4 comments about Life As An American Prisoner of War of the Japanese.

1. Easy to read ...hard to put down ...unable to forget.



2. Charlie has written a very good book about his life as a POW. It speaks the truth that many Americans are not fully aware of the types of sacrifices that are made to protect our country. For his first, and hopefully not his last book, he did an excellent job of story telling.



3. Charlie has written a very good book about his life as a POW. It speaks the truth that many Americans are not fully aware of the types of sacrifices that are made to protect our country. For his first, and hopefully not his last book, he did an excellent job of story telling.



4. A true story told as it happened by a prisoner of war of the Japanese during WW2. This is a descriptive and illustrated book of one person determined to survive the most grueling time of his life. Nothing is exaggerated or played down. All stories are true and described just how the author witnessed them. From the very first chapter to the last, it's written in a way that makes you feel as if you are there and actually part of the action.
   Although it's free of vulgar language some of the pictures are graphic and may be disturbing to a young reader. The book is written for the mature reader. I feel it would be a good book for every high school senior student to read. This would give the student an idea of what someone their age was going through 60 years ago. Historical events are kept to a minimum as to not bore the reader but enough information is provided to inform
   you of the era. At times I found the book hard to put down wanting too know what would happen next. This is a book on real survival.
   After reading this book I have found a new respect for the people in our armed forces, a new respect for the older veterans of WW2 who put their lives on the line for our freedom. A freedom that should not be taken for granted by any American citizen.
   It is possible that the hardships of his youth, helped to give him the determination and will to survive the horrendous three and one half years that he was a prisoner of war, or his strong faith in the Lord above? You be the judge.

2 comments about The Code of Love.

1. This is simply the best book I have read in a long time.

   Andro Linklater writes clearly and eloquently about the love affair between Pamela Kirrage and Donald Hill at the eve of World War II. He brings to life the great excitement of their budding romance and the long, difficult years they spent apart, Pamela doing her part to support England's war efforts at home and Donald languishing in a Japanese concentration camp.

   The atrocities that Donald experienced are described in a matter of fact manner that does not take away from the sheer horror of what he must have endured. He was determined to document what happened in the camp at the risk of his own life and eventually coded his diary to ensure that it would not be discovered. Through it all, his promise to return to Pamela gave him the will to survive.

   Years later after Donald's death, Pamela resolved to know the contents of his diary so she could understand what had happened to him, what had happened to them. I found the efforts to decode his diary just as fascinating as the turbulent relationship between Pamela and Donald.

   This is an intelligent and articulate account of two passionate people caught up in the throes of war and their struggle to regain their lives and relationship once reunited. It is a romance, a war history, and a mystery all rolled into one.

   I am recommending it to everyone I know. Read it!





2. Pamela Kirrage and Donald Hill were very much in love and living in England right before the outbreak of World War II. Donald was sent overseas and spent three and a half years in a Japanese prison camp. He was never the same after the war, but tried to live a normal life with Pamela and their children.

   David kept a diary during his imprisonment, but no one could crack the code until years after Donald's death, when Pamela found a mathematician who solved the mystery.

   This book tells Donald and Pamela's sad, but moving story of true love, the horrors of war and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.

3 comments about Korematsu V. United States: Japanese-America Internment Camps (Landmark Supreme Court Cases).

1. Government Argument 1: Korematsu should not be allowed to challenge internment at all because he did not raise the issue at his original trial. The government charged Korematsu only of being in a military area after the date set by the Army to evacuate. Separability requires that all complaints must arise in the initial trial and cannot surface later during appeals. Korematsu did not bring up the internment part of the program during his initial trial and the defendant loses the right to raise it during a later appeal.
   
   Korematsu planned on leave for Nevada and marry his girl friend, but when she began having second thoughts about leaving her family, Korematsu remained in the military area. Korematsu took up residence at a hotel, changed his name, and claimed to be Mexican - Hawaiian ethnicity. A patron, who recognized Korematsu, notified the police and the police arrested him for violating law 503. The court did not reverse Korematsu case. Instead, Korematsu was sentenced to five year of probation. Upon Korematsu's release the Army detained and interned him to Tanforan with the rest of his family, a person now with a criminal record and force internment.
   
