Viewing page 140 of 199

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

This is one of the many rooms in a porcelain factory in the eastern part of the city. All the ware you see here is cheap and intended exclusively for foreign sale. In fact, it would not sell here in Japan, for the designs in form and color, while they please the uncultivated taste of the average European or American purchaser, would never satisfy the more critical and discriminating judgement of the Japanese public!

In other departments really beautiful ware is produced, long hours of patient labor by expert craftsmen being given to the shaping and decorating of genuine works of art. Girls are employed here because their labor is cheaper. A dollar a week seems a large sum to these little maids so solemnly absorbed in painting with their long-handled brushes. Notice how closely they are crowded together as they sit here on their heels before the low work-benches. They are gentle, demure, well-behaved girls, without any trace of the bold forwardness which girls of similarly humble origin are apt to acquire under western factory conditions. Their gay-colored kimonos are of cheap cotton but worn with the grace of silken brocade; notice that the damsel at the end of the second row wears a broad sash tied behind.

Some of the girls have been to public schools of elementary grade and learned to read and write——possibly some have not, for the schools are not absolutely free and it is sometimes difficult for a father with a large family to pay the fee of one yen (50 cts.) annually. Amusements all the girls have, for this is a land of holidays, processions and street shows. They find their simple pleasures in walking about the flowery temple gardens and mingling with the chattering crowds about the booths of fakirs and venders of sweets. No such thing as flirtation is known to them——they have no boy friends and their marriages will be arranged by their elders.

From Notes of Travel, No.8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.


Pretty Factory Girls Decorating Cheap Pottery; Kyoto, Japan.
Jolies Filles d'Atelier qui Décorent la Poterie à Bas Prix, Kioto, Japon.
Schöne Fabrikmädchen beim Bemalen von billigen Porzellan; Kioto, Japan.
Bonitas Muchachas de Fábrica Decorando Alfarería Barata; Kioto, Japón.
Nätta fabriksflickor smyckande billiga krukmakararbeten, Kyoto, Japan.
Красивыя рабочія дъвушки украшающія деневую посуду; Кіото, Японія.