use. These instruments, moreover, are now being manufactured by the Japanese. Individuals, bands, and orchestras, trained under foreign supervision, furnish music, both instrumental and vocal, for private and public entertainments; and concerts in European style are becoming very popular.
It used to be that no evening entertainment was considered complete without the dancing-girls (geisha),[1] whose presence is never conducive to morality. But a strong effort is now being made, even in non-Christian circles, to banish these evil features of social entertainments. The Occidental mixed dances have not yet met with great favor, except that in the court circle, which is cosmopolitan, quadrilles, waltzes, etc., are encouraged.
The manners and customs, especially in the large cities, are undergoing considerable Occidentalizing, which results at first in an amusing mixture, or a queer hybrid. This is particularly true of social functions in official or high life. It is, of course, true that the great mass of the people, the "lower classes," are not yet to any great extent affected by the social changes in the world above their reach and ken, and still conduct their social intercourse more Japonico, that is, in the approved methods of their ancestors; but in the life of the middle and upper classes, and especially in official functions, the influence of Occidental manners and customs is quite marked.
- ↑ See Norman's "Real Japan," chap. ix.
