Daily summer necessities such as mosquito nets and electric fans, as well as children's summer-holiday picture diaries, are on display portraying bygone summers in a seasonal exhibition at the Suginami Historical Museum in Suginami Ward, Tokyo.
For the exhibition, the museum's curator, Hiroki Chaen, examined the donated picture diaries and collected an assortment of daily items from various eras.
The exhibit includes toys, insect specimens and a young girl's picture diary from 1943 that depicts her summer memories, drawn in careful detail, of catching cicadas and going to the movies. Among other relics on display is a contraption that uses well water to cool rooms.
A number of the diaries contain vivid recordings of events at the time. For example, torrential rains in the summer of 1941 were so severe that "it seemed like the walls of our house are going to come crashing down," a young girl wrote.
"The diaries recorded by children of the Reiwa era might someday be used as a way to understand history," Chaen said. "I want [children] to record what's happening in the present."
The exhibition is scheduled to continue through Sep. 6. The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day excluding Mondays and the 20th of this month. Admission is 100 yen per adult and free for children of junior high school age and younger.
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