Kichi Kagawa's Childhood in Japan
When I was young, children didn't have to go to school. My family was one of the richest in the village; my father was involved in mortgages, making umbrellas, and selling oil. My grandfather owned a wholesale snack factory. My mother told me that whenever they had festivals in town, she would put a lot of snacks into her kimono sleeves and share the snacks with her friends. The town beautician would fix my mother's hair in the latest styles for the festivals, and the other girls were always envious.
When fragment olives were in bloom in our yard, the village smelled wonderful. We had grapes, persimmons, pears, and kumquats, bitter oranges and big cherry trees in the yard. The cherry blossoms were white. They were beautiful.
We also had plum trees in our yard, which my mom picked to make umeboshi (pickled Japanese apricot) every year. When I was little, we had a servant living in our house whose name was Ushi. He would give me a ride on his horse, and take me cotton picking and radish digging.
He would set up an unagi-trap in a river in the evening, and return the next morning to collect any unagi (eel). My mother made kabai-yaki from the catch. We sometimes put the unagi on steaming rice with seaweed, poured tea over everything, and ate. This was my father's favorite dish.
During the war with Russia, I was in school, and everyday, I saw young men going to war, and funerals of those who died. My father started to grow sick when Japan won with Russia.
I remember giving out oranges to people who were in the victory parade, and when I was nine, a month after my youngest sister was born, my father passed away. His funeral was different from those of other people, for he devoted himself to the village. I still remember vividly a monk, dressed in purple robes and carrying a parasol, chanting at my father's funeral. My father was an important figure in town.