Daily Life in Wartime Japan, 1940-1945 (Modern War Studies (Hardcover)) by Samuel Hideo Yamashita

Author:Samuel Hideo Yamashita [Yamashita, Samuel Hideo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780700621958
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
Published: 2016-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

Table 5.4. Food Gathered by Children on Their Own Initiative

Fruits Vegetables Nuts Other

Akebi Bamboo shoots Chestnuts Freshwater shrimp

Apples Bog rhubarb Hedama (not identified) Frogs

Mulberries Bracken Walnuts Grasshoppers

Pears Chickweed Ground beetles

Persimmons Chinese chives Loaches

Dandelions Pigeons

Fiddlehead ferns Snails

Knotweed

Mugwort

Rocamble

Water dropwort

Sources: Aoki Kiminao, Kōbe Saigō kokumin gakkō no baai, vol. 2 of Gakudō shūdan sokai no kiroku (Kobe: Aoki Kiminao, 1991–1992), 125, 139, 144; Nakagawa Suzushi, Tokyo-to Itabashi dai-go kokumin gakkō gakudō sokai “kaizō-ryō” no kiroku (Urawa: Kaizōji-kai, 1995), 10–13; Kyoto zeminaru hausu, ed., Yamabōshi: Kita kuwata no gakudō sokai kiroku-shū (Kyoto: Kita kuwata, 1996), 57.

The children gathered fruits, vegetables, nuts, and herbs in season, including akebi, bamboo shoots, bog rhubarb, bracken, chestnuts, chickweed, Chinese chives, cock sorrel, dandelions, fiddlehead ferns, knotweed, mugwort, mulberries, rocamble, walnuts, and water dropwort. Yorozu Haruo also remembers gathering tiny little black beans that they called “crow’s beans” (karasu mame), which they roasted and ate.56

The children fished local rivers and streams for freshwater shrimp, wild goldfish, and loaches and often exchanged the shrimp with local farmers for eggs.57 The children also hunted for snakes, which they learned to skin and roast.58 Nakagawa Susumu, evacuated from Tokyo to Gunma Prefecture, learned how to do this from his father. “When my father came to visit,” he recalled, “he caught a snake, skinned it, cut it into pieces, roasted it, and had us eat it.” Apparently Nakagawa and his classmates liked roasted snake because “whenever we found a snake, we competed to catch it, and everyone ate it.”59 Teacher Suzuki Takako was given some roasted snake by a dorm mother and remembers that it was “really delicious.”60 Roasted snake reminded Yorozu Haruo of hatahata, a kind of sandfish caught in the waters off northern Japan.61 The students did the same with frogs.62 Nakagawa remembered that when he and his classmates discovered a frog hole, they “reached in, pulled out dozens of them, pulled off their skins, roasted, and ate them.”63

Grasshoppers were another important supplementary food. The children were sent into the fields of ripening rice “to protect the ‘rice that was important to soldiers’” by catching grasshoppers.64 Some students were so hungry that they ate the grasshoppers raw. Others skewered them on bamboo sticks and took them back to their dorms, where they basted them with soy sauce, roasted them, and ate them.65 Grasshoppers were said to taste like grilled shrimp.66 Not all students ate them, however. Kanamori Junko “really hated things fried in butter” and could not bring herself to eat grasshoppers, so when roasted grasshoppers were served, she let her classmates happily divide up her share.67

The younger and more timid boys and girls who were less inclined to hunt or fish found other ways to suppress their hunger. Many swept through the sweet potato fields, eating what had been overlooked or left behind. Others picked and ate the still unharvested heads of wheat or sucked on green plums, which caused diarrhea.68 Some children collected the grasses that grew along the sides of roads and sucked on them to suppress their hunger.

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