Guests of the Emperor

And a bag of rice that spoke to me.

And there it is! A 20 pound bag of white rice, just sitting there on the lowest grocery store shelf minding its own business. But somehow, maybe from some future universe, it called to me.

Several years ago there was a book topping the NEW YORK best sellers list of a true story of a particular Japanese POW camp during WWII. Interesting enough, but in this tale the Japanese POWs captured were entitled English women on vacation on an island in the south China sea. Japan made the decision to came into the war in a blaze of glory by taking the wives and daughters of various high ranking English military officials before the women could secure arrangements to get off the island and make it home safely. The book was called “Guests of the Emperor.”

Hearing that there were important people on an island belonging to the English Monarchy, the Emperor ordered Japanese soldiers to snatch up these women and hold them hostage and put them on a inconspicuous Japanese sea vessel. Two torrential days on this wretched vessel found them on another island where they were incarcerated in an internment camp of dirty huts and a smelly outhouse. Several of the small dirty huts were already occupied by other unfortunate women and girls when they arrived from a not so pleasant boat ride.

The occupants of the internment camp were fed a steady diet of boiled rice “with little brown specks” twice a day. The camp became overcrowded with recent kidnapped women and girls so the Japanese decided to move the newest acquisitions to a new camp. These wives of the high ranking military officials were expected to walk 30 miles through a grueling jungle on a slimy wet trail to the next internment camp while the “boss” rode in a jeep with a driver. The women were expected to keep up with the soldiers while carrying their belongings and children and were flogged if they lagged behind. A couple women just dropped succumbing to exhaustion and fever. The Japanese soldiers could not understand why these women could not keep up. The soldiers, having never encountered English women before, determined that the ladies must be faking fatigue. So, to nip that in the bud, the fallen, exhausted women were immediately dispatched and left on the trail as an example.

The women who survived the journey were subjected to more plain boiled rice day after day at the new camp. They soon became severely constipated and miserable. Luckily, this new camp was close to a village and some of the villagers would sneak food through the fence when the guards weren’t around. Very little meat was offered, however as the villagers themselves had very little to offer, some chicken and other wild birds when available. Those meager offerings from the village kept the English women alive. Eventually, some of the women began “trading favors” from the Japanese soldiers to acquire things like seeds and medicine.

I won’t give away the books ending, except to say most of them lived through the ordeal. But it took fortitude, determination, and a willingness to work together as a team. It was a powerful story!

But there was that bag of rice, the one that called to me. I swear it put that story in my head! My next thought was what if we had to live, as a nation, on simple rice and beans? All this talk of strikes, EMPs, economic collapse, war, the draft, water shortages and drought and whatever else humans can throw at each other. I know I couldn’t walk 30 miles through whatever debris field is obstructing my path.

Needless to say, I grabbed that last bag of 20 pound rice, the one that put the idea in my head and just to be on the safe side, I grabbed her sister 10 pound bag. Next, I backed up a few feet and nabbed some dried beans and split peas, to help ward off appetite fatigue with some variety. Next we went over a couple of alses and picked up some Fleets glycerine suppositories. You know, just incase.