at esperanto club yesterday we got to hear about rationing during WWII from the oldest lady there (she's like 90) who lived through it (the others are like 60-70). apparently NO ONE had rice except in very certain areas/super rich people, and instead of flour or rice they mixed in something that started with an s and i'll have to figure out what it was later (she said it tasted bad). her dad worked in tokyo but was never home and half his time was spent waiting in line for rations in tokyo. once he tried to trade off some of the family's old kimono for bags of rice so he could bring some home, but the train stations were full of policemen who checked everyone's bags for stuff like that so he got caught (i think) and anyway in the end the family never got any rice.

also they closed most of the shops like cafés and stuff, but according to this lady it wasn't actually because enough people couldn't afford to go there, it was because at the shops they would do illegal "free trading" of items for food (like the kimono to rice).

we brought the 2 kimono + 1 kimono jacket to club to show them, and one of the ladies who's a kimono-otaku knew what everything was and got excited. apparently we bought stuff that was supposed to be at least 30,000 yen total for only 3,000 yen. our kimono jacket is actually from okinawa, our green kimono's for autumn/early winter (basically because it's not fully lined) and the blue one is for winter (fully lined). the jacket has a missing tie-string and stuff and she just immediately said that she'll bring one for us. her and the WWII lady also taught us how to fold away the kimono, and when the younger one commented "oh you really know how to do this!" the older said "of course i do! how many times do you think my mom beat it into my head how to fold kimono??". we ate huge rice balls with salmon inside that the younger one made for us, and read another japanese children's book while translating it to esperanto.

we also found out that a prominent member of the local esperanto scene (73 years old) got hit by a car about a week ago and has been in the hospital in a coma ever since. i didn't completely understand what they were saying but i managed to look it up in the news later after i searched around and found out how to write his name in kanji.

that same day was "Girl's Day", basically you eat candy and put some traditional dolls on display and if you're a little girl you apparently can get stuff like balloon animals given to you for free. we couldn't find any candy that didn't have sugar in it although it was SUPPOSED to be 100% rice meal - but we went to a free super-tiny museum exhibit that had the dolls, some other handicrafts, and then random posters about sendai dialect. then we wandered around a bit and found a bookstore with a used bookstore on the upper storey.

i borrowed the esperanto version of the manga i need for my BA paper from club, and just bought the japanese version online. the esperanto version, which i thought was the 1st volume because it's the only one there is and doesn't have a number on the cover, uses the cover of the 6th volume and is actually the 2nd volume. so i accidentally ordered the wrong volume on amazon but noticed and canceled it an hour or half an hour later and cancelling went without a problem. now to buy the e-book of the english version and start my BA research...