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Brief Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
PART I 21st Century Human Resource Management Strategic Planning
and Legal Issues
Chapter 1. The New Human Resource Management Process
Chapter 2. Strategy-Driven Human Resource Management
Chapter 3. The Legal Environment and Diversity Management
PART II Staffing
Chapter 4. Matching Employees and Jobs: Job Analysis and Design
Chapter 5. Recruiting Job Candidates
Chapter 6. Selecting New Employees
PART III Developing and Managing
Chapter 7. Training, Learning, Talent Management, and Development
Chapter 8. Performance Management and Appraisal
Chapter 9. Employee Rights and Labor Relations
PART IV Compensating
Chapter 10. Compensation Management
Chapter 11. Employee Incentives and Benefits
PART V Protecting and Expanding Organizational Outreach
Chapter 12. Workplace Safety, Health, and Security
Chapter 13. Organizational Ethics, Sustainability, and Social
Responsibility
Chapter 14. Global Issues for Human Resource Managers
Appendix
Glossary
Notes
Index
8
9
10
Detailed Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
PART I 21st Century Human Resource Management Strategic Planning
and Legal Issues
Chapter 1. The New Human Resource Management Process
Why Study Human Resource Management (HRM)?
21st Century HRM
HRM Then and Now
HRM Challenges
Critical Dependent Variables
Technology and Knowledge
Labor Demographics
Disciplines Within HRM
The Legal Environment: EEO and Diversity Management
Staffing
Training and Development
Employee Relations
Labor and Industrial Relations
Compensation and Benefits
Safety and Security
Ethics and Sustainability
HRM Responsibilities
Line Versus Staff Management
Major HR Responsibilities of HR Staff and Line Management
HRM Skills
Technical Skills
Human Relations Skills
Conceptual and Design Skills
Business Skills
HRM Careers
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
Other HR Organizations
Professional Liability
Practitioner’s Model for HRM
The Model
Trends and Issues in HRM
Creating an Engaged Workforce
Reverse Discrimination Rulings Continue to Evolve
Chapter Summary
11
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 1-1 Ba-Zynga! Zynga Faces Trouble in Farmville
Skill Builders
Chapter 2. Strategy-Driven Human Resource Management
Strategy and Strategic Planning in the 21st Century: The
Organization and the Environment
The External Environment
Strategy
What Is Strategy?
Visions, Missions, and Objectives
Types of Strategies
How Strategy Affects HRM
How HRM Promotes Strategy
Structure
Basics of Organizational Structure
How Does Structure Affect Employee Behavior?
How Does Structure Affect HRM?
Organizational Culture
What Is Organizational Culture?
How Culture Controls Employee Behavior in Organizations
Social Media and Culture Management
An Introduction to Data Analytics for HRM
A Brief on Data Analytics
HR Analytics
Desired Outcomes
Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS)
What Are HRIS?
How Do HRIS Assist in Making Decisions?
Measurement Tools for Strategic HRM
Economic Value Added (EVA)
Return on Investment (ROI)
Trends and Issues in HRM
Everything Old Is New Again: Managing Data for HRM
Decision Making
Continuing Globalization Increases the Need for Strategic and
HRM Planning
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 2-1 Strategy-Driven HR Management: Netflix, A Behind-The-
Scenes Look At Delivering Entertainment
Skill Builders
12
Chapter 3. The Legal Environment and Diversity Management
The Legal Environment for HRM: Protecting Your Organization
A User’s Guide to Managing People: The OUCH Test
Objective
Uniform in Application
Consistent in Effect
Has Job Relatedness
Major Employment Laws
Equal Pay Act of 1963
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA)
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA)
Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974
(VEVRAA)
Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 (PDA)
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as Amended
in 2008
Civil Rights Act of 1991
Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights
Act of 1994 (USERRA)
Veterans Benefits Improvement Act of 2004 (VBIA)
Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of
2008 (GINA)
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (LLFPA)
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
What Does the EEOC Do?
Employee Rights Under the EEOC
Employer Rights and Prohibitions
EEO, Affirmative Action, and Diversity: What’s the Difference?
Affirmative Action (AA)
Diversity in the Workforce
Sexual Harassment: A Special Type of Discrimination
Types of Sexual Harassment
What Constitutes Sexual Harassment?
Reducing Organizational Risk From Sexual Harassment
Lawsuits
Religious Discrimination
Trends and Issues in HRM
Federal Agencies Are Becoming More Activist in Pursuing
Discrimination Claims
The ADA and the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA)
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
13
Case 3-1 English-Only: One Hotel’s Dilemma
Skill Builders
PART II Staffing
Chapter 4. Matching Employees and Jobs: Job Analysis and Design
Employee and Job Matching
Workflow Analysis
Organizational Output
Tasks and Inputs
Job Analysis
Why Do We Need to Analyze Jobs?
