At dinner nuts and fruits are eaten first. Men
work like animals. There are many ways in which the Chinese are
different from the people in our country.

JAPAN

[Illustration: Japanese Children.]

How would you like to ride in a wagon drawn by a man instead of a
horse? That is the way people ride in Japan. Japan is a country a
long way off, near China. You would think that a man could not run
very fast drawing a wagon. But in Japan some men can run as fast as
horses. The wagon is like a buggy, but it has only two wheels. They
call this wagon a jin-rik'i-sha.

[Illustration: A Jinrikisha.]

The streets in Japan have no sidewalks. The houses are only one or two
stories high. They are built of wood. They have no windows or doors.
Strange houses, you will think. The walls outside and inside are made
like sliding doors. They slide back so that the people can go in and
out, and from one room to another.

The Japanese have very little furniture in their houses. They have no
chairs. They do not need any, for they sit on cushions on the floor.
They also sleep on the floor. When it is time to go to bed, they
spread soft quilts on the floor, one over the other. The last quilt on
the top is the cover. These beds are very nice. But you could never
guess what kind of pillows they have. The pillows are blocks of wood
the size of a brick. You would not think them nice at all. But the
Japanese seem to sleep very well on their wood pillows.

[Illustration: A Japanese Bed.]

Many of the things in the houses in Japan are made of paper, They have
paper fans, paper lanterns, paper hats, paper cups, paper umbrellas,
paper napkins, and paper screens.

They have no stoves. Instead of stoves they have boxes lined with
brass. In these boxes they burn charcoal to heat their rooms. But
they do not cook their food in these brass boxes. They cook in little
ovens made of clay.

When it rains in Japan the people look very funny. The men wear rain
coats made of rice straw. They also have big straw hats and paper
umbrellas.

[Illustration: A Rain Coat.]

They wear blocks, three inches high, fastened to the soles of their
shoes. These keep their feet dry. So on a rainy day everybody looks
three inches taller.

In Japan they do not wear shoes in the house. When they go into their
houses they take them off. Their shoes are made of wood or straw.
Some of the people have shoes with gold braid.

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