Category Archives: U.S.

by Joel | 18 February 2008 · 6:45 am

Kosovo, 1998: Origins of the KLA

From History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s, by Timothy Garton Ash (Vintage, 1999), pp. 320-324:

The fresh red blood on the fresh white snow looks unreal, like a new avant-garde exhibit at the Tate Gallery in London. But it is entirely real. This is the blood of two dead Serb policemen, shot at dawn, almost certainly by the soldiers of a tough local commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), violating the October cease-fire….

Our knowledge of the KLA is still fragmentary, partly because this guerrilla army is itself quite fragmentary. It has, as one Western military observer politely puts it, a “rather horizontal” command structure. Each region is different, and regional commanders behave like local bandit chiefs. Nonetheless, we can establish a few significant things about its history, leaders, and support.

First and foremost, Its emergence is the result of Kosovar Albanians despairing of the nonviolent path that they adopted after the province was robbed of its autonomy by Milošević in 1989 and Yugoslavia began to fall apart in 1990-1991. Under their unofficially elected “President of the Republic of Kosova,” Ibrahim Rugova, they organized an extraordinary alternative state, with its own taxes, parliamentary committees, private health service, and, most impressive, unofficial education system, from primary school to university. To the frustration of Western policy makers, Rugova was unbending in his commitment to the goal of independence. To their relief, he was equally unbending in his attachment to nonviolent means. How did he propose to square the circle? By the “internationalization” of the Kosovo problem.

Even in the early 1990s, there were those who thought change would come only with the help of more traditional methods. Many Albanians from this region go to Western Europe for training and to earn money to send home. So did they. Ramush Haradinaj, the local commander almost certainly responsible for that blood in the snow, went off to get his military training in the French Foreign Legion. In Priština, people recall first hearing of a KLA in 1993. But then it was something like one of the terrorist splinter groups from the Western European student movement of 1968. One of the KLA’s more important current political leaders, Hashim Thaci, code name “Snake,” was a student activist in Priština who then went to study in Albania and to raise funds in the West. But most of the political activists who came from three generations of formative student political protest—in 1968, 1981, and 1990-1991—were still for nonviolence.

What changed the balance? The startling answer I am given is: “Dayton.” I’m told this by the veteran political prisoner Adem Demaci, who is now the KLA’s political representative. He dates the true emergence of the KLA to spring 1996, just a few months after the November 1995 Dayton agreement on Bosnia. I’m also told this by Veton Surroi, a favorite source for visitors from the West, whose influential daily newspaper nonetheless supported (some even say inflamed) the armed struggle. And by several others.

They say they drew two lessons from Dayton. After more than five years of their Gandhiesque struggle for independence, the United States made a deal with Milošević over Bosnia without securing even a restoration of mere autonomy for Kosovo. So, lesson one: Nonviolence wasn’t working. Meanwhile, in Bosnia itself, the Dayton agreement went a long way toward recognizing ethnic realities created by force. Lesson two: Force pays.

There’s an element of retrospective rationalization in this account. This is not what these same people were telling me in Priština in March 1997. But there is also an uncomfortable element of truth. So long as Rugova kept the lid on his own people, and so long as we felt we had to deal with Milošević over Bosnia, we weren’t going to push him on Kosovo.

The armed rising then grew from two further developments: the looting of arsenals during the violent implosion of Albania in spring 1997, which gave the KLA access to Kalashnikovs galore, and the brutality of Serbian “reprisals” against whole extended families and villages, starting in February 1998. As always, an oppressive army and police were the best recruiting sergeants for the guerrillas.

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by Joel | 23 January 2008 · 9:30 pm

Credits for German Reunification

From History of the Present: Essays, Sketches, and Dispatches from Europe in the 1990s, by Timothy Garton Ash (Vintage, 1999), pp. 57-59:

For all the discontinuities of West German policy since 1949, one can but admire the grand continuity in which all chancellors from Adenauer to Kohl, all foreign ministers, all federal governments over forty years, now this way, now that, now in the West, now in the East, pursued the cause of German liberation.

