So previous has the haste of Western civilization become.

The result is that our rejoicing partakes of the incongruity of humor.

The new year exists only in name.

In the Far East, on the other band, the calendar is made to fit the time.

Men begin to reckon their year some three weeks later than the Western world, just as the plum-tree opens its pink white petals, as it were, in rosy reflection of the snow that lies yet upon the ground.
But the coldness of the weather does not in the least deter people from thronging the spot in which the trees grow, where they spend hours in admiration, and end by pinning appropriate poems on the twigs for later comers to peruse.