dren were always very friendly, and curious about the queer ways of the foreigners, and sometimes would crowd around us so that we could hardly walk along the street. One of the first words we learned was from the children, who, whatever the time of day, would eagerly call to us, “Ohayo!” This is pronounced just like the name of the State of Ohio, and means, “Oh, honorably early!” which is the Japanese way of saying good morning.
Until they are four or five years old the hair of the boys and girls is cut exactly alike, round a bowl, and strangers can’t tell them apart, though I suppose their friends don’t have any trouble. Presently the little boy’s hair is cut off, and the little girl’s is done up with long wooden hair-pins on the top of her head just like her mother’s. The gay-flowered kimonos are laid aside for sober ones of dark blue, and boy and girl clatter off on their noisy geta to school. I need n’t tell you what the schools are like, because they are just as much like our schools as the government can make them, and the children learn not only our language but our games, from kindergarten plays to tennis and football.
The Japanese have a queer way of celebrating birthdays. Instead of a party in June for little Tama, and a party in September for little O’Tatsu, and a party in December for little Ume, there’s a party in February in honor of all little girls, and one in May for all little boys. In February every little girl receives from all her grown-up relatives and friends gifts of dolls, and beside these dolls her mother takes out of the closet many of the dolls she had when she was a child, and some even older dolls that the little girl’s grandmother had when she was a little tot; and I dare say there are dolls that belonged to the little girl's great. grandmother, and even her great-great-grandmother, quaint dolls in faded clothes of a hundred years and more ago, carefully handed down from mother to daughter ever since. I saw one old doll, about six inches tall, dressed as a daiio, or great lord of bygone times, in gorgeous brocade robes, covered with steel armor of little overlapping plates, just as beautifully made as if for areal warrior. He wore a tiny helmet, and carried two tiny swords not as large as matches. You could draw the swords out of their scabbards just like real ones, and they were as sharp as they could be. Well, for about a week all Japan is one grand dolls’ tea-party! And then the festival is over, and all the best dolls, even the presents to the little girl, are put carefully away, never to be even looked at for a whole year. I don’t see how the little Japanese girls can bear that part of it.
Then at the first of May comes the boys’ festival—the Fish Festival, it is called. Every family that ’s lucky enough to have a boy puts up a flagpole in the dooryard; or perhaps several families combine to use the same pole, and have it a bigger, handsomer one than one family could afford. On the top of the pole is a gilt ball, or else a basket with something bright and tinselly in it. And flying from the pole, in the brisk spring winds, is a whole string of carp, made of oiled paper or cloth, painted in bright colors, and anywhere from five to fifteen feet long. Each fish belongs to some particular boy, and the carp is chosen because it is a big, strong fish, and not only can swim against the most rapid currents, but in its eagerness to get upstream will leap straight up waterfalls. The gold ball means a treasure, which the carp, leaping and struggling, buffeted by the wind, is forever trying to reach. And the whole thing means that the boy, when he ’s a man, will have to battle his way as the sturdy carp struggles up the river. The fishes look so very pretty and gay, flying over his house, and the boy gets so many treats at Fish Festival time, that I don’t think he minds even if the carp is a nice little jolly lecture on ambition.
