Question

Woody’s visit to Japan teaches him more about Papa’s character and the origin of Wakatsuki pride. How is Aunt Toyo’s personality and her expression of pride different from Papa’s? What does Woody learn about his family and Japanese culture

Answer 1

Answer:

Woody visits Papa’s family outside of Hiroshima nearly a year after the atomic bomb is dropped, and Toyo, his great-aunt, shows him a graveyard where the gravestones are tilted from the bomb blast. One member of the family has been lost, but Toyo does not want to talk about it. She explains that she has brought Woody to the graveyard to show him where his father was buried in 1913. Woody protests that his father is still alive and well in California, but Toyo explains that when the family had no word from him for nine years, they decided he was dead and placed a gravestone for him in the graveyard. She says her happiness at hearing that he is alive has erased the trauma that the war put her through.

Woody has been afraid to visit his father’s family in Hiroshima because he is an American Nisei and part of the occupying American army. Finally, however, he decides to go bearing a gift of fifty pounds of sugar, which is in short supply due to inflated black market prices. His family immediately sees past his American haircut and smile, and sees only that he is his father’s son. They accept him instantly and welcome his gift with only slight embarrassment. The family’s elegant country house is bare except for a few mats and an altar, but Toyo bears herself with dignity. They eat a special meal on nice porcelain, drink precious sake, and Woody sleeps under their finest bedding. He is proud to discover that Papa’s stories of his family’s nobility are true and imagines that Papa would be proud of how they received Woody.

Just as he is falling asleep, he feels a presence near him. It is Toyo, kneeling beside him and crying. She says he looks just like Papa, she and quickly leaves. Woody conjures up an image of Papa and is amazed at the resemblance between Papa and Toyo. In seeing her, he understands Papa’s pride and wishes he had asked Toyo about him. He decides to ask her the next day and to climb the hill Papa used to climb.