conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a plot for a book about Japanese, American, Buddha entitled The Buddha in the Attic.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Buddha in the Attic: There is no plot in the usual sense of specific individuals going through particular events.\nThe novel is told in the first person plural, from the point of view of many girls and women, none of whom is individualized as a continuing character, but all of whom are vividly described in a sentence or two.\nThe first chapter, "Come, Japanese.\n" describes a boatload of Japanese picture brides coming to California to marry men they have never met.\nThe next chapter, "First Night", is about the consummation of their marriages with their new husbands, most of whom are nothing like the descriptions they had given.\nThe third chapter, "Whites", describes the women\'s lives in their new country and their relationship with their American bosses and neighbors.\nSome of the women become migrant laborers living in rural shacks, some are domestic workers living in the servants\' quarters of suburban homes, and some set up businesses and living quarters in the "Japantown", or "J-Town", area of big cities.\n"Babies" tells about giving birth and "Children" about raising American-born children, who want to speak only English and are ashamed of their immigrant parents, but are discriminated against by most of their classmates, neighbors and merchants.\n"Traitors" describes the effect of the Pearl Harbor attack and World War II on the families: the rumors and increasingly the reality of Japanese men being arrested without warning, the fear and eventually the reality of entire families being sent away to parts unknown.\n"Last Day" tells of the departure of the Japanese from their homes, jobs and schools.\nThe final chapter, "A Disappearance," is told from the point of view of the white American families left behind, who at first miss their Japanese neighbors but gradually forget about them.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The Buddha in the Attic
  There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them.
  On the boat we were mostly virgins. We had long black hair and flat wide feet and we were not very tall. Some of us had eaten nothing but rice gruel as young girls and had slightly bowed legs, and some of us were only fourteen years old and were still young girls ourselves. Some of us came from the city, and wore stylish city clothes, but many more of us came from the country and on the boat we wore the same old kimonos we'd been wearing for years—faded hand-me-downs from our sisters that had been patched and redyed many times. Some of us came from the mountains, and had never before seen the sea, except for in pictures, and some of us were the daughters of fishermen who had been around the sea all our lives. Perhaps we had lost a brother or father to the sea, or a fiancé, or perhaps someone we loved had jumped into the water one unhappy morning and simply swum away, and now it was time for us, too, to move on.
  ON THE BOAT the first thing we did—before deciding who we liked and didn't like, before telling each other which one of the islands we were from, and why we were leaving, before even bothering to learn each other's names—was compare photographs of our husbands. They were handsome young men with dark eyes and full heads of hair and skin that was smooth and unblemished. Their chins were strong. Their posture, good. Their noses were straight and high. They looked like our brothers and fathers back home, only better dressed, in gray frock coats and fine Western three-piece suits. Some of them were standing on sidewalks in front of wooden A-frame houses with white picket fences and neatly mowed lawns, and some were leaning in driveways against Model T Fords. Some were sitting in studios on stiff high-backed chairs with their hands neatly folded and staring straight into the camera, as though they were ready to take on the world. All of them had promised to be there, waiting for us, in San Francisco, when we sailed into port.
  ON THE BOAT, we often wondered: Would we like them? Would we love them? Would we recognize them from their pictures when we first saw them on the dock?
  ON THE BOAT we sometimes lay awake for hours in the swaying damp darkness of the hold, filled with longing and dread, and wondered how we would last another three weeks.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: IN THE BEGINNING we wondered about them constantly. Why did they mount their horses from the left side and not the right? How were they able to tell each other apart? Why were they always shouting? Did they really hang dishes on their walls and not pictures? And have locks on all their doors? And wear their shoes inside the house? What did they talk about late at night as they were falling asleep? What did they dream of? To whom did they pray? How many gods did they have? Was it true that they really saw a man in the moon and not a rabbit? And ate cooked beef at funerals? And drank the milk of cows? And that smell? What was it? "Butter stink," our husbands explained.
  STAY AWAY FROM THEM, we were warned. Approach them with caution, if you must. Do not always believe what they tell you, but learn to watch them closely: their hands, their eyes, the corners of their mouths, sudden changes in the color of their skin. You will soon be able to read them. Make sure, however, that you don't stare. With time you will grow accustomed to their largeness. Expect the worst, but do not be surprised by moments of kindness. There is goodness all around. Remember to make them feel comfortable. Be humble. Be polite. Appear eager to please. Say "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," and do as you're told. Better yet, say nothing at all. You now belong to the invisible world.
