World History

Recently, I have been watching a show with footage from WWII that had been remastered in color. Unfortunate timing, given my growing belief that the world has lost its damn mind and we are heading toward Orwellian levels of fear mongering, hate, and government control. Based on my Facebook feed, at least. But that is a topic for some other time.

No, what struck me, as I was watching, was how little I actually knew about these important events. Did I sleep through world history?

Living in Japan, interacting with people from all over the world, I came to realize just how one-sided my education had been.

I don’t mean that in a negative way. My British friends had an equally nationally-centered world view. As did the Australian, Danish, German, Chinese, Korean, and Italians I met. Not to mention the Japanese. Everyone is taught history with themselves (or their country) at the center. The American Revolution isn’t the American Revolution to the British.

Before I moved to Japan, my knowledge of WWII history was very, very basic. Hitler. The Holocaust. Then the Americans saved the day.

I knew about Pearl Harbor, my grandfather was there, but I didn’t understand the skirmishes, sanctions, and politics that led up to it. I also didn’t understand the mindset of the Japanese people. Or any people other than my own.

I didn’t realize that Asia was fighting its own world war at the time. Or that they had fought the same war, over and over, for thousands of years. That the hatred between Japan, China, and Korea was as thick and deep as any European feud I ever studied. Maybe deeper.

Living abroad opened my eyes to just how small my world was. And how much I have left to learn.

It also makes me worry for those who don’t have the opportunity or desire try it themselves. They say that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it. But I would argue that those who don’t study ALL of history are equally doomed. We can no longer afford to look at things from a single perspective. We must open our eyes wide.

Yes, Hitler was a demon. But how did a demon come to power? Yes, Pearl Harbor was a tragedy. But how could two cultures see the world so differently that such an event was logical for one and incomprehensible for the other?

We must look past our self-centered version of the world. We must realize that there is always another side to the story. We must understand that others don’t think the same way we do, believe the same things we do, or hold the same values as we do.

Hindsight is always 20-20. I say that a lot. But as I watched the young men and women – almost all dead by now, but still so alive on the screen – I felt very aware of my monumental ignorance.

Not knowing. Not understanding. Being blind to the feelings and values of our fellow man. That is how WWII started. Will it be the catalyst for WWIII?

I survived the 2016 holiday season! Give me a medal or something!

We did it, we survived 2016. And I don’t mean like everyone was hoping Betty White did (or all the other celebrities we were crossing our fingers and praying for as 2016 came to its sad conclusion with a rapid escalation of the death toll). No, Anata and I survived The Holidays! We made it through the obligatory November and December events, even added a couple extra and hosted two, yes, two, dinner parties! Well, to be fair, there was a blizzard on Christmas Day, so we didn’t actually make it to every event on our jam-packed social calendar, but I was still pretty proud when the last guest left at 2 am New Year’s Day, and I was still alive.

I really missed Japan this holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I was so excited to spend the holidays at home with family and friends, but I found myself longing for the quiet, relaxed winter break I had as a gaijin in Japan.

Japan doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving (obviously), so my Novembers weren’t spent trying to cram and much turkey and mashed potatoes down my gullet as I could get a hold of. Otose did host a party around Thanksgiving each year to celebrate the anniversary of opening her clinic and to make the foreigners staying with her feel more at home, but there was no turkey or pumpkin pie. And there was just the one. This year I had two Thanksgivings!

Christmas was also a much more subdued affair. Not being a Christian nation, Japan doesn’t really celebrate Christmas. They still do some presents, but it is more a date night for young couples than a celebration of Jesus’s birth. There is cake and, surprisingly, buckets of KFC. That is the Japanese equivalent of Christmas Ham – KFC. I guess Colonel Sanders does kind of look like Santa (who does visit Japanese children, by the way)…

I have never been huge into Christmas, so I kind of enjoyed not hearing Christmas carols starting in October or seeing Santas on every street corner. It was nice to not have to decide between saying, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” to friends and coworkers. There were sales of course (remember, I said it was a date night), but I felt that the Japanese were at least honest with themselves about the commercial juggernaut that Christmas has become. They weren’t trying to hide behind “Jesus is the reason for the season” or any other feeble excuse we offer up rather than admit that Christmas has become all about the gifts regardless of which happy holiday you celebrate. As a gaijin with a husband and family back in the states, I only had to worry about gifts for a very select few. It was amazing!

Not that I hate giving gifts (or getting them). I just hate how important they seem to have become.

Instead, I like the Japanese New Year gift giving tradition. They give kids money. Plain and simple.

