| | 121 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Japanese War News by Word o`Mouth  | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | In Japan, story-telling is an old and popular calling.
The professional story-tellers have their particular halls
where at the present moment hundreds congregate to listen to
war news. True, the Japanese story-teller does not attract
the more refined or highly educated people, but so popular
is he with the masses (who can seldom afford to attend the
theatre), that he may be classed among the most interesting
of those who live to please and instruct. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 123 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | The Marriage of Okiku-San | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Miss Kiku Taguchi was not an ordinary young lady. Her
father, a pompous, important individual, entertained a
distinct contempt for her insignificant sex. His wife was a
mere nonentity, a puppet, who vaguely repeated, parrot-like,
the paradoxes voiced by her lord. Hence, when this same lord
emphatically expressed his opinion concerning the proper
education for a female—this within twelve hours after the
birth of Okiku-san, Lady Taguchi assented, and promised
things. The result was a girl of naturally independent and
original disposition, trammeled by the contracted rules
common for women in Japan half a century before. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 124 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | An Oriental Holiday | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | What Christmas is to the Westerners, New Year's is to the Japanese, although congratulations and greetings
are not merely confined to the first day of the New Year, but at any time between the first and fifteenth. This
is the time of universal peace and good will in Japan; when the inhabitants of the little Empire prepare to start
life anew, with all bad feelings done away with and fine promises and resolutions for the future. In fact, the
first of January bears the significant title of Gan-san (the Three Beginnings), meaning
the beginning of the year, the beginning of the month and the beginning of the day. One might be tempted to add
to this "The beginning of a new life," for so realistically and conscientiously do the Japanese try to observe
the almost national rule of striving earnestly to make themselves better at this time that it becomes an almost
literal belief with them that they have succeeded. That is a pretty truth, I think—that a good belief
generally tends to make the good reality. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 125 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Miss Perfume | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Mr. Albemarle Haug struck an attitude, his feet wide
apart, his monocle fixed in his left eye. He twirled his
small, incipient mustache with one hand and his cane with
the other. He cleared his throat with a prolonged “Ahem!,”
looked knowing, and then said, “Ohayo!” with an unmistakable
accent. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 126 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | The Pot of Paint | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | To a Portuguese great-grandfather the face of Moonshine
owed its peculiar beauty. Moonshine had heard of this
ancestor; a blot he was to her upon the proud Japanese
genealogy of her family, despite the fact that he had been
one of those remarkable Portuguese who brought to Japan the
first knowledge of Western science. When her Japanese
friends remarked that her eyes were yellow instead of black
and her hair waved barbarously, she would apologize very
humbly. But to the few foreigners whom she chanced to meet
in Nagasaki, Moonshine traded on her nationality in order to
win their favor. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 128 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | A Rhapsody on Japan | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | "Japan is not a land where men need pray, for 'tis itself divine," sang the poet Hitomara more than a
thousand years ago, and another clever Japanese writer said: "Holding the brush of infinite genius the Creator
began to work upon his canvas—the universe. A touch of his finger produced land and sea, beautiful and
sublime. When his hand moved on, there in the farthest east of the world a land was raised out of water. I know
not why, but the painter favored this land with a special color. 'Japan' they call it—surnamed 'The Land of
Sunrise.'" | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 129 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | The Wife of Shimadzu | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | The Japanese consul smiled at the dyspeptic pathos
manifest in the countenance of the little figure that had
presented itself within his inner office. On the appealing
features there were traced unmistakable lines of peculiar
pain. Occasionally their momentary rigidity was disturbed by
acute spasms. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 130 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Shizu`s New Year`s Present | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It was New Year's Eve. A gentle snow was falling everywhere and it was quite cold outdoors. Nevertheless, the
people were laughing and chatting happily everywhere, and the fading sunset lingered lovingly about their happy,
smiling faces. The treasure vendor came proudly along on his cart, calling his wares aloud, and stopping every
once in a while to make a sale. A gay party of geisha girls, with arms linked happily about each other, passed
down the main street, chatting and whispering and laughing together. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 131 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | The Story of Ido | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Ido worked in the neighboring silk mill. He was tall and lithe and strong, and the sun reflected in his hair and eyes. Every one in the little town knew his history, but no one knew Ido himself; for, although he worked among them and in their midst, yet he had always held himself aloof. When Ido had been a little boy at school, he had been very unhappy, because his school-mates had laughed and jeered at his strangely-tinted hair and blue eyes. With an American or English boy they would have understood, and perhaps never even noticed it particularly; but with a Japanese——? And when Ido was only fifteen years old his mother had died, and he was left utterly alone in the world. In the daytime he worked at the mill; at night he studied the English language. Far away across the waters lived his father's people. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 133 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Miss Spring Morning | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It was a humid, sultry day in the Season of Little
Plenty. In the house of Captain Taganouchi, complete comfort
was found on the upper floor of the house, an immense
chamber, from which, by order of the master, all the walls
had been removed, making of it an open pavilion. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 135 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Tokiwa: A Tale of Old Japan | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | For fourteen consecutive days she had remained before the
shrine, eating no food, drinking little water, sleeping not.
Mechanically she went through the monotonous motions,
bending her body back and forth, until it seemed like some
mechanical puppet, working clock-like back and forth, her
parched, weary lips uttering only the feeble common prayer
of the devout Buddhist: Namu, Amida Butsu!” (“Save us,
Eternal Buddha!”) | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 136 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | An Unexpected Grandchild | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | All afternoon she had pored over the story. Now, as she
closed the book, her face still held its absorbed expression
of pain. Her cheek-bones were flushed, her eyes snapped
feverishly. She looked as if she wanted to express her
thoughts violently to somebody. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 137 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Yoshida Yone, Lover | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | It was five years since Yoshida Yone had come to New York.
He was essentially a son of New Japan, eager, ambitious,
intensely curious and interested in all pertaining to
learning and advancement. Everything in the Western world at
first enthused and delighted him. He began at once to master
the English language thoroughly, then to study the people.
He adopted their dress, copied their mannerisms and habits,
and even endured the misery of initiating himself into the
mysteries of what his suite termed “barbarous food.” At the
end of three years he was a typical Americanized Japanese. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
| 138 | Author: | Watanna, Onoto, 1879-1954 | Add | | | Title: | Where the Young Look Forward to Old Age | | | | Published: | 2004 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | | | | Description: | Perhaps one of the sweetest characteristics of the
Japanese is their innate love, obedience, and respect for
their parents. The Japanese character in this respect has
not its parallel the world over. To a Japanese the word
“duty” might be said to be the most significant word in the
language. But the Japanese interpretation of the word has a
far different meaning to the generally accepted one. Duty,
to a Japanese, means not merely obedience and discipline,
but strong, sweet, cultivated, parental devotion. I use the
word “cultivated” because this feeling has been and is
cultivated in Japan. Nevertheless it does not lose its
naturalness. On the contrary, this devotion of the young for
the old—the adoration of the parent by the child—becomes a
natural cultivation. It is exemplified not only in the
larger and formal acts of Japanese life, but in the minutest
and smallest detail. The little Japanese child obeys without
question, and generally in a lovable, willing manner, the
gentle “demand” of its parents, and even in cases where the
parents are harsh the natural love of authority is still
there and the child is obedient. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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