Chapter 22 Summary

The Japanese language is undergoing changes in its vocabulary and the way it is written. These changes are very confusing to everyone including H and his friends. Some of the newspapers continue to write their articles to be read from right to left while others write articles to be read from left to right. H asks his teacher who is responsible for these changes, and the teacher tells H that the Education Ministry gave the order. His teacher explains that the changes are being made in an attempt to make Japanese the language of all of Asia.

The Education Ministry issues another rule, which states that "words of enemy origin" are to be avoided. H and his friends make up substitute names to use for the forbidden words. They make a game of it by getting other classmates to guess which forbidden word...