Dear Diary,

I am just like you. I glance at that ever-ticking clock every morning and skip to
school. I love my family greatly. I am highly amused at some of my teachers
who make lesson riveting. At all times, I work hard. School is one of my
passions close to my heart.

My family and I live in Japan, not far from the towering Japanese city during
the current worst war, the world has ever known.

It is 1945, four years till the war broke out. My life is typical of most Japanese
girls. I learn the piano, am cared for by my family and perform my ceremonial
duties. Though my life has changed completely when the war arrived, like an
unwanted puppy on your doorstep. The towns began to lose young men, as
brothers and fathers left to fight in the Pacific. In 1944 my father was called up,
as Japan was starting to lose the war.

My school uniform has changed too. Japanese girls loved their sailor-suit
uniforms, but due to wartime austerity, junior students had to go without them.
In some places the authorities believed that white uniforms made children
visible to enemy planes, and banned them, instead my mother had to make me
an entire new uniform.

Times were hard. Every possible space was used as a plot to grow food, with
human excrement used as fertiliser, as we lacked any other kind. With children
over 12, expected to work as hard as adults. Now there are many children were
overworked and undernourished.

I know I must work hard to make my school and country proud and commit to
the war effort, so as not to be outdone by those dreadful, British and American
school girls, who I presume were labouring for their countries’ too, which in
fact I know is not the case. I know I will make my family proud and get through
the war in any way I can. I will become an upstanding Japanese citizen.

I’ve got to go, I’m sure we’ll meet again,

Yoko Moriwaki.