Databases
Job Analysis Methods
Outcomes: Job Description and Job Specification
Job Design/Redesign
Organizational Structure and Job Design
Approaches to Job Design and Redesign
The Job Characteristics Model (JCM)
Designing Motivational Jobs
Job Simplification
Job Expansion
Job Design for Flexibility
HR Forecasting
Forecasting Methods
Reconciling Internal Labor Supply and Demand
Options for a Labor Surplus
Options for a Labor Shortage
Trends and Issues in HRM
O*Net as a Tool for Job Analysis
Workflows and Job Design for Sustainability
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 4-1 Gauging Employment at Honeywell
Skill Builders
Chapter 5. Recruiting Job Candidates
The Recruiting Process
External Forces Acting on Recruiting Efforts
Organizational Recruiting Considerations
What Policies to Set
When to Recruit
Alternatives to Recruitment
Reach of the Recruiting Effort
Social Media Recruiting
14
Internal or External Recruiting?
Internal Recruiting
External Recruiting
Challenges and Constraints in Recruiting
Budgetary Constraints
Policy Constraints and Organizational Image
Job Characteristics and the Realistic Job Preview (RJP)
The Recruiter–Candidate Interaction
Evaluation of Recruiting Programs
Yield Ratio
Cost per Hire
Time Required to Hire
New Hire Turnover
New Hire Performance
Trends and Issues in HRM
Talent Wars
Global Knowledge Workers as an On-Demand Workforce
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 5-1 LINKEDIN: How Does the World’s Largest Professional
Network Network?
Skill Builders
Chapter 6. Selecting New Employees
The Selection Process
The Importance of the Selection Process
Steps in the Selection Process
Looking for “Fit”
Personality-Job Fit
Ability-Job Fit
Person-Organization Fit
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures
What Qualifies as an Employment Test?
Valid and Reliable Measures
Applications and Preliminary Screening
Applications and Résumés
Pre-employment Inquiries
Testing and Legal Issues
The EEOC and Employment Testing
Polygraph and Genetic Testing
Written Testing
Physical Testing
Selection Interviews
15
Interviewing
Types of Interviews and Questions
Preparing for and Conducting the Interview
Background Checks
Credit Checks
Criminal Background Checks
Reference Checks
Web Searches
Selecting the Candidate and Offering the Job
Hiring
Trends and Issues in HRM
Selection With a Global Workforce
HRIS and the Selection Process
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 6-1 Not Getting Face Time at Facebook—and Getting the Last
Laugh!
Skill Builders
PART III Developing and Managing
Chapter 7. Training, Learning, Talent Management, and Development
The Need for Training and Development
Training and Development
When Is Training Needed?
The Training Process and Needs Assessment
Steps in the Training Process
Needs Assessment
Employee Readiness
Learning and Shaping Behavior
Learning
Operant Conditioning and Reinforcement
Shaping Behavior
Design and Delivery of Training
On-the-Job Training (OJT)
Classroom Training
Distance or E-Learning
Assessing Training
Assessment Methods
Choosing Assessment Methods
Talent Management and Development
Careers
Common Methods of Employee Development
A Model of Career Development Consequences
16
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Trends and Issues in HRM
The Gamification of Training and Development
Outsourcing Employee Training and Development
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 7-1 Google Search: Building the Program that Writes the Code
to Find Female Talent
Skill Builders
Chapter 8. Performance Management and Appraisal
Performance Management Systems
Performance Management Versus Performance Appraisal
The Performance Appraisal Process
Accurate Performance Measures
Why Do We Conduct Performance Appraisals?
Communication (Informing)
Decision Making (Evaluating)
Motivation (Engaging)
What Do We Assess?
Trait Appraisals
Behavioral Appraisals
Results Appraisals
How Do We Use Appraisal Methods and Forms?
Critical Incidents Method
Management by Objectives (MBO) Method
Narrative Method or Form
Graphic Rating Scale Form
Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scale (BARS) Form
Ranking Method
Which Option Is Best?
Who Should Assess Performance?
Supervisor
Peers
Subordinates
Self
Customers
360-Degree Evaluations
Performance Appraisal Problems
Common Problems Within the Performance Appraisal Process
Avoiding Performance Appraisal Process Problems
Debriefing the Appraisal
The Evaluative Performance Appraisal Interview
The Developmental Performance Appraisal Interview
17
Trends and Issues in HRM
Is It Time to Do Continuous Appraisals?
