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168 pages

English

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Following the death of her mother, a young woman, Ueme, of a prominent Japanese business family is displaced from her heritage into a destructive marriage as an indentured laborer in a foreign land.
It is 1899 in the Meiji era, a tumultuous time in Japan’s history. Ueme, the daughter of a prominent Japanese family, longs for childhood days when months were counted in hours and the ends were unseen. Now monumental change awaits her—change she never asked for or wanted.
Forced to immigrate four thousand miles away to Hawaii from her home in the Kumamoto Prefecture after her mother dies, Ueme is displaced from her heritage and propelled into an arranged marriage far below her status without any resources to help her. Now an indentured laborer in a foreign land, she must face severe prejudice and anguish as she struggles to survive, overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and find her way. As she and the other Nihonji women begin to boldly transform their lives and not follow detrimental traditions, Ueme bravely walks into what she can only hope is a brighter future.
In this poignant historical tale set in the turbulent Meiji era in Japan and the sugarcane fields of Hawaii, a young Japanese immigrant must find a way to rise above a destructive marriage and life as an indentured laborer in a foreign land.

Sujets

Historical

Meiji period

Fiction

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Publié par	Archway Publishing
Date de parution	03 avril 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781665738194
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0200€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

UNDER THE MOON

Suzanne Stewart

Copyright © 2023 Suzanne Stewart.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.archwaypublishing.com
844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-3817-0 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3818-7 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6657-3819-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901860

Book Cover - Suzanne Stewart, Rachel Sten
Book Design - Rachel Sten
Illustrations - Suzanne Stewart

Archway Publishing rev. date: 03/31/2023

Contents
Preface
PART 1
The House Of Oyama
Chapter 1 Home
Chapter 2 The Flute Player
Chapter 3 The Dinner
Chapter 4 Haiku
Chapter 5 Spring Cleaning
Chapter 6 Saiko’s Party
Chapter 7 Full Moon
Chapter 8 White Silk
Chapter 9 Life After
Chapter 10 Saying Goodbye
Chapter 11 Revelation
Chapter 12 Preparations
Chapter 13 Honor
PART II
Pacific Crossing
Chapter 14 The Sea
Chapter 15 Teamwork
Chapter 16 Ship Living
Chapter 17 Intention
Chapter 18 Discord
Chapter 19 A Vision In The Storm
Chapter 20 Calm
PART III
Plantation Life
Chapter 21 Arrival
Chapter 22 Settling In
Chapter 23 Another Revelation
Chapter 24 Expectations
Chapter 25 Bending
Chapter 26 New Plans
Chapter 27 Music
Chapter 28 Beauty
Chapter 29 The Cliff Edge
Chapter 30 Emptiness
Chapter 31 End Of The Storm
Chapter 32 Break
Chapter 33 New Beginnings
Chapter 34 A Single Step

Epilogue
Acknowledgements
PART 4
Appendix

Preface
This story is written in honor of my two daughters who are half-Japanese and half-Caucasian. While they were growing up, there were few Asian stories and very little written about Japanese immigration to Hawaii. This novel describes a little section of the very rich cultural life and the changing times of the people from that period.
Set in two different countries, Japan and Hawaii, the story begins in Japan—Nippon, the Japanese name—at the end of the 1800s during the Meiji era. This was a tumultuous time in Japan’s history, when the country went from an agrarian feudal system to an industrial economy that rivaled any in the West in less than fifty years. It was at this time, because of economic upheavals, weather-related droughts, and new unbalanced tax levies, that so many Japanese emigrated to Hawaii and the West Coast.
The main character is of two different classes in Japan to show the convolution of the class system during the Meiji period and to create a semblance of life at that time. At the beginning of the Meiji era, class structure was very rigid. Merchants were the lowest class, just above the untouchables, because they dealt with money, which was considered lowly by the Confucian values on which Japanese society was based. Above the merchant was the farmer class; farmers were more valuable because they provided food, an essential item. Above the farmers came the samurai, the soldier/philosopher class, who were supported monetarily by the local lords. At the top were the members of the court and the royal family.
Due to extreme competition with western powers, Japan changed its economic and cultural structures to align more with those of the West. At this time, the lowly merchant class rose to the top because of their economic power, while many samurais were floating in a sort of no-man’s-land, with no longer any formal place in society or means of income. Some samurai were part of the newly created government, but many were not. Those samurai families who looked ahead made alliances with the merchant class, such as we see in Ueme’s fictional family.
A note about the use of the word modern in the story. Please remember that every person thinks that their time is “modern.” But what we consider modern today is much more advanced than what was modern for a Meiji woman.

