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#203 Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco Tues 3 April 7:30 am Dearly Beloved, Today I have a quarter-holiday. I have a little work to do at the Supply Office this morning (signing my name as witness on forty or fifty pages of last month's payroll); then I shall go to bed for the rest of the morning. It is a grayish day and I look forward to a couple of hours of bonus sleep. Last night (my turn to take the operator and equipment back) we charged admission to the movie for the first time - we had spent some weeks getting special permission, because of legal aspects of the contract under which films are supplied free by Hollywood to the services - and, at 2¢ a head for adults and nothing for children, collected $52.40. The money will be used to pay the wages of school suiji employees, buy musical instruments (first of all a piano) and start a general school fund under parent-teacher control. We had managed to get ahold of a 5 or 6 minute strip of Japanese silent film taken at the sugar factory on this island several years ago. Nakagawa (head of the NKK here, now top civilian in Charley Frankel's office, and a very intelligent guy) and our old friend Yama were prominently shown in it - the latter looked a good deal younger and somewhat heavier; rather sleek, comfortable and prosperous, but with the same broad grin as ever. People in the audience [pg 2] recognized a number of other people, probably some of them now dead. Like many who have been through excessively trying circumstances, however, they seemed to regard the past as the past and were more merry than sad at seeing the pictures- much as we would be at a gathering of friends when we might be shown pictures taken at a similar gathering some years before. 10) The bride and groom are in the back seat. The little girl with the premature sourpuss is the daughter of the Korean school principal, Moon (He saw the pictures by chance and, surprised, so informed me) The jeep happens to be the one I drove back the movie operator in last night - it's one of only two or three with tops on them. This isn't the first wedding that has commandeered a jeep for this purpose; at the time of the one I went to a week before this, tho, no jeeps were available and we spirited the bride and groom into the cab of a water truck stranding by while the driver watched the ceremony. The wedding ceremony itself is very brief and (in Christian ceremonies like this and the one before it) set up much like ours. The minister turns to the woman and says, a little more elaborately than the following, “This is an auspicious day…Love this man for a thousand years without faltering in your affection;” the woman replies, “until death we shall be together,” or something like that. The minister then turns to the man and goes thru [pg 3] the same thing before pronouncing them man and wife. 11 The wedding feast. The rooms are so small that I could get only two people into the picture and since I knew none of the family of either bride or groom well I took Kirby Etter and Riley Ewing - whose pictures I’d wanted anyway. There were two trays like this and a dozen people (all men, of course) in a room about 8’ x 12’ (directly after the ceremony, with just sufficient time for the invited guests to return leisurely from the farm area where it was held to the Korean camp. On the tray are some foods I listed by name at the time but can't describe in detail - Pukimi (Korean name), Muchi (J. name), Tuk or Chun (other K. names for the same thing - vari-colored patties with a wax-like luster, made of rice) Cration Spam A marmalade made of papaya and the rind of some melon - very good A punch of mixed grapefruit and papaya juice, with segments of both fruits in it - simple and pleasing Tempura - fried seafood generally, esp. lobster, crab, shrimp Spaghetti cooked plain and then served cold, soaked in sweetened water (not as bad as it sounds). There were other things, mostly made of [?] (but looking far from it) - I’d love to stop to think awhile to remember them and must close this letter soon to catch the mailman - Oh yes [pg 4] I had 2 or 3 tomato juice glasses full of sake (A strange but not altogether unpleasant variety: milk-colored but thinner, slightly astringent, with a taste suggesting both buttermilk and, in a far-fetched sort of way, beer) and it left me a little numbed and sleepy till late afternoon. The wedding, like all that I've been to, was at 10 a.m. Yesterday I received the box of stationery, sweetie, and a very welcome letter [At this point Tel drops in to express concern over the school farm's not yet being planted- the schedule only called for starting on April 1 because of the undesirability of cutting into the Scout program during vacation week, but in the Colonel's mind only one thing matters: the land is lying idle, is plowed now and must be planted no matter how. So I guess we'll have to break into the school program for a day or two and get all the older kids working on it ahead of school. Gotta go I love you Warren