Competency-Based Performance Management
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 8-1 Amazon.com: Selling Employee Performance With
Organization and Leadership Review
Skill Builders
Chapter 9. Employee Rights and Labor Relations
Managing and Leading Your Workforce
Trust and Communication
Job Satisfaction
Measuring Job Satisfaction
Determinants of Job Satisfaction
Commonly Accepted Employee Rights
Right of Free Consent
Right to Due Process
Right to Life and Safety
Right of Freedom of Conscience (Limited)
Right to Privacy (Limited)
Right to Free Speech (Limited)
Management Rights
Codes of Conduct
Employment-at-Will
Coaching, Counseling, and Discipline
Coaching
Counseling
Disciplining
Legal Issues in Labor Relations
The Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935 (Wagner
Act)
The Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) of 1947 (Taft-
Hartley Act)
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of
1988 (WARN Act)
Unions and Labor Rights
Union Organizing
Labor Relations and Collective Bargaining
Grievances
Decertification Elections
Trends and Issues in HRM
18
Facebook, Twitter, etc. @ Work: Are They Out of Control?
Nonunion Worker Protection and the NLRB
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 9-1 Off-Duty Misconduct
Skill Builders
PART IV Compensating
Chapter 10. Compensation Management
Compensation Management
The Compensation System
Motivation and Compensation Planning
Organizational Philosophy
Ability to Pay
What Types of Compensation?
Pay for Performance or Pay for Longevity?
Skill-Based or Competency-Based Pay?
At, Above, or Below the Market?
Wage Compression
Pay Secrecy
Legal and Fairness Issues in Compensation
Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (Amended)
Pay Equity and Comparable Worth
Other Legal Issues
Job Evaluation
External Method
Job Ranking Method
Point-Factor Method
Factor Comparison Method
Developing a Pay System
Job Structure and Pay Levels
Pay Structure
Trends and Issues in HRM
A Shift From Base Pay to Variable Pay
The Technology of Compensation
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 10-1 Employee Red-Lining at CVS: The Have and the Have
Not
Skill Builders
Chapter 11. Employee Incentives and Benefits
The Value of Incentives and Benefits
19
Individual Incentives
Advantages and Disadvantages of Individual Incentives
Individual Incentive Options
Group Incentives
Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Incentives
Group Incentive Options
Executive Compensation
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection
Act of 2010
Executive Incentives
Statutory Benefits
Social Security and Medicare
Workers’ Compensation
Unemployment Insurance
Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA)
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010
(ACA)
Statutory Requirements When Providing Certain Voluntary Benefits
Voluntary Benefits
Paid Time Off
Group Health Insurance
Retirement Benefits
Other Employee Benefits
Flexible Benefit (Cafeteria) Plans
Trends and Issues in HRM
Incentives to Act Unethically?
Personalization of Health Care
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 11-1 Google Searches SAS for the Business Solution to How
to Create an Award-Winning Culture
Skill Builders
PART V Protecting and Expanding Organizational Outreach
Chapter 12. Workplace Safety, Health, and Security
Workplace Safety and OSHA
The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act)
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
What Does OSHA Do?
Employer and Employee Rights and Responsibilities Under
OSA
National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
Employee Health
20
Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) and Employee
Wellness Programs (EWPs)
Ergonomics and Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSDs)
Safety and Health Management and Training
Stress
Functional and Dysfunctional Stress
Stress Management
The Stress Tug-of-War
Workplace Security
Cyber Security
General Security Policies, Including Business Continuity and
Recovery
Workplace Violence
Social Media for Workplace Safety and Security
Employee Selection and Screening
Trends and Issues in HRM
Employee Wellness
Bullying in the Workplace
Chapter Summary
Key Terms Review
Communication Skills
Case 12-1 Nike: Taking a Run at Fixing Outsourced Worker Safety
Skill Builders
Chapter 13. Organizational Ethics, Sustainability, and Social
Responsibility
Ethical Organizations
Ethics Defined
Contributing Factors to Unethical Behavior
Ethical Approaches
Codes of Ethics
Creating and Maintaining Ethical Organizations
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
CSR Defined
Stakeholders and CSR
Levels of Corporate Social Responsibility
Sustainability
HR and Organizational Sustainability
Sustainability Training
The Sustainable 21st Century Organization
Trends and Issues in HRM
Sustainability-Based Benefits
Does Diversity Training Work?
Chapter Summary
21
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
Pacific. Until a few years ago this mountain-walled pool was
protected from the ocean by a broad sand ridge, which an
earthquake shook down, letting in the salt-waters. The Tokaido
railroad crosses the lake on a high embankment, which was sodded
and covered with a lattice-work of straw bundles, while seed was
sown in the crevices more than a year before the road could be
used. The whole railroad, as we saw in passing its completed
sections, is solidly built with stone foundations and stone ballast, and
intended to last for centuries. The Japanese seldom hurry the
making of public works, and even a railroad does not inspire them
with any feverish activity. Not until the last detail and station-house
was finished was the line opened for travel, and following so nearly
the route of the old Tokaido, through the most fertile and picturesque
part of Central Japan, it keeps always in sight Fujiyama or the
ocean.
