Chapter IX: Ushi, the Rikisha Man

I started out of a Saturday evening in Kioto, which is one of the best cities in Japan--_the_ best, I think--the old capital of the Empire, to take a walk on Theater Street, which is the Great White Way of Kioto, and one of the best spots in Japan to study Japanese life and character.

I hadn't more than stepped outside the walled-in yard of my hotel, having declined the offers of the favored rikisha men within the enclosure to take me for a ride, than a rikisha man outside the gate accosted me and pressed the card shown below into my hand.

I am a rIkIsHa man wHo
iS Living near a HoTeL]

At the same time he assured me that to ride was far better for a foreign gentleman than to walk. As I perused the card by a street light I probably detected more than you will, kind reader, for whom these lines are written on the other side of the world, as you hastily skim it and only catch its grotesque, misspelled and labored English. Its humble effort at enterprise impressed me.

Ushi mistook my mental attitude for one of indecision, and supplemented the appeal on the card with the added information that he was considerable of a linguist--that he spoke English pretty well. Also that he knew all the points of interest in Kioto, and that not to engage him for the evening was to miss a great opportunity--but Ushi's card had pulled a customer.

I stepped into his little carriage and said: "Ged app, Ushi, show me Kioto. For the evening you may be my horse and guide."

No need to crack a whip to start your Oriental human horse. Up one street and down another Ushi whirled me and drew up in a narrow alley leading into Theater Street, and invited me to alight. "We will have to walk through Theater Street. All must walk, no can ride in Theater Street," Ushi announced.

He took from under the seat of his rikisha a green bag, such as lawyers in the United States used to carry.

No, he didn't have his jewels in that bag.

Through Theater Street, we walked, Ushi at my side, with his bag, the street brilliantly lighted and seething with Japanese life.

Both sides were lined with theaters big and little, shooting galleries, sideshows, fakirs' stands--a bit of Coney Island life with Japanese coloring and settings. High and low of Kioto's populace, a city of half a million, surged through Theater Street. A mother with a baby on her back; couples and trios of little girls with their arms around each other's waists; and girls in bevies. Swains and sweethearts. Big boys and little ones. Kids just able to walk, all sorts, all conditions. Theater Street in Kioto of an evening is worth seeing.

Ushi took me to the leading theater, up to the ticket window, and told me it was on the evening's program to go to that show.

Ushi was boss.

I bought a ticket for ten cents and Ushi led me to the entrance and bade me halt and hoist. At the side of the entrance was a great stack of Japanese wooden street shoes, the owners of which were in the theater.

I would not be allowed in that theater without removing my shoes if it were not for Ushi with his bag. Hence Ushi's command to halt and hoist.

Down on his knees at my feet went Ushi, opened his bag, and selected from it a pair of cloth footgear to slip on over my shoes. An assortment of these things he carried, small, medium and large. Fortunate for me, he had an assortment--he found some big enough to go over my shoes, tied them around my ankles, and I was shod with the preparation necessary to take in a Japanese theater.

Twenty minutes of the show sufficed, and I came out and found Ushi waiting for me. He took off those cloth over-shoes, put them in his bag, and led me to his rikisha.

For two hours Ushi showed me Kioto by electric light, taking me rapidly through thoroughfare after thoroughfare, pointing out and explaining points of interest as we passed, always on a rapid trot. Now a leading business house, here a temple, there a leading Japanese hotel--down through the underworld, threading narrow streets and dark alleys, over a famous bridge, across, and through, and back again, always on his rapid trot, an eight or nine miles' run, at last to drop the shafts of his rikisha at the entrance to my hotel.

Ushi wiped the sweat from his beetling brow and demanded twenty cents for that evening's service. Yes, sir, Ushi thought he was entitled to twenty cents!

"Ushi," I said, "tomorrow, Sunday, I'll hire you for the day," and Ushi said, "Good-night," well pleased.