  THEIR PLOWS WEIGHED more than we did, and were difficult to use, and their horses were twice the size of our horses back home in Japan. We could not harness them without climbing up onto orange crates, or standing on stools, and the first time we shouted out to them to move they just stood there snorting and pawing at the ground. Were they deaf? Were they dumb? Or were they just being stubborn? "These are American horses," our husbands explained. "They don't understand Japanese." And so we learned our first words of horse English. "Giddyap" was what you said to make the horse go forward, and "Back" was what you said to make it back up. "Easy" was what you said to make it slow down, and "Whoa" was what you said to make it stop. And after fifty years in America these would be the only words of English some of us could still remember by heart.
  FROM TIME TO TIME one of their men would ask to have a word with us in his study while his wife was out shopping, and we did not know how to say no. "Is everything all right?" he would ask us. Usually we stared down at the floor and said yes, of course, everything was fine, even though this was not true, but when he touched us lightly on the shoulder and asked us if we were sure, we did not always turn away. "Nobody has to know," he would say to us. Or, "She's not due home until late." And when he led us upstairs to the bedroom and laid us across the bed—the very same bed we had made up that morning—we wept because it had been so long since we'd been held.
  THERE WAS TALK of a list. Some people being taken away in the middle of the night. A banker who went to work and never came home. A barber who disappeared during his lunch break. A few fishermen who had gone missing. Here and there, a boardinghouse, raided. A business, seized. A newspaper shut down. But this was all happening somewhere else. In distant valleys and faraway towns. In the big city, where all the women wore high heels and lipstick and danced until late in the night. "Nothing to do with us," we said. We were simple women who lived quietly and kept to ourselves. Our own husbands would be safe.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Our own husbands would be safe. Why did they mount their horses from the left side and not the right? How were they able to tell each other apart? Why were they always shouting? Did they really hang dishes on their walls and not pictures? And have locks on all their doors? And wear their shoes inside the house? What did they talk about late at night as they were falling asleep? What did they dream of? To whom did they pray? How many gods did they have? Was it true that they really saw a man in the moon and not a rabbit? And ate cooked beef at funerals? And drank the milk of cows? And that smell? What was it? "Butter stink," our husbands explained.
  STAY AWAY FROM THEM, we were warned. Approach them with caution, if you must. Do not always believe what they tell you, but learn to watch them closely: their hands, their eyes, the corners of their mouths, sudden changes in the color of their skin. You will soon be able to read them. Make sure, however, that you don't stare. With time you will grow accustomed to their largeness. Expect the worst, but do not be surprised by moments of kindness. There is goodness all around. Remember to make them feel comfortable. Be humble. Be polite. Appear eager to please. Say "Yes, sir," or "No, sir," and do as you're told. Better yet, say nothing at all. You now belong to the invisible world.
  THEIR PLOWS WEIGHED more than we did, and were difficult to use, and their horses were twice the size of our horses back home in Japan. We could not harness them without climbing up onto orange crates, or standing on stools, and the first time we shouted out to them to move they just stood there snorting and pawing at the ground. Were they deaf? Were they dumb? Or were they just being stubborn? "These are American horses," our husbands explained. "They don't understand Japanese." And so we learned our first words of horse English. "Giddyap" was what you said to make the horse go forward, and "Back" was what you said to make it back up. "Easy" was what you said to make it slow down, and "Whoa" was what you said to make it stop. And after fifty years in America these would be the only words of English some of us could still remember by heart.
  FROM TIME TO TIME one of their men would ask to have a word with us in his study while his wife was out shopping, and we did not know how to say no. "Is everything all right?" he would ask us. Usually we stared down at the floor and said yes, of course, everything was fine, even though this was not true, but when he touched us lightly on the shoulder and asked us if we were sure, we did not always turn away. "Nobody has to know," he would say to us. Or, "She's not due home until late." And when he led us upstairs to the bedroom and laid us across the bed—the very same bed we had made up that morning—we wept because it had been so long since we'd been held.