In the course of the afternoon plantations of mulberry-trees came
in sight. Loads of mulberry branches and twigs were being hauled
into the villages and sold by weight, the rearers of silk-worms buying
the leaves and paper-makers the stems for the sake of the inside
bark. Climbing to one high plateau, we rested at a little rustic shed of
a tea-house, commanding a superb view down a great ragged ravine
to the line of foam breaking at its bowlder strewn entrance, and so
on to the limitless ocean. One of the jinrikisha coolies preceded us to
the benches on the overhanging balcony, and, kindly pointing out the
special beauties of the scene, took off his garments and spread them
out on the rail in the matter-of-fact, unconscious way of true
Japanese innocence and simplicity of mind.
The guide-book calls the stretch of country beyond that high-
perched tea-house “a waste region,” but nothing could be more
beautiful than the long ride through pine forest and belts of scrub-
pine on that uncultivated plateau, always overlooking the ocean. At
one point a temple to the goddess Kwannon is niched among
towering rocks at the base of a narrow cliff, on whose summit a
colossal statue of the deity stands high against the sky. For more
than a century this bronze goddess of Mercy has been the object of
pious pilgrimages, the pilgrims clapping their hands and bowing in
prayer to all the thirty-three Kwannons cut in the face of the solid
rock-base on which our lady of pity stands.
We reached the long, dull town of Toyohashi at dusk, to find the
large tea-house crowded with travellers. Two rooms looking out upon
a sultry high-walled garden were given us, and for dining-room a tiny
alcove of a place on one of the middle courts. This room was so
small and close that we had to leave the screens open, though the
corridor led to the large bath-room, where half a dozen people
splashed and chattered noisily and gentlemen with their clothes on
their arms went back and forth before our door as if before the life
class of an art school. The noise of the bathers was kept up gayly,
until long after midnight, and no one in the tea-house seemed to be
sleeping. By four o’clock in the morning such a coughing, blowing,
and sputtering began in the court beside my room that I finally slid
the screens and looked out. At least a dozen lodgers were brushing
their teeth in the picturesque little quadrangle of rocks, bamboos,
and palms, and bathing face and hands in the large stone and
bronze urns that we had supposed to be ornamental only. Later, the
gravel was covered with scores of the wooden sticks of tooth-
brushes, beaten out into a tassel of fibres at one end, and with many
boxes emptied of the coarse, gritty tooth-powder which the Japanese
use so freely.
The last day of our long jinrikisha ride was warm, the sun glared
on a white, dusty road, and the country was flat and uninteresting.
Each little town and village seemed duller than the other. Wheat and
rape were being harvested and spread to dry, and in the farm-yards
men and women were hatchelling, beating out the grain with flails,
and winnowing it in the primitive way by pouring it down from a flat
scoop-basket held high overhead. Nobody wore any clothes to
speak of, and the whole population turned out to watch the amazing
spectacle of foreigners standing spell-bound until our jinrikishas had
gone by.
At Arimatsu village we passed through a street of shops where the
curiously dyed cotton goods peculiar to the place are sold. For
several hundred years all Arimatsu has been tying knots down the
lengths of cotton, twisting it in skeins, and wrapping it regularly with a
double-dyed indigo thread, and then, by immersion in boiling water,
dyeing the fabric in curious lines and star-spotted patterns. A more
clumsy and primitive way of dyeing could not be imagined in this day
of steam-looms and roller-printing, but Arimatsu keeps it up and
prospers.
At sunset we saw the towers of Nagoya castle in the distance, and
after crossing the broad plain of ripening rape and wheat, the coolies
sped through the town at a fearful pace and deposited us, dazed,
dusted, and weary, at the door of the Shiurokindo, to enjoy the
beautiful rooms just kindly vacated by Prince Bernard, of Saxe-
Weimar.
The Shiurokindo is one of the handsomest and largest of the tea-
houses a foreigner finds, its interior a labyrinth of rooms and suites
of rooms, each with a balcony and private outlook on some pretty
court. The walls, the screens, recesses, ceilings, and balcony rails
afford studies and models of the best Japanese interior decorations.
The samisen’s wail and a clapping chorus announced that a great
dinner was going on, and in the broader corridors there was a
passing and repassing of people arrayed in hotel kimonos.
As the wise traveller carries little baggage, the tea-houses furnish
their customers with ukatas, or plain cotton kimonos, to put on after
the bath and wear at night. These gowns are marked with the crest
or name of the house, painted in some ingenious or artistic design;
and guests may wander round the town, even, clad in these
garments, that so ingeniously advertise the Maple-leaf, the
Chrysanthemum, or Dragon tea-house. All guides, and servants
particularly, enjoy wearing these hotel robes, and travellers who
dislike to splash their own clothing march to the bath ungarmented,
assuming the house gowns in the corridor after their dip. These
ukatas at the Shiurokindo were the most startling fabrics of Arimatsu,
and we looked in them as if we had been throwing ink-bottles at
each other.
