Shizue Ishimoto essays

Shizue Ishimoto essays One can hardly imagine the reaction of the young bride Shidzue Ishimoto (later Kato) when she first arrived at the small mining town in Western Japan soon after her marriage to Baron Ishimoto, an engineer with ideals of social reform. Descended from the Samurai origins, Shidzue was born into rank and privilege and raised in the mores of pre-modern Japan. The environment she encountered here was so much different. Sweet home' Isn't he teasing me' How could one live in a place like this among dust and the noise of engines'' At this my long dream was broken and I had to realize that it was indeed Kattachi where my husband and I were to live from now on. A poor and shabby village it was. (148) In her autobiography Facing Two Ways: The Story of My Life, Shidzue Ishimoto covered in detail the terrible lives of the mining families in the mid- to late 1800s. Men, women and children all worked in dark, unhealthy and dangerous tunnels for least 12 hours a day. Because of the low heights, most of the workers could barely stand up during working periods. Women had to creep into these passages like wiggling worms to pull baskets of coal out to the place where the wagons stood. A huge contrast existed between this mining experience and Shidzue Ishimoto's first two decades as described in the beginning chapters of Facing Two Ways. Because of her family's prestigious background, she lived in a two-story house, was cared for by maidservants and spent weekends in a country farm. At school, however, she met many "illegitimate little girls (51)," and noticed their life a tragedy. This part of her autobiography foreshadowed her later concerns for unwanted children. At 17, Shidzue Ishimoto was betrothed to Baron Ishimoto from "a family of wealth and honor" (105). Her "mountainous" trousseau consisted of jewelry and furniture. Wit...