MISSIONARY

A YEAR IN JAPAN

Missionary Year in Japan11

From the diary of a Japanese missionary

Content

 1 Part 1

* 2 Part 2

Part 1

The Lord destined me to stay for one year (1897-1898) as a missionary in Japan, which has now boldly and treacherously declared war on us. During this time, I had to see, hear, think, and say a lot there, which I regularly wrote down in my diary at that time. And about Japan itself and its population, a certain idea was formed. I think that now all this will be of some interest to any Russian who is interested in knowing what kind of people they have to deal with. That is why I decided to publish excerpts from my very voluminous missionary diary (600-700 printed pages) in the Diocesan Gazette. There was so much to do at the mission that if you got up from 6 o'clock in the morning, only no earlier than 12 o'clock at night, you could give yourself peace, and so it was almost from day to day. Therefore, it is understandable that the diary had the character of hastily sketched notes before going to bed. Even now, due to a positive lack of time, there is no way to understand this material. Therefore, I ask you not to suspect negligence, if someone is dissatisfied with the external incompleteness. We did not pursue this, and now we are not particularly concerned about it. In terms of its content, our diary is a continuation of our book "The Missionary Path to Japan". (Those interested can get it in Tuzov's store for 50 kopecks.) And so, with God's help, we approach.

Ufa, March 11, 1904 Rector of the Ufa Theological Seminary Archimandrite Andronik

* * *

We arrived in Yokohama on the night of December 26, 97 - January 7, 98, and in the morning after breakfast by boat we crossed to the shore, at the customs we were detained for a short time, but for a very long time we had to check in our luggage at the railway station: the Japanese are very digging and do everything slowly. We had to wait 15 minutes for the train. During this time, I looked with curiosity at the Japanese in their costumes and with their manners and customs. Their clothing, generally called kimono, consists of two robes: short to the knees at the top, with short but wide sleeves, some of which are adapted for a very large pocket, its hems do not converge, but are only tied with a thick silk cord, under the upper one you can see the lower kimono long - to the ground, the hems cover one another, but the hem is so narrow that the Japanese do not move his legs wide, but only moves them, the neck is completely and deeply open, there are no scarves, and, nevertheless, no throat diseases are noticeable among the Japanese. The head is also mostly open, the women have a fanciful hairstyle to infinity, others in the form of a fluffy high comb; probably a lot of work and time is required for this; It turns out that women, in order not to knock off such a hairstyle in their sleep, put a special roller on legs under their heads; It is probably difficult to sleep peacefully on such a device.

The Japanese (with the exception of a few who dress in the European way) do not wear boots at all, they put on short socks, mostly white, and the whiteness does not bear any traces of dirt, and then they put on a special wooden bench, fastening it by the lace between the thumb and index toe to the foot, and so they walk.