Freedom to Play: We Made Our Own Fun

CHRISTMAS IN A PRISON CAMP

completed we all sat down on the grass around the table to have a feast of cakes, pies, doughnuts, cookies, tarts, sandwiches, and other things too numerous to mention. Then last and best of our feast came ice-cream and good ice-cream it was too. My! but it did taste good, especially on a hot day, and we had a nice piece of cake with it and it tasted lovely. The girls cleared away the dishes and put them in the baskets . We left very little but the dishes and a few crumbs. None of us felt much like playing any games now, so we strolled down to the seashore, the tide was out quite a distance, but a few who were not quite as tired as the rest walked down to the water’s edge, while the rest sat down on the grass. By the time we got back from the water we were all pretty tired so we started for home. We reached there about dark, after having spent a very pleasant afternoon in the woods. CHRISTMAS IN A PRISON CAMP From A Child in Prison Camp ©1971 by Shizuye Takashima, published by Tundra Books. The Takashima family was among those Japanese-Canadian families who, in 1942, were moved from the West Coast to prison camps in the interior of British Columbia. Shizuye’s parents struggled to keep family ties and cultural roots strong. Christmas at Home I swing my legs to and fro, Japanese music fills our tiny room. Mrs. Kono has a small record player. From this black, leather box, with shining handles which we turn from time to time, glorious music comes. In the hot burning oven, our Christmas chicken is cooking. It sputters and makes funny noises. The lemon pies father baked are already on the table. He has been cooking all day. They look so nice, my favorite pies. Only father can bake such lovely tasty pies. He must put magic into them. Father is an excellent cook. Before he became a gardener, he worked as a chef in a big restaurant and in hotels. And now, he 186 Freedom to Play still cooks on holidays or when we have many guests. I love watching him cook. He never uses a measuring cup, mostly his hands. He’s always tasting, making gurgling, funny noises in his throat (for Japanese are allowed to make a lot of noise when they eat; especially when they drink tea or eat soup). Father closes his slanted eyes and tastes it, then he gives me a tiny bit. He and mother always treat me special, I guess because I’m the youngest and not as strong as Yuki. She doesn’t mind: she knows I love her. I watch my father cook and I listen. The old song sounds full of joy. ——— Father ties a towel around his head. Mother hands him a bowl. He raises his arm, dances around. He is graceful as he waves his arm and bowl in time with the music. We all laugh. Mr. Kono joins him and sings. It is an old folk song. Mother claps her hands in time with the rhythm. She is looking at my slippers, the ones David sent us for Christmas. She has a little smile. I know her thoughts are with David; this is the first Christmas he is not with us. We all sing. The music seems to grow louder. Little Kay-fo too joins us. We all sing. Yuki, the Konos and the whole room seems to fade. I see Japan. The snow is gone. I see happy rice planters with their bright kimonos, their black hair tied with printed towels, the gentle wind, with lovely Mount Fuji, Fuji-san itself, in the distance. The music, our voices, go beyond our house, out into the snow, past the mountains and into space, and this special day is made more magic, and I know I shall remember it forever. There Was Always Something to Do 187 ...