A Low Voice Is Not Regarded As "A Most Excellent Thing," In Man At
Least, Among The Lower Classes In Japan.
The people speak at the
top of their voices, and, though most words and syllables end in
vowels, the general effect of a conversation is like the discordant
gabble of a farm-yard.
The next room to mine is full of stormbound
travellers, and they and the house-master kept up what I thought
was a most important argument for four hours at the top of their
voices. I supposed it must be on the new and important ordinance
granting local elective assemblies, of which I heard at Odate, but
on inquiry found that it was possible to spend four mortal hours in
discussing whether the day's journey from Odate to Noshiro could be
made best by road or river.
Japanese women have their own gatherings, where gossip and chit-
chat, marked by a truly Oriental indecorum of speech, are the
staple of talk. I think that in many things, specially in some
which lie on the surface, the Japanese are greatly our superiors,
but that in many others they are immeasurably behind us. In living
altogether among this courteous, industrious, and civilised people,
one comes to forget that one is doing them a gross injustice in
comparing their manners and ways with those of a people moulded by
many centuries of Christianity. Would to God that we were so
Christianised that the comparison might always be favourable to us,
which it is not!
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