Historians will argue whether Adenauer’s integration into the West or Brandt’s Ostpolitik contributed more to the success of the past year. There is much to be said for the claim that the East Central European year of wonders, 1989, was a late triumph of Adenauer’s “magnet theory”—the idea that the attraction of a free and prosperous West Germany embedded in a free and prosperous Western Europe would sooner or later draw the unfree and impoverished East Germany irresistibly toward it. But could the magnet have exerted its full attractive force if the blocking Iron Curtain had not first been drawn back by the Ostpolitik, which Willy Brandt launched in the late 1960s? And it was not Bonn’s Western but rather its Eastern ties—above all, those to Moscow—that directly permitted the transformation of an East German movement for freedom into an all-German state of unity.

Yet this East German rising for freedom was not contemplated in Bonn’s policy toward East Germany. Those in the GDR who contributed most to Germany’s peaceful October revolution—the tiny minority of human- and civil-rights campaigners—had benefited least from the Federal Republic’s governmental policy toward the GDR. Bonn politicians now ritually celebrate the “peaceful revolution.” Two years ago [= 1988], most of those same politicians would have described it as “dangerous destabilization.” Yes, it was a “dangerous destabilization” that made German unification possible. Without the brave minority that faced down armed police on the streets of Leipzig, Dresden, and Berlin, the ultimate goal of Bonn’s policy would never have been achieved—Gorbachev or no Gorbachev….

The pioneers of social emancipation and democratization in the GDR were then overtaken rapidly by those who wanted to have done with the GDR altogether. By this time, the two parallel sets of negotiations for unification—the “internal” ones, between the two German states (“1+1”), and the “external” ones, between the two German states and the four post-1945 occupying powers (“2+4”)—were already underway.

To describe these seven hectic months of intricate negotiation would require not an essay but a compendium. The 31 August treaty on unification between the two German states is a book in itself—243 pages of small print in the official government bulletin. Formally, they were “1+1” and “2+4” negotiations. In practice, they were “1+1/4” and “1+1+1” negotiations. The first and last freely elected East Berlin government was not an equal partner in the German–German talks. The Bonn government basically set the terms of the internal unification, its officials drafting treaties that bore a remarkable resemblance to the finished product. Many East German politicians and intellectuals in both halves of Germany were understandably miffed by this procedure. “Anschluss,” said some. Yet was it not for this that the majority of the people had voted in March? And, despite widespread economic distress, the majority expressed its basic satisfaction with the result, on 14 October [1990], in the first elections for the five reconstituted Lander of the former GDR. Chancellor Kohl’s CDU was the overall winner everywhere except in Brandenburg (where the Social Democrats’ leader is a prominent Protestant churchman} and secured more than 45 percent of the vote in Saxony and Thuringia.

The external negotiation was basically between the Federal Republic, the Soviet Union, and the United States, in that order. The Bonn government makes no secret of the fact that it was the United States, rather than France or Britain, that was its crucial Western supporter in the whole process. Washington was not just self-evidently more important in talks with Moscow but also more unreservedly supportive than London or Paris—a fact that has done some damage to the Franco-German “axis.” Yet the central negotiation was that between Bonn and Moscow. In Moscow in February, Chancellor Kohl secured Gorbachev’s assent to unification in one state. In Stavropol in July, he secured Gorbachev’s assent to the full sovereignty of the united state, including its membership in NATO—although a NATO redefined by the “London Declaration” a few days before. Soviet troops would leave Germany by 1994.