And while we’re on New Year, I think it was one of my favorite holidays as a gaijin. For Japanese people, New Years can be super stressful. The family comes over and basically hangs out for three days. A lot like Christmas in America. Most families will visit the local shrine on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day to get the first blessing of the New Year. These can be crowded, raucous (in a Japanese way) outings. But for the most part, New Year’s is a time to be with family. To visit, play games, and just inhabit the same space for a brief time. With everyone running in so many different directions and for insanely long hours during the year, this is their time to relax and come together. I am sure daughters-in-law suffer through the same stony silences and critical looks, children get as antsy and tired of being scolded, and young people roll their eyes at Grandpa’s anecdotes (or want to) just as many times as Americans, but in my mind Japanese New Year is a wonderful time of family and togetherness. What I wish Christmas were a little more in this country.

I guess I am kind of jealous of Japanese New Year traditions. I would love to spend three days sitting around a kotatsu with Otosan and Okasan, without anywhere to go or anything to do. In America, we do nothing but run, cook, shop, and eat from November till the first week of January. I would much prefer to sip tea (or sake), share a bento with my loved ones, and just be.

I am sure I will get back in the hang of the holidays by next year. I was grateful for the time I got to spend with everyone, the meals we got to share, and the catching up on everything missed, I just wish we could have spread it out over a few more weeks (or months). Maybe next year I can convince Anata to try Japanese style holidays. Or at least build me a kotatsu so we can enjoy watching the snow in warmth and comfort.

2017: The Year of Bamboo

Bamboo is flexible, bending with the wind but never breaking, capable of adapting to any circumstance. It suggests resilience, meaning that we have the ability to bounce back even from the most difficult times… Your ability to thrive depends, in the end, on your attitude to your life circumstances. Take everything in stride with grace, putting forth energy when it is needed, yet always staying calm inwardly.

                                                                                                            -Ping Fu

2016 was a turbulent year. I moved back across an ocean. I had to say goodbye to some wonderful people. I had to readjust from a life in a bustling metropolitan area to life in a rural agricultural area. There was more than an ocean between me and the friends and family I had left behind, but I had to find a way to reconnect. I made new friends, which has always been a little difficult for me. I had surgery, was laid up for months, and found myself drowning in the same dark emotions I had fled from two years before.  I floundered. I rallied. I floundered again. Like a small ship on a rough sea.

This sounds very negative. Did nothing good happen in 2016? It did. I am glad to be home with Anata and my puppies. I have a new job working for the local newspaper, which keeps me involved in the community and actually uses my degree. I picked up another new job writing English lessons for an online company. I get to read good books and think about them critically. But 2016 was also full of emotions that I am just now able to process.

And now it is 2017.

Study the teachings of the pine tree, the bamboo, and the plum blossom. The pine is evergreen, firmly rooted, and venerable. The bamboo is strong, resilient, unbreakable. The plum blossom is hardy, fragrant, and elegant.

                                                                                                            -Morihei Ueshiba

While many will celebrate 2017 as the year of the rooster (or the year of Betty White), I have decided celebrate it as the year of bamboo.

Did you know that bamboo, like rice, is not native to Japan? It was imported from China. But it didn’t take the Japanese long to integrate the bamboo into the very soul of their culture. With their trademark ingenuity, bamboo became indispensable. It was used for building, crafting, and every kind of utensil imaginable. It grew into a beautiful and symbolic staple in their literature, art, and culture.

Bamboo always thrilled me while I was in Japan. I loved to listen to the wind rustle through its leaves. To watch it bend further and further under snow and wind only to bounce back. Its green always reminded me of early summer, my favorite time of year. It was comforting. I took so many pictures of bamboo!

But it is more than the beauty of bamboo that made me choose it as my spirit plant for 2017. It was the strength and flexibility. I have always struggled with mental flexibility. I tend to get ruffled and stressed when plans are changed last minute. I had started to come to terms with this in Japan, but maybe not in the best way. I didn’t get flustered when people flaked out on plans, but I just did them on my own. I quit inviting people to do things and just tried to enjoy my solo adventures. It worked well, for the most part, but it didn’t really solve the flexibility issue.

And now that I have returned home to a spouse and responsibilities, just going on my own doesn’t really work. I also took two jobs that require a lot of flexibility. Sometimes have just a few hours to get an article done. So I decided to be more like bamboo. Bruce Lee said, “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” The bamboo can do this because it has strong roots, but a flexible stalk. I can’t control everything, there will be winds that blow me, snows that weigh me down, but I can sway with them as long as I have strong roots.

The seed of a bamboo tree is planted, fertilized, and watered.

Nothing happens for the first year.

There’s no sign of growth.

Not even a hint.

The same thing happens – or doesn’t happen – the second year.

