ABSTRACT
Eight days out on the MS Nikko Maru on our way to Japan, I wrote my parents:
We have found this ship to be a very fine vessel indeed, and the passengers, officers, and crew very good company. The kids are having a wonderful time. Johnny has made friends with one of the junior officers and is giving him English lessons, in exchange for which John gets taken on tours of the ship’s more interesting nether regions, and he haunts the bridge. Ann is taking Japanese lessons from Sachiko Mizoguchi, who is a daughter of the owner of the Kokusai Company (managers of the line and several others). She is about 18 and has been in America attending Colby Junior College. She is returning to Tokyo for the rest of her education. Our apprehensions about the kids being bored were baseless; they are having the time of their lives. Ann reported that her first four days aboard were the happiest four days of her life. She, too, found a junior officer patron.
