Chapter 5 Peace

Peace (heiwa)

Autumn dusk after a hard journey –

arriving at a sad village with few people.

Pillowed on the sound of waves.

yuki kurete

koson no aki no

nami makura

Toward the end of the war, my husband had to go to the military but he came back. In the final days there was no military and all the soldiers were forced to dig holes. When the Occupation began everyone had to turn in their weapons, even the old family swords. People wondered what happened to all those swords. Years later, it was discovered that they were stored in a bank vault in Japan. Kendō, a martial art using swords, also was banned during the Occupation.

After Emperor Hirohito surrendered, in 1945, he renounced the belief in divine rule and oversaw the transition to a constitutional monarchy. After the emperor surrendered, the period from 1945 to 1952 was known as the Occupation. During that time the Allied forces under General Douglas MacArthur reformed the Japanese government and began a program of economic reconstruction.

One of my aunts went to America with her husband before the war. They were living in Seattle. Her husband was a very hard worker. He worked for a department store, doing many different jobs. Right before the war they all came back to Japan, to Ōsaka. Her youngest son was still in high school, too young to go into the military. He had American citizenship and was happy that he could keep that. One of the other sons also had American citizenship but the Japanese government said he had to go into the military because he was Japanese, so he lost his American citizenship. Two of the sons were killed in the war, one in a fighter airplane and one in a submarine. During the war the American government took their property in Seattle. My aunt’s husband died three years after the war, at age fifty-two, about the same age as my father when he died. After the war the two remaining sons went back to America, because they had grown up there. The American government gave their property back to the youngest son, who had not fought in the war and was still an American citizen.

During the Occupation there were many American soldiers. They would go to cafes and they had plenty of milk. My father would go and bow down and ask for a cup of miru. He wanted to drink milk before he died and there was no milk available for the Japanese. One day I took my young son Masao to a park in Hibiya, Tōkyō, and we saw many children whose parents had died, gathered in a group. They were barefoot, dirty and their kimono were ragged and torn. They were begging for food from the American soldiers. I felt very sad for them. All Japanese were poor in that time and everyone tried to help each other. Since poor people have nothing material, they only have each other, so they have more compassion for each other.

There were problems with young Japanese women being used as service girls by the American soldiers. A few Americans joined the Japanese and lived their lifestyle but they were only a few. Most of the soldiers lived with Japanese women and had children but when they left they were not allowed to bring them to the United States and had to leave them behind. It was very hard for those women to live through that. Until then almost no Japanese had ever married foreigners, so these mixed children were a new thing and they were discriminated against. It was sad to see.

One woman, Sawada Miki, turned her large house into an orphanage for these abandoned mixed children, the Elizabeth Sanders Home, in Oiso, Kanagawa-ken. Sawada-san was the first-born child of Iwasaki Hisaya, the head of the Mistubishi Company. In her childhood she learned about Christianity and in 1922, when she was twenty, she married a diplomat, Sawada Renzo, who was a Christian, so she became a Christian. They lived in Britain and France until the Great War. Back in Japan after the war, Sawada-san noticed the plight of the mixed babies who were completely rejected by other Japanese so that the mothers could not rear them and many of them died. Sawada-san wanted to start an orphanage but Mitsubishi had been liquidated and the Iwasaki family was no longer wealthy. Sawada-san asked all her friends for donations for her plan. A British woman named Elizabeth Sanders, a home teacher for the wealthy Mitsui family, gave all the money she had. Therefore, Sawada-san named her home for mixed orphan children the Elizabeth Sanders Home.

Sawada-san helped these poor children in every way that she could. She made diapers out of the curtains and sold her own clothes in order to put food in their mouths. Most people only think of their own happiness but she had deep wisdom and could think internationally. She was helping only the mixed children, not the Japanese children, who were taken care of in government-run orphanages. The mixed children all called her “Mama.” She helped each child, providing food and education, until they were able to go out into society and get jobs.

Those children grew up and eventually married or went to live overseas. Then they in turn gave donations to this home. As a result Sawada children are all over the world. When she died these former orphans and their descendents were all very sad. One summer I was on vacation in Oiso and I took these children to the beach, which was near the Sawada house. I would sometimes see Sawada-san walking with the children in the town. It is one of my fondest memories. I deeply respected Sawada-san. These days in Japan mixed children are very popular but in those days it was really bad. The half-Japanese children were bullied and it was awful to see. But the ones who lived in this home were really happy. It is known worldwide. Some children who lived there rose to great heights because they were well looked after.

I had three children, a boy, a girl and another boy, all two years apart. My first son was born during the war, in 1944, and my daughter and second son were born soon after the end of the war. I had to work hard to raise three children. It was a challenge because they were genki, very lively. After my second son was born, we moved to the countryside, because I felt being in nature was better for children. From Ueno, in the north central area of Tōkyō, we moved to Kunitachi, on the outskirts, though now it has been engulfed by Tōkyō.

Living in the country was a good choice because the children could play in the snow in winter. In warm weather we could go for a picnic right in front of the house, because there was nature everywhere. You could not do that in the city. In the autumn we put a thin tatami on top of the fallen leaves and it was very comfortable. When we first moved from the city, the children did not understand about watermelons. They saw these small unripe suika in the field, so they picked them up and played with them, and then threw them down. The farmer wondered who had been smashing his melons before they were ripe, so he hid and saw our children and their friends. He jumped out, very angry, and told them off. We had to apologize to the farmer.

