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Another letter contained a picture of three monkeys carved in wood in the greatest of all Japanese temples at Nikko. One monkey had his paws over his ears, the next over his mouth, and the third over his eyes, meaning: “Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil.”
A picture of two very fat men squatting on the ground and facing each other in the center of a huge buildingaround which are sitting thousands of people watching
The two fat men are wrestlers. Wrestling is a national sport in Japan, as bull-fighting is a national sport in Spain and football is a national sport in the United States. There are two kinds of wrestling. One kind is done by giants weighing several hundred pounds, who wrestle before crowds such as gather to watch baseballor football games in this country. The wrestlers squat, facing each other like huge bullfrogs, and spend most of their time in this position, each watching for a chance to get a grip on the other. The game seems to an American simply one of watching and waiting, for once one gets “a hold” on the other the battle is usually over. Another kind of wrestling is called Jiu-jitsu. It is a trick wrestling, and a little chap, if he knows how, can throw a much larger and stronger person by catching his arm, hand, or leg and twisting it with a quick movement into certain positions that make it impossible for him to resist. I have seen in Japan whole schools lined up two and two, practising the various “throws” with lightning-like movements.
Wrestling is an old Japanese sport. The Japanese, however, copied new sports from other countries along withall the other things they copied. They copied baseball, and crowds at baseball games in Japan are as big as baseball crowds in the United States.
The last letter inclosed a photograph of the Emperor. Many countries have now changed from emperors to presidents but Japan, which has been quick to change in most things, I don’t believe ever will change to a president. The same family has been ruling in Japan for two thousand years. Even after being beaten in World War II, the Japanese were allowed by the other countries to keep their Emperor. Before this war the Japanese believed the Emperor was sacred as if he were a god. They still treat him with great respect but are no longer supposed to worship him.
