RETURN


 X. THE COMING WAR   

As Miss Takata again resumed her work with the
Junior College for Girls in Tokyo she realized that
the Japanese government and the people were losing
their good feelings for Western people, especially
those of the United States. Though her school was
based on t he emphasis of the teaching of English,
it was still flourishing; the parents and students
continued interest and seemed indifferent to any
changes .
During the 1920's Japanese attitudes were gen-
erally friendly toward the Western nations . The
Versailles Treaty provided that Japan become the
protectorate of all the German formerly-held island
possessions in the Pacific . This placed Japan's na-
val power as third in the world. As an expression
of approval of things Western the Japanese Govern-
ment granted universal male suffrage in 1925 as most
of the Western nations had done. Certain games as
tennis, golf and American baseball became popular.
Social customs changed enough to allow a few women
to be employed in offices and as hostesses in dance
halls and waitresses in Western type restaurants.
Western clothes and Western music slowly increased
in popularity. The Japanese people were impressed
by American generosity and friendly relations seemed
likely to increase.
The Japanese people were grateful when the
United States Government sent its Pacific Fleet with
supplies for the Japanese at the time of the great
1923 earthquake . The ships came loaded with food
and emergency supplies and a gift of money of over
ten million dollars.
But in 1924 the United States Senate debated a

new immigration bill imposing a ceiling on the num-
ber of immigrants to the United States at a total of
150,000 a year. The quota per country was to be
proportionate to the number of nationals already
within the United States. Only 146 Japanese under
this arrangement would have been eligible to enter
but when the ミ bill became law it excluded all Asiat-
ics. This slur came upon Japan though it had long
sent its people who had become model American citi-
zens. Japan's aristocratic tradition and its civi-
lization were recognized as centuries older than
that of the oldest settlements of the eastern coast
of the United States.
The Japanese Government and the people now ex-
cluded as immigrants of the United States lost
friendship for the West and looked toward the conti-
nent of Asia and the Pacific Islands for expansion.
The Japanese army invaded Manchuria in 1931 and lat-
er went into China in open war in 1937.
During these years the Ministry of Education of
the Japanese Government began discouraging the use
of English words that had been taken over by the
people in the news media. Western style of dress
was rejected by some. The teaching of English would
likely be. suppressed.


 XI. THE STRANGE INTERLUDE   

Though Western ideas and social changes were
discouraged there was strong interest in the West by
those people in Japan who had lived or traveled in
Western countries. A Japanese artist and critic had
just returned to Tokyo after forty years spent in
the United States. He was writing articles for Jap-
anese papers criticizing women ' s choices of colors
and styles as seen on the Ginza and these articles
created quite a sensation among the readers inter-
ested in the arts.
A Japanese magazine much like the Ladies Home
Journal in the United States asked Miss Takata as a
journalist to interview him and write an article.
Most readers thought that he would have forgotten
the Japanese language after forty years out of the
country. Toshi thought that the assignment to be
especially interesting and interviewed him at the
hotel where he was staying.
Years later she wrote:

"After forty years he and Japan and
the Ja.panese people had changed so m 埠ch
but he still spoke beautiful Japanese. I
found him very nice looking and dignified
and refined. He said he has a sister and
a brother in western Japan but he did not
know whether they were still living, but
would go to his home area soon and find
out. He had no friends except a Universi-
ty professor who had introduced him to the
newspaper people.
"Changes were so great that he did
not know which way to turn and was lonely.

