Japan

I grew up Japanese.  I was not in Japan but I lived in a suburb that was all Japanese.  My first school field trip I opened the lunch and found a plate with teriyaki chicken, rice, vegetables and a set of chopsticks. I learned how to use them.

My best friends all were Japanese and went to Japanese school for three hours every day, after regular school. They were learning to write and read the Japanese language.

I cannot tell you the states on the USA Eastern seaboard -- but we spent a whole year studying Japanese history. 

Then I graduated from High School and I moved to Japan. I studied the language.

Another friend from high school was there too. She lived with her uncle, his wife, their three kids and her -- in an apartment that was one large room, about 20x30. There was no furniture save a low table.  The walls were all cupboards, beds were futons that were rolled out at night. Bathroom was down the hall.

My friend said that when she went there her relatives were astounded at the way she spoke the language -- the Japanese spoken where I grew up had remained "classical" and it was as if she spoke of "thee" and "thou" instead of the more common modern "you."

Things you don't think about much in America were important in Japan.  I had one neighbor who was unremarkable, except at night he practiced archery in his garage. Blindfolded.

Everyone there went to the communal baths every day. I could not believe how HOT the tubs were, I got into the coldest one and felt scalded, yet in the hottest tub were all these little old ladies laughing and telling stories while the steam rose up around them.

There was never any trash on residential streets, they were perfectly manicured.

Every tiny delivery truck had a driver -- and an assistant.  No one-man delivery teams.

The driver for a limo that came to pick up my neighbor each day had an assistant as well, who would stand outside the car and direct the driver in his huge imported Lincoln through the narrow streets that he had to traverse to pick up his executive. The car would stop and the executive would climb in, then the car would back up the street until the assistant would stop traffic so it could back out into a two-lane street and leave.

One weekend I took a train to the seaside town (probably one that is gone now from the tidal wave) and I remember walking along a road and the shoulder of the road was planted neatly with a row of onions.  Every square inch of tillable land was planted, neatly and with love and reverence for the life spirit of that spot.  Rice was planted manually in little paddies up the hills. No machine could ever plant or harvest there, it was all hand work. All trees looked like they were pruned.

In the time I lived there I came to value the incredible spirit of the Japanese people and their industriousness and thrift and how everyone worked together to solve problems and succeed.

When I was washing rice I learned to save every kernel -- a tradition from a place that valued each grain of rice. "From the one came the one thousand."

The fable was that a man sent his son out into the wilderness with one grain of rice, telling him not to return until he had grown 1000 grains from that one seed.  The son did it, it took  years.  This was a typical inspirational story told to children to encourage them to work hard.

Today's lunch was miso soup, rice, gari (pickled ginger) and some stir fried vegetables with a little chicken.  I am still eating seaweed every day, just in case.  But eventually I will have to buy more, the package of wakame I have was picked in Japan. I would be afraid to buy wakame from Japan now.

How sad.