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

[sashatwen]

You will have to be very, very imaginative in order to pull this off.

The Japanese boy would most likely not know any English. English was considered the language of the enemy and not taught at Japanese schools - in fact, no foreign languages were afaik, and even if, his English would have been very rudimentary. So it would have to have been a family member. Also, sending letters to a boy in Australia would probably have gotten the family in a lot of trouble and they would probably be suspected of being collaborators. The letters would have to be sent and - more difficult - received in secret.

I also recommend reading the first volume of "Barefoot Gen" to get an idea of what family and school life was like for boys in Japan around that time. The protagonist of that story is much younger, but his brothers of various ages do play important roles, and it tells the way propaganda and thought control worked in Japan back then in a simple, yet quite effective way.

[freeiheitpisarz]

Thank you very much for your help. I'll definitely try and get a copy of "Barefoot Gen."

Thanks again

[lilacsigil]

A family member (male, or a married couple) having lived or worked in Australia is quite plausible - there were no shortage of Japanese import-export businesses in Sydney and to a lesser extent in other cities from the 1890s to 1929. The Great Depression closed many, but others continued right up to the war starting, upon which Japanese men in Australia were imprisoned, including men who'd lived in Australia for 40 years or more and were married to Australian women.

[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

[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.

[scribefigaro]

A declaration of war means an end to all peaceful exchange. AFAIK suspension of mail service between Australia and Japan (including all nations under Japanese occupation) began in December 1941 and continued for the duration of the war.

[busaikko]

FWIW, my mother in law who was born around 1925 studied English at Kobe Jogakuin (Kobe College; history here). I think the course was shut down eventually as the war progressed, but she definitely studied English. So I don't think the language was banned for the full duration of the war.

Exchanging letters would be hard! But if your boy lived in a port town, like Kobe or Osaka or Nagoya, it might be possible if he were interested in speaking English that he could befriend someone on a ship... that just happened to go back and forth to Australia. And maybe his friend knows this other boy there? (I do not know anything about wartime shipping!)