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by Joel | 21 January 2008 · 2:17 pm

Pfalzgrafenweiler, Ancestral Truckstop

On the last Sunday in 2007, the Outliers made a ~~pilgrimage~~ desultory excursion to Pfalzgrafenweiler, in Baden-Württemberg, whence Mrs. Outlier’s paternal ancestors emigrated via Odessa to Russia (now Ukraine) around 1800, then later to the Dakotas around 1890. This devoutly religious and devoutly rural line can be traced back to Pfalzgrafenweiler from as early as the 1500s.

Pfalzgrafenweiler itself goes back at least to Count Palatine (= Pfalzgraf) Hugo II of Tübingen, whose Pfalzgrafenburg there was stormed and razed by a Welf (= Guelph) Duke (= Herzog) of Bavaria in the 12th century. There is also a Herzogweiler within the Weiler Wald portion of the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), which is now a getaway spot for the lumpen as well as the grafen.

Weiler can nowadays be translated ‘hamlet’, something smaller than a Dorf ‘village’, and there are many such placenames stretching far out along both sides of the Rhine, from Basel to Cologne. The equivalent in Alsace and Lorraine is usually spelled -willer (as in Bischwiller, Dettwiller, Ingwiller) or -viller (as in Abreschviller, Guntzviller, Hartzviller). The Alemannisch equivalent is -wiiler. Although related to villa, ville, and village, the term is an early Germanic borrowing from Romance wilare or villare, indicating farmsteads attached to a villa, not the villa itself.

On Saturday, we had made a trip across the Rhine to the Deutsche Bahn (DB) travel desk in Kehl to find out how to get there and buy tickets. (We had not yet initiated our 15-day Eurail Passes.) Despite being just over the border from Strasbourg, France, the DB rep forced his customers to deal with him only in German or English. I chose English after watching the poor Francophone ahead of me struggle along in German no better than mine.

Pfalzgrafenweiler is a bit off the trunklines of public transport. We had to make four transfers to get there. We took the Strasbourg city tram from Langstross/Grand’Rue to the southwest terminus at Aristide Briand, then the old city bus across the river to Kehl. There we caught a tiny Ortenau S-Bahn (OSB) shuttle south over flat farmland to Offenburg, where we caught another tiny OSB shuttle up the scenic hillsides of the Schwarzwald to Freudenstadt, where we hopped a shuttle bus to our final destination. (The DB ticket was good for the bus, too.)

The Kehl to Offenburg leg reminded us a bit of the JR Ryomo line we used to take between Oyama and Ashikaga along the foothills north of Tokyo, while the Offenburg to Freudenstadt leg reminded us more of the scenic Keikoku line running up the upper Watarase River gorge from Kiryu toward Nikko.

Along the way to Freudenstadt (‘Happyville’), the train passed a number of stations whose names ended in -ach (not -bach ‘brook’, but related), meaning ‘watercourse’ and ultimately cognate with Latin acqua: Biberach ‘Beaver Run’, Steinach ‘Stone Run’, Haslach ‘Hare Run’, Hausach ‘House Run’, Wolfach ‘Wolf Run’, Schiltach ‘Shield Run’—but, alas, no Bullach. In the local Alemannisch dialects, the final consonant is lost and the vowel reduced, thus: Biebere, Steine, Hasle, Huuse, Wolfe.

The even more common placenames suffixed with -heim (in High German) suffer a similar fate in Ortenau Alemannisch, where Griesheim = Griese, Meißenheim = Mißne, Ringsheim = Ringse/Rinse; and in Alsatian, where Blotzheim = Blotza, Merxheim = Märxa, Sentheim = Santa. You can see why Baden-Württembergers claim Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch. ‘We can handle everything. Except High German.’

Freudenstadt is roughly comparable in size to Aberdeen, SD, but is even sleepier on a Sunday. The tiny railway station is on the edge of town and lacks even a public toilet. When I followed the arrows on a wall map, I ended up at a port-a-potty in an isolated (and unheated) area nearly 100m from the station. (At least I didn’t have it as bad as Santa did in Pfalzgrafenweiler, where he had to bathe outdoors.) To its credit, Freudenstadt station had a gift shop full of snacks, souvenirs, magazines, travel info about far corners of the globe, and a very impressive collection of cigars for sale in a specially humidified room.