Until the long jinrikisha ride was over we had not felt weary, as
each day beguiled us with some new interest and excitement; but
when we stepped from those baby-carriages at the door of the
Shiurokindo we were dazed with fatigue, although the coolies who
ran all the way did not appear to be tired in the least. Their headman,
who marshalled the team of ten, was a powerful young fellow, a very
Hercules for muscle, and for speed and endurance hardly to be
matched by that ancient deity. At the end of each day he seemed
fresher and stronger than at the start, and he has often run sixty and
sixty-five miles a day, for three and four days together. He led the
procession and set the pace, shouting back warning of ruts, stones,
or bad places in the road, and giving the signals for slowing,
stopping, and changing the order of the teams. On level ground the
coolies trotted tandem—one in the shafts, and one running ahead
with a line from the shafts held over his shoulder. Going downhill, the
leader fell back and helped to hold the shafts; going uphill, he
pushed the jinrikisha from the back.
The jinrikisha coolies make better wages than farm laborers or
most mechanics. Our men were paid by the distance, and for days of
detention each man received twenty-five cents to cover the expense
of his board and lodging. They earned at an average one dollar and
ten cents for each day, but out of this paid the rent of the jinrikisha
and the Government tax. Where two men and a jinrikisha cover one
hundred and eighty miles in four days they receive thirteen dollars in
all, which is more than a farm laborer receives in a year. As a rule,
these coolies are great gamblers and spendthrifts, with a fondness
for saké. Our headman was a model coolie, saving his money,
avoiding the saké-bottle, and regarding his splendid muscle as
invested capital. When he walked in to collect his bill, he was clean
and shining in a rustling silk kimono, such as a well-to-do merchant
might wear. In this well-dressed, distinguished-looking person, who
slid the screens of our sitting-room and bowed to us so gracefully,
we hardly recognized our trotter of the blue-cotton coat, bare knees,
and mushroom hat. He explained that the other men could not come
to thank us for our gratuities because they had not proper clothes. In
making his final and lowest bows his substantial American watch fell
out of his silk belt with a thump; but he replaced it in its chamois
case with the assurance that nothing hurt it, and that it was with the
noon gun of Nagoya castle whenever he came to town.
CHAPTER XXI
NAGOYA
THE SHOJO
Nagoya maiko and geisha are celebrated throughout Japan for
their beauty, grace, and taste in dress, and a geisha dinner is as
much a property of Nagoya as the golden dolphins of the old castle.
At ours we engaged two geisha to sing and play, and four maikos to
dance in their richest costumes. As the guests were Japanese the
feast was made a foreign dinner of as many courses as our guide
and magician, Miyashta, could conjure from Nagoya’s markets and
the Shiurokindo’s kitchen. Our three friends rustled in early, clad in
ceremonial silk gowns, each with his family crest marked in tiny
white circles on the backs and sleeves of his haori, or coat. At every
praise of Nagoya, which the interpreter repeated to them on our
behalf, they rose from their high chairs and bowed profoundly. At
table the play of the knife and fork was as difficult to them as the
chopsticks had once been for us, but they carried themselves
through the ordeal with dignity and grace, and heroically ate of all the
dishes passed them.
Towards the end of the dinner a gorgeous paroquet of a child
appeared on our open balcony. Her kimono was pale blue crape,
painted and embroidered with a wealth of chrysanthemums of
different colors. Her obi, of the heaviest crinkled red crape, had
flights of gray and white storks all over its drooping loops, and the
neck-fold was red crape woven with a shimmer of gold thread. Her
face was white with rice powder, and her hair, dressed in fantastic
loops and puffs, was tied with bits of red crape and gold cord, and
set with a whole diadem of silver chrysanthemums. She came
forward smiling with the most charming mixture of childlike shyness
and maidenly self-possession, becoming as much interested in our
curious foreign dresses as we in her splendid attire.
Presently, against the background of the night, appeared another
dazzling figure—Oikoto, the most bewitching and popular maiko of
the day in Nagoya. She, too, was radiant in gorgeously-painted
crape, a red and gold striped obi, and a crown of silver flowers.
Oikoto had the long, narrow eyes, the deeply-fringed lids, the nose
and contour of face of Egyptian women. Her hand and arm were
exquisite, but it was her soft voice, her dreamy smile, and slowly
lifted eyelids that led us captive. Oikoto san and the tiny maiko
fluttered about the table, filling glasses, nibbling sweetmeats,
answering questions, and accepting our frank admiration with grace
incomparable. Two more brilliantly-dressed beauties entered, and
with them the two geisha and their instruments. One of the geisha, O
Suwo san, was still a beauty, who entered with a quiet, languid grace
and dignity, and whose marvellous black eyes had magic in them.
