A Japanese Boy

Pages: 58

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Read by Phil Chenevert · 3 h 40 min · 14 parts

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Ch 1 My Birthplace-My Grandfather-Tenjinsan.
13:56
Ch 2 Old Fashioned School-My Schoolmaster- The School House
8:50
Ch 3 The Kitchen-Dinner-Food.
10:59
Ch 4 Games-New School-Imitating the West-More About My School
14:14
Ch 5 Baths-Evenings At Home-Japanese Dancing and Music
21:51
Ch 6 Amateur Actors and Real Actors-Japanese Theatre
22:41
Ch 7 Wrestling-Story Tellers-Picnic and Picnic Grounds-An Old Castle Tradition
18:53
Ch 8 Angling-A Pious Old Lady And Her Adventure
14:12
Ch 9 The Yaito-A Witch-Woman-Aunt Otsune, Miss Chrysanthemum And Mr. Prosperity.
20:56
Ch10 New Year's Day-The Mochi Making-Old Time Observances
16:06
Ch11 Kite Flying-How I Made My Kite-My Uncle A His Rig Kit-Other New Year Games-How We End Our New Year Holiday
15:55
Ch12 Other Japanese Holidays-Tanabata And Inoko, The Boy's Days-The Shintoistic And Buddistic Ablution Mass.
12:43
Ch13 Our Priest And Boy-Priest-Our Dog Gem-Shaka's Birthday
15:41
Ch14 The Festivals Of Local Deities-School Again And Some Account of My School Fellows-Concusion
13:50

A Japanese Boy (1890) is a public domain work.

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About this book

Shigemi Shiukichi wrote this short memoir as a young student in New Haven, Connecticut, and it was published in New York in 1890. He looks back on his childhood in Imabari, a small seaport on the western coast of Shikoku, with its shallow harbor, rice junks, fishermen's cottages under pine trees and streets where blacksmiths and stone workers each kept their own quarter.

The chapters follow the everyday life of a shopkeeper's family, from lessons with an old-fashioned schoolmaster to a newer school that copied Western ways, and on through meals, games, theatre, kite-flying at New Year and the festivals of local shrines. Some of the warmest pages describe fishing with his quiet, patient father on a river called Dragon-fire, and the grandfather who lived to eighty in a small house behind the family store.

Written in a language the author had learned only a few years before, the book has a modest, candid voice and small comparisons with America, such as his alarm at New York traffic. It offers a rare first-hand picture of provincial Japan in the Meiji years, told by someone who grew up there.