2 comments about The Silver Drum: A Japanese Imperial Memoir (Global Oriental).

1. This is the English translation of a book written by a Japanese princess. Born a 'commoner' and educated in America, she was unexpectedly chosen to marry Prince Chichibu, younger brother of Emperor Hirohito. The story of her early life set mainly in America is interesting, and her description of the days leading up to her wedding, and the wedding itself, are a fascinating account to anyone interested in Japanese royalty and tradition. After that her discussion of married life becomes more of a diary of events which covers the war and post war years in Japan. To those interested in Japanese life, her recount of these years will seem rather stiff and factual and not embellished with interesting aspects of royal life, or even her married life. It is obvious she was very fond of her husband but never really opens up on any very personal feelings, as a Western writer might. She avoids any criticism of either side in the war years, but makes it clear that she was sad to see her birth country fighting with her 'adopted countries', as both herself and the Prince had close ties with England and America. The reason for this impartiality of course is that the book was originally written for Japanese readers and this is reflected in the style of writing which is largely impersonal and factual. Still, the story of her husband's attempts to beat turbuculosis and their lives in postwar Japan make interesting reading. It is obvious that even though their lives were privileged as Japanese Royalty, they were always concerned with the plight of ordinary people everywhere. After her husband's death the Princess became very involved with charities and social welfare organisations, and was very much loved and admired .



2. While I enjoyed this quick, easy memoire of Japan's Princess Chichibu, sister-in-law to Emperor Hirihito, I couldn't help but be accutely aware of the glaring ommisions the Princess (or the Japanese Imperial Family) chose to make. For instance, the events of World War II are mentioned almost casually. While the Princess admits to being concerned for her country and for her American and British friends during this period, she appears cold and out-of-touch in relation to current events. Granted, this lack of emotion and information is most definitely due to censorship by the Japanese Imperial Family, who have for centuries made an impressive show of unemotional disconnectedness with their people. The princess does admit at the end of the book that she feared the Imperial Family was out of touch with real people, and this statement helps the reader to better understand why the Princess behaved as she did throughout her life.

   Dorothy Britton's translation of the Princess' memoire is halting and riddled with typographical errors. However, these faults do not impose too much upon the story - they almost help to bring the voice of the princess alive, as one can imagine Princess Chichibu reading her story aloud in hesitant English.

   As a whole, this glimpse into the daily life of a member of Japanese royalty is very interesting, even if it appears to only scratch the surface. It is understandable that the Princess was restricted in what she was able to portray regarding political sentiments and other members of the royal family. She does her best to give an honest account of her own personal life, and chooses to focus on details of cermonies and her day-to-day activities. I believe that "The Silver Drum" is the only memoire of a member of the modern Japanese royal family, and the princess was a pioneer in reaching out to the public to make the aloof family more accessible.

No comments about They Call Me Moses Masaoka: An American Saga.

No comments about Helen Waddell's Writings from Japan.

2 comments about Surviving the Day: An American Pow in Japan.

1. Frank Grady was a personal friend of my fathers. Maybe because I grew up knowing him, the story made more of an impression on me than it would have normally. But whatever it is, it was a moving story about the resiliency of the human spirit. It is also about the humor, obstinacy and stubbornness; which contributes to that resiliency. Mr. Grady and others like him were true heros. It was an honor to have known him and it is an honor to know more about him through his book.



2. One of the best, ever, of WWII books by U.S. GI's.
   
   Every college history class should have this book!
   
   Highly recommended.

1 comments about A Boy's War (An Omf Book).

1. "A Boy's War" tells of a six-year old Australian boy, son of a missionary, who went off to Chefoo boarding school in China in 1939 and didn't see his parents again until 1945. World War II intervened and he was interned by the Japanese in Weihsien camp in Shandong province, China.
   