   The government argued that internment was necessary step for evacuation. Japanese in the military area were considered "the enemy" and a danger to industrial production necessary for the war effort. Historical suspicion and distrust of the Japanese had been a problem: denial of citizenship for all Japanese born immigrants, denial of property ownership, and denial of marriage to Caucasians. The government claimed lack of ability in determining which Japanese were Loyal and disloyal.
   
   The government said it could compromise national security if Korematsu were allowed to disobey the evacuation order because of what he felt was an unconstitutional internment order. The only issue for Korematsu was detention; did the government have the right to detain him for violation of law 503.
   
   In 1983, Korematsu was shown research evidence indicating that the Japanese people would have remained quiet and there was no threat of violence or danger. The case was reverses.
   
   Government Argument 2: Internment was not even an issue in Korematsu's case. The court said that internment removed the Japanese away from aircraft factories.
   
   Government Argument 3: Evacuation and internment were simply used as a way of keeping safety and order on the West Cost. The army provided the most orderly and efficient means of moving a 120,000 Japanese to ten internment camps in a short period of time. The government claimed the Japanese were safer in internment camps because the state police could protect them against hateful racism and violence.
   
   Government Argument 4: The War Power Clause of the United States Constitution allows special measures in order to win a war. The fourteen amendment of equal protection of the law did not apply to the Korematsu case.
   
   Korematsu Argument 1: Constitutional Law comes from Deity. Constitutional law protects God given rights of liberty and cannot be suspended and the Courts cannot support any law that goes contrary to constitutional law. An unconstitutional law cannot be support nor enforcement with punishment. Law 503 is such a law. Equal protection of the law should protect Korematsu and he should not be treated different by the law because of race. The equal protection of the law does not allow the courts to take away from any racial group unless the law meets two conditions: 1. an extremely important reason for the law must exist 2. The rules have nothing to do with discrimination. DeWitt's detention justifications failed too establish an "extremely important reason".
   
   Korematsu Argument 2: The government did not prove a connection between evacuation and the goal of win a war.
   
   The Japanese Americans were loyal citizens; the Japanese American sent their children to American Universities for a better life; the Japanese American did not want too complain for fear of greater persecution; the Japanese American was a hard working, skilled, and industrious; the Japanese American felt no loyalty to the emperor and consider America their home, not Japan; large numbers of Japanese Americans lived in America for more than a decade. The Japanese community did not expect an intrusion and disruption upon their personal and business lives. Rumors, lies, slanders about spying, and false pending invasion reports were being used as substantive false evidence against Japanese Americans. The doctrine of confinement is a false doctrine and confinement does not create increased security.
   
   
   Korematsu Argument 3: Congress granted the military judicial exercise in determining Korematsu guilt or innocence. Korematsu was released by the court but immediately imprisoned by the Army. The power of the court to free Korematsu was suspended, $500,000 in bail funded by the ACLU of no value, and Korematsu forced into internment. Public Law 503 was an unconstitutional transfer of power to the army and specifically to DeWitt. The courts cannot have law making power passed or delegated to the army.
   
   Korematsu Argument 4: Korematsu should have a trial to determine his loyalty and proof should be presented demonstrating his disloyalty.



2. I am an educator and have read several books in this series and I highly recommend it. A lot of Americans seem to be unaware of the extent of the Japanese internment during WWII. For example that not only were many of them US citizens but many others would also have been citizens were it not for the Exclusion Act. The author points out that while there were curfews for those of German and Italian decent they were not singled out as traitors who deserved internment. Many of the statements made against Japanese Americans by high ranking goverment officials were very racist, but at the time expressed popular sentiment. Those who were interned were forced to sell their all of the property with about a week's notice and general for pennies on the dollar.
   
   This book is basically a brief presentation of the facts. The author tries to present all sides. Dates and names of court decisions are given. Legal jargon is explained. The subject is followed from the eve of WWII right up to the Reparations Act of 1988. There is a final chapter about prejudice in general in which the author gets a bit emotional uses inductive reasoning. I also got a bit confused reading the dissenting judges' opinions and the index could have been a bit more inclusive, otherwise it's an excellent book.