We had left my brother’s house in Strasbourg a little before 9 a.m. The bus dropped us at the Pfalzgrafenweiler Rathaus at 2 p.m., just as the town went into its deepest Sunday siesta. The local pizza delivery shop had finished its last run. Even the local kebap shop had closed.

We walked the silent, empty streets meandering uphill toward the highway, where we found EverRast, a combination truck stop, restaurant, and internet café that was just about the only happening place in town on a Sunday afternoon. We ordered German-style salad plates and sampled the local Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu. The friendly waitress looked African American and switched easily between English and German.

It was already getting dark by 4 p.m. as we meandered back toward the bus stop for the 5 p.m. bus. We had just enough time to snap a few more photos, then stop in at Thome’s Schwanen hotel and restaurant, which was just opening for the Sunday dinner crowd. We asked the gracious hostess for a telephone book and snapped a photo of the handful of listings for Mrs. Outlier’s family name. Most of the telephone numbers had only 4 digits.

It was too dark to enjoy the beautiful scenery on the way back, but we had just enough layover time in Offenburg to explore a few of its cold, empty streets. The only warm, bright spot near the station was the Turkish-run Imbiss Stube. Thank goodness for the Mediterranean work ethic. We ordered hot lentil soups and hot spiked teas. The menu offered not just kebap, pizza, and pide, but also Seele (calzone), which (misleadingly or not) belatedly made the connection for me between Italian calzone and Romanian încălţăminte ‘footwear’.

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by Joel | 19 January 2008 · 9:33 am

U.S.–Vichy Relations, 1940–44

From The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation, by Richard Vinen (Yale U. Press, 2006), pp. 70-71:

The single most important country in Pétainist imagination was the United States. The Rue des États-Unis ran past the Hotel du Parc and, unlike some Vichy streets, it kept its name throughout the period from 1940 to 1944. France’s self-image in the inter-war years had often been defined in contrast to America. Pétainists had often seen Americanization as a threat to French traditions. Pétain’s adviser, Lucien Romier, had published a book in 1927 entitled Who Will Be Master, Europe or America? Yet after 1940 Pétainists knew that America mattered hugely to their country. It was the most important of their diplomatic partners. It mattered, first, as a source of food and then as a potential broker of a compromise peace (a few at Vichy continued to believe in the possibility of such a peace until the summer of 1944).

The American embassy in Vichy was a strange place and became all the more so after Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941. Men such as ‘Woody’ Wallner, and ‘Doug’ MacArthur II, the nephew of the general, spent their time swimming, playing tennis or drinking cocktails. Wartime Vichy was excruciatingly dull for east coast patricians who had spent most of their career in European capitals. After April 1942, the embassy was run by Pinkney Tuck, the chargé d’affaires. Tuck, a career diplomat, was a conservative and seems to have been anti-Jewish (he opposed American recognition of Israel). However, like many French anti-Semites, Tuck was appalled by evidence of Nazi atrocities against the Jews in the autumn of 1942 and tried to get American visas for Jewish children in France. His efforts were thwarted by the German invasion of the southern zone. By the time the Germans arrived at Vichy, the American embassy contained only a couple of junior officials who had been left behind to shut up shop before being interned in Baden-Baden.

It is probably wrong to look for much ideological coherence in American attitudes to Vichy. The general tone of American policy can be deduced from the code names that Americans used for French affairs: Pétain was ‘Popeye’, Laval was ‘black Peter’ and France in general was ‘the Frog pond’. American policy was mainly directed towards the practical matter of ensuring that French resources were not deployed against the Allies, and bolstering what the Americans took to be anti-German elements at Vichy. To this end, they sent William Leahy, a sixty-four-year-old admiral, to be their ambassador to Vichy. Leahy was a brisk conservative who spoke almost no French and judged men mainly on whether or not they looked their interlocutors in the eye. Leahy’s particular concern was to prevent the remainder of the French fleet from falling into German hands. The Americans also wished to persuade some eminent French figure to establish an anti-German government in French North Africa and, initially, they hoped that Weygand might undertake this task.

