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TENBIN-BO. It sounds like a word the composer might have discarded from the Hawaiian War Chant. But it's the name of the oaken carrier the Japanese balances on his shoulder. From each end of the pole is strung a bamboo basket, and inside the basket are the farmer's home-grown products, to be sold at market.

A gliding tenbin-bo is only one of the colorful moving masses seen by the servicemen as he travels the highways in Japan. A wide and varied assortment of vehicles flows to and fro.

There are panting three-wheeled motorcycle taxicabs. There are jeeps and bicycle-propelled rickshaws. There are huge busses splashed with all colors of the rainbow. There are sleek American autos and horse-drawn carts. There are Army patrol cars and monstrous trucks loaded down with thousands of empty sake bottles.

There are screeching streetcars and bicycles driven at breathtaking speed aimed at screeching pedestrians. And, last but not least, there is Public Enemy No. 1 to the human nostril - the honeybucket. It in no way smells like honey. This horse-drawn cart with its load of bucketed garbage is a rolling city dump.

With amazement the serviceman watches the magical maneuvers of the open road celebrities. And, as in the case of the tenbin-bo, he too is soon driven with the desire to live dangerously.

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