3. This book is valuable, not solely for it's specific court case, but also for its abundance of beginner information on Japanese internment camps. "Korematsu" is definately written for young readers, but if anyone older can look past the very simple language, it is great for an introductory book. Especially since books on this subject are so rare. Really, it left me thirsting for more advanced information on the subject of Japanese internment camps. This book could definitely be a productive teaching tool for students of elementary school through junior high school.

3 comments about Senso: The Japanese Remember the Pacific War (Studies of the Pacific Basin Institute).

1. The first shocking chapters of this book give us a picture of a military culture whose sadistic norms were so out of control that it's almost incomprehensible. Sometimes I wonder if the allies did Japanese soldiers a favor by killing them so they could escape an army with an absolutely sick sense of discipline. One soldier wonders how many trainees committed suicide to escape punishment: just for breaking a firepin on a rifle! On Japan's surrender, an army nurse recalls soldiers turning on and beating officers who were screaming, "Forgive me, forgive me". Another soldier remembers suffering trainees whispering, "Bullets come from behind in a battlefield". I grew up hearing Korean stories about Japanese abuse that I never thought to be true until now.
   
   It's certainly not surprising that such an army of the walking dead would commit atrocities as a norm rather than as an exception. One story recalls using prisoners as targets for new recruits who were so scared that their bayonets were shaking. He recounts how they drew a red circle around the prisoners' heart, not as a target, but as the one place you were NOT allowed to stab so the prisoners would suffer as long as possible. Many of the tales of wartime heroism are simply acts of decency in defiance of unspeakably cruel punishment.
   
   Was such ferocious sadism unique to Japan, or does this teach us about other great cultures as well? Many admire the samurai, the Zulu, the Spartans and other great warriors reknown for superhuman conduct. Perhaps this sadism is the cost of such greatness - the natural reaction of humans being held to an inhuman standard?
   
   Nevertheless, as the war drags on and unrealistic notions of superiority fade, the stories inevitably become more human and share much more in common with the horrible sufferings of all people from war. It was a war where both the innocent and guilty suffered from the fanaticism of the strong.
   
   The editors reveal that they did not publish articles that were simply long nationalistic rants. Interestingly enough, this coincides with the fact that almost no articles were written by or defended those who perpertrated this plague of barbarism. It may very well be that the anti-war bias of the editors has robbed us of a look into the psychology that gives birth to atrocity.



2. Although the project was supposed to last only a few months, Asahi shimbun were absolutely deluged with responses and they eventually printed 1,000 out of 4,000 letters received. Not only does the book give the reader a personal glimpse of what it was like to be a foot soldier, housewife, high school teacher, etc.,it is also organized in a way that details the events of the war from the first settlements in Manchuria to the occupation and even how people feel about their role today. It's a great way to get the full chronology of events as well as all the personal depictions.

   I was shocked at how the footsoldiers were treated by the officers and was surprised to read tales of killing superiors in battle, much like "fragging" occurrences in the Vietnam war. Throughout the book there are gut-wrenching stories of combat, but there is also an underlying thread of humanity; officers finding ways to keep their soldiers alive, a vacationing zero pilot who convinces a group of admiring boys not to join the military, a young soldier who secretly puts some of the bones and ashes of other soldiers into the empty boxes so the families have something to pray to.

   I sat down to read the first chapter at 6 pm but I couldn't put it down. I finished it at 2 am. My best friend teaches high school history and I'm going to copy off a few of the best stories for him to use in class. This is a must read... for anyone.




3. This book does a great service in helping us see the Japanese in WW2 as more than mindless fanatics.It is an compilation of letters written to the editors of one of Japans largest newspapers, the Asahi ("Morning Sun")Shimbun during the 50th anniversary commemorations of the end of World War 2.The stories are primarily from military participants or family members of military personnel and most are very frank and gut wrenching. I got the sense that many of the ex military men were trying to come to grips as to why they were fighting- and the answers are not what this American reader has come to expect. I have always thought that the Japanese were brain washed sub-human fanatics when it came to fighting, but many of the stories reveal compassion,caring and a full awareness of the situation they were in. They speak of heartless, cruel and inhuman superior officers who thought nothing of leading entire battalions to death in their quest for glory, but they also realize that these officers were just the products of a military system where cruel treatment of recruits was a tool to instill blind obedience to superior officers. I still don't think that this is a good excuse for the many atrocities that were committed by Japanese forces during the war, but it goes alot farther in helping me to understand how such atrocities,e.g., Rape of Nanking, Bataan death march, arose. The letters from family members are particularly poignant as they recall fathers, brothers, uncles and sons who were never seen again.I was very moved by several letters from family members who had childhood memories of the deceased soldiers that really drove the point home that war is such a terrible waste(hate to sound like a cliche). The Japanese lost more than 2 million people during the war, and it would be hard not to find a family that didn't face tragedy. I gave this book to several friends who said it completely opened up their minds about what they thought about the Japanese during World War 2.While we all agree that Japan was not right for its war of aggression and the pain and suffering it caused to millions of Asians, Americans, British,Dutch and Australians, we can now hear for the first time the voices of the Japanese participants and learn that they too cried and suffered and felt deep guilt for what they did.