Pétain was believed to have had good relations with American soldiers during the First World War and had been well received during an official visit that he made to the United States in 1931. The only interview that Pétain accorded to a foreign newspaper during his time as head of state, scripted by Du Moulin de Labarthète, was given to the New York Times. His admirers believed that his opinions would still be taken seriously in Washington. An important part of Pétainist thinking revolved around the idea that there was a gap between the British and the Americans and that Pétain would be able to exploit this gap. This belief persisted even after the Americans invaded French North Africa. In his 1943 biography of Pétain, René Benjamin recognized that the Marshal faced many problems, but implied that good relations with America might provide him with an escape from some of these: ‘The Marshal thinks of Admiral Leahy.’

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by Joel | 16 December 2007 · 9:09 am

Tessaku Seikatsu: Postwar Delusions

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 202, 204-205:

A memorial service for the war dead was sponsored by the Buddhist federation and held at the theater on the night of September 14 [1945]. Rev. Joei Oi began the evening by saying that the service would honor the war dead of both sides, which was commendable. However, in his sermon, Rev. Enryo Shigefuji of Fresno expressed opinions that clearly showed he did not understand the current situation. I was surprised at his ignorance. First he attacked the United States for its unlawful and unjust use of atomic weapons. This was admirable. Then he reported, “Japan was so incensed at the inhumanity of this act that it wiped out the entire American expeditionary force in the Far East in three days and forced the United States to surrender.” Rev. Shigefuji was said to be a highly learned priest, so I wondered what had happened. Outside after the meeting, Mr. Komai, Rafu Shimpo president, and I were so dumbfounded that all we could do was exchange stunned looks. We were so amazed by his remarks that we were practically speechless.

Two days later, I heard a sermon by Rev. Shuntaro Ikezawa of the Christian church in the east classroom. The weather was very bad—rain, hail, even thunder. There were only a few priests and about a dozen people present. As I expected, Rev. Ikezawa had grasped what was happening. In his sermon, “Truth and Love,” he talked about the atomic bomb: “What was wrong was not the invention of atomic energy, but the thinking that led to its use in war. If we use our inventions for good, all human beings benefit. His Highness the Prime Minister said to General MacArthur, ‘You must forget Pearl Harbor and we must forget the atomic bomb.’ These were wise words.” The Reverend then prayed for the birth of a new Japan. I felt what he had to say was well worth listening to. Over the next few days the internees could not stop talking about Rev. Shigefuji’s sermon while Rev. Ikezawa’s was never mentioned. Rev. Shigefuji was praised for expressing his opinions without fear and was regarded as a hero….

Even those who should have known better were misinformed or deluded themselves. Around this time I met an uneducated but admirable young man… One morning in early October, the two of us were taking a walk. I asked if he wished to return to Japan. He answered that, because he was poor, he could not go back and wanted instead to remain in the United States, where many jobs would be available in restaurants. He continued: “Actually, one of my friends advised me to return to Japan with him. I said I would if I had the kind of money he had. He said looks were deceiving; in fact he was penniless and that was why he was returning to Japan. Since Japan had won the war, internees could expect reparations from the United States. Internees who went back now could receive as much as fifty thou- sand dollars. If they returned later, the money might no longer be available. My friend repeated that I should go back with him. I did not know what to say. There are so many such fellows who think Japan has won the war.” And so many of them were greedily waiting to return to Japan.

On October 1 all residents of the sixty-sixth barracks boycotted the Santa Fe Times and suspended their subscriptions.

