bi
is different, being tied to drop down on the floor in a long bow. The
young ones also have the bright hair ornaments and the very long
sleeves. But so do other young girls wear the long sleeves for company
dress.

There are other courses of fish; one of four strawberries, two slices of
orange, some mint jelly cut in cubes, and sweetened bamboo slices in the
middle of the list. Then more fish courses, many of them bright-colored
shell fish which are always rather tough. Then a very nice mixture of
sour cucumber salad and little pieces of lobster or crab, very nice and
any sour thing is good with these many courses of fish. At the end bowls
of rice, which is brought in in a big lacquer dish with a cover looking
some like a small barrel. This is put into bowls by one of the older
dancers and handed about by the younger ones who get up and down from
their kneeling posture by just lifting themselves as if they had no
weight, on their toes. Many of the Japanese take the regulation three
bowls full of rice, and eat it very fast. I must say their rice is
delicious, but I cannot get away with more than one bowl, partly because
I cannot gobble. Then, for the last, your bowl is filled with tea.

All this time the gentlemen from the other parts of the room are
kneeling one at a time before you asking you if you like the cherry
dance and what your first impressions of Japan were, and all such talk,
and you have become intimate friends with the dancers as well, maybe
with no common language except "thank you" and "very nice" and
"good-bye," and constant smiles and interpretations now and then from
others who know a very little English. One thing no one expects is for a
foreigner to know a word of Japanese. Therefore, when you pop out an
awkward word or two, you are applauded by laughter and compliments on
your good pronunciation. To-night we had the very tiniest of green
peppers cooked as a vegetable with one of the dishes. That was good as
it had flavor; three of them about as big as a hairpin were served in
the dish. You always get tiny portions and are usually warned not to eat
too much at the first part of the meal. In the tea-dinner the rice comes
along at the beginning so it can be eaten with the fish, and that is an
agreeable variety though you are told not to eat too much of it as there
are other courses to follow. I forgot to say there is always a course in
the middle which is a hot custard made with broth instead of mil