My husband was a teacher and he felt the same way about moving to the country, even though he had to commute. We had the same feelings about almost everything. Wives in those days never disagreed with their husband. If you disagreed you would not say it out loud. That was the virtue of Japanese women. I do not remember it being difficult at all. While he was at work I was free to do my activities but he requested that I always be home before he got home. I had to do everything, washing, shopping, cooking, so I did not have much time. Even if he said, “Do whatever you want,” I could not do it because of all the housework.

We did not have disposable diapers so I had to wash every diaper every time it was soiled. The water was so cold and sometimes the laundry would freeze on the line outside. At that time there was a superstition that dirty things had to be washed on the north side of the house where it was dark, cold, no sun, because if you did it on the south side bad things would come. I was taught to hang unmentionables where they could not be seen. In those days ladies and gentlemen were still very pure and innocent. For example, unless you were married you could not walk together. They are still very strict in Kagoshima, in the south, where they still have separate entrances for men and women. In some traditional households the wife still hangs her husband’s laundry on a line above hers.

The Beet family lived at the Tachikawa Army Base near our house. They did not speak Japanese and they would come to our house because my husband could speak English. My husband helped them with Japanese and our children would play together. They were Christians and very kind. They ran a Bible class in our house and invited people who lived nearby. They also taught us western-style cooking and housework. They showed us their washing machine, which no one in Japan had. Their lifestyle was really different. In effect, we were doing a cultural exchange. Perhaps that was the beginning of my interest in international cultural exchange. The Beets were in Japan four or five years and then went back to Alabama, in the United States. My daughter and I have been keeping in touch by letter. I was able to go to Alabama and meet them three years ago. It had been forty years since I had last seen them. I had a wonderful time with my old friends. The couple was very old so they could not travel to Japan, but they were so happy to see me. They said, “Next time, please come and stay longer, for a month at least.”

About ten years after the war, we moved from Tōkyō, the present-day capital of Japan, to Nara, the first permanent capital of Japan. My aunt, who was living in Ōsaka, bought land in Nara and wanted to divide it. She asked me if I wanted to buy some of the land. I bought a small piece but we did not build on that piece because my husband liked a different piece and we built there. When we moved to Nara, my youngest son Sumio was in high school. He did not want to move to Nara so he stayed with one of my aunts in Tōkyō until he graduated and then went to a university there. My daughter Atsuko went to high school for a short time in Nara. Then she went to the YMCA school to learn English. She worked for the World Expo of 1970 in Ōsaka for five years. Then she went to America for a home stay visit for about six months in Portland, Oregon. Later she became a translator and lives in Nara. My oldest son Masao went to Tōkyō University and settled in Tōkyō.

I taught shodō in Nara for twenty years, many students, very nice ladies. One time I told a friend of mine that I would like to live near Fuji-san some day. She remembered that. Later she was selling some land in Oshino, a village north of Fuji-san, and asked if I wanted to buy some. I came and looked. It was very beautiful, on the side of a hill with a view of Fuji-san, so I bought it on the spot. A company owned the land and the boss liked me. He asked if I wanted him to build a small house for us there. Since then I have added a separate room for chanoyu, tea ceremony. I love living here, where I can see Fuji-san from my window every day.

My husband learned English at the university and got his teacher’s license. He taught national history in a high school in Ōsaka before the war. After the war there were very few English teachers so he switched to teaching English. After he retired, my oldest son wanted us to move in with him in Tōkyō but I had shodō students in Nara and I had this place in Oshino and wanted to stay here. My husband also liked to live here. When we lived in Nara I would go back and forth to visit my son in Tōkyō and it was very convenient to stop here on the way to rest before going on. Finally we moved to Oshino in 1977. My husband died ten years ago, in 1995, at eighty-five, the same age as I am now. He was a very interesting person. Now my son Sumio lives with me. He is quiet and he has a very good heart. I also have a little silky dachshund, Anela, who is very lively.

After the war I began going around Japan, praying for the people who lost their lives in the conflict. One time I went to Okinawa and stayed a week to go around praying at sites where many people died during the war. For example, there was a cape where many soldiers jumped from a cliff to their death rather than be taken by the enemy and caves where there were mass slaughters. In the beginning of the trip I stayed at a hotel and every day I went out to visit these places. One day I met a person who said, “Why are you staying at an expensive hotel? There’s a cheap place you can stay at that’s especially for people who are going around praying for the souls of those lost in the war.” So I decided to stay there.

It was a really huge place. People would come from all over Japan to pray for their relatives who had been lost in the war but I was the only one staying there at the time. The staff all went home at the end of the day, except one man who came around during the night checking the place. I did not really want to stay by myself, so I would ask the staff to stay longer, and they would, but at 8 o’clock they had to go. The place was properly locked up but at midnight I heard the clumping sound of a man’s boots coming up the steps and the jingling of keys. Oh no, a ghost! I sat very quietly and the footsteps went past my door. It was just the night watchman and I was very relieved. One day a big group came and I was happy that I was not alone. I thought they would stay near me but they all went up to the third floor so it was just the same, nobody around. Anyway, I felt safer because I knew they were nearby. Sometimes traveling can be a bit scary.