Umeshu

The evening she had lit a bonfire in the yard and burned all of the letters from Kagoshima. She burned the family photographs and the three silk kimonos she had brought over with her nineteen years ago from Japan. She burned the records of Japanese opera. She ripped up the flag of the rising sun. She smashed the tea set and the Imari dishes and the framed portrait of the boy's uncle, who had once been a general in the Emperor's army. She smashed the abacus and tossed it into the flames. "From now on," she said, "we're counting on our fingers."

The next day, for the first time ever, she sent the boy and his sister to school with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in their lunch pails. "No more rice balls", she said. "And if anyone asks, you're Chinese"

"And I", said the girl, "am the Queen of Spain."

"In your dreams," said the boy

"In my dreams," said the girl, "I am the King." (Otsuka 75)

The boy put on a coat and stared at his reflection in the broken mirror. His hair was long and uncombed and his face was dark brown from the sun. The coat hung down past his knees. He narrowed his eyes and stuck out his two front teeth.

I predge arreigiance to the frag...

Whatsamalla, Shorty?

Solly. So so solly.

He poked his thumb through a hole in the wool.

"Moths," she said.

"Try bullets," said the girl.

Their mother pulled out a needle and a spool of black Boilfast thread. She pulled out a thimble.

"Let's have a look," she said. (Otsuka 89)

Excerpts from When the Emperor Was Divine