1 comments about The MUSIC OF LIGHT: THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF HIKARI AND KENZABURO OE.

1. This is the best book I've read this year. It covers so much: a family's love for their brain damaged child and their commitment to the grueling, challenging years raising him in a society that wants him to just disappear. It is at once literary criticism, classical music criticism, cultural commentary, biography, pschology, psychiatry, medicine and a touchingly told love story between man and son. By the end of this book you will have fallen in love with Hikari the sweet savant from Kobe and his wonderful father, Kenzaburo.

5 comments about Contemporary Japanese Film.

1. "Contemporary Japanese Film" is a mis-named book. Judging from the title and size, I was expecting something along the lines of a continuation of Donald Richie's seminal "100 years of Japanese film," something bringing equal insight into contemporary Japanese film as Richie brought into the historical. Instead, "Contemporary Japanese Film" is nothing more than a collection of previously published and unconnected essays, interviews and film reviews by Japan-based film critic Mark Shilling. Obviously, someone saw the potential to make money off of existing material, without further work. There are no original articles.
   
   Shilling is a fine film critic and clearly knowledgeable about the modern Japanese film industry. However, either he or his editors do not know how to assemble this knowledge into a useful book. Several of the essays overlap, with the same information in each. For instance, Shilling is clearly a fan of Iwai Shunji's film "Swallowtail," as it is introduced, described and critiqued in several essays, without any acknowledgement that it was introduced only a few pages before in a different essay. Also, several concepts, such as block-booking movies and advanced ticket sales to drive up box office, are talked about but never adequately explained for non-familiar readers.
   
   In addition, although it looks like a thick and potent read, more than half of the book, 250 pages out of a 388 page book, is film reviews, culled from Shilling's column in the English-language Japan times. The majority of these films are not available to Western audiences.
   
   All of this may sound terrible, but the content that is here is of good quality, and once one gets over the initial disappointment of the mis-labeled title, there are a few kernels of insight to pull out of the pages. Probably the most interesting section is the directors interviews, showcasing such luminaries as Kurosawa Akira, Takahata Isao, Itami Juzo, Suo Masayuki (Shall we dance?) and Kitano Takeshi. There are some glaring oversights, such as no Suzuki Seijun, Miike Takashi or Miyazaki Hayao, but I suppose he can't have covered everyone in his newspaper work.
   
   As a book about contemporary Japanese film, it is a failure. As a collection of non-related essays, interviews and film reviews from someone with knowledge and history of modern Japanese film, it is successful.



2. I found this book to be useful in giving a broad range of information on contemporary Japanese film makers. Although It was not always clear why Schilling had chosen to feature certain directors and not others. I was able to link the directors together which was helpful but I wished there had been more detailed film reviews



3. The Japanese reporter for the prestigious Screen International, Mark Schilling gets to see all the new films in advance, and brings not just a reviewer's critical eye, but a linguist's critical ear = his comments on translation and delivery add a whole new dimension lacking from writers who can't speak Japanese. His comments, even where I don't initially agree with them, such as his Poppoya review, are always thought-provoking and worthy of consideration, and his introductory essays on the state of modern Japanese film are unequalled in the current market. Some of the background stories, such as the influence of the Middle Eastern carpet trade on the Japanese film business, are quite mind boggling, bu also bery interesting explanations for some of the strange behaviour of Japanese film producers. An excellent survey of Japanese film in the 1990s, from someone who was there when it all happened.



