Westerners do not use chopsticks. Meats and other items are arranged on a plate in larger pieces, and then each is cut in turn into smaller pieces with a knife held in one's right hand, then eaten with a fork in one's left hand. Putting food directly into one's mouth by the end of one's knife is considered bad manners. Soup is placed in a shallow plate and eaten (lit. drunk) with a spoon. It is also considered bad manners to make noise when consuming soup and tea.
It is, of course, still considered so.
Mechanical clocks were first introduced to Japan in the 16th century through Jesuit missionaries and Portuguese traders. Eventually, however, Japanese clocks were produced that reflected a Japanese understanding of time. Japanese clocks divided the day into six hours for daytime and six hours for night time. Each of these "hours" was longer than the hour that we measure time by today. These clocks also allowed for the adjustment of time in changing length of daylight time during the summer and the winter months. Rather than a circular dial common on Western clocks, many Japanese clocks were long and slender "pillar clocks" (shaku dokei) that would have hung on a post or pillar in a home, and which had an hour hand that moved up and down a track on the clock case. This is why Fukuzawa takes such care in explaining how to read a Western style pocket watch in the section that follows below at the end of this book.
In translating the Japanese text following the illustration of the watch, I have attempted to remain as true to the original text as possible, so that some of the strange difference in the reckoning of time that Fukuzawa sought to carefully explain to Japanese readers might still hopefully be felt by readers in English.
Though watches are outside the confines of clothing, food and interiors, in the West church bells measure time, and there are all manner of watches and their customs. Recently in Japan, too, imported watches have gradually become fashionable. Though there are many uninitiated persons who possess watches, and yet do not understand how to read them. Therefore, at the end of this book about clothing, food and interiors, I will write about how to understand these watches.
In the West, one day is measured by twenty four hours; and accordingly, one of these hours is one half of one hour in Japan. One of these hours is divided into sixty parts, of which one part is called a 'minute'. In the same way, one minute is divided into sixty parts, of which one part is called a 'second'. In this way, one second becomes the basic pulse for the movement of time. Now, the watch dial is divided into twelve parts, with the hour hand devised to go completely around the dial twice in one day, and likewise, the minute hand to go around the dial twenty-four times. Beginning with noon, and again with twelve midnight, the hour and minute hands correctly align with one another to display the twelfth hour. From here, time gradually moves toward the right, and when the hour hand points to the first hour, the minute hand will have gone around the dial once measuring sixty minutes, upon which it returns to the twelfth hour marker. From here time moves forward and when the hour hand is in between the first and the second hour, the minute hand will have taken thirty minutes to move half way around the dial, and will have come precisely to the sixth hour marker. Therefore, the way of reading the time is that one should first look at the hour hand and then at the minute hand. For example, when the hour hand is between the ninth and the tenth hour, and the minute hand points to the second hour marker, the time can be said to be ten minutes past nine. In other words, this ten minutes of time can be said to be the amount of time that has elapsed since the minute hand left the twelfth hour marker. Again, when the hour hand is approaching the tenth hour, having moved beyond midway between the ninth and the tenth hours, and the minute hand has arrived at the eighth hour marker, the time can be said to be twenty minutes before ten. In other words, this twenty minutes means that it will take twenty minutes for the minute hand to reach the twelfth hour marker. In any case, the minute hand begins at the twelfth hour marker and the sixty minutes on the dial are counted based on this. From this one can know what hour and minute it is. The watch in the illustration indicates twenty-two minutes past nine. The second hand goes completely around the dial in one minute. However, when reckoning the time, seconds are not counted.
Of course, even today, Fukuzawa's description of the telling of time by only using the hours and minutes is the way most of us tell the time in our daily lives. I know of no one who when asked will say, "it is 9:10 and 30 seconds" - unless they are actively timing something or being a bit persnickety. Fukuzawa could also probably not have imagined how one second could be be measured by much smaller intervals such as 1/1000 of a second. The upcoming London Oympics will, of course, show the latest developments in this sort of timekeeping.
Many magazines today include cars, watches, books, music, film and travel, categories that Fukuzawa may or may not have included had most of them existed in 1867. In any event, Fukuzawa set his parameters on articles needed for basic daily life in the West. The concept of leisure pursuits, as we think of them today, had not yet fully developed, at least not as something accessible to most people.
If you are a follower of the Japanese press, the next time you open a Japanese magazine featuring clothing, food and interior items consider how long this sort of thing has been going on. It helps me appreciate the level at which most of these publishers operate at, month in and month out. Styles may come and go, but this sort of thoroughgoing ability to categorize the experience of daily life is what seems amazingly constant.
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Men's Precious, Summer 2012 "Catalog of British Quality Articles." And so, here we are seemingly back at the beginning. Fukuzawa published Seiyô ishokujyû 145 years ago, and the cataloging of "quality articles" is still going strong - and Winston Churchill still looks great.
Men's Precious, Summer 2012 "Catalog of British Quality Articles." And so, here we are seemingly back at the beginning. Fukuzawa published Seiyô ishokujyû 145 years ago, and the cataloging of "quality articles" is still going strong - and Winston Churchill still looks great.
