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These are prosperous, well-bred people from Kyoto, come out here into this suburban park for a brief outing. One of the Mikados a thousand years ago built the first religious house here. There is a temple here still, and the tall pagoda you see through the trees is its bell-tower. 
You see the picnic feast includes tea as a matter of course. No doubt there are sweet rice cakes, too. All Japanese seem to be fond of sweet things; goodies of that sort are abundant and cheap. Notice the way in which the children's hair is dressed--it is precisely the proper way little girls of their age. As they grow up their hair will be allowed to lengthen and it will be "done up" in certain prescribed styles from year to year; a strict system of etiquette governs the sequence. Notice also that while the little daughters wear gay colors their mother is demure in much quieter hues. It is not customary for respectable women to wear gay-colored kimonos in public. The obi or broad sash may be of bright-figured silk, but the costume as a whole must be discreetly inconspicuous like the life of a Japanese wife. 
The father of the family is proud of his wife and daughters, but it is not good manners for him to say so to other people; since they belong to him he must speak of them rather slightingly. If his wife should drop her handkerchief he would not stoop to pick it up for her, but it is her wifely duty to pay him every such attention and to serve him first at this picnic meal. He and the little girls may be ever so fond of each other--he may spend quantities of money on dolls and books and games and lessons for them, but he has never given them a good-night kiss. That sort of caress is regarded by well-bred Japanese as a queer and rather disgusting ceremony.
Read Bacon's "Japanese Girls and Women," also Hartshorn's "Japan and Her People," etc.) 
From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.

A family picnic under the cherry trees, Kyoto Japan.
Pique-nique de famille dans les cérisiers, Kyoto, Japon.
Gin Familien=Picnic unter den Ririchenbaumen, Kyoto, Japan.
Gira de campo de familia entre los cerezos, Kyoto, Japón.
En familjekrets under körsbärsblomstren, Kioto, Japan.
Семейный пикникb подb вишнями AepeBbЯMH,  Кiото, Япония.