"Windows for the Crown Prince Akihito of Japan"

Reading a really good book right now..."Windows for the Crown Prince Akihito of Japan", a memoir by Elizabeth Vining. I'm almost finished, and I must say that this is the best book I have read on Japan so far. Vining moved to Japan in 1946 right after the end of WWII to become a tutor to the 12 year old Crown Prince, who is now the Emperor of Japan. She came to teach English and to "open windows onto a wider world for the Crown Prince". It kind of has a "Anna and the King" kind of feel, but without the romance. Vining was a widow, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, and in her early 40s. And while she mostly worked with the Crown Prince, she became close to the entire Imperial family. Vining, a devout Christian, lived out her faith in front of the Imperial family, and Vining describes how difficult it was to share about God to the Imperial family and to the Japanese in general. She writes, "I do not know of any more demanding exercise than to have to explain one's basic faith in simple terms, not to children, but to intellectually rather mature young people who are both skeptical and seeking." Vining hits so many things right on the head that I have experienced here, but haven't been able to put into words as beautifully and clearly as she has..."I was struck, as I had been struck before, by the way after one had looked at them for a while they ceased to look like Japanese children. One stopped noticing that they all had black hair and brown eyes, and saw instead an engaging nose or a pair of dimples, a tired child or a thoughtful child, an eager or a dreamy one." This is an incredible book to hear a Christian's story about living among people who do not have a Creator God in their worldview and to better understand how much Japan was effective and changed after WWII and during the American Occupation. If they make it into a movie, I want to play Elizabeth Vining.