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Mon 2 Apr. 9:30 am Sweetie- Just happened to remember the form to permit you to send me airmail pkgs. that I promised you - discovered that it won't be done practicably (you have to get the Navy to ship it); so just forget it. School has started again and the office resounds with the merry echoes of hundreds of children's voices - Tel addressed the incoming Japanese first grade in Japanese, I the Korean in English (because, unlike the older kids, they understand mostly Korean and little Japanese) I said, briefly (on being greeted with a chorus of “Good mornings” from the whole K. school) something like this - “Ladies and gentlemen, members of the faculty, Mr. Moon; “I am very happy to greet so many children who are coming to school for the first time. We are glad to have all of you. The - School is growing [pg 2] fast; here in the Korean branch you have a new seventh grade, and next year there will be an eighth - what will we do with all of you? Never mind - we've managed so far, and the more the merrier. Let me encourage those of you in the 6th and 7th grades [here I turned toward them] to do your best to prepare for entrance to the new chūgakkō. This year four of your group have been successful in the examinations - next year I hope the number will be ten or twelve. Now, I realize that despite my gestures you do not know what the hell I am saying, [pg 3] Keredomo anata-tachi wa Eigo we yoku benkyō sureba, masumosu wakatte kimas. Kono Omedetai hi de wa mata Go aisatsu itashimas Owari” […saying, but if you study English well you will gradually come to understand. Again: on this auspicious day I greet you The End (always spoken at the end of a speech)] The words are trite but I delivered them with suitable (though not excessive) solemnity [pg 4] and balanced articulation. Somewhere about the middle my audience all laughed in the way they do when they hear a chance English word or phrase that is familiar (it wasn't ‘hell’ - I hadn't given a second's thought in advance to what I would say and that part came out quite naturally, but of course I wouldn't have said it if I’d thought anybody would catch it). Mostly they looked serious and receptive, apart from the fidgeting, scratching of itches and rubbernecking of the littler ones Owari W.