He asked me to help him in the ways he did
not know. He was a graduate of the Uni-
versity of Chicago and had directed some
art association in New York and he offered
to teach art for my school as a volunteer.
He felt very bored with no work.
"I accepted his offer of teaching so
he came once a week. He became very popu-
lar among the students and gave interest-
ing talks about Arnerica.
"One day I invited him to lunch at my
week-en 電 home, a semi-house, part Western
and part Japanese, Iocated among the pine
woods on a hill overlooking Tokyo. I had
two college boys staying there working on
their theses and I invited them to meet
this artist. But just before Mr. N. ar-
rived the boys were called home to go to
the Kabuki theater with their families.
"We two had an interesting afternoon
talking about America and the experiences
I had there. He told me how he spent for-
ty years and why he came back so suddenly,
etc. The surroundings were very romantic
but I thought he would leave soon when
suddenly it began to storm with thunder.
No one could walk outdoors in such weather
that became worse. We waited and waited
for it to clear up but it became a regular
typhoon . I didn ' t know what to do with
him .
"He was much older than I so I asked
him what was the right thing to do under
the circumstances. U I could not send him
away nor could I have him alone in the
house. He smiled and said, "Just put me
anywhere and I ' Il leave early in the morn-
ing .
"I thought nothing wrong to have him,
so we had supper together and had a nice
time by the fireplace. While talking he
became very sentimental and proposed that
I marry him. I kept quiet for several
weeks. When I told my brother about it
casually he became very interested because
he had read Mr. N. 's articles in the news-
papers. My brother said seriously that I
should have the experience of a human be-
ing but as I had my work that I could not
give up and I was so Westernized and inde-
pendent, it would be hard to find the right
man. He said that Mr. N. sounded just such
a man for me.
"So my brother invited him to dinner
one evening, a dinner we had on a ho ルuse-
boat on a big river. While drinking and
eating and talking both of them became very
good friends. Eventually my brother sug-
gested in a very pretty way to him to have
me . I felt very calm and somehow indifer-
ent . My future seemed dark with the in-
creasing war in China and the uncertainty
of continuing my work.
"So after two months we were married
at a church. The minister was my uncle
Saneharu Ojima. The wedding was very sim-
ple with a few close friends and my stu-
dents invited. Even after I married I kept
my own name like a stage name . I couldn't
change it because in the mind of the public
my school had been known as the Takata
School .
"Mr. N. ' s health became weak during
the few weeks of the engagement , due to
the relief after forty years of a lonesome
voyage when at last he could put down his
anchor .
"We had a few days of a honeymoon trip
and after a month he became very ill ; I had
to put him in a hospital ・. To cover all the
expense I sold my country house I had built
for my future . Things were getting worse
and worse . The doctor lived near to my
house and since my husband wished so much
to come home we brought him back and the
same doctor came twice a day.
"When summer came he slipped away
without suffering. He thanked me for all
I had done for him. I had gone through all
this tragedy empty and blank. My married
life was less than a year. . . . . . Life is a
strange thing . He spent forty years in the
United States and in those forty years he
became a stranger of Japan . I had to watch
him in many ways . We spoke in English when
things didn't go well. . . . . . . . . Time has
made me very happy."


 XII. THE SECOND WORLD WAR   

By 1940 the Japanese Government banned English
words to be used in any publications, words such as
announcer , record, lighter, and Japanese words for
these meanings had to b e substituted. This disap-
proval by the government and the public had increased
during the 1930's . It was in February of 1940 that
the Ministry of Education called Miss Takata and or-
dered her to close her school .
She set the date for graduation of her older
students a month ahead of the regular time of March.
For students of the lower classes she had other prob-
lems . Many fathers came to her to beg her to give
their children English lessons only; the students
were anxious to stay with her. But she could not af-
ford to keep her teachers for the other subjects
alone or keep up the expenses of a large school
building . The fathers offered to help her get a
smaller house when she had to dispose of the school .
She felt, however, that the students would be much
happier in a proper school. She recalled the dif-
ficulties years later.
"How hard it was for me to face these problems .
While suffering and wondering what would be the best
for my students, suddenly while wa lking on the Ginza ,
severe arthritis came over me and I couldn ' t walk .
There was no taxi or ricksha to be found . Fortunate-
ly I was with a man who carried me on his back to my
home .
"After a few months in a hospital I went to a
northern sanitarium which had a nice hot spring .
While I was there the war was coming closer with its
bombing . I had to brace myself lest I never come
home . After a time I came limping back . Fortunately