And then the third year.

The tree is carefully watered and fertilized each year, but nothing shows. No growth. No anything.

For eight years it can continue. Eight years!

Then – after the eight years of fertilizing and watering have passed, with nothing to show for it – the bamboo tree suddenly sprouts and grows thirty feet in three months.

                                                                                                            -Zig Ziglar

For over thirty years I have been building my root base. I have been spreading in different directions, collecting experiences, ideas, and knowledge. My roots weren’t always spread in the best soil, there were weak spots; there have been times I got to close to the surface and got burned or went too deep and drowned. But I continued to grow. Now, 2017 is my year to sprout. To pull all of those things together and push upward toward enlightenment. It is time to try and realize the potential that so many have seen and nurtured in me – Okasan and Otosan, Anata, teachers, mentors, friends, and family. They have watered and fertilized me with opportunities, adventures, and education. They have been patient while I spread my roots, trying this and that, never faltering in their care. 2017 will be the year they see their labors pay off. It will be my year.

あけましておめでとうございます! I wish you all a Happy New Year. I hope that 2017 is your year too. Good luck and 頑張って.

Itadakimasu - American Edition

Anata swears that I am not his wife.  I am some doppelganger or changeling that has come back in her place.  This is especially true when it comes to food.

Before I left for Japan, I was a very picky eater.  I hated vegetables.  Anata had to almost trick me into eating them.  I had no trouble with lettuce, but I hated cabbage and wouldn’t even let it in the house.  As a northern boy, this made him very sad.  I had the same aversion to cucumbers, radishes, and most root vegetables.  Really, the only vegetables I liked were lettuce, tomato, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, green beans, and onions (and that was only recently).  I would grudgingly eat some other vegetables, like beets or kohlrabi, but it took a lot of coaxing. 

I was equally picky with the prepared foods.  I liked foods that were slightly outside my childhood staples, but I wasn’t one to travel too far off the beaten culinary path.  He was able to get me to experiment with Greek, Indian, and Middle Eastern foods before I left, but even that tended to end in a fight.  I was a by the recipe cook.  He was not.  It made things tense. 

Fast forward two years.  Things are completely different.  Living in Japan forced me out of my food comfort zone.  When you can’t read the menu, you just have to eat what comes out.  I never did develop a taste for daikon, but I found that I could handle, and actually came to enjoy just about everything else.  There were parts of animals I had never heard of.  Raw fish I had never seen.  Vegetables that were not much to look at, but tasted great when they were cooked.  I made a point to try everything once, and I usually went back for seconds.  I even discovered I liked things like cabbage and cucumbers that I could never stand in the U.S.

Anata is excited and frightened by this dietary change.  There is almost always cabbage in the house now.  We had a garden full of Asian vegetables, including cucumbers, that I happily munched on all summer and fall.  I have tried to recreate my favorite Japanese dishes for him with great success, even when I don’t use a recipe at all.  I really am like a different person when it comes to food.

Samurai Pie

Kimchi Nabe

Kabocha Pudding

Ramen from Scratch

Omurisu

Ochazuke

Steak Ssam

Sukiyaki

Hiyashi Chuka

Zaru Soba

Anata is taking it well.  It has made the transition to a gluten-free diet, which he needs for health reasons, easier.  Sometimes he makes a game out of having me try things I hated to see if there is any change.  But that hasn’t always worked out in his favor. He wasn’t pleased when we found out I like eggnog this winter.  That had always been his thing.  He was not too thrilled to share.

If you had told me two years ago that I would be eating ketchup fried rice covered in egg and mayo, I would have called you crazy.  If you had told me that my fridge would be stuffed with leeks, cabbage, carrots, and eggplant, I would have shaken my head in denial.  But it happened.  Maybe I am a doppelganger.  Or a clone.  Imprinted with the memories of the old me, but with taste buds. 

木

The death that shocks me the most is the death of trees.  I find it much easier to accept the death of animals, pets, and people.  The death of people and animals close to me affects me much more than the loss of a tree, but there is something so tragic in the death of a tree.  I find it deeply unnerving. 

