Stories from Someone Who Experienced the War 2

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This is an article I wrote as a middle school student while listening to stories about wartime life from my grandmother, who was born in 1934 (Showa 9).

The fact that as my grandmother reached elementary school age (from 1941 onwards), more and more people suffered from food shortages during the war, is something that exists only in the realm of imagination for me—a person born in the Heisei era who has lived a sheltered, peaceful life.
That is precisely why I want to preserve my grandmother's stories so they are not forgotten.

White ricewithpickled plumandrolled omeletwas apparently a very, very luxurious lunch box.

Most children's lunch boxes were filled with thinly sliceddaikon radishwith just a tiny bit ofbarleyin the corner, and students who brought a "luxurious" lunch box were scolded and told to bring barley rice instead of white rice.

On snowy winter days,
if your tabi socks got wet, there were no replacements.
She said she would go to school barefoot wearing wooden clogs with her tabi tucked into the sleeves of her kimono, put them on at school, and then warm her cold feet at the okudosan (hearth) when she got home.

Other things included:

Siblings losing their lives in unknown countries across the sea

A life where the thought of when bombs might fall from the sky was always on your mind

Evacuation

The castle burning down due to an air raid

The lives of people about 80 years ago—not such a distant past—were completely different from the life I have known since I was born.
What my grandmother said about being raised with care even in the environment of that time still leaves an impression on me today.

The belief of "eating a moderate amount of what suits your body" is apparently the secret to the vitality of my grandmother, who has lived to 87 without ever suffering from a major illness.

In the local community, the
Gokan no Ge (Five Contemplations)was posted.

Time passed,
and my grandmother was reading an article about how, in the Reiwa era, Japan had resumed commercialwhalingfor the first time in 31 years, using its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone as fishing grounds. (This was in 2019).
The newspaper featured a photo of a protest in the UK with people calling to "Save the whales!"

According to my grandmother,
"During the post-war food shortage, whale meat was more readily available than beef, sold in cans like 'whale yamato-ni' (simmered whale meat)".

"You could almost say that the Japanese people were able to survive thanks to whales." She said things like that too.

What kind of era is coming next?

I would like to keep lighting a small flame, no matter how small it may be.

The phrase "knowing what is enough" seems to be something I, living in a world that has become too convenient, have yet to understand.

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