I went into my hotel, showed Ushi's card to mine host, the Japanese proprietor, and said: "Ushi is quite a character."

"Beware of him," mine host replied, "he is not reliable. He used to work for us, but we had to dismiss him, and now he has gone and got those cards printed, and has stationed himself just outside our gate. He has cut under the regular prices (a yen and a half a day is our regular rikisha men's charge), and he seeks to capture trade with that card."

"So?" I replied.

I read the card again, and thought, "Ushi, you clever rascal. Somehow my heart warms up to you. Competition's fierce, Ushi, and it's war, alias 'hell,' to make a livin'"--and I went to sleep that night with designs on Ushi's time for the morrow.

Bright and early next morning, after breakfast, I stepped outside the gate, and Ushi, the "rascal," who was doing business "near a HoTeL," greeted me with a smile, briskly arranged the seat to his rikisha and stepped aside for me to take my place.

I didn't get in. I said, "Ushi, you got a family?"

"No," Ushi said.

"What? No wife, no children?"

"No," Ushi said, "my wife, she die. Very sorry."

"Tough luck, Ushi," I said.

"Lost your wife, lost your job. Life's made up of lights and shadows. You don't fit into the color scheme for my day's program, Ushi. I must have a rikisha man with a wife and children," and I walked away, leaving Ushi standing there, sadly watching an all day's job go glimmering.

I stepped back into the yard, looked over the semi-circle of rikisha boys, accredited, guaranteed, within the pale rikisha boys, boys of reputation, standing and character. No "rascals" who had to resort to the "nefarious" expedient of issuing cards like Ushi's, and standing "outside the gate" to secure trade at a cut price.

I stepped up to one who looked the best to me and said: "What is your name?"

"Yamamoto. You want rikisha?"

"Yamamoto, you got wife and children?"

"Yes," wonderingly.

"How many children, Yamamoto?"

"Three, two girls and a boy."

"Yamamoto, I'll hire you for the day," and Yamamoto fixed the seat and asked: "Where go?"

"Take me out first to where Ushi stands."

Ushi wasn't standing. He was sitting, dejectedly, on the dashboard of his rikisha, waiting for someone to come along on whom he could spring his card--that "nefarious" card that cut the rates, and as he saw me draw up seated in Yamamoto's rikisha--Yamamoto, favored of fortune, taking off his fare, Ushi cast a reproachful glance on me.

"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi--what difference if you pull or push? That yen is yours when night shall come."

Ushi caught on--behind. He left his rikisha standing by the wall. There's some class to serve a man who'll hire a rikisha boy to push as well as one to pull in Kioto, and with reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire that day, just because Ushi didn't have a family.

If Ushi hadn't lost his wife, and if he had had a pickaninny or two, I'd got off for fifty cents and could have given my story the twist I'd planned for it.

But East or West or North or South the picking is always good for a story in Japan, and while to tell it as it is may not be so spectacular, at least it's safe.

My old grandfather, who was somewhat of a sage, once said to me (and his words of wisdom have survived the years), "George, a man must have an excellent memory to be a successful liar." I have a wretched memory, so the beaten, conservative, humdrum path of narrative for me.

With Ushi duly coupled on behind--"Where go?" Yamamoto asked. The pride of a double team was noticeable.

Now "Missouri's" hard luck in his missionary hunt with an automobile had inspired me to do a little investigating of this world's work on my own account, but in a more humble way. So I gave Yamamoto the address of a leading missionary, which I had easily secured from mine host, the hotel man.

"I know," Yamamoto said, "other side Emperor's palace, thirty minutes."

With Ushi on behind the ground fairly flew under us and Yamamoto and Ushi vied with each other to tell about the points of interest that we passed.

In less than thirty minutes I was landed at the missionary's gate.

"Man, man," I said, waving my hand to my coolies as I alighted. Say "man, man" to your rikisha coolie when you leave him and you'll find him right there waiting for you when you come back. It's an imaginary hitching strap I've never known to break.