After Spain withdrew its offer to represent Japanese interests, Switzerland took over the responsibility. The Swiss representatives visited the camp with State Department officials on September 27. Mr. Fischer was among them. They met with General Manager Koba and other camp officers. A report of what had transpired, written in question-and-answer form, was mimeographed both in English and Japanese and circulated to all barracks on October 2. U.S.-Japan relations, the surrender of Japan, and the changed conditions in Japan were outlined in detail. I quietly noted the internees’ responses to the report. Many said that talks between representatives of a small country like Switzerland and State Department officials could only be propaganda. They showed no further interest in the matter. The prevailing attitude toward the report was indifference.

On October 2, the camp population was 2,027, of which 106 were in the hospital and 3 were in the temporary holding cell. Those of us in the “traitors group” estimated that the number of internees who had any real understanding of the war and its aftermath was less than a hundred. Even Nisei who visited their parents in the camp around this time advised them not to worry, because Japan was winning the war. The purpose may have been to bolster the spirits of the internees, but it also seemed to provide fuel for the diehards who refused to accept Japan’s defeat. In the end this sort of thing did more harm than good.

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by Joel | 15 December 2007 · 1:37 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu: Tule Lake Thuggery

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 168, 170-171:

A right-wing youth group called Shichisho-kai (literally “Club of Seven Lives”) held its first meeting in the east classroom on the night of December 12 [1944]. I decided to attend. At the meeting, young people seated themselves in groups and roll was taken. Then they all stood up and chanted in unison: “We are the loyal subjects of the Emperor. We are determined to be reborn seven times and serve our country.” After that Rev. Dojun Ochi talked about the great history of Japan, beginning with the Meiji era and going back in time. It was very interesting. The leader of Shichisho-kai was apparently a man from Tule Lake….

A rumor spread that more of these “shaven heads” would be arriving from Tule Lake…. Among the internees at Tule Lake, two groups that were constantly at odds with one another were the pro-Japan or “disloyal” faction and the pro-American or “loyal” faction. Such a division in thinking could be found at any relocation center or camp, but it was especially serious at Tule Lake. The pro-Japan group set up a spy ring to gather information on those who were sympathetic to the United States. They infiltrated various groups, placing certain individuals under surveillance and using gatherings to collect information about their enemies. They selected faction members who were to take direct action against the enemy through extraordinary measures. If this proved unsuccessful, they planned to report the enemy to the Japanese government after the war. Once a person was identified as pro-American, they intimidated him by throwing human feces at his house or even boiled feces at the windows. Families were afraid of what others might think and quickly and quietly cleaned up the mess. In July 1944, after a certain Mr. Hitomi had been murdered, fear among the pro-American internees reached a panic stage. Thirteen families fled to a separate enclosed barracks, leaving everything behind. Some of the soldiers who were asked to retrieve their possessions were said to be in sympathy with the pro-Japan group, because when they went to collect one person’s belongings, they asked, “Where’s the dog’s luggage?”

The internee population of Tule Lake Camp was eighteen thousand in October 1944. There were many families, so the camp resembled a town in Japan. Because there were many young girls at the camp, romances blossomed. This, fanned by an uncertain future, led to rash and impulsive behavior. Forty to fifty babies were born every month. Japanese-language schools were not allowed at relocation centers, but there were seven at Tule Lake, two of which were specifically named First National School and Second National School.

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by Joel | 10 December 2007 · 8:27 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu, 7 November 1944

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), p. 164:

The U.S. presidential election held on November 7, 1944, attracted worldwide attention. On the eighth, it was confirmed that President Roosevelt had been reelected. It would be his fourth term, an unprecedented feat in American history. We now felt that the United States would take it upon itself to end the war. On the afternoon of November 7, the Buddhist and Shinto federations sponsored a memorial service for soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army and for internees who had died in this camp. It was held at the open-air theater, with the Reverend Kogan Yoshizumi officiating. Rev. Enryo Shigefuji of the Fresno Hongwanji Betsuin Mission suggested in his sermon that internees who had pledged loyalty to the United States and had been paroled were disloyal Japanese. Later he found himself in the same difficult position of being condemned when, ironically, he and his wife secretly applied for parole. Christians wanted to join the service, where they intended to pray for all of the war dead, but Buddhists and Shintoists insisted that only Japanese casualties be recognized, so there was no joint service. Even within our little barbed-wire world there were rigid divisions, strong divisive elements, and opposing views.

