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A picture of two Japanese carrying a big bucket on a pole which rests on their shoulders
In the tub—I couldn’t see them but I knew—there are live fish. The Japanese eat little meat, because theyhave few animals such as cows, sheep, or pigs from which meat is made, and because good Buddhists do not believe in eating meat anyway. But fish they do not call meat, and they catch and eat more fish than any other people in the World, even more than the people in Norway. As Japan is all islands, no one lives far from thesea, and fresh fish may be had all the time. Peddlers carry them alive in tubs of water so that the fish will be absolutely fresh.
A picture of fields covered with water in which is growing rice
Rice is the chief and almost the only vegetable in Japan, and tea is the chief drink. Tea the Japanese drinkwithout either sugar or cream. There are tea-houses and tea-gardens where waitresses called Geisha girls serve tea to customers and then entertain them by dancing and playing on long-necked musical instruments something like a banjo.
Another letter was ornamented with high wooden gateways called Torii, which you see everywhere in Japan, standing sometimes alone, sometimes in line. Torii means a bird rest. They are sacred gateways under which one passes to a temple or shrine.
Still another letter was illustrated with pictures of large stone lanterns such as you often see around Japanese temples and in their gardens. These lanterns give very little light, but they are much more ornamental than our lanterns, and the Japanese think more of beauty than they do of use. They even have a festival of lanterns—the paper kind that we use at garden parties.