4. One of the better and hipper books on Japan is the Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture, by Mark Schilling. Schilling is one of the few foreigners who can really distinguish the important icons of Japanese culture from the stuff that's of less interest. It was with great relief that I found his Contemporary Japanese Film, focusing on cinema from the 1990s. Not surprisingly, he makes reference to the golden age of Japanese cinema in the 1950s, including the magnificent talents of Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi, in an effort to understand what has gone wrong in the nation's cinema since then: a downward spiral of bad talent and visionless film producers. Ever since, there has been little international attention paid to Japanese cinema except for the interesting work of '60s mavericks Nagisa Oshima and Seijun Suzuki (the "Sam Fuller of Japan").

   According to Schilling, there were some new beams of light in the Japanese cinema of the '90s. Leading the pack is filmmaker Takeshi "Beat" Kitano, who has already gotten serious attention in the States and Europe for his stylized gangster films, such as Sonatine (1993); and the hysterical films by the late (and very much missed) Juzo Itami, who made the culinary adventure Tampopo. So it is not surprising that the two most interesting interviews in the book are with these filmmakers. Takeshi must be the hardest-working man in the world: He makes at least two films a year plus eight television episodes a week. He tells a funny story about how on one talk show dealing with food and drink; he fell asleep on television due to the alcohol. The other guests just went on their merry way while commenting every so often on Takeshi's sleeping habits. He claims that there is no pressure doing that much television shows because nothing is planned; it is even relaxing. It is worth noting that, on the side, he has a career as a kind of Japanese David Letterman.

   As for Itami, who is known for his television acting as well as his films, his interview focuses on how contemporary Japanese culture is conveyed in different aspects of his film work. Itami has made fun of everything from family practice (The Funeral) to the Japanese Mafia, the Yakuza (as a result, he had his face slashed by a Yakuza member).

   The second half of the book includes nearly 400 Japanese film reviews by Schilling, published originally in the Japan Times. I would recommend this book not only to film fans, but also to readers who are interested in contemporary Japanese culture. Schilling, along with American journalist Donald Ritchie, has excellent insight into what makes Japan tick, and also understands the nature of kitsch in Japanese culture




5. Mark Schilling is a film reviewer for one of the Tokyo newspapers, so this book is made up of all the films released in the past 10 years, bundled up with a load of articles/interviews with the like of Shunji `Swallowtail Butterfly' Iwai and Juzo `Tampopo' Itami. He writes very well, but most interesting is the wide diversity of the films reviewed. It's far more comprehensive than Weisser's book, which would have you believe that Pinku Eiga were the only type of films being made in Japan in the 90's. Most of the films reviewed have probably had little release outside of Asia. This definitely the best book out there on the subject.

No comments about "Wase Time!": A Teen's Memoir of Gila River Internment Camp.

No comments about (I am) A Real American: Memoirs of a 3rd Generation Japanese-American USAF Fighter Pilot.

5 comments about The Dream of Water.

1. Whine, whine, whine. Get a life woman, and stop detailing every boring thing your father ever did to you.



2. In this intensely personal memoir Kyoko Mori visits her home town of Kobe, Japan, in an attempt to come to terms with her mother's suicide and her estrangement from her father.
   
   She came to America at 20, seven years after her mother's suicide, and even then knew she would never return for more than a visit. Her memoir begins with an account of the immediate aftermath of her mother's death - the shrouded atmosphere of shock and grief, her maternal grandparents gentle consideration, her father's jarring insensitivity.
   
   It then jumps to 1990, as Mori, now an American, readies for departure from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where she teaches creative writing at the university. She has always been ambivalent about the country of her birth. When people ask her if she 'goes back,' she winces at their terminology and replies, ' 'I'd like to visit sometime, but there are other places I'd rather travel to if I had the money.' '
   
   The trip is a sabbatical, justified as research for her stories and poems. She will spend four weeks sightseeing. Letters to her family are only sent from the airport: 'I could never get on the plane this morning if I had to see my family first thing upon arrival.' The people she has arranged to meet on arrival are, instead, Americans living in Japan and it is an American family she stays with.
   