   This is a brief book of 170 pages, but Michell covers a lot of ground. He tells about his life at the boarding school as the clouds of war gather and Japan conquers more and more of China. Then, he endures two years of internment with more than one thousand other foreigners at Weihsein. The internees were rescued dramatically by American partroopers at the end of the war and young David undertakes an epic journey back to Australia by ship where he is reunited with his family. The author concludes by telling us about his 1985 return visit to Weihsein.
   
   This is a missionary's story and the author affirms his faith, although not in a way that will offend the non-religious. The boy was fortunate in having many surrogate parents during his years of isolation, of whom one of the most important was Eric Liddell, the Olympic runner (recall "Chariots of Fire?") who lived and died at Weihsein. John Birch -- who inspired the radical political organization, the John Birch Society -- is a minor character in the book as he too was a "mish kid" in pre-Communist China.
   
   Weihsien camp in China has generated a great deal of literature. Rarely have so many talented people resided together in such close quarters. "Shantung Compound" is a sociology classic by Langdon Gilkey and "The Call" by John Hersey is one of my favorite novels. "A Boy's War" is a brief introduction to missionary life in China and the experiences of foreigners trapped by war.
   
   Smallchief

3 comments about Bunker's War: The World War II Diary of Col. Paul D. Bunker.

1. Colonel Bunker tried to tell it all....The Fall of Corregidor, as told by the then Seaward Defense Commander of the Harbor Defenses of Manila and Subic Bays. Although from a personal standpoint, there were operational activities cited in his diary such as the "Geary Shoot to Bataan", "Ballistic testing of Sea Rifles and ammunition", "Counter Battery Operations vs the Japanese", to name a few.....The later half of the book describes Colonel Bunker's life as a POW..Again the book has it's share of wrong dates (credit the editor of the diary, Barlow) for stating that Battery Geary blew up on the 18th of April. Correction: it was May 2, '42. I'm sorry that I had to point this out because I do my "homework" when it comes to Corregidor, but nevertheless, it's still a great book...



2. If you want to get a good idea of what it's like to be on Corregidor and have the Japanese strafe and bomb and attack you, Bunker's account is excellent. It is down to earth and very revealing in day to day activity in trying to copy with a very frustrating situation.....



3. Every military officer should read this book. He details how other officers and enlisted acted as POWs...very revealing. He stood by the values of the Army under extreme personal hardship showing it can be done!

5 comments about Letters from the End of the World: A Firsthand Account of the Bombing of Hiroshima.

1. This is one of the most powerful first hand accounts of the bombing of Hiroshima that I have ever read. My copy was quickly passed around from friend to friend and it impacted everyone who read it.



2. there are evidences to show everything the author wants to tell. i can understand the whole project of the bombing of Hiroshima. a truely fantastic book!



3. Please read this book, and think Fallujah.
   
   First published in Japanese a few years after we dropped a nuclear bomb upon Hiroshima, a previously secluded and untouched shelter for families and children, this book remains a prophetic and instructive text for us today of the necessity to do everything we can for peace and the end to all killing and warfare.
   
   Thou shalt not kill.
   
   This first hand account was written by a father whose family was destroyed by our bomb, including small children, home, etc.
   
   His wife died from radiation sickness a few weeks after we bombed their small city. To confront and control his radical and permanent loss, her husband, an historian at Hiroshima University, wrote to her letters regarding all that he knew about the event and its aftermath, using all of his formal academic skill as historian and first person victim of our bombing. These are his letters to her.
   
   For another historical source, you might also read Hiroshima by Takaki, an academic historian working in the United States. For another primary source, you might find the eyewitness chronicle entitled Barefoot Gen by an artist who as a small boy survived our nuclear atack on Hiroshima while losing his entire family as does Professor Ogura here. Barefoot Gen may be the most accessible to the American reader for its graphic nature; Professor Ogura may be the more poignant though no less powerful first person account to the mainly literate reader. It all depends upon your personal learning style; the truth is one and the same.
   
