The last year we were in Japan we had moved to 234E The Bluff, with Jane Savory our Eurasian maid and her little daughter Setseko-San. There were big changes in the world, and luxuries we had always taken for granted were no longer available. There were food shortages. My mother and I would set forth to the market where she would barter my outgrown clothing for precious food items. I remember one incident when she traded several pairs of little socks for an equal number of eggs. She had learned enough Japanese to do this. I was impressed!
It was at that time that I was given a Japanese doll, dressed in traditional Japanese clothing. I still have the doll, although some of her clothing including her obi, was lost. I named her Setseko-San.
Setseko and I played together, although she did not understand a word of English, and I did not understand Japanese. I remember one day when the screens had been taken off the windows to be stored for the winter, and were temporarily piled on the front lawn. No one seemed to mind, so we built a wonderful house out of those screens, and played happily with our dolls.
I visited her room where she lived in the back with her mother. She showed me a Japanese comic book. But you had to read it from the last page to the first! That was most interesting.
If learning Japanese was not a priority for my education, French was. I had a private tutor come to the house. We sat at the low round table in my bedroom and read from a book called "La Vie de Madame Lapine". I leaned that there was one extra color in the rainbow. Indigo.
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