The Foundations of Japan - Notes Made During Journeys Of 6,000 Miles In The Rural Districts As - A Basis For A Sounder Knowledge Of The Japanese People by J.W. Robertson Scott
page 52 of 766 (06%)
page 52 of 766 (06%)
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partially under control and may injure a pedestrian--unwittingly, I am
sure, for the gentleness of the ox and even of the bull in harness arrests one's attention. Many Y.M.A.s devote themselves to cultivating improved qualities of rice or to breaking up new land. Sometimes the land of the Shinto shrine is cultivated. I have heard of Y.M.A.s in remote parts having handed over to them the exclusive sale of _saké_. I find a Y.M.A. counselling its members "not to speak vulgar words in a crowd." There is also among the members of Y.M.A.s a certain addiction to diary keeping for moral as well as economic purposes. The diaries are distributed by the associations and "afterwards examined and rewarded"--a plan which would hardly work in the West. There are Y.M.A.s which make a point of seeing off conscripts with flags and music. Others have fallen on the more economical plan of "writing to the conscript as often as possible and helping with labour the family which is suffering from the loss of his services." By some Y.M.A.s "old people are respected and comforted." More than one association has a practice of serving out red and black balls to its members at the opening of every new year, when good resolutions are in order, and at the end of the year recalling either the red or the black according to the degree to which the publicly announced good resolutions have been kept. Among the good resolutions are: to worship at the Shinto shrine or the Buddhist temple regularly, to be tidier, to be more efficient in cropping the land, to undertake work for the common good, to have a secondary occupation in addition to farming, to sit with more decorum at meals, to rise earlier, to visit the graves of ancestors monthly, to be more considerate to parents or elder brothers, and "not to remain idly at people's houses." One Y.M.A. decrees that a member found in a tea-house in conversation |
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