   Please study carefully and prayerfully this work of a grieving father and husband, so dispassionately and professionally presented as letters to his dead and dying wife, and fight with all that you can for peace, that our present carnage against civilian populations may forever cease and we may live in permanent and abiding peace free of this murderous sin and the national psychosis which drives us into unjust though materially profitable warfare, which provides us permanently only the continual guilt of the suffering and death here so clearly and truthfully and painfully portrayed.
   
   Thou shalt not kill.



4. The only thing that might change the minds of those who support America's use of atomic bombs against Japan is the testimony of those who survived the attacks. Gen. Eisenhower, Adm. Leahy and others in the military and government expressed depressed disgust over the use of nuclear weapons against civilians, and Capt. Robert Lewis (co-pilot of the Enola Gay) later met with a group of the Hiroshima Maidens in the U.S. to express his regret and donate money for their medical costs.
   
   "Letters from the End of the World", along with "Hiroshima Diary," present the attack on Hiroshima in terms of the human cost and suffering of civilians. More lives were lost in the fire bombings of Japanese cities and the destruction of Dresden but both the immediate and long-term effects of the use of nuclear weapons constitute a horrific act.
   
   We now know that the use of violence against civilian populations tends to strengthen a resolve to fight to the bitter end. Yet, it remains a tactic by some and an accepted consequence by most. The use of nuclear weapons against Japan were not the deciding factor in ending the war. It was already over.
   
   As long as governments and citizens choose to accept the slaughter of civilians as a collateral consequence to conflict, atrocities will continue. Self-satisfied, unexamined clucking about the unfortunate inevitability of civilian deaths in war is a moral crime in itself. Especially since the 20th century heralded in an age of increasing civilian death tolls in all conflicts.
   
   Capt. Paul Tibbets (pilot of the Enola Gay) went to his grave with no regrets about Hiroshima. To his credit, he met with at least one hibakusha (disfigured survivor of the attack). Tibbets rightly stated that all war is immoral and leads to immoral action. We'd better find a different way to settle differences.
   
   Hiroshima today is a gleaming, modern city that somewhat mutes even a visit to the Atomic Bomb Dome. Even the memorial museum does not convey the horror of August 6th, 1945 the way the witness testimonies do. I can't imagine someone reading this book and not being moved.



5. Unforgettable. horrifying. a reality check for those who think war is "like in the movies". the writer takes u there in the exact moments as people encounter the bluish white flash. eg. a woman strolling the shopping district is suddenly engulfed in the biggest lightening bolt she's ever seen and a family sitting down to dinner one minute then thrown into a cataclysm of blindness, fear and disorientation. it is truly a look into the end of the world.

2 comments about BUTCHERS, THE BAKER: The World War II Memoir of a United States Army Air Corps Soldier Captured by the Japanese In....

1. I have known Victor Mapes all my life. He is my Grandfathers brother. Until reading this book I had no idea of the events he had witnessed. It was very enlightening. Victor expired the evening of Tuesday August 12, 2003 at the Old Soldiers home in Washington, D.C. He was interred at Arlington Cemetery on September 3rd, 2003. We will all miss him very much.



2. This book told an incredible story of the treatment Vic Mapes received while a POW. It made me appreciate even more the people who serve and protect our country. I was fortunate enough to meet Vic while he was living at the Soldiers Home in DC. I also attended his funeral after he passed away. This memoir preserves the memory of a real life action hero. I would recommend it to everyone.

5 comments about Dog Man: An Uncommon Life on a Faraway Mountain.

1. Heard about this book when Charlie Rose interviewed the author on his show. Apparently the Akita is a country dog bred in the mountains in Japan. During WWII, the breed was threatened--people ate them because they were starving--and this is the story of how one man formed a network of friends to save the breed and protect them. It is also the story of his family, including stories of the different dogs he saved. For dog lovers and Akita fans especially.



2. This book has touched me. The main character is morally strong, and the result of his strength has affected a breed of dog to a point beyond comprehension. If you own an Akita, this is a must read. If you do not own an Akita, you need to read this as well.



