City-wide Observance of Popular Holiday Front Oun-Own Comsroxeeer Dairen, Oct, 19.
"Let em cat cake" might quite easily be the admonition to. Dalren, residents to-day, judging by the appearance of restaurants and confoctoners as all windows are abrim with pretty delicacies in the cake line from tiny star Angers to tall many-tiered productions, For to-day Is Cake Day, Though the origin is Japanese It is not only Oriental cakes which present themselves to the round-eyed amazement and covetous gaze of the small folk as well as to the prospective buyers among the adults, For in the display windows Eastern sweetmeats jostle Western dainties with a total Jack of racial discrimination.
Cake Day of modern times doos not confine Itself to title so much as of old for it includes sweets of all varieties. Thus set forth for sale is a collection of cake, pastry and lollipops which brings a roaring trade in the succulent offerings and many evil pain to youthful stomachs.
There on show are the cakes of Japan, the same in ingredients and shape as they were when little was! known of Nippon except that it was the land of the fan and sword. These comestibles-are made from rice instead of from wheat flour which forms the basis for their Occidental cousins, Brown. sugar and syrup are used in large quantities and the cakes! are as sweet asthe heart of small boy or girl could desire them. For the darker Japanese cakes barley or buckwheat flour is sometimes used.
Bewildering Variety Among the Western cakes there a bewildering variety, Some are entirely enclosed in frosting. others frosted only on the top but all seem, to have beautiful red or green adornments on the summit, Than there are the luscious chocolate cakes festooned with peanuts or walnuts. The lesser consist of small tea cakes and crisp biscuit-like wafers, but topping all are the stately layer cakes in varying shapes which can, be planted with candles for birthdays or frostily written on for weddings. And now, in contrast to Occidental lands Is the time for marriage in this part of the world, Cake Day in Dairen generates much social activity. It is a time for remembering little-seen acquaintances, for being specially gracious to the in-laws" or for added kindnesses to intimate friends. Tremendous purchase and delivery of goods to the accompaniment of whirlwind calls all over the elly, continuous bowings by the donors and the receivers until all have bowed themselves away from friends and relatives and bowed themselves back to the sanctuary, of their own homes again, tired but satisfied In having observed Cake Day fs It should be observed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.