Otosan is a landscape architect, so growing up our yard was full of beautiful trees.  There was the American Elm in the middle of the front yard.  It had a hole in it that bled and was terrifying to me as a child.  Roaches lived there.  And who knew what else.  We had to stand on tiptoe to reach the hole, so it naturally became the ultimate dare in any childhood test of courage.  Then there was the mulberry that grew between our house and the neighbors to the north.  Easy to climb – that one was our escape from summer heat.  The bark was always cool – even on the hottest Texas day.  I always remember the waxy green leaves being bigger than they were.  Must just be because I was smaller.  On the opposite side, between our house and the southern neighbors was one of my favorite trees – a Japanese Black Pine that Otosan had been grooming since before I was born.  The needles were so thick that they were a solid surface.  Otosan spent days pruning it every year, thinning the needles by hand until his fingers were black as tar.  One year we found a nest of morning doves nestled back near the trunk.  We watched them grow and fly away.  Two sprawling Yaupon Hollys shaded the front porch.  Every winter the branches almost broke under the weight of all the bright red berries.  We waited patiently every year for the arrival of the Wax Wings that came and stripped the trees bare in just a few days.  There was a fence just below the Yaupons, for privacy.  Every Halloween picture growing up has Imōto and me sitting on that fence with our pumpkins.  And in front of my bedroom window, a Texas Pistachio with small, fern-like leaves where we buried our pet hamster when I was in 5^th grade. 

Out back there were the trees with nice straight, thin branches perfect for making bows and arrows out of.  Easy to climb, too.  The great big Pecan tree left over from when the area was a Pecan orchard.  Our first dog used to chase squirrels around it, and Anata and I hung purple lanterns in it for our wedding reception.  There was the clump of Sweet Gums that we built the most well-enforced treehouse in.  We were never really good at carpentry – I think there ended up being more nails than wood.  There was the Weeping River Birch, and the Japanese Red Maple tucked away in the corner by the hose.  Otosan created a tiny moss and rock garden under it, his personal Japanese garden. 

Inside, we had two potted trees – one in the front window and one in Otosan’s office at the back of the house.  They would switch places from time to time.  One was a Fiddle-leaf Ficus.  I don’t remember the species of the other one, only that it had a beige bark, sprawling, spidery roots, and small, diamond-shaped leaves that were the brightest spring green.  Imōto and I liked to eat the dirt out of their pots, much to Otosan’s dismay.  We also used the trees as jungles for our toys and a place for our favorite rocks collected on our adventures. 

And then there were the bonsai.  In Japan, Otosan had picked up the tedious and beautiful art of bonsai.  The Black Pine by the driveway was bonsai on a large scale, but he also had also used native plants to create smaller bonsai.  At worksites, he would collect moss and tiny trees.  He would sit on the porch for hours sculpting and pruning.  We had a shelf of blue, brown, footed, and glazed pots in the garage.  I don’t think I saw a terracotta pot till I was well into elementary school.

But now, despite Otosan’s best efforts, almost all of those trees are gone.  The Mulberry was the first to go.  I was too young to understand why.  We played Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest in the branches before they were hauled off.  Then the Elm and the skinny trees out back.  The Sweet Gums were in the way of the power lines.  Inside, the tree with the diamond leaves went first, then the Ficus after.  The River Birch came down while I was in college.  Finally, and most tragically, the Black Pine struggled for a few years of drought and record heat before Otosan finally had to admit defeat. 

I remember crying at the picture Okasan sent me of the now empty spot.  Not just because that tree had been such an important part of my life till that point, but because it made my father human.  He couldn’t save it.  Until then, he had always had a miracle green thumb.  I couldn’t keep a cactus alive, but he was a gardening god.  Until that day. 

The only trees left from my childhood are the Japanese Red Maple, the Yaupon Holly out front, the Pistachio in front of my bedroom window that has tripled in size, and the faithful Pecan.  A few of the bonsai are still around, but many have been replaced with new specimens over the years. 

Driving up to my childhood home, I am struck by vastly different trees that greet me.  First, it was just our yard, but now trees all along the block – touchstones of my childhood – are gone forever.  New trees have taken their place and flourished, but the trees I played under, climbed, and loved are gone.

I guess I always thought of trees as immortal.  I toured the bonsai nurseries in Omiya with Okasan on one of her last trips to Japan.  Though they were still houseplant size, many of the trees were hundreds of years old.  The National Arboretum has a 390-year-old pine that survived Hiroshima. 

In Japan, ancient trees are everywhere!  Every shrine, even the tiny one near my house in Osaka, had a tree over 400 years old.  That is older than the United States!  The larger shrines had even older trees.  And deep in the forest, I am sure there are trees that have seen the world change over a thousand years. 

While civilization grew up around them, these trees remained.  Their roots dug deeper and deeper into the soil.  Their branches reached high and higher into the sky.  There is a reason that many pagan beliefs use trees as a symbol of the divine.  It represents our connection to the past and the future, creates a bridge between the gods and us, or remains steadfast while families grow and change around it. 

So for me, the death of a tree is something shocking.  Humans and animals are fragile.  Our lifespans are sadly short.  But trees are supposed to be immortal.