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by Joel | 8 December 2007 · 3:40 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu, 7 December 1943

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 144-145:

December 7, 1943, was the second anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. A ceremony honoring the memory of fallen soldiers was held in the square in the morning. We bowed in the direction of the Imperial Palace, sang the national anthem twice, and observed a moment of silence. A speech was given by General Manager Kondo. After the ceremony, a packet of fragrant green tea, donated by the Japanese Red Cross, was distributed to each internee by the barracks chiefs. A large flag of the Rising Sun made with used paper was displayed in the Upper Town mess hall. This would have been a problem in the outside world, but here it did not seem to matter.

On December 9 it snowed heavily all day. The roads were slippery and dangerous. It was the forty-ninth day after the death in Italy of Mr. Akira Morihara, the third son of Mr. Usaku Morihara, a shopowner from Kona. A memorial service was held at the Lower Town mess hall in the afternoon, and many internees attended. This was the first service in the camp for a fallen Japanese American soldier. On the night of the tenth, the sight of the Rocky Mountains covered in snow and illuminated by the moon was bewitching and beautiful beyond description. On the night of the thirteenth, internees from Maui held a memorial service for eight Japanese American soldiers from Maui (including Mr. Yoshinobu Takei) who had been killed in Italy. The Reverends Ryugen Matsuda and Tamasaku Watanabe delivered sermons and Mr. Tokiji Takei said a few words on behalf of the families. It was later reported that, of Japanese American soldiers from Maui, 8 had been killed and 180 injured.

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by Joel | 6 December 2007 · 8:58 pm

Tessaku Seikatsu: Bad Language

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), pp. 139-140:

No place had more “Do not” signs than Santa Fe Camp. “Do not pick flowers,” scolded the sign in front of the Japanese office. They were especially numerous in the toilets. One admonished, “Do not wash your feet in the basin,” which of course meant that someone must have already done so. I once saw a man washing a dog under the tap in the laundry room and felt that he and I would never be able to get along. At the entrance to the woodshop, a notice read, “Carpenter room not for use.” Someone added a comma, changing it to “Carpenter, room not for use.” One of the carpenters altered the sign further: “Except for carpenter, room not for use.” In the camp, there were many good trees for hanging oneself. They should have put up a sign on each one saying “Do not hang yourself on this tree.”

I was quite annoyed at the Japanese of the [camp radio] announcers. Small mistakes are inevitable, but here is a list of some things that I felt were extremely irritating:

muyo no nagamono for muyo no chobutsu (useless things) [無用の長物]

yosai for shosai (details) [詳細]

sonshu for junshu (observance) [遵守]

obo for oho (visit) [往訪]

shuppon for shuppan (sailing out) [出帆]

kakusho for oboegaki (memo) [覚書]

yuzetsu for yuzei (canvassing) [遊説]

kagawa for kasen (river) [河川]

usuho for kyuho (mortar) [臼砲]

kodai for kakudai (expansion) [拡大]

teryudan for shuryudan (hand grenade) [手榴弾]

hitokeri shite for isshuu shite (giving a kick) [一蹴]

issetsu for issai (all) [一切]

zenhabateki for zenpukuteki (to the full) [全幅的]

yotaku for yokai (meddling) [溶解]

keiniku for geiniku (whale meat) [鯨肉]

One man’s pronunciation of not only Japanese but also English was muddled. He claimed to have graduated from the University of Southern California. He repeatedly pronounced Pearl Harbor as “Pole Harbo,” Eisenhower as “Aizen-no-hawah,” and Iowa as “Aioh.” All of the announcers were newspapermen, teachers, or interpreters from the Mainland. I noticed only one Hawaii man who pronounced konrinzai (by no means) as kinrinzai. I have no intention of faulting them for an occasional slip of the tongue, but what I have recorded here is what I heard on several occasions.