   Mori skims over her four weeks traveling. She remains an outsider, treated as a foreigner. The Japanese she meets don't even expect her to speak Japanese. The reader pictures her in her American running shoes and sports clothes, a contrast to the Japanese women in dresses and lipstick, aloof in her tourist personna. But Mori begins to think she would feel alien anyway, even if she had not become so determinedly American. Kobe, where she grew up, is a modern, westernized city with little of Japanese tradition about it. The private school she went to, run by westerners, encouraged her non-conformist creativity. Even Japanese art does not move her.
   
   Upon her return to Kobe she agonizes over calling her father. She longs to see her other relatives - the maternal grandmother, aunts and cousins her father had forbidden contact with at the age of 13. Her paternal aunt and cousin who gave her so much sympathy and love in the difficult years after her father remarried. But she is Japanese enough to know that she must call her father first otherwise the others will feel awkward.
   
   The narrative is haunted by the guilt and grief she still feels over her mother's suicide, the bitterness she carries for her father. Until we meet him, it's easy to feel impatient with Mori as well as sympathetic. Sure, he was a cold, even viscious parent - depriving her of family, threatening to take her out of the school she loved, beating her for speaking her mind, full of psychological cruelties - but she also provoked him with her rash impetuosity. Perhaps Mori should be an adult about it and reconcile. How can he hurt her now?
   
   Then we meet her father and his callous behavior is as breathtaking as it is sad. The stepmother really is like something out of Grimm's fairytales. In their presence Mori becomes like a child again but the years have taught her restraint. Reuniting with her other relatives, she finds it frustrating that Japanese language and custom makes emotional expression difficult. But in the end she also finds a delicacy, even a liberation, in this. Breathing room.
   
   Mori's language is simple, unadorned, affectingly graceful. Her narrative engages the emotions as it struggles with big questions of coming of age and coming to terms with anguish that will never be resolved. In the end she remains an alien in her birthplace and the reader understands a little more about what that means.



3. The main watered down version of this book to save people the trouble of reading it: My past was traumatic, and I hate Japan. GO UNITED STATES!
   In other words? Stupid, biased, and well... BAD

   This is just like her book "Polite Lies", Ms. Mori just wants to display Japan in the lowest level doesn't she? All right, your past was traumatic. Thank you. Now either get OVER it, or just LEAVE JAPAN ALONE! I'm Japanese, just like this author but lived in the United States for seven years (from when I was 3-10) and have been living in Japan since. Now, as I am living in Japan NOW and not what? 25895039 million years ago (that's the impression I get from her book) I can tell you that the information is WRONG. Her writing style is well, beautiful and imaginitive, but her information? CATCH UP BEFORE WRITING A BOOK AND ACTING PERSUASIVE! If she's trying to lower a foreigner's view of Japan, she's probably done a fine job of it. So as a warning to all foreigners readning this book: IT'S A BUNCH OF LIES!

   She also has a load of stuff on the Japanese school system that is so wrong. It's a perfectly fine system okay? Quit bashing on it! It seems she didn't even go through it because she spent half the book boohooing about how bad it was and how EXCELLENT her AMERICAN influenced private school was.




4. This is a book I relish so much, I limit myself to a chapter a day just to stretch out the enjoyment and savor each sentence. I am an American who has lived in Japan for seven years, and it is so interesting to see the view through her eyes -- she really does capture aspects of Japanese culture that are below the surface, not normally visible, but nonetheless palpable. This girl definitely has a way with words!



5. I don't like giving a synopsis or summary of the book. Thats what reading it is for. What I do like to discuss in reviews is what kind of effect the book had on me. The mood and atmosphere of the book was on the depressing side, but that's okay. Because life is like that sometimes. Like Kyoko Mori, if you don't confront a problem correctly, it will fester in your soul until you come to terms with it. The book was realistic. I like putting down a book and knowing it isn't "too good to be true" because it is true, and I don't end up in a fantasy land.

   The book does deal with alot Kyoko's negative experiences and views of the Japanese culture. I love Japanese culture, and I think her views are totally valid. I can accept the good and bad. Why be closed minded? Kyoko even comes to appreciate and understand some of the seemingly "rude" behaviors of her Japanese friends, and can enlighten us outsiders to what might seem to be odd behavior.

   Good book. It was nice for Kyoko to let go of some of her personal demons and share this very personal and painful story. Maybe we can all be as brave as her and launch head on into what we've been dreading and fearing.

No comments about Kannani and Document of Flames: Two Japanese Colonial Novels.