Word: samurais
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...father was a samurai-one of those ferocious retainer-warriors who wore two swords sharp enough to shave with, who scorned money because their liege lords supplied them with houses, clothes, food, concubines, whatever else they needed...
Yonai's mother, also of samurai blood and, being a woman, even less prepared to earn her daily rice than her husband had been, nevertheless buckled down as a seamstress and sewing teacher. While Mitsumasa was in school, he got a job copying documents, each week gave his pay envelope to his mother, unopened. He went on to the Naval Academy, where he was a popular mediocrity. He finished at the centre of his class - 60th among 125 cadets. At 21 he wrote, in clumsy, inept calligraphy, a pathetic little self-portrait: "My strongest characteristic: gluttony-I never...
...Emperor of Japan is not a man. He is 39 years old, has six human children, weighs about 135 pounds, eats, sleeps and fans himself; but he is not a man. Hirohito, Son of the Sun Goddess, is a lot of things. He is fierce samurai battles, snowcapped volcanoes, the flowering mimosa, fat carp in mountain pools. He is exaggerated politeness, intense ambition, orchidaceous sensitivity. He is the rising sun. He is also a big navy, and a crying need for cheap rice and living space. He embraces Japan. He is Japan...