A fact remarked by many thoughtful Occidentals is the astonishing difficulty—­indeed the impossibility—­of becoming genuinely and intimately acquainted with the Japanese.  Said a professor of Harvard University to the writer some years ago:  “Do you in Japan find it difficult to become truly acquainted with the Japanese?  We see many students here, but we are unable to gain more than a superficial acquaintance.  They seem to be incrusted in a shell that we are unable to pierce.”  The editor of the Japan Mail, speaking of the difficulty of securing “genuinely intimate intercourse with the Japanese people,” says:  “The language also is needed.  Yet even when the language is added, something still remains to be achieved, and what that something is we have never been able to discover, though we have been considering the subject for thirty-three years.  No foreigner has ever yet succeeded in being admitted into the inner circle of Japanese intercourse.”

Is this a fact?  If not, why is it so widespread a belief?  If it is a fact, what is the interpretation?  Like most generalizations it expresses both a truth and an error.  As the statement of a general experience, I believe it to be true.  As an assertion of universal application I believe it to be false.  As a truth, how is it to be explained?  Is it due to difference of race soul, and thus to racial antipathy, as some maintain?  If so, it must be a universal fact.  This, however, is an error, as we shall see.  The explanation is not so hard to find as at first appears.

The difficulty under consideration is due to two classes of facts.  The first is that the people have long been taught that Occidentals desire to seize and possess their land.  Although the more enlightened have long since abandoned this fear and suspicion, the people still suspect the stranger; they do not propose to admit foreigners to any leading position in the political life of the land.  They do not implicitly trust the foreigners, even when taken into their employ.  That foreigners should not be admitted to the inner circle of Japanese political life, therefore, is not strange.  Nor is it unique to Japan.  It is not done in any land except the United States.  Secondly, the diverse methods of social intercourse characterizing the East and the West make a deep chasm between individuals of these civilizations on coming into social relations.  The Oriental bows low, utters conventional “aisatsu” salutations, listens respectfully, withholds his own opinion, agrees with his vis-a-vis, weighs every word uttered with a view to inferring the real meaning, for the genius of the language requires him to assume that the real meaning is not on the surface, and chooses his own language with the same circumspection.  The Occidental extends his hand for a hearty shake—­if he wishes to be friendly—­looks his visitor straight in the eye, speaks directly from his heart, without suspicion or fear of being misunderstood, expresses