3. I had to leave it at the library because i wanted to leave it for my friend who i intended to send right down to check it out. It's about an eccentric in a culture not known for eccentrics. It's about his wife and family. His wife is a stoic and her relationship with her husband is like reading science fiction to a 21st century American. The dogs are great. Great. Please do not go out and buy an Akita though. This is a lot of dog. A whole lot of dog. They almost need a mountain.



4. I bought this book for my brother, who loves dogs as much as I do. When he finished it, he sent it back, so I read it as well, and we both enjoyed it. This is a very sweet book which makes a great gift book for someone who loves dogs, someone who loves Japan and its history, and especially for someone who loves both. I would have liked to see Penguin go the extra mile for Martha Sherrill and spring for glossy pages for the many great photos in the book, but that would be my only criticism.



5. I don't own an Akita, but this book caught my eye because it was a different kind of story. The subjects of sexual discrimination, poverty, wartime in Japan, and the Morie's singlemindedness in raising dogs are explored. If you love Akitas, you'll love this book. If you're not a dog person, you'll like this book, but may not go ga-ga over it. I thought the writer jumped around a bit in telling the story, and could have been better with the continuity. But all in all, I recommend this interesting look at a life far different from ours in America.

5 comments about Shanghai Diary.

1. Several months ago I saw the author, Ursula Bacon, on BookTv (C-Span 2). I was very impressed with her; her lecture was excellent; and the true story of her life from the age of 10 to 18 was compelling. So, I immediately ordered her book. But the book sat on my desk for weeks making me feel guilty about not reading it. I too am a writer. So, finally after completing one book and revising another one, I took a break. And what a break that was--when I was transported to the CHINA of 1938-1946! Ms. Bacon, an only child of a Jewish family, left Germany with her parents as Hitler and his cohorts were rounding up Jews and transporting them to Death Camps.
   
   By the time Vati, Dad, and Mutti, Mom, were looking for countries to immigrate to, every country had closed its doors to German Jews except Shanghai, China. And Shanghai was a total mess, worse than anything most Americans would ever see. But Ursula's family lived in the filthy disease-ridden slums and survived by bartering their few possessions for food. Ursula, up until then a very sheltered child, attended a Catholic school where most classes were taught in French. And most of the time she remained optimistic, made many European and Chinese friends of all ages, learned to speak Mandarin Chinese, encouraged her Mutti, and helped Vati with his business endeavors.
   
   Ursula became an adult before becoming a teen! And she encountered many bizarre situations which she handled better than most adults. The worst was when she was 12 or 13 and killed a drunken Japanese soldier with her bare hands when he attacked her as she walked home from a friend's house late at night. She didn't tell her parents, though, because she didn't want to burden them with additional worries.
   
   This intriguing and inspiring survival tale is about Jewish refuges in China during WW II, though it depicts the color of Shanghai and the many nationalities struggling to survive their wartorn world. I didn't want SHANGHAI DIARY to end! However, I couldn't wait to finish it, so I could pass it on to an friend whose daughter adopted the most delightful Chinese girl who I predict will someday be an important leader in some capacity.
   
   The world has grown so small today that every American should go out of his or her way to become acquainted with other cultures and religions. And every American teenager should be given the opportunity to live in a foreign country to learn new languages and cultures. I give this wonderful book MORE than FIVE STARS! And I hope parents will share it with their teens and high school teachers will use it in their classes. Thanks, Ursula! K.J. McWilliams, book reviewer as well as author of Pirates, The Journal of Leroy Jeremiah Jones, a Fugitive Slave, The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo, and The Journal of Darien Dexter Duff, an Emancipated Slave, winner of the Young Adult Fiction 2003 Royal Palm Literary Award.