The geisha struck the samisens with the ivory sticks, the wailing
chorus began, and there succeeded a fan-dance, a cherry blossom-
dance, and an autumn-dance, the four brilliant figures posing,
gliding, moving, turning, rising, and sinking slowly before our
enchanted eyes. One dance demanded quicker time, and the
dancers sang with the chorus, clapping their hands softly and tossing
their lovely arms and swinging sleeves. The three gentlemen of
Nagoya joined in that pæan to the cherry blossoms and the blue sky,
accenting the verse with their measured chanting; and one of them,
taking part in a musical dialogue, danced a few measures in line with
the maiko very well and gracefully.
The closing dance—a veritable jig, with whirls and jumps, rapid
hand-clapping, and chanting by the maiko—ended in the dancers
suddenly throwing themselves forward on their hands and standing
on their heads, their feet against the screens.
“That is what we call the foreign dance: it is in foreign style, you
know. You like it?” asked the interpreter on behalf of our guests; and
our danna san had the temerity to answer that it was very well-done,
but that it was now going out of fashion in America.
After the seven dances the maiko stood in a picturesque row
against the balcony rail and fanned themselves until supper was
brought in for them and set on low tables, whereon were placed
many cups and bowls and tiny plates, with the absurd bits and dolls’
portions that constitute a Japanese feast.
The incongruous and commercial part of the geisha and maiko
performance came in the shape of a yard-long bill, on which were
traced charges of seventy-five cents an hour for each maiko, which
included the two accompanists, and the jinrikisha fares to and from
the entertainment. Unwritten custom required of us the supper for
the performers, and a little gratuity or souvenir to each one.
When we begged the lovely Oikoto for her photograph, she
proudly brought us one which showed that exquisite creature
transformed into a dowdy horror by a foreign gown and bonnet,
which the Nagoya photographer keeps on hand for the use of his
customers.
CHAPTER XXII
LAKE BIWA AND KIOTO
After the pace of the jinrikisha the slow train from Nagoya to
Nagahama, on Lake Biwa, seemed to attain a dizzy speed. Rising
continually, we reached a hilly region where the road-bed crossed a
chain of tiny valleys, penetrated mountain-tunnels, and cut through
pine forests and bamboo groves.
At Nagahama we rested in a lake-side tateba, content with the
glorious view, and in no way eager to search for its famous kabe
crapes. Lake Biwa, with long, wooded slopes running down to the
shore, and mountains barring all the horizon, with smooth water and
a blue sky, offers sixty miles of charming sail. Little thatched-roof
villages, and the wide sweeping gables of temples show here and
there in the solitude of pines, and the crest of one high promontory is
girt with the white walls of Hikone castle. Many legends belong to
this mediæval fortress, the scene of so many famous events, whose
last daimio was murdered in Tokio by disaffected followers, soon
after he negotiated, as prime-minister, the treaties of 1858.
At Otsu, at the lower end of the lake, the splendid old temple of
Miidera and its monastery on the heights command the town and
lake, and the soldiers’ memorial column overlooks the eight great
sights of Lake Biwa which are painted on half the fans, kakemonos,
and screens of Japan. One of these eight wonders is Miidera, with its
long and lofty avenues, the green twilight of its primeval groves, its
yellow, moated walls and frowning gate-ways that hide in the
enchanted forest; its ancient shrines, its terraces, and lichen-covered
bell-tower, home of the legend of Benkei and his bell. Benkei was a
muscular priest who lived on Mount Hiyeizan overlooking the lake.
The other priests coveted the splendid bell of Miidera, which had
been presented by the ruler of the kingdom of women living at the
bottom of Lake Biwa to Hidesato for valiantly slaying a giant
centipede that had frightened these ladies of the lake by its forays.
The priests induced Benkei to steal the bell by promising him as
much soup as he could eat, and he threw it over his shoulder and
carried it to the top of the mountain. But its silvery tongue kept crying
“I want to return,” and the priests threw it down the mountain-side,
over which it rolled, receiving many dents and scratches, to its old
bell-tower. Near by it is the giant soup-kettle, in which the priests
cooked Benkei’s mess of pottage, and touching both relics of course
verifies the legends. At the end of the monastery groves are large
barracks, and troops of the chubby-faced, boyish-looking soldiers
are always strolling through the arching avenues of the still old
forest.
The greatest sight of Biwa, and one of the wonders of Japan, is
the old pine-tree of Karasaki, which has stood for three hundred
years on a little headland a couple of miles above Otsu, with a tiny
village and a Shinto temple all its own. Its trunk is over four feet in
diameter, and, at a height of fifteen feet, its boughs are trained
laterally and supported by posts, so that it looks like a banyan-tree.
The branches, twisted, bent, and looped like writhing dragons, cover
more than an acre of ground with their canopy. The tips of the
boughs reach far out over the water, and the sensitive Japanese
hear a peculiar music in the sifting of the rain-drops through the
foliage into the lake. High up in the tree is a tiny shrine, and the
pilgrims clap their hands and stand with clasped palms, turning their
faces upward as they pray. A heavy stone wall protects this sylvan
patriarch from the washing of storms and floods.