For My Daughters

Chapter 1
HOME
September 1899, Cemetery Knoll, Village of Five Bridges, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan
It is dawn. A young woman is on a knoll overlooking a vast expanse of farmland stretched out beyond her. She is talking to the land. “How can ‘paradise’ be any more beautiful than you, my valley?”
Leaning against a large granite gravestone, she places some fruit and rice balls on its ledge. She knows they are waiting for her. The chests are packed and on the carriage. Why is it all so rushed? The pain of leaving. The pain of not understanding anything entirely yet having to keep moving because life kept moving. She longed for childhood days when months were counted in hours and the ends were unseen. How can she remember all this? She can hardly breathe for the sorrow choking her throat. Why does she have to leave her home?
Bowing to the stone and then turning toward the fields below, the rice appearing as green waves blown by the soft winds of early morning, she whispers, “Goodbye.”
May 1898, Cemetery Knoll, Village of Five Bridges, Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan
The rain had stopped. There I was, thinking about my life, me, Ueme, seventeen, just graduated from high school, contemplating my place in the universe.
My arms were getting wet through my cotton hakata, as I was leaning on the damp memorial stone in our family cemetery, sleepily gazing out at the valley below. Steam was rising off the rice fields as the sun warmed the earth. The young rice shoots poking out of the water gave the valley a gentle blue-green color. Here and there, water in the irrigation streams sparkled with reflected sunlight. A flock of geese flew north towards the distant mountains that were visible above a horizontal cloud of mist. The squawking of those birds interrupted the quiet of the early morning and my daydreaming.
I loved this spot, so private, so old. To the east, on my right, was the Castle Road. The samurais had marched up this road every year coming from the southern regions on their way to pay homage to the daimyo, ruler of the province. The road stretched north alongside the valley towards the foothills and then curved at the end of the valley, making its way for many more miles west toward the castle that lay far beyond view, past the forest that is the western edge of our valley.
My grandfather had loved to come to this spot to bring gifts to honor our ancestors. He’d often brought me here to tell me stories from his youth. It was here the past came to life. One could imagine the samurais on horses, in armor and helmets, their attendants carrying the banners representing each village, the colors flowing in the breeze. In those days, the valley was mostly meadow, where deer and rabbits and the occasional mountain cat roamed. The skies were so full of birds that, during spring migration, the elders say, they darkened the whole sky, moving as giant flapping undulations toward the majestic heights of the mountains. No wonder it was believed the ancestors lived there on top of everything.
Beyond the fir trees behind me, the town had grown south, and the rice fields had expanded north past the edge of the valley jumping over the old road, climbing the foothills. The castle road was not used much, because our main road now ran alongside the river to the west beyond the forest. The daimyo was now an elected official with less power, no military, and now called governor. There were no more samurai processions.
My obachan, my grandmother, was pleased for that. She would often repeat the story of my uncle returning from the Satsuma Rebellion of the samurai in the early days of the Meiji reign. As a young boy infatuated by the glamor of war, Uncle had run off to join it, against his parent’s wishes, to be a water boy for the warriors. From this spot here on the gravesite knoll, my grandmother had watched the defeated samurais returning home. Seeing her son’s body draped over a horse’s back, she’d run screaming across the valley to him. He bore the wound to this day, as he walked with a slight limp from field to field checking on his rice crop.
The sun, having risen higher now, was warming my arms and shoulders. My eyes had started to close when I heard the sorrowful moaning tune of the shakuhachi coming from the forest. Ah, the flute player was awake. I was reminded of why I was there, to put offerings on top of the monuments for the ancestors, especially for Grandfather, on the anniversary of his death two years ago. I bent down and removed the rice sweets and fruit from the folded silk furoshiki bundle I had brought with me.
Finished with my task, I stood and turned west to start down the path back to the alley. A cooling breeze from the ocean miles away blew the hair from my face. I had a full day ahead of me with household chores. Ah, my reward for