jumped at the chance. This class was for prospective missionaries to replace those
liquidated in the war; it had both priests and seminarians. I was welcome for just
one reason, I think: Japanese language structure and idiom and Japanese culture make
even greater differences between male and female than does American culture and
American language. I was an instructional tool’.
In 194=, the summer we spent in Chicago, I took advantage of the opportunity to
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study semantics under Count Alfred Korzybski and Dr S. I. Hayakawa, as the Institute
for General Semantics was dose to where we lived – across the Mall and east a couple
of blocks at 1234 East 56th. One thing that stuck in my mind was the emphasis both
scholars placed on the fact that a culture was reflected in its language, that
indeed the two were so interwoven that another language of a different structure (a
`metalanguage’) was needed to discuss the matter adequately.
Now consider the dates. President Patton was elected in November 1948 and succeeded
President Barkley in January 1949.
The Osaka Incident took place in December 1948, Between President Patton’s election
and his inauguration. So President Patton was faced with what amounted to open
rebellion in the Far Eastern Possessions formerly known as the Japanese Empire. The
secret society, The Divine Wind, seemed willing to exchange ten of their number for
one of ours indefinitely.
In his inauguration address President Patton informed the Japanese and the world
that this exchange was not acceptable. Starting at once, it was one American dead,
one Shintoist shrine destroyed and defiled, with the price going up with each
incident.
Chapter 18 – Bachelorhood
I am not an expert on how to role a conquered country, so I will refrain from
criticising President Patton’s policies concerning our Far Eastern Possessions. My
dear friend and husband, Dr Jubal Harshaw, tells me (and the histories at Boondock
confirm) that on his time line (code Neil Armstrong) the policies were utterly
different – supportive rather than harsh to the conquered foe.
But both policies (both time lines) were disastrous for the United States.
In the years from 1952 to 1982 I never had any real occasion to use my study of
Japanese language and writing. But twenty-four centuries later my knowledge of
Japanese caused Jubal to ask me to accept an odd assignment, after I had shifted
from rejuvenation apprentice to the Time Corps. The outcome of the long and bitter
war between the United States and the Japanese Empire had been disastrous for both
sides on all time lines supervised by the Circle of Ouroboros, both those in which
the United States `won’ and those in which the Japanese Empire `won’ – such as time
Tine seven (code Fairacres) in which the Emperor and the Reichsführer split the
continent down the middle along the Mississippi River.
The Time Corps mathematicians, headed by Libby Long, and their bank of computer
simulators, supervised by Mycroft Holmes (the computer who led the Lunar Revolution
on time line three) attempted to determine whether or not a revised history could be
created in which the Japanese-American war of 1941-45 never took place. If so, would
that avoid the steady deterioration of planet Earth that had occurred after that war
on all explored time lines?
To this end the Corps needed agents before 1941 in Japan and in the United States.
Agents for the United States were no problem, as there were lavish records in
Boondock of American language, history, and culture in the twentieth century
Gregorian as well as residents of Tertius who had actually experienced that culture
at or near the target dates: Lazarus Long, Maureen Johnson, Jubal Harshaw, Richard
Campbell, Hazel Stone, Zeb Carter, Hilda Mae Burroughs, Deety Carter, Jake
Burroughs, and others – most especially Anne, a Fair Witness. I know that she was
sent. And probably others.
But residents of Tellus Tertius familiar with Japanese language and culture of the
twentieth century Gregorian were between zero and non-existent. There were two
residents of Chinese ancestry, Dong Xia and Marcy Choy-Mu, who were physically
similar to Japanese norms but neither knew any Japanese or anything of Japanese