Under the branches a legion of small villagers, intimating by
pantomime their desire to dive for pennies, untied their belts and
dropped their solitary cotton garments as unconcernedly as one
might take off hat or gloves. They frolicked and capered in the water
as much at home as fishes and as loath to leave it. Fleeing from this
body of too attached followers, we were whirled down the road to
Otsu to eat the famous Biwa trout, passing on the way a woman,
who sat at ease in her bath-tub by her own door-step, calmly
scrubbing herself with a bag of rice bran, and contemplating her
neighbors, the road, and the lake scenery the while.
On Mount Hiyeizan, by the ruined Buddhist temples and
monasteries, the American missionaries of different denominations
have a long-established summer camp, where they enjoy a sort of
Japanese Chautauqua circle, their tents and buildings the only signs
of habitation where once stood hundreds of temples with their
thousands of priests.
From the old temple of Ishiyama, east of Otsu, is seen the famous
Seta bridge and Awatsu, where the lake takes on a wondrous silvery
sheen when the sun shines and the wind blows, these being three
more of the famous sights of Biwa. The grounds of Ishiyama contain
what is known as a dry garden, where blackened rocks and rocks
free from every green thing are piled fantastically with strange
landscape resemblances. In the temple is a prayer-wheel, which is
turned by thousands of pilgrims every summer, and in a small room
off the temple a priest showed us the writing-box and ink-stone of
Murusaki Shikibu, a poetess and novelist of the tenth century, whose
work, the Genji Monogatari, is the great classic of its age. The
remaining wonders of Lake Biwa are the flights of the wild geese, the
return of the fishing-boats to Yabashi, and Mount Hira with the winter
snows on its summit.
From Otsu over to the Kioto side of the mountains we went by
train, rushing down the long grade and through tunnels to the great
plain, where sits the sacred city, the capital and heart of old Japan,
incomparable Kioto, Saikio, or Miako. We saw it in the sunset light,
the western hills throwing purple shadows on their own slopes, and
the long stretch of wheat-fields at their base turned to a lake of pure
gold. The white walls of the Shogun’s castle, the broad roof of the
old palace, and the ridges of temples rose above the low, gray plain
of house roofs and held the sun’s last level beams.
After the imitations and tawdriness of modern Tokio, the
unchanged aspect of the old capital is full of dignity. After many long
stays in spring-time, midsummer, and midwinter, Kioto has always
remained to me foremost of Japanese cities. Yaami’s, the foreigner’s
Kioto home, with its steep terraced garden, its dwarf-pine and
blooming monkey-tree, its many buildings at different levels, its
flitting figures on the outer galleries, is like no other hostelry. Yaami,
proprietor of this picturesque hotel, is a personage indeed. He and
his brother were professional guides until they made their fortunes.
Their shrewd eyes saw further fortunes in a Kioto inn, where
foreigners might find beds, chairs, tables, knives, forks, and foreign
food, and they secured the old Ichiriki tea-house, midway on the
slope of Maruyama, the mountain walling in Kioto on the east. The
Ichiriki tea-house was the place where Oishi Kura no Suke, the
leader of the Forty-seven Ronins, played the drunkard during the two
years that he lived near Kioto, before he avenged the death of his
lord. With it was bought an adjoining monastery, belonging to one of
the temples on Mount Hiyeizan, and these two original buildings
have expanded and risen story upon story, with detached wings here
and there, until the group of tall white buildings, with the white flag
floating high up in the midst of Maruyama’s foliage, is quite castle-
like. While the obnoxious foreign treaties were in force, no foreigners
except those in Japanese employ were allowed to live in Kioto, or
even to visit it without a passport, and this secured Yaami in his
monopoly. As a matter of fact, Yaami is not the family name of the
two pleasant and prosperous-looking men who walk about in silk
kimonos, with heavy gold watch-chains wound about their broad silk
belts, and who have the innocent faces of young children, save for
the shrewdness of their eyes. Yaami is the corruption of Yama Amida
(Hill of Buddha), which is the name of the hotel, and the two men
belong to the Inowye family, a clan not less numerous in Japan than
the Smiths of English-speaking countries. In parts of the house one
finds relics of monastery days in dim old screens of fine
workmanship, and there is a stone-floored kitchen, vast as a temple,
with cooks serious as priests, wielding strange sacrificial knives, and
who, in midsummer, wear an apron only, apparently as a
professional badge rather than as a garment. The momban, or gate-
keeper, sits, spider-like, in a web of his own, a mere doll’s house by
the gate-way. In olden times, and even to-day, in large
establishments, the momban announces an arrival with strokes upon
his gong, but this particular functionary corresponds more nearly to
the Parisian octroi. All who enter the gates answer for themselves
and pay tribute, or they are forever barred out. Even coolies disgorge
their black-mail to the colony of fleet-footed brethren who hold a
valuable monopoly at Yaami’s gate, and in guilds and labor
organizations the Orient is ages older and wiser than the Occident.
