Author of "Things Seen in Japan"

A Birth in a Japanese Family - The Baby's Curious Presents - Naming a Child - Little Boys and

Girls in Japan - Their Dress and Schooldays - The Curriculum of a Girls' School - The Feast of

Dolls - Favourite Games - The Feast of Flags - How the People Enjoy a Festival

Unlike many Eastern nations, the Japanese make no particular distinction between the sexes at their birth. A Japanese baby, whether boy or girl, is received into the family circle with rejoicing ; and this notwithstanding the fact that only boys are able to perpetuate the family name, and to inherit titles and estates. In Japan girls are considered as having an almost equally important place in the family circle as have their brothers.

The Birthday Festivities

When a birth has occurred in a family, both the mother and infant during the first few weeks after the latter's arrival have a trying time of it. Neither of them gets much rest, for the baby is fussed over and handed from person to person, and talked to, in a way that would make a Western mother tremble for its health, and even doubt its chance of ultimate survival.

The baby generally receives many presents, all of which have to be wrapped in white paper, on which some inscription has been written, and the parcel tied with a peculiar make of red and white paper string. Each gift is accompanied by a portion of noshi, or dried fish, carefully wrapped up in a piece of coloured paper.

The baby is named before the seventh day; and although there is no special ceremony connected with this event - the child's birth being merely inscribed at the office of registration of the district - the family and household make the day a holiday in honour of the name-giving.

One curious fact relative to this event is that the child seldom receives the name of a living member of the family or of any friend. To a boy the father's name, slightly modified, is given sometimes, and the names of long-dead ancestors are frequently used. As a general rule the father names the child, though in some instances a great friend or patron of the family may be asked to do so.

Naming The Baby

Girls' names are generally those of some beautiful object, such as flowers and trees, natural phenomena, such as sunshine, moonlight, snow, etc. ; whilst boys of the lower classes very frequently receive such descriptive names as Wolf, Bear, Fox, Rock, Deer, Eagle, etc.

On the thirty-first day of its life if a ooy, and on the thirty-third if a girl, the baby is taken to the temple, the ceremony which follows being called miya mairi. The little one is always dressed in its finest clothes of gay colours, of silk or crepe, and in various places upon the dresses the crest of the family is embroidered, as indeed on all ceremonial dresses for young and old alike.

Offerings are made to the god and to the priest, and in the case of families of high rank these are of an elaborate and costly nature. On this day, too, the family usually sends some acknowledgment of the presents which have been received at the time of the baby's birth or since that event.

Japanese Dress

Japanese babies, whether girls or boys, are dressed very much alike, and are quaint and interesting little beings - as a rule very good-tempered and easy to manage. Babies of the common people are, within a very few weeks of birth, carried about tied to the back of some member of the family, who is generally an elder sister or a brother.

One would scarcely think that this was a comfortable thing for the baby, and one frequently indeed sees infants of only three or four weeks' old, when tied to the backs of their little nurses (many of whom are not more than eight or nine), with nodding heads and blinking eyes, but generally with a good-tempered smile lighting up their little faces.

Babies and Japanese children generally live almost entirely in the open air. When it is very cold, the sisters' or brothers' haori, or coat, serves not only as an extra covering for its wearer, but for baby also.

One result of Japanese babies living so much in public is that very early in life they have an intelligent and interested look, and seem to watch and enjoy the games of other children. .

Of course, the babies of the middle and upper classes have nurses or nursemaids to carry them about on their backs until they are able to run by themselves ; but these children are not much seen in the streets, since most middle-class Japanese have pleasant, if usually small, gardens to their houses.

Babies of the upper and noble classes are never borne about on the backs of nurses, but are either carried in the arms, Western fashion, or wheeled in European perambulators.

A Paradise for Children

The Japanese home, with its soft matted floors and freedom from superfluous ornaments and furniture, is a perfect paradise for babies and small children, who with their little feet covered with soft tabi, or socks, with a separate pocket for each toe, can toddle and tumble about without risk of hurting themselves or doing damage to the furniture.

At first the Japanese baby finds it difficult to walk in the street on geta, or clogs, after being used to walk with feet only covered by tabi. But as it has had some experience of balancing when tied to its little nurse's back, it speedily becomes accustomed to trotting about on its little wooden clogs, which have straps passing through the toes to attach them to its feet.

Although in babyhood boys and girls are dressed alike, the distinction between their dress begins quite early, the boys being dressed in soberer colours - greys, browns, darker blues, and greens ; whilst the little girls wear the most gorgeous of tints and largest of patterns on kimonos, the predominant colour being red. White is mourning colour in Japan, and one never sees small children dressed in it.