![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Shoko decides to ask her daughter Sue (short or Suiko) to travel to Japan and deliver a letter to Taro. Shoko yearns to return to Japan to find her estranged brother, to whom she has neither written nor spoken to since the day she left Japan because of her decision to marry an American, but her doctor forbids travel due to her heart condition, believed to be a result of the radiation from the bombing of Nagasaki. In between narration of her present-day life in San Diego, including doctor visits for an enlarged heart, Shoko tells of how her parents sent her to work in Kumamoto City to earn money for her brother Taro to finish college, and to find an American husband. The novel begins with Shoko, a Japanese wife and mother, recalling incidents from her childhood in Japan during World War II – almost being kidnapped by a nanny, playing baseball with her brother and his friends, running from an American bomber. How to Be an American Housewife, now in paperback, is based on author Margaret Dilloway’s mother’s personal experiences. I’m sure our American ways were just as strange - if not more so - to my Japanese playmates and coworkers as theirs were to me. When I was a child there were a few Japanese families in my neighborhood, and several years ago I worked with a team from Japan, which included a seminar on how to do business with the Japanese. Japanese culture has always intrigued me. ![]()
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