  THERE WAS TALK of a list. Some people being taken away in the middle of the night. A banker who went to work and never came home. A barber who disappeared during his lunch break. A few fishermen who had gone missing. Here and there, a boardinghouse, raided. A business, seized. A newspaper shut down. But this was all happening somewhere else. In distant valleys and faraway towns. In the big city, where all the women wore high heels and lipstick and danced until late in the night. "Nothing to do with us," we said. We were simple women who lived quietly and kept to ourselves.IN THE BEGINNING we wondered about them constantly.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: THE MAYOR URGES us all to be patient. "We'll let you know what we can when we can," he tells us. There was disloyalty on the part of some, time was short, and the need for action was great. The Japanese have left us willingly, we are told, and without rancor, per the President's request. Their spirits remain high. Their appetite is good. Their resettlement is proceeding according to plan. These are, the mayor reminds us, extraordinary times. We are part of the battlefront now, and whatever must be done to defend the country must be done. "There will be some things that people will see," he tells us. "And there will be some things that people won't see. These things happen. And life goes on."
  A YEAR ON and almost all traces of the Japanese have disappeared from our town. Gold stars glimmer in our front windows. Beautiful young war widows push their strollers through the park. On shady paths along the edge of the reservoir, dogs on long leashes strut. Downtown, on Main Street, the daffodils are blooming. New Liberty Chop Suey is crowded with workers from the shipping yard on their lunch break. Soldiers home on leave are prowling the streets and business at the Paradise Hotel is brisk. Flowers by Kay is now Foley's Spirit Shop. Harada Grocery has been taken over by a Chinese man named Wong but otherwise looks exactly the same, and whenever we walk past his window it is easy to imagine that everything is as it was before. But Mr. Harada is no longer with us, and the rest of the Japanese are gone. We speak of them rarely now, if at all, although word from the other side of the mountains continues to reach us from time to time—entire cities of Japanese have sprung up in the deserts of Nevada and Utah, Japanese in Idaho have been put to work picking beets in the fields, and in Wyoming a group of Japanese children was seen emerging, shivering and hungry, from a forest at dusk. But this is only hearsay, and none of it necessarily true. All we know is that the Japanese are out there somewhere, in one place or another, and we shall probably not meet them again in this world.
  In her magnificent new novel, which can be viewed as a prequel to her first novel, Otsuka spins the clock back even further, to just after the turn of the century, as a group of young women from Japan are brought to San Francisco as mail-order brides.
  Ostuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Ostuka has written a spellbinding novel about identity and loyalty, and what it means to be an American in uncertain times. "We'll let you know what we can when we can," he tells us. There was disloyalty on the part of some, time was short, and the need for action was great. The Japanese have left us willingly, we are told, and without rancor, per the President's request. Their spirits remain high. Their appetite is good. Their resettlement is proceeding according to plan. These are, the mayor reminds us, extraordinary times. We are part of the battlefront now, and whatever must be done to defend the country must be done. "There will be some things that people will see," he tells us. "And there will be some things that people won't see. These things happen. And life goes on."
  A YEAR ON and almost all traces of the Japanese have disappeared from our town. Gold stars glimmer in our front windows. Beautiful young war widows push their strollers through the park. On shady paths along the edge of the reservoir, dogs on long leashes strut. Downtown, on Main Street, the daffodils are blooming. New Liberty Chop Suey is crowded with workers from the shipping yard on their lunch break. Soldiers home on leave are prowling the streets and business at the Paradise Hotel is brisk. Flowers by Kay is now Foley's Spirit Shop. Harada Grocery has been taken over by a Chinese man named Wong but otherwise looks exactly the same, and whenever we walk past his window it is easy to imagine that everything is as it was before. But Mr. Harada is no longer with us, and the rest of the Japanese are gone. We speak of them rarely now, if at all, although word from the other side of the mountains continues to reach us from time to time—entire cities of Japanese have sprung up in the deserts of Nevada and Utah, Japanese in Idaho have been put to work picking beets in the fields, and in Wyoming a group of Japanese children was seen emerging, shivering and hungry, from a forest at dusk. But this is only hearsay, and none of it necessarily true. All we know is that the Japanese are out there somewhere, in one place or another, and we shall probably not meet them again in this world.
  In her magnificent new novel, which can be viewed as a prequel to her first novel, Otsuka spins the clock back even further, to just after the turn of the century, as a group of young women from Japan are brought to San Francisco as mail-order brides.THE MAYOR URGES us all to be patient.