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Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

• The narrator explains that the day she met Mr. Tanaka was both the best and the worst day of her life. With this commentary, the story begins as a flashback to the narrator's childhood.

• The narrator presents herself as a young girl named Chiyo in a tiny fishing village on the Japanese coast. Her father is an elderly man and her mother is ill and dying. She has one older sister.

• Chiyo goes into the village and slips and falls, an incident that leads to her meeting Mr. Tanaka, who tries to help her and have his assistant fetch the doctor for her. Mr. Tanaka is aware of her family situation.

• Mr. Tanaka visits Chiyo to bring some Chinese herbs for her mother and wonders aloud to Chiyo who will take care of her when her mother dies. He says he was in a similar situation...

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