, we stop at a station which Yosoji says is our destination.
I have no moral courage; I don't know if you have more, anyway, let us take two and then they can follow us if they like, and the others will go away. Accordingly we give orders to Yosoji, who bows, only half-satisfied, and interprets our orders. The plan works, the other men slink off, and the two selected ones follow us limply at a foot's pace.
There is no other furniture at all, but when our luggage is brought up we can sit on the baskets. We explain to Yosoji that we would greatly like first, a hot bath, after the heat and dust of the journey, and next some food. Presently in comes the little Japanese maid whom we saw on her face at the door in company with her master and mistress.
In order to reckon the change the old lady takes up a frame with beads strung across it on wires; I believe it's called an abacus, and they use them in kindergarten schools to teach children to count. She must be an ignorant old dame, and yet she looks wholly respectable. I wonder what Yosoji thinks of it. When we look at him he is quite demure and solemn and doesn't seem to notice anything odd.
Having lit a Chinese lantern at one end of the room before the little picture recess, a sacred place in every Japanese household, the maid retires for the night, and so does Yosoji. Only then do we discover that for pillows they have given us tiny wooden stools, not unlike the national clogs, only slightly larger!
After a long expostulation with Yosoji we are allowed to have the outer shutters open an inch or two, though he explains they must be shut and bolted before we go to bed at night or the police will be down upon us. There are two loose, flowing Jap gowns lying ready for our use, and very delightful they are. As they are quite clean we slip into them instead of coats and laugh across at each other.
As Yosoji unpacks the lunch he tells us these are Shinto shrines put up in honour of the god of rice. It seems very appropriate to hear this now, just as we are going to fare merrily on hard-boiled eggs, a tiny chicken, and plenty of rice, finishing up with those astonishing bright-coloured cakes, which we have learnt to eat without fear.
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