3: July 28,1917 Nagasaki: Trip to Michinoo

This is the first date since his arrival in Japan about which the chronicler is at all certain. By carefully comparing two calendars, the date of the morning newspaper (which is a day late, coming as it does from Kobe), a review of empty medicine bottles; all verified by a visit to the bank; the Pilgrim is convinced that to-day is indeed the 28th of July of this year of dis-grace and universal lack of brotherly love, 1917.

Embankment

The domestic powers that be, decided that the day be devoted to a trip to Michinoo, a picturesque little spot, nestling in a valley, the slopes of the surrounding mountains being clothed with verdure to their summits.

At Michinoo is a reputed 'radium spring,' the waters of which have been prescribed for the Pilgrim's benefit and in addition to a little outing for the benefit of a convalescent, this spring was the objective of the visit.
With regard to the medicinal virtues ascribed to the bath, the Pilgrim had a very open mind of the most pronounced wait and see character but opined that the presence of radium was confined solely to the name, in gilt letters, which was displayed on the facade of the bath-house.

In this land, however, doctors are tyrants and as a rule, their instructions are rigidly followed out, especially in cases where the condition of the patient is such that compliance is easier than argument. So, to Michinoo, to soak in some radium.

Drydock

After disrobing at a Japanese hotel which caters excellently for Foreign visitors, the Pilgrim was taken in hand, literally as well as figuratively, by a pretty and vivacious nesan and convoyed to the bath-house some distance away, progress through the village being rendered the more in-teresting and spectacular by vain attempts to keep his limbs covered by a wholly inadequate yukata with which the breeze was disporting.

The comments of small boys and the critical observation of their elders also were not conductive towards the maintenance of a dignified composure and the open portal of the bath-house was hailed with a sigh of relief.
Ushered into the bath-room, after availing himself of the usual proffered assistance, the pilgrim lay back in the tub and took stock of his surroundings.
The bath-room was quite an elaborate affair; white marble, ditto encaustic tiles, stone and terazza work, with everything of that exquisite cleanliness so characteristically Japanese.
Sunk in the flooring were two tile-lined baths, large and small. The former contained hot water, the small one being icy cold, a continuous stream of water was running into both, thus keeping the water renewed and the radium at full horse-power.
No radium was visible to the undraped eye but, just the same, it seemed a highly regrettable happening that so much of it should be permitted to run to waste, so to speak.
Half an hour was the time specified by the domestic authorities for the absorption of the radium emanations and emerging from the bath after the lapse of that period, it was decided to be contented with the hot bath and to rub fit, or have rubbed in, all the radium possible with the towels, and not wash it all off by a dip in the cold water.
Therein, it transpired, the pilgrim erred but it was not until well on the way to the base that he learned that the hot bath, while being "grateful and comforting," was of the ordinary bath-house vintage, the radium bath being in the cold tub. Thus were the medical and domestic mandates complied with and, possibly, another useful life was thereby preserved.
The dissipations of the day were "tapered off" by a visit to one of the local cinemas, a visit which proved to be a most interesting and entertaining experience. The katsudo shashin is a great institution in Japan, where it differs in many respects from the cinema-show as the Occidental knows it. In the first place, in Japan the audience get full value for their money, as the show begins at 6 p.m. and finishes about 11.
A novel feature of the "outfit," is the presence of a number of actors seated in "pews" at the side of the proscenium who are, in effect, a modern Greek chorus. These are the katsuben or benshi and usually consist of experienced actors and mimics whom the extreme popularity of the cinema at the expenses of the "legitimate" has drawn to the former. Each of these benshi takes one or more speaking parts in the play as depicted on the screen and, armed with "the book," on which a carefully shaded light falls, they play their parts, carefully following the movements of the lips and the gestures of the character they are interpreting on the screen, the result being "talking pictures." The is perfect and to all - the members of the audience seated in the immediate proximity, possibly excepted - the voices seem to be those of the characters on the screen, an illusion which makes the film much more interesting than it might be otherwise.
This is an innovation that might be adopted by Occidental cinema-showmen, as the resultant pictures are far in advance of the mechanical "talking pictures" which were exhibited at Shanghai a year or so ago and about which so much fuss was made.
During the run of a Foreign film, a functionary occupying what for the want of a better name, might be termed the prompter's box, explains the story as it unfolds to those in the audience who are unable to read the "annunciations" as they are screened.

Oura-machi

This leads to situations highly incongruous to the Occidental eye and ear, as, for example, in the, case of the Charlie Chaplin film that was shown. It looked and sounded weird to listen to the great comedian delivering his witticisms in pure Japanese and had Charlie and his fellow-players happened to drop in at the show, they would have marvelled muchly to see his pictorial presentment raise the famous billycock, the while he murmured "Ohayo de gozaimasu," Charlie, it seems, has many enthusiastic admirers, as his appearance on the screen is hailed with satisfaction and the laughs are long and hearty. Another pleasing feature of the local cinema is the absence of the "interval."

You pay your money here to see pictures, not to gaze for some ten minutes at an announcement of half time or, that somebody's cocoa "won't wash clothes."
By a fortuitous happening, among the pictures screened was a selection from that Japanese classic, the "Chusinguara," epic of the 47 ronins.
Most foreigners resident in the Orient know the argument of this, perhaps the greatest of Japanese dramas, but those desirous of further information are referred to Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan," where in it is set forth with a wealth of interesting detail.
In the picture presented, the costumes, arms and armour of the samurai, &c., are copied with scrupulous exactitude, the interiors being especially interesting. As the whole of the story is too long for exhibition at one performance, only a portion was screened, the remainder appearing serially, night after night. Amid tense excitement, the audience feasted upon all the battles, murders and sudden deaths that could be crammed into several thousand metres of film, the popular taste being rather morbid on the whole.
The concluding items on the programme consisted of purely Japanese scenes and productions - not of the type which amused Hankow some months ago when on the screen was depicted the somewhat remarkable spectacle of "The English Navy Marches on to the War," but tragic events in modern Japanese life.
The local taste in the Drama inclines strongly towards "action." Beller-drama, in fact and fights, judo, automatic pistols and chucking ladies wholesale over precipices, down into raging torrents, would seem to figure largely among the prevailing amenities of modern Japanese society.
Someone appears to be either shooting somebody else, shooting him, or her, self, opening up his internal economy with a butcher's knife (presumably to see the "wheels go round") or otherwise participating in an active policy of eliminating the superfluous person.
As for the ladies; on the screen they appear to consist of two distinct types, the very good and the ditto otherwise. On the slightest provocation, they either go in for heroics, or burst into floods of tears, these latter are of the "clinging vine" type, most of whom are wandering around promiscuously, in search of a lost child or two, "swopped" or stolen in its infancy.
Of one of the pictures screened, a careful tally was taken and it was found that in the first couple of hundred feet the shot, stabbed, or otherwise prepared raw material for the undertaker in the absence of any Japanese "Ahfall-Verwerting Gesellschaft," amounted to 48.
Enquiries of one of the attendant refreshment Hebes, elicited the information that there was no private cemetery attached to the theatre, nor was it necessary for the management to close the establishment twice a week to attend to the casualties, carry out the dead, or mop up the "blug" from under the stage.
On returning to the base, the pilgrim listened sleepily to a homily upon the absurdity of asking foolish questions.

Chusinguara - Takami-no-Kami Asano attacks Kosuke Kira

Chusinguara - Death of Kira

Chusinguara - After the surrender, Oishi leaves the castle

Chusinguara - Seppuku of Takami-no-Kami