雙語+MP3|美國學生世界地理59 一條巨大的海蛇怪

     WHEN the World was young and people believed in sea-serpents they used to say there was a huge sea-serpent a thousand miles long in the sea near China. Wherever the humps on the sea-serpent's back stuck out of the water they looked like islands, and whenever the sea-serpent twisted or turned in his age-long sleep the islands would shake. Yet, long ago people from China went to these islands on the sea-serpent's back and made their homes there, in spite of the fact that he was squirming in his sleep. We now know that these islands are simply old volcanoes in the water, most of which have burned out, and when they shake, as they still do almost every day, we know that the shakes are just earthquakes. We call these islands on the sea-serpent "Japan" and the people "Japanese." The Japanese, however, don't call their island Japan; they call their country of islands "Nippon," which means the Land of the Rising Sun. Of course, the sun rises in other lands too, but when the Japanese went to Japan it was, for them, the land where the sun rose. So their white flag has on it the picture of a red sun with rays.

     The Chinese and the Japanese both belong to the yellow race. But the Japanese are as different from the Chinese in most ways as the white people of our country are different from the white people of India. The Japanese are quick to learn and quick to copy. The Japanese used to copy the Chinese writing, the Chinese Buddha, the Chinese way of eating with chop-sticks, for they knew no other people and no other country but China and, like the Chinese, they kept all others out of their country. It was as if they had put up a sign, "No Admittance."

     Now, for some reason or other, most people whenever they see a sign "Keep Out" want to "Go in"-like Mary, Mary quite contrary, they want to do what they are told they mustn't. They are curious or inquisitive and they want to know and see why there is "No Admittance." So, over a hundred years ago, an American naval officer named Commodore Perry went to Japan and tried to get in. He took with him a shipload of presents from our country for the Japanese Emperor, presents such as the Emperor had never seen or known of before. The Emperor was so pleased with the presents that he wanted to buy more and to know more about countries that could make such things. So Commodore Perry said to the Emperor, "Let the American people come in to your country and we will sell you these things and buy other things from you." The Emperor agreed, and so the country was opened for trade and the eyes of the Japanese were opened too, for until then they had had no idea of what was going on in other countries except China. They were amazed to hear about railroad trains, the telegraph, and the marvelous machines that we had. Then Japan sent thousands of her brightest young men to our country and to the countries of Europe to learn about such things, and they returned and taught their own people, who were extraordinarly quick to learn. It was not long before they had copies of everything that we had. They made their country an up-to-date country and in a hundred years they jumped ahead of the Chinese a thousand years. But if some one sets out to copy some one else he is apt to copy the bad things as well as the good. And that's what the Japanese did. They not only copied trolley-cars, electric lights, and automobiles. They copied battleships and airplanes and tanks and guns. They built a great big up-to-date army. Then they started a great big up-to-date war by dropping bombs on American ships in Hawaii. After the Japanese were beaten in the war they were not allowed to have a big army nor to build war machines like battle-ships, tanks, and guns.

     One of the first things the Japanese copied was a baby carriage to carry grown-up people. In Japan they have very few horses, because horses eat too much. So an American sailor, living in Japan, made for his wife a large baby carriage that could be pulled by a man, for in Japan a man was cheaper than a horse. The Japanese called it a Jinrikisha, which means a "man pull car," or a Pullman car. It seems strange that the parlor cars on our trains are also called Pullman cars. This "rickshaw," as it is called for short, seemed such a good idea that the Japanese made thousands of them, and they are now used instead of taxis or private cars, not only in Japan but in China and other countries of the East. The men who pull them are called coolies, and a coolie will dog-trot almost all day long, pulling a rickshaw behind him, without getting tired. As you see a rickshaw going away from you down the street, the coolie is hidden all but his legs, so that it looks as if the rickshaw itself were trotting along with a pair of legs of its own.

     In the cities many of the men wear clothes like ours, but most of the people, both men and women, still wear kimonos like those our mothers and sisters often wear in their own homes.
     There are two important holidays for Japanese boys and girls. The one for girls comes on the third day of the third month, that is March third. It is called Doll Day and the girls get out all their dolls, arrange them nicely, and play with them. The one for the boys is on the fifth day of the fifth month, that is May fifth. It is called Flag Day or Kite Day. Big paper kites in the form of a fish called the carp are hung out on poles in front of the houses where there are boys. The carp is a fish that swims upstream against the current, which is a hard thing to do, instead of downstream, which is easy. So the carp is a model for boys-to do the hardest thing, not the easiest.

     The Japanese love flowers perhaps more than any people i. t. w. W. and they have holidays when the flowers are in bloom. One holiday comes when the cherry-trees, plum-trees, and peach-trees bloom in the spring, and another when the chrysanthemums bloom in the fall. Every house in Japan has a garden, no matter how small it may be-a tiny imitation of the country-side, with tiny lakes and tiny mountains, and tiny rivers with tiny bridges over them-all so perfectly made that a photograph of such a garden looks like a picture of real mountains and lakes and rivers-like a doll garden. The Japanese grow dwarf trees-oaks and maples-which look in a picture as if they were a hundred feet tall and a hundred years old, but which are actually only a foot or so tall, but may be a hundred years old.

     The Japanese school-boys seem to "hunger and thirst" after knowledge. I was looking into a shop window where beautiful Japanese umbrellas were displayed, when a school-boy came up to me and asked me in English if he couldn't act as my guide for a day without charge.
     "Why," said I, "do you want to show me around?"
     "Just to practise speaking English," he replied.
     I visited a Japanese school, and a dozen boys gave me their calling cards and asked me to write them when I reached home, promising to reply in English if I did so.