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| Caves that people used for hiding during the war, now used for storage. |
I sat next to Sumiko at one of the big oval-shaped tables at the Senior's Day Care center. Between bites of sweet bean yōkan and sips of tea, she told me how she was born in Taiwan during the days of Japanese occupation.
"I grew up in Taiwan and went to an all-girls school. We were not allowed to mingle with boys; that was improper. When I came of age, I was married to a boy whose family was also from Kagoshima."
"Did you have to marry someone from Kagoshima?" I asked.
"Yes, that was the way it was done in those days. We didn't marry people from other prefectures. Our parents arranged the marriage. I had never even seen my husband before our wedding day."
"When I was 26, we moved to Japan. I worked in a garment factory in Osaka before and during the war, making uniforms."
She wasn't happy with the government in those days. She hated its militarism, but of course, she kept quiet. There was very little food or creature comforts. Like others of her generation, she rejoiced when the war ended. "It was good we lost the war," she said, echoing the comment I have heard so many times.
Sumiko and her husband then moved to Kagoshima, their ancestral city that had been completely flattened by fire. "We could see from one end of the city to the other, it was so flat." Although the city has been rebuilt, the marks of war remain in the many mountainside caves where people hid from strafing.
Dealing with the daily hardships of rebuilding a life from the nothing but the ashes of the war, she managed to raise her family.
Now, in her 90's, she concludes, "I'm enjoying the happiest days of my life. I can live off my pension. I don't need to bother my kids for money. I am free. I can do whatever I want each day."
"The happiest days," she repeated, sighing contentedly.