2. I loved reading this memoir. It was an easy read that was character driven and suspenseful. The language was not unnecessarily pretentious, and getting into the story was easy. Further, I knew nothing before reading this book about the European Jews who found a haven of sorts in Shanghai during WWII. While they suffered many indignities, shortages of food, medicine, shelter, and clothing, they were much better off than the European Jews who went to their deaths in the camps. Ironically, they also fared better than non-Jewish citizens of countries allied against Hitler and Japan during the Japanese occupation. Non Jewish civilians of the allied countries or captured POWS participated in tragedies like the Bataan death march. They were interred in Japanese prison camps and subjected to grueling forced labor. There they starved, froze, and died of injury and disease probably in greater number than the Shanghai Jews. The Shanghai Jews were subjected to some but not a great deal of forced labor. They were required to police their own ghetto and dig the occassional ditch. Jews did die because of a lack of medicine, sanitation and adequate nutrition. However, many Chinese civilians suffered the same losses even before the war. Still this does not excuse the ghettoization of the Jews into terribly crowded conditions, rules that precluded most of them from earning a living even though they had skills or precluded them from owning property. Luckily aid from Jews in the U.S., Canada, Australia and South Africa could reach them. For some this was their only means of support and they lived wretched lives. However, the narrator and her family arrived a little better off than most, and her father was a well liked industrious and optimistic businessman. Her mother took in mending and used her excellent seamstress skills to earn money. She tolerated her reduced circumstances without complaint and focused on the sunnier future she was sure would follow the war's end. When the author's father could not work much after the Japanese occupation, their circumstances were reduced. Because the ghetto was seriously overcrowded most occupants could afford little more space than 100 sq. ft. for every three people. Sanitation was completely lacking, and the description of the "honeypots" was truly odoriferous. Imagine several people suffering from amebic dysyntary using the same water closet outfitted with a rustic chamber pot. The author could have let her story fall into the trap of excessive sentimentality, but she did not. For this and her family's optimism I give her Kudos. I gave this four stars instead of five, because I don't think it rises to the literary level of a five star book. Still I highly recommend it. It is a great novel to take on an airplane, a vacation, or to read on an inclement afternoon. It can be read in a few hours.



3. Between 1938 and 1941, approximately 18,000 to 20,000 Jews found a safe haven from Hitler's havoc in the one city that did not require visas, police certificates, or proof of financial independence: Shanghai.
   
   In the past decade, a number of these refugees have decided to pen their memoirs. One highly readable account of the era between Jewish immigration and expulsion, is Ursula Bacon's Shanghai Diary. She offers an interesting account of her efforts to adjust to her challenging and strange new life and to make sense of the past, present, and future, while living in Shanghai between 1938 and 1946.
   
   At age 11, Bacon, the only child of a Jewish family, arrived from Germany in 1938 to start a new life. Mr. Bacon had been a successful businessman in Germany, but now he eeks out a living in his Shanghai wallpapering business. Mrs. Bacon finds odd jobs using her sewing skills. Despite earning a meager living, Bacon describes the many hardships her family still faces: suffering numerous indignities, food shortages, living in fear of the many rampant diseases and the lack of medicine, difficulties in finding living quarters and their inadequate size, and other daily struggles. Undeniably, young Miss Bacon was learning enough for a lifetime in only a short time. She attends a Catholic school, where most classes were taught in French. At home and on the streets, she learns to speak Mandarin Chinese and befriends a Buddhist monk. Ursula also learns English in school and on the streets. Eventually she too finds a job, as a governess and tutor to three concubines. While they learn from her, she also learns from them: Chinese views of sex, marriage, and women. It is a tender age to be learning why healthy baby girls are left in local trash bins!
   
   Although these difficult years in Shanghai far surpassed what they had imagined, the Bacon family had no idea much worse life in Germany had become in their absence. Ironically, the Bacons also had no way of knowing that life in Shanghai was about to take a turn for the worse and that they would end up in a ghetto even though they were 8,000 miles away from Hitler! The approximately 18,000 to 20,000 Shanghai Jews were forced in a Hong Kew slum in an area that totaled less then one square mile. As with many families, the Bacons lived in a single room, which they divided with a bed sheet and rented the "second room" to a young couple. There is no longer any such thing as privacy, which was difficult for a young lady Ursula's age.
   