my house was still safe."
World War II. had begun in Europe and Japan
joined the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis. Materials within
Japan were used for war purposes. A president of an
airplane manufacturing works came to Miss Takata to
ask her to sell her school building to his company,
the lumber in it to be used to build a factory .
She explained , "I was offered a big amount of
money on which I should live easily the rest of my
life ; with all that money I could look after myself
due to illness. However, money value had c thanged;
we had to take new yen in place of old yen and the
money did not last very long. I rented a big west-
ern-style house to put in all the equipment of the
school including a grand piano , hoping that someday
I might need it for another school . "
World War 11 had begun in Europe in 1939. Ja-
pan joined. the war in 1941 to carry out its military
plan to establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperi-
ty Sphere. Japan seized Indo-China, Burma, Malaya,
Philippines, Hong Kong and all the islands of the
Pacific toward the shores of Hawaii. All this, the
biggest empire assembled in world history, Japan
took over in less than five months with a loss of
15,000 men, 380 airplanes and four destroyers.
The Japanese surprise air attack on Pearl Har-
bor in December of 1941 was intended to begin the
destruction of the United States Pacific fleet be-
bore it could be a counter offensive weapon against
the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere
and its Pacific empire . The att ack on Pearl Harbor
from the Japanese point of view was not as success-
ful as it might have been; four of th.e eight battle-
ships in the harbor were sunk and the remaining four
greatly damaged but three of the aircraft carriers
were not in the harbor and the destruction of these
was the main objective of the Japanese. Japan' s
planes also failed to destroy the fuel storage tanks
and repair docks.
When Admiral Yamamoto in Japan learned that the
Japanese bombs started to fall in Pearl Harbor fifty-
five minutes before Japan declared war, he said, "I
fear that all we have done was to awaken a sleeping
giant and fill him with terrible resolve." Adniral
Yamanoto, a part of the Japanese "Control Group" ,
had years before graduated from Harvard University
in the United States and had lived in Washington D.C.
as a Japanese naval attache . He did not now agree
with his army "Control Group" that the United States
was an irresponsible monster torn by internal polit-
ical divisions y and therefore incapable of being a
strong military force. He believed the opposite .
He said that he believed that Japan might have war
successes for a year or two but after that he was
not sure.
Toshi Takata also feared and doubted even as
she heard of the astonishing successes at Pearl Har-
bor and in Asia. She doubted that Japan could win a
war with America, the powerful United States she had
seen. She struggled with her own doubts and fears
as she continued to suffer with serious illness.
Hopelessness from the loss of her life work was hard
but even worse was the ongoing suspicion and hatred
in the people around her when they learned that she
was a teacher of the hated English language.
The war successes of Japan finally changed to
losses. Bombing attacks came closer, island by is-
land. Miss Takata gave away all of her stored school
equipment to a school principal who was a friend.
She also gave up her home and went to live with her
brother in central Tokyo .
y She explained, "My brother was a dentist. All
doctors and dentists were ordered by the government
to stay in the city so that they could look after
wounded people. He had already evacuated his family
to the country further away from the city than our
home town of Mishima. "
In her brother's home his dental office was on
the first floor and the living quarters upstairs.
A few days before the heaviest bombing in Tokyo an
insurance agent came by and offered the Takatas a
chance to insure. The brother conferred with his
sister who advised him to take out all the insurance
possible with the funds available, and he did so.
When on that night of horror on March 9-10, 1945,
the bombs began to fall on the city , Toshi rushed
upstairs to the room where her brother was sleeping
heavily and had to beat on his face to awaken him.
As they dashed out, the house was afire and would
soon collapse. They saw buildings around them burn-
ing and leaning crazily. The Tokyo "carpet bombing"
de stroyed more property and more people than did the
atomic bomb at Hiroshima. The bombing began about
10 P.M. and continued all night. Eyewitnesses say
that at least 300 aircraft dropped bombs on the
densely built quarter of the city.
A few very large buildings looked safe and many
ran into the basements. Toshi and her brother sought
safety with others but when she went up the basement
steps to look out, the street was a river of fire
and smoke poured into the buildings . She screamed
to the others to come out before all choked to death;
all ran to seek every possible escape.
She heard her brother calling her name and she
ran to him inexpressibly happy that they had found
each other. His words to her were of a kind of joy;
now that he had lost his office and his house he was
free to go with her to join his family in the coun-
try .
That night much of Tokyo became a smoking,
charred, flattened mass. The only way to get to the
train was by walking and for nearly a whole day the
two walked, Toshi hanging on to her brother's arm
and limping . They found their food on the street

dropped by others running . To enter the train they
climbed through a broken window. Hours later they
arrived and great relief came as they saw t 撹eir fam-
ily waiting at the station. They had been worried
by the radio news from Tokyo.
News also came of the cousin, Saneharu Ojima,
now a well known Christian minister and an author of
many books. His books had never brought him any
royalty and he had lived without any income from his
work. The Japanese Government now put him in prison
and burned many of his books. His wife had support-
ed the family of six children and her husband through
the years by working as a midwife. They all had
lived as sacrificial Christians. During the impris-
onment in the war the minister preached to the guards
and persuaded some of them to become Christians.
City people in the bombed and burned cities fled
when they could to the hill country. The farmers
were not kind to those who came from the wrecked
cities. the "evacuated beggars". City people had to
beg the farmers t ナo sell them the things they needed.
Money payment was not accepted but kimonos were.
As time went on the city people peeled off layer by
layer of clothing to pay for the food and other ne-
cessities in an existence they termed onion life or
cabbage life.
The Takata family had been able to rent a small
house from a family whose daughter had once been a
matron in Toshi ' s school. The daughter was now dead
but her family was very kind to the Takata family.
Toshi, because of her crippling arthritis stayed at
a little inn close by, an inn with a hot springs
bath which she used every day trying to become well .
It was to be nearly five years before she walked
normally .
The family had nothing to eat . They had gone ,
out in the mountains to pick roots of potatoes after
the farmers picked the potatoes. Sometimes they

