Universal Weekly (1914-1915)

12 THE UNIVERSAL WEEKLY When You Travel in Japan, Do It in the Day Time, Says Homer Croy HE general idea of Japan is that it is a land flowing with cherry blossoms and Geisha girls, but that is because the average person gets his information about Japan from prints on the dining-room wall. I had the cherry blossom went there expecting to spend a delirious month strolling amon the blossoms and the Geishas, but I had a rude awakening. The jolt came when I slept in a Japanese berth for the first time. One evening I got on a Japanese train to make a night trip to Kyoto, a happy young man, full of the. vim of living and with not a cloud in my sky. Bu, by morning the vim had beer, squeezed out of me and the clouds were banked up on my horizon to the second story. The Japanese do everything backward from us. When they go to bed at night they close ail the windows, instead of opening them. They sleep in a room that is almost air tight. Their reason for this is that during the day they can see, when a beam of sunlight shoots through a room, motes dancing about as they believe that during the day the air is full of germs, but that at night, when nobody is stirring, the germs settle. So all night they sleep with every window sealed ; on arising the first thing they do is to throw open the windows and let in the air — just when we would close ours. I found they did this way on the trains, too, — to my sorrow. Calling the porter I told him, by signs, that I was ready to turn in. lie led me to the sleeping car and pointed to a row of shelves along the wall. The shelves were so short that I started to throw my suitcase on them, but he stopped me and signaled that they were berths. The Japanese are a little people, and they build their berths to fit snugly, while I am six foot two. But it was this or nothing, so I started to get out of my clothes. I had just achieved my end with my trousers and was standing there clad only in a shirt and a pair of Boston garters when a couple of men filed past. I flattened up against the wall, while they studied me curiously. Then came two women. Grabbing my trousers, I tried to secrete myself behind them. A paii of trousers looks adequate for the occasion when a person is inside them, but when a person is outside and tries to use them for shelter purposes they are sadly Homer Croy. the humorist, was -sent around the world by the Universal to gather humorous pictures of life in different lands, lie has just returned from his trip, mid has written this article for The Universal Weekly, telling of his crperiperienees in a Japanese sleeping car. — The Editor. and Geisha girl idea, too, and How Would People Ever Know You Had Been to Japan Unless You Were Snapped in a J inrickxha? wear bathrobes, and so the two women decided to stop and have a good look while they were about it. Turning, I gave a wild lea]), ran up the side, dropped into the berth and covered up my head until the ethnologists were gone. All night I slept with my knees forming a great triumphal arch and. with every windowin the car closed, my mouth, the next morning, tasted as if I had been taking in coal. Climbing out I sprang my knees back in place and staggered down the aisle to the washroom. As I got nearer I heard a gaggimr sound as if some soul was departing its flesh. Opening the door I found a Jap cleaning off the top of his tongue with the back of a toothbrush handle. This is their method, after sleeping all night with closed windows, of getting rid of the dark brown taste. The handles of their toothbrushes are sharpened to an edge for the purpose. The man ahead of me had his tongue out on his chin and was going over it thoroughly with the back of his toothbrush. As long as I live I shall never forget how he looked with his tongue spread out advantageously on nis chin, and as long as I live I shall never forget what thorough work he was doing. After he had finished with his tongue he put it back in its ac Customed place, bowed politelv and offered me his brush that I might brighten np my tongue shy. It was the first pair of trousers they had ever seen, for the men of Japan for the long day ahead of it. Turning. I ran back and dropped into my seat, a queer, trem hliug sensation under the sixth button of my vest. After that I found it conven ient to travel in the day time. SXOW FOR THE VICTOR COMPAXY. Western pictures put on in the East are sometimes attended with great hardship and ingenuity. "The Rider of Silhouette", a two-reel Western drama by Anthony P. Kelly of the Eastern scenario department, necessitated very rugged snow scenery and a lot of it. Rugged scenery is obtainable in New Jersey, but Director Easton and Ben Wilson were stumped for snow. The weather reports were scanned anxiously for snow predictions, all to no purpose. Finally the Weather Bureau man said it was coming and. sure enough, it did — but only about half an inch, and that went away at once. But the papers said snow had fallen in the upper part of the state. So the entire Victor company took the train for the Adirondacks. Dorothy Phillips. Joe Girard and Little Jane Lee are in Homer Croy Learns Jiu Jitsu. the party.