   Ghettoization and its new "rules" made it difficult for many men to continue their work, further reducing family incomes. Many Jews died from malnutrition, the horrendous sanitation situation, lack of medicine, shootings, and bombings. The economic pressures and health concerns required people to live by their wits now, more than anything else.
   
   Through all these challenges, the Bacons try to remain optimistic and to view their time in Shanghai as temporary, until they receive their American visas. While her youth is an asset in that regard, the author also receives excellent advice from some wise adult friends. Some of my favorite quotes include: "If you let the past live your life, the present will have no meaning, and the future is impossible." And "after this time comes another." These words will serve expats -or anyone-- well.
   
   While some readers and critics have suggested that there are a number of inaccuracies in Bacon's story--for example, one Shanghai historican claims that Bacon never swam through the filthy Huang Pu river in the dark and actually rescued American airmen-- the book is still a highly readable memoir of an interesting time in a fascinating city. Bacon provides us with an insider's view of WWII-era Jewish Shanghai that makes enjoyable airplane, vacation, or rainy day reading.



4. I am not a reader of novels, mostly technical material. Recently I was engaged to direct a video interview with Ursula Bacon. Not familiar with her I went to Powell's Books in Portland and found a copy of her book Shanghai Diary. I had only planned to pick out a few facts to give me an idea of how to shoot the interview. Once I started reading I had to buy it. This is a book I read from cover to cover. But not a book for the weak of heart.
   
   On May 23, 2008 I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Ursula. She is as "sharp as a tack." During the videoing the moderator introduced her and from then on it was all Ursula. She related numerous stories that were almost word for work from the book. What a memory.
   
   After we finished with the video she talked with all the crew and signed a copy of Shanghai Diary for the studio library. Of course I had her sign my copy too. What a gracious lady. I'm looking forward to reading her other works and our next studio session.



5. Being impacted by Hitler's regime about the same age as Ursula Bacon, I can easily empathize with her tribulations. I had not been familiar with the events reflected in "The Shanghai Diaries." Ergo, I am grateful to the author for sharing her life story. She is a keen observant; her insight and hindsight are remarkable.
   
   Ursula Bacon's last sentence is "All in all, I have been one lucky girl-child." This conclusive statement is indicative of Ursula's soundness of judgment. Ursula and her parents managed to get out from Germany, In May 1939. As refugees, sheltered in Hongkew, a restricted area in Shanghai, China, Ursula and her parents were living under most primitive conditions. The family was very cognizant of their predicament, but was more concerned and was lamenting the fate of those who were left behind in Germany. Her father said: "This is not a paradise, but we don't have to worry about the Gestapo, the SS. Compared to Hitler's death camps, his butchers, his ovens, his gas chambers - we had merely been inconvenienced!" Ursula's mother believed that complaining: "Dig us deeper into the black hole of despair." Ursula deemed life to be a gift and meaningful, even in times of adversity. She manifested appreciation for the beauty of nature. She often reminisce the creative aura of her childhood. She values greatly any act of human kindness in her new surroundings, in a strange land. Plato (427-347) said "A grateful mind is a great mind; it eventually attracts to itself great things" As the only Holocaust survivor of my immediate family, Ursula's assertion that she is lucky is most appropriate. She and her beloved parents survived the war; they survived Hitler.
   
   I was profoundly impressed by Ursula's husband, Wolf, saying: "I shall never hate anybody ever! Not a group, not an individual!" To hear such a positive statement from a person who was compelled, by Hitler's racist policy, to leave the country of his birth - and had been subjected to unjustifiable hardship - is highly commendable. This is indicative of Wolf's character and prudence. Despite my being dehumanized and tortured under the Nazi yoke, I shall not hate either!
   
   The Shanghai Diaries widens my horizon' it fortifies my adherence to. the values my murdered dear father had instilled in me:"Hate Hatred and shun violence."
   
   Alter Wiener, author "From A Name to A Number"