found the roots of spinach . One day the brother ob-
tained the use of a boat and proved that he was a
goo 鐡 fisherman by bringing home many fish. He ex-
plained his plan for trading fish to the farmers for
their vegetables and he appointed Toshi to do the
bartering .
She rejected his idea ; bartering meant haggling
and disputing. She thought there must be a better
way, a Christian way. She decided to give the fish
to the farmers and did so. A happier life for them
all began when the farmers gave them vegetables and
flour and other needed things . The brother contin-
ued to be a successful fisherman and the farmers con-
tinued to supply food along with their friendliness.
Toshi comrnented, "We became good friends with them,
and that was the best thing." The farmer ' s trust in
Toshi grew; they asked her to teach their children.
During the war years Japanese propagandists
described Americans as blood-thirst wild beast, red-
eyed devils with huge hand crushing children. They
were pictured with skin wrinkled and thick like the
demons of Buddhist statues. Whet ・er farmers in the
hill country knew of this propaganda we do not know
but they came to talk with Toshi especially about
the war and the enemy, the Americans. They ques-
tioned, "If Japan is defeated, will the Americans
make all of us prisoners and carry away the country
of Japan?"
She told them that America was not a cruel
country, but a religious country. And even if Japan
were to lose the Americans could never carry Japan
away ; Japan would be a Japanese country forever.
With this answer the simple people went away very
much relieved and said that maybe it might be better
to be defeated than to have to live a hard life un-
der the Japanese military force.
Toshi's father had been fond of the writings of
Leo Tolstoy who believed in passive resistance. She
remembered his arguments with the young student and
cousin, Saneharmi Ojima, years before. Her father    
said that under no circumstances should Japan fight
a war. Once he declared, "In God's sight o ur coun-
try is no more than a grain of rice, and if it were
to be His will to have our country taken away, it
were better to do so. Still, nobody can carry our
country away on his shoulders. It's here forever. "
Here, then, in the hill country years later, Toshi
had repeated her father's ideas to questioning farm-
ers of the countryside.
The brother was able to set up a dental office
in part of the little house the family rented. Some-
time afterward the Takata family found a pretty
house at a resort area with a spa. Life became
somewhat easier.
Toshi's thoughts were often of her friends in
the United States, friends who became dear to her
during her long stay in 1929-1930. She wished some-
how that she could let them know that she was living
and safe , but that was impossible. Her country was
at war with their country .
One particularly beautiful spring morning she
sat looking out toward the mist hills white with
cheery blossoms. She noticed little of the beauty,
though that beauty included the exquisite loveliness
of Mt. Fuji. She recalled that morning years later.
"In those days God seemed very far away. Grad-
ually the morning quiet, the freshness, and the far
view of Mt. Fuji, snowcapped, beautiful , awakened
hope and memories of happier times. I remembered
childhood memories of my home once in sight of this
beautiful mountain . I watched it and slowly the
message came that though the whole world was fight-
ing, still God makes beautiful the wo rld of nature..
. .All of a sudden I realized that God was near me
and protecting me . I trusted my future to Him. I
awaited His guidance."
The war dragged on . Life became harder. Two
of Toshi ' s brothers were lost during the war and a
sister died of a bomb injury.
A man sought out Miss Takata on her mountain-
side, a man from the Japanese Ministry of Education .
She never knew how he managed to find her . He asked
her to take a position as principal of a high school
to be started in Singapore . Such a principal was
required to speak English and Japanese and the man
urged her to accept because she was the right. person
for the position. She agreed to go, but fortunately
the school never materialized. It was too late in
the war - to start ,a Japanese school in Singapore.
But still the war wore on . World War 11 became
the most costly in the history of the world. Physi-
cal devastation and moral degradation scourged ci-
vilians and soldiers. Famines, epidemics of disease
and homelessness spread among war victims around the
world .
As the war finally came to its miserable close
the Japanese radios and newspapers and the street
loud speakers warned that if the Americans landed
they would behead the Japanese soldiers, rape the
women and steal the children.
All this was silenced when the Emperor's voice
on radio spoke to all Japanese for the first time in
history. The Emperor spoke directly to his people.
He declared that he was not a divine being . He
stated that the war was *lost and that the Japanese
people should welcome the American troops.
Shock spread throughout Japan .


 River Fish "Ayu"


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