All of Maruyama’s slope is holy ground and pleasure-ground. Tea-
houses and bath-houses are scattered in between the great temples,
and prayer-gongs and pious hand-clapping are heard in unison with
samisens and revellers’ songs. Praying and pleasuring go together,
and the court-yard of the Gion temple at the foot of the hill is lined
with monkey-shows and archery ranges, and in the riding-schools
the adventurous may, for a few coppers, mount a jerky horse and be
jolted around a shady ring. There, too, are many rows of images of
fierce, red-cloaked Daruma, the Buddhist saint, who sailed across
from Korea on a rush-leaf. He sat facing a wall for nine years, and
wore off his lower limbs, and now his image, weighted with lead, is
the target for merry ball-throwers, and is seen in every quarter of the
empire.
From the airy galleries on Maruyama the city lies below one like a
relief map. The river, the Kamogawa, crossed at intervals by long
bridges, cuts the city in two. From each bridge a street runs straight
on to the westward. By day these thoroughfares look like furrows
ploughed through the solid plain of gray-tiled roofs; but at night they
shine with thousands of lamps and lanterns, and their narrow,
wavering lines of fire look like so many torchlight processions, and
the river is one broad belt of light.
I first saw Kioto on the last day of the Gion matsuri, a festival
which lasts for a month and brings all the population out-of-doors
into one quarter during the evening. By dusk a babel of music and
voices had arisen, which finally drew us down the steep and shady
road, and through the great stone torii, to the Gion’s precincts. The
court-yard was almost deserted, and looking through the great gate-
way to Shijo Street the view was dazzling and the shouts and chatter
deafening. The narrow street was lined with rows of large white
paper lanterns hanging above the house doors, and rows hanging
from the eaves. Lanterned booths lined the curb, while humbler
venders spread their wares on the ground in the light of flaring
torches. Crowds surged up and down, every man carrying a paper
lantern on the end of a short bamboo stick—the literal lamp for the
feet—women bearing smaller lanterns, and children delighting
themselves with gayly-colored paper shells for tiny candles. Boys
marched and ran in long single files, shouting a measured chant as
they cut their way through the crowd and whirled giant lanterns and
blazing torches at the end of long poles.
From Gion gate to Shijo bridge the street was one wavering,
glittering line of light, and crowded solidly with people. Where the
street narrows near the bridge there is a region of theatres and side-
shows, and there banners and pictures, drums and shouting ticket-
sellers, and a denser crowd of people gathered. A loud shout and a
measured chorus heralded a group of men carrying a
Brobdingnagian torch, a giant bamboo pole blazing fiercely at its lofty
tip. The crowd surged back to the walls as the torch-bearers ran by
and on to the middle of Shijo bridge, where they waved the burning
wand in fiery signals to the other bridges that the real procession
was starting. More torches and lanterns, lines of priests in garments
of silk and gauze, wearing strange hats, beating and blowing strange
instruments; and a sacred red chair, reason for all this ceremony,
was borne on from the Gion to a distant Shinto sanctuary to remain
until the matsuri of the following year.
From Shijo bridge to Sanjo bridge Kioto’s river-bed is like a scene
from fairy-land throughout the summer, and during the Gion matsuri
the vision is enhanced. The tea-houses that line the river-bank with
picturesquely galleried fronts set out acres of low platform tables in
the clear, shallow stream. The water ripples pleasantly around them,
giving a grateful sense of coolness to these æsthetic Japanese, who
sit in groups on the open platforms, smoking their pipes and feasting
under the light of their rows of lanterns. All the broad river-bed is
ablaze with lights and torches, and on the dry, gravelly stretches a
multitude of small peddlers, venders, and showmen set up their
attractive tents and add to the general glitter and illumination.
Hundreds linger and stroll on the bridges to admire the gay sight, for
as only this people could have conjured up so brilliant a spectacle
out of such simple and every-day means, so only they can fully enjoy
its beauty and charm. All the children wear their gayest holiday
clothes on such a great matsuri night, and the graceful women of the
old capital, bareheaded, rustling in silk and gauze, their night-black
hair spread in fantastic loops and caught with beautiful hair-pins, are
worthy of their surroundings.
We left the bridge and wandered over the loose gravel and rocks
of the river-beds, crossing by many planks and tiny bridges from one
small island of shingle to another. There were countless fruit-stands,
with their ingenious little water-fountains spraying melons and
peaches to a dewy coolness and freshness, hair-pin stands glittering
with silver flowers, and fan and toy and flower booths, and all the
while we wandered there the people watched and followed with a
respectful curiosity that amused but could not annoy. Attracted by
the beautiful face of a young girl just within the curtained door of a
side-show, we paid the one cent entrance fee to see the conjurers.
The tent was empty when we entered, but such a stream of natives
poured in after us as to delight the proprietor and encourage the