'nother Mike (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mbarker) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
writercises2022-09-30 04:43 pm
mbarker) wrote in writercises2022-09-30 04:43 pm
Entry tags:
BACKGROUND: The WWII Diaspora in Japan (400 words)
Original Posting April 20, 2019
I’m not sure what is the right word, but... here’s something you might use as a disruption point to kick off your story?Just pondering, there's a... I want to call it a social trauma, but I'm not sure that's the right phrase. Anyway, a phenomenon that goes with WWII in Japan. See, when they were being bombed, the government, companies, and families sent people out of Tokyo and other cities into rural areas.In the morning drama running now, one girl from a family got sent from Tokyo all the way to Hokkaido, to a dairy farm. She’s still there, as a teen, and doesn’t seem to know where her family, brother and sister, are. Other stories, Tottoro, for example, also mention this almost in passing. It’s a fairly common starting point for stories in Japan set in that era, the disruption and upset of being sent out to the country.I mean, think about the social churning when city people who know Tokyo is the best place to live suddenly become refugees, begging a place to live, in some cases food and work, from rural farmers and small towns. Think of the mixing, the conflict of country life and thought as these dribs and drabs flood out into the countryside.Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if we suddenly took New York city, all the people and companies there, and sent them out, in families or smaller groups, to West Virginia, to rural Alabama, to Kansas, to the small towns and farms across America. Maybe in response to a threat of bombing, or perhaps the predicted impact of an asteroid, or whatever? So suddenly these city folks are shoved out into Smalltown, USA, with little more than what they can carry in their hands or on their backs.Wow! It's no wonder that this dispersal, this diaspora of the city dwellers, still gets play in dramas and such about that time. 75 years ago, but I think the impact, the shock, if you will, is still working its way through Japanese society. And provides a great stock of characters trying to adjust to life in the country, of course.Just thinking you might use that kind of refugee from the wars (or whatever catastrophe you like) as a starting point or turning point in your tales, too.
I’m not sure what is the right word, but... here’s something you might use as a disruption point to kick off your story?Just pondering, there's a... I want to call it a social trauma, but I'm not sure that's the right phrase. Anyway, a phenomenon that goes with WWII in Japan. See, when they were being bombed, the government, companies, and families sent people out of Tokyo and other cities into rural areas.In the morning drama running now, one girl from a family got sent from Tokyo all the way to Hokkaido, to a dairy farm. She’s still there, as a teen, and doesn’t seem to know where her family, brother and sister, are. Other stories, Tottoro, for example, also mention this almost in passing. It’s a fairly common starting point for stories in Japan set in that era, the disruption and upset of being sent out to the country.I mean, think about the social churning when city people who know Tokyo is the best place to live suddenly become refugees, begging a place to live, in some cases food and work, from rural farmers and small towns. Think of the mixing, the conflict of country life and thought as these dribs and drabs flood out into the countryside.Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if we suddenly took New York city, all the people and companies there, and sent them out, in families or smaller groups, to West Virginia, to rural Alabama, to Kansas, to the small towns and farms across America. Maybe in response to a threat of bombing, or perhaps the predicted impact of an asteroid, or whatever? So suddenly these city folks are shoved out into Smalltown, USA, with little more than what they can carry in their hands or on their backs.Wow! It's no wonder that this dispersal, this diaspora of the city dwellers, still gets play in dramas and such about that time. 75 years ago, but I think the impact, the shock, if you will, is still working its way through Japanese society. And provides a great stock of characters trying to adjust to life in the country, of course.Just thinking you might use that kind of refugee from the wars (or whatever catastrophe you like) as a starting point or turning point in your tales, too.