Of Rice & Women

There are no jokes in the Japanese language about the traveling salesman and the farmer's daughter. This is because whenever a traveling salesman visits a Japanese farm, daughter is working in the rice fields, chopping wood or feeding the chickens, and the best a poor salesman can hope for is a chat and a cup of tea with dear old dad, who often enough is not doing anything.

The next in order of rank after father on a Japanese farm is the eldest son (younger sons usually leave home as soon as they are wed because they stand little chance of getting anything from father's estate after big brother is through with it). After him comes mother, who is the real ruler of the roost. At the bottom of the list cringes the daughter-in-law, or oyome-san.

The lot of an oyome-san is not a happy one. She must be first to rise, must cook for the whole family, may eat herself only after everyone else has finished. She is seldom if ever permitted even to accompany her husband when he goes calling, and if she does must arrive unobtrusively and much later than her husband. Oyome-san comes last even in the order of the bath, and has to wash the tub rings left by everyone else when she is through.

But change, even in the most remote areas, is on the way. In Iwano village in southern Honshu a 60-year-old farm wife named Yori Oka has been waging a highly successful "Down with Feudalism" campaign. She organized cooking schools, sewing classes, formed a Village Women's Association, and finally thought of Green Flag Day. Once a month the Women's Association plants a green flag in the village square, and beneath its protection the daughters and even the daughters-in-law take a day of rest.

One day last week Mrs. Oka's green flag fluttered in Iwano's square, and not a woman was to be seen in the rice fields, the woodsheds or the poultry pens; instead they strolled about the streets, rested in bed or chattered happily away over cups of green tea at Mrs. Oka's house. Iwano's 500 men bustled about cooking lunch, washing dishes, and bending wearily over the rice fields. The mothers-in-law, unhappiest of all, sat back grimly, arms folded, refused either to work or consort with the archtraitor Oka, who had incited such rebellion.

The men did not seem to object. "We must be resigned to change," said one. As for Mr. Oka, he seemed completely in sympathy with his wife's aims. "It's time we men treated our women better," he conceded. "We should handle them at least as lovingly as we handle the rice."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.