Whatever the pronunciation, the broadcasts on current affairs were very popular. Since the outbreak of the war, news was censored and there was too much propaganda. On top of this, people tended to lean toward wishful thinking, so that in the end it was difficult to determine what was true and what was not. Most of the internees were simpleminded. When Japanese victories were announced, they greeted the news with applause and instantly became cheerful. If they heard that the British or the Americans were making progress, they criticized the broadcast. Some announcers tried to flatter their audiences and were guilty of “selling out.” Those who knew better thought this was foolish and stopped listening. The cooks in the mess hall were thoughtful. When good news about Japan was broadcast, they always placed a bun with the flag of the Rising Sun on each of our trays. Sometimes they served us sekihan (rice and red beans) to celebrate. I thought this was very amusing.

All of the mispronunciations that irritated Soga so much are reading pronunciations, where the Sino-Japanese reading is substituted for the native Japanese reading (kakusho for oboegaki), one Sino-Japanese reading is substituted for another (keiniku for geiniku), or Sino-Japanese and native Japanese readings are mixed (kagawa for kasen).

UPDATE: Thanks to Matt of No-sword for supplying the kanji for oho (= ouhou).

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by Joel | 6 December 2007 · 7:24 am

Wordcatcher Tales: Shaba, Tekipaki, Baribari

From Life behind Barbed Wire [鉄柵生活 Tessaku Seikatsu]: The World War II Internment Memoirs of a Hawai‘i Issei, by Yasutaro Soga [1873–1957] (U. Hawai‘i Press, 2008), p. 102:

Internees called the world beyond the barbed wire shaba. Although I did not like this word and did not use it, nearly everyone else did because it was convenient. Another word, chokuchi, often used by Mainlanders, was new at first to those of us from Hawaii, but it means to cheat. It probably comes from a Chinese word. Instead of tekipaki (quickly), internees said baribari, which I think is vernacular from somewhere in Japan. Farmers from the Mainland who grew vegetables at the camp said kyukanpo for “cucumber.” Japanese often confuse the p sound with b because there is no p sound in the original Japanese language. My friends from Hawaii often say “blantation” for “plantation” and “Poston” for “Boston.” I thought this strange at first. As the influence of Hawaii internees grew in the camps, the use of Hawaiian words began to spread among the Mainlanders. Soon everyone was using kaukau [‘food’], aikane [‘friend’], and moimoi [moemoe ‘sleep’].

This is a strange passage. It sounds as if the author was interned with Koreans rather than Japanese, since mixing up p and b, t and d, and k and g is one of the markers of Korean-accented Japanese. There was also some new vocabulary for me. I haven’t been able to find chokuchi ‘to cheat’, but the others are worth noting.

娑婆 shaba is ‘the world’ or ‘the world outside’, as in shaba ni deru ‘to go out into the world = to get out of prison’. (I wonder if it also means ‘to leave the priesthood’.) But it also appears in 娑婆気 lit. ‘world feeling’, as in shabaki o suteru ‘to give up worldly ambitions or desires’. The author of the passage cited above was a news reporter interned with a lot of Buddhist priests.

てきぱき tekipaki seems to indicate not just quick, but also brisk, decisive, precise, and prompt, quickness with a military snap to it. All these qualities are presumably implied in the name of a Japanese web-hosting service, tekipaki.jp.

ばりばり baribari, by contrast, stresses not just speed, but energy and even fury, as in ばりばり働く baribari hataraku ‘work like a demon’.

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