In the traditional teaching of writing, too, the instructor took the child’s hand and made the ideographs. It was ‘to give him the feel.’ The child learned to experience the controlled, rhythmic movements before he could recognize the characters, much less write them. In modern mass education this method of teaching is less pronounced but it still occurs. The bow, the handling of chopsticks, shooting an arrow, or tying a pillow on the back in lieu of a baby may all be taught by moving the child’s hands and physically placing his body in the correct position.
Except among the upper classes children do not wait to go to school before they play freely with other children of the neighborhood. In the villages they form little play gangs before they are three and even in towns and cities they play with startling freedom in and out of vehicles in the crowded streets. They are privileged beings. They hang around the shops listening to grown-ups, or play hopscotch or handball. They gather for play at the village shrine, safe in the protection of its patron spirit. Girls and boys play together until they go to school, and for two or three years after, but closest ties are likely to be between children of the same sex and especially between children of the same chronological age. These age-groups (donen), especially in the villages, are lifelong and survive all others. In the village of Suye Mura, ‘as sexual interests decrease parties of donen are the true pleasures left in life. Suye (the village) says, “Donen are closer than a wife.”’