Every year I offer to buy Otosan a new tree – whatever kind he wants – but he always turns me down.  Last time I was home, he mentioned that he might have to cut down the Yaupon Hollys out front and that the Red Maple was struggling.  It hurt when he said that.  I understand now that trees die, and sometimes you can’t save them, that Otosan has done all he could to keep them alive this long in an alien environment, but the child in me is still deeply hurt by the thought of losing them.  They are a part of me.  They watched me grow.  They inspired me and challenged me.  Their roots are my roots.  I accept that the animals and people I love will pass out of my life, but the trees are supposed to be immortal.

私は感謝しています

For the first time in two years, I will get to have turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, more mashed potatoes, and all of my Thanksgiving favorites.  I am so excited!

American Thanksgiving

It won’t surprise anyone that Japan doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.  It seems to be only us and Canada.  So for two years, I went without the family and the fixings that made Thanksgiving one of my favorite holidays. 

But even without the traditional trappings, there was still plenty to be thankful for.  American Thanksgiving happened to fall right around the anniversary of Otose opening her acupuncture practice.  For her, the anniversary was a reason for celebration and giving thanks.  So, every year, she hosted a dinner party, invited all her friends and neighbors, and gave thanks for all the blessings that year had brought.  That is how I spent my first Thanksgiving in Japan – sharing nabe with new friends and celebrating the woman who had brought us all together.   

Japanese Thanksgiving

I don’t know if Otose knows how much that meant to me. How much all the things she did for me meant.  I have told her many times that I was only able to stay in Japan because of the support and friendship I found living next door to her.  I don’t know if she believes me.  Or maybe it is that Japanese modesty that made her shrug it off.   

As I get ready for this year’s Thanksgiving celebrations, I can’t help but think back on those two, special Japanese Thanksgivings.  The food was of course very different (though Anata has already asked if we could have the kabocha pudding I made for my first holiday in Japan), but I will still be surrounded by people I love.  I will also be missing those friends who can’t be there.  I can’t imagine what Otose would think of a turkey! 

I have been blessed with many amazing people in my life.  Through them I have grown, learned, laughed, and loved.  Sadly, I can never keep all of them as close to me as I would like.  Maybe one day I will have a chance to gather all of these wonderful people up in one large room and tell each of them how much they mean to me.  How glad I am that fate threw us together, even if it was only for a short time.  And how thankful I am for the lasting impressions they have made on my life.

私は本当に感謝しています.

Keeping in touch

Despite advances in technology, I have always been terrible at keeping in touch with people.  When I was in college, and Facebook came out, I was excited that at least now I had a way to marginally keep up with people I cared about.  As more and more people joined, I found more and more friends from my past.  When I made new friends in Japan, we immediately connected on Facebook and Line.  As those friends drifted away – to new cities or returned home – we promised to stay in touch.  The same way all of those junior high yearbook messages promised to stay in touch.

It isn’t that I don’t care.  But it is more I don’t know how. 

With Facebook, Line, Skype, and all the other amazing advances in technology, keeping in touch should be the easiest thing in the world.  Time zones and language barriers have been all but erased!  All I need are a few seconds and an internet connection.  I don’t even have to write in full paragraphs.  I have access to all of these amazing tools, as do my friends, but for some reason, we don’t really know how to use them.

When do you keep in touch?  It seems insincere to do it just when something important happens, like a birthday.  But it can be awkward just to text, “hey, how are you?  I was thinking about you.”  It is nice that Facebook lets you share things like recipes or funny pictures that can make the “I was just thinking about you,” seem less weird, but there is still a little awkward turtle going on when you hit send and wait for a reply (especially when you see that they have read it and just haven’t responded).  In person, it just seemed like the conversation flowed, it was natural.  But now you have to have an excuse to make contact.  On top of that, you are living in different time zones, you are doing different things, you are all getting on with your lives and enjoying the here and now.  It is intimidating – or, at least for me it is.

But once you get past the awkwardness, it can also be rewarding.  Despite the fact that you are not as much a part of that person’s immediate life, you are still a part of their past.  The conversations will change, of course; they will be more a recap of what is going on in each other’s lives and probably lose some of their depth, but I am learning that keeping those connections is important. 

Friendships aren’t just about a particular moment in your life.  They are about people that burrow into your heart while you are close together and stay there even after you drift apart.  You still care about what they are doing, even if it doesn’t involve you.  Friendships take work.  That is the hardest part.  Finding the energy and courage to say, “hey, how are you?  I was just thinking about you.” 

I am still not very good at it.  Sometimes life gets in the way.  If you don’t hear from me, don’t feel bad.  I am still thinking of you, and I am working on it.