Relations between teenage boys in Japan and Australia

[freeiheitpisarz]

For my English assignment I'm to do something revolving around the Bombing of Darwin. I'm writing a story and the story is set in 1942 in Japan (unsure as of yet which city, though most likely a larger city.) The story is a set of letters written between two teenage boys (both sixteen), one in Japan and one in Darwin, NT Australia in the year 1942

Comments

[eriolgal]

From what I recall of Japanese history, it would have been extremely unlikely for him to learn it in school. The years leading up to WWII were very focused on nationalism, so anything that wasn't ethnically Japanese to some extent would have been discouraged. It wasn't until after the occupation of Japan at the end of WWII that English because a valuable language to know, leading to the schools adopting it as a core part of the curriculum.

Similarly, it would have been rare during this period for a Japanese person to marry a non-Japanese person. (Showa Japan was terribly xenophobic, especially towards American and British citizens). In fact, the US department of state asked all American citizens to leave the country in late 1940, so by the time your story takes place, there were theoretically no Americans in Japan. It seems likely that Britain would have done something similar to remove their citizens from Japan before the time of your story. Suffice to say, there would be very few native English speakers in Japan in 1942.

However, that being said, there were some Japanese who sided with the Americans/British. Perhaps the family of your character could have studied/lived abroad at some point in the past, or perhaps his father is a diplomat or had some economic interest in an English-speaking country. Either of those would make it more likely that your teenage boy would know English.

Googling "showa period" or "showa era" might give you better results than 1940, since a lot of the social and political aspects happened somewhat before before then.

I can only hazard a guess about the second one, but if they're writing in English, I'm not sure the Japanese government had a lot of English speakers around to censor English-language letters leaving the country.

It's late and I'm rambling, but I hope this helps.

[eriolgal]

"if they're writing in English, I'm not sure the Japanese government had a lot of English speakers around to censor English-language letters leaving the country"

There were plenty of Japanese people who understood English and some other foreign languages. Most were from wealthy or socially established families, but many did work in the civil service and the Japanese Army during war.

[teacoat]

Googling "showa period" or "showa era" might give you better results than 1940, since a lot of the social and political aspects happened somewhat before before then.

Well, except that the Showa period continued for more than 40 years after the war ended. I think it would be more useful to look for information in relation WWII, rather than the period.