"Hell-etic"

Thanks to Funnyman Wallace Irwin,* all the world knows the inner workings of the mind of a Japanese school boy. Thanks to The Dove, pinko-liberal journal of campus opinion at the University of Kansas, a small part of the world last week learned some inner workings of a Japanese college boy. A college boy evidently encouraged to leave Japan by missionaries. Wrote one Seizo Ogino to a friend in Nippon, a friend evidently about to come to the U. S. to finish his theological studies:

"I want to warn you not to expect too much. You remember when we were told by some American missionaries that we and our country were 'full of sins and how 'good Christian nation and ideal country America is'? Well, that's all bunk, I tell you. They are just the same human beings as we are, and not all the people go to church either, as you and I dreamed. I don't know why I was so dumb in believing every thing that those God's messengers told us without considering general human nature whatsoever. . . .

"You blamed me in your last letter for my getting hell-etic and not attending church services, but who knows that you won't follow the steps which I and other foreigners were bound to take, simply because you are a ministerial student? Do you know so many foreign students who came to this country to prepare for the Christian Ministries, are leaving churches and Christianity in this country, and partly revolting against the ethical monopoly of Christianity? I am interested in watching how you react when you come to this country! . . .

"Sociability, which is mechanical, is one of the characteristics of Americans, and they have plenty of supplies of 'hello's,' 'how do you do's,' and 'I enjoyed your speech very much,' which don't mean to them more than prayers mean for so-called Christians before each meal. They talk but they don't mean it....

"We misunderstand them and they misunderstand us. While we say, 'Americans are hypocritical,' they say, 'Oh, Hell, that is a bunch of foreigners." The number of open-minded students is increasing on both sides, but they are called 'radicals' 'reds' and 'atheists.'

"When foreign students go out with American girls, we and they are closely watched, and often the authorities are kind enough to warn us and them, in some cases, because their acquaintances 'may cause an unhappy marriage.' Seems to me, they interpret the acquaintances of men and women in terms of intermarriage and they don't give any ground for intellectual comradeship."

One of the season's best-selling books is the biography** of a Japanese school boy in his native precincts. Besides much colorful description of the Japanese demimonde, family life, taverns, houses of joy, there are intimate schoolroom pictures and gossip about famed Waseda University. *Creator of Hashimura Togo, whose ingeniously ungrammatical letters satirize U. S. modes, manners.

**Banzai--John Paris--Boni, Liveright, ($2.50).