« July 2006 | Home | April 2007 »
February 01, 2007
Two peas in a different pod by Mariko Mizutani
Ifm a Kyoto girl. Kyoto born, Kyoto fed and Kyoto bred. But this perfect little Kyoto girl just happens to be half American. After my American father died in the Korean war, my mother remarried Japanese, but she didnft bother to tell me much about my father until I was an adult. So I grew up as any Kyoto girl might except for one small detail: my face is 100% American.
This small detail, my face, opened the door to a whole world of odd encounters, bringing more than your typical Kyoto girl might expect. Like once when the telephone repairman came to the house and asked me what country I was visiting from, or when Ifd step out and people would try their English on me.
My fortune brought me to Tokyo where I met and married a Japanese man and gave birth to one daughter. For better or for worse, my daughter looks just like me. So now she is out there getting her share of gMy, your Japanese is very good isnft ith or gOh you write Japanese so wellh. She eats Japanese, loves Kyoto delicacies, speaks Kyoto dialect and adores Rakugo. Like me, she couldnft be more Japanese. So how is it that the two of us, one after the other, got stuck with this face? In the future shefs thinking of doing Rakugo. Shefs thinking of establishing a whole new act based on our shared quirk of fate. I guess you could say itfs given her an ambition.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:48 PM
uBon Voyage!v by Tsuyoshi Takashiro
My mother is past seventy and is forever off on trips.
Shefs part of a school of tea ceremony that has classes all over the country. Shefs often called on to visit these places, but as the family sees it, thatfs just an excuse. The truth is my mother just loves to travel.
Tea ceremony is a job that you can go on doing no matter how old you get. And itfs a job that can be done just about anywhere. Whatever the place, once the utensils are out, a small universe comes into being. Therefs no real need for a stylish or resplendent tearoom. You can do it in the middle of a field or riding on a train. Itfs not about where you are. Itfs all in a conversation between the tea and the people who have made it.
My mother taught me that the way of tea is in a small universe of communication that we can make by ourselves.
To travel is to come face to face with onefs self, then to come face to face with others and finally to face each new place we arrive at. This has become the way I try to live my everyday life.
So, have a nice trip!
Life is a voyage. That is really what my mother has taught me.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:44 PM
The father who made me by Tomo Yamaguchi
At 76 my fatherfs still a professional timpanist.
Wefre way beyond gthe beat goes onh here. Hefs got the roundest most beautiful sound anywhere.
From the time we were kids, with my two brothers and I, things were pretty wild at the house. My father used to take the three of us along to concerts. When I think of it now, it was an attempt to make us sit still and listen. Thanks to that, we all developed an ear for music. Especially for our fatherfs music, which was forever a thrill. Every new piece we heard was somehow naturally tied to his performance, making them easy to catalogue.
Collecting stuff comes from my father too. At the house, most of our electrical appliances were second hand out of offices and stuff. Our home was built of things that people didnft need anymore and we got for free. Making things was another influence. I mean, my father repaired all these appliances and musical instruments. And when we wanted to make a hole for example, we had everything imaginable to do it: drills, electric saws, visesc We had any and every tool imaginable and could do whatever we wanted.
My friends would say gYour house is full of weird stuff. Itfs like another world.h Since they all were saying that at the time, maybe thatfs the way it was. Silverware from forgotten embassies, pots and pans from defunct hotels...
Finding the things that match your lifestyle in all that has been cast away makes a great deal of sense. With no money but a little bit of imagination, things that seemed useless reveal a life of secrets. For me this has been especially true for musical instruments. Recycling, breathing new life into something, changes it. This is how I live my life now.
Back in school, during workshop, I remember that I never wanted to make what someone else made, whither it was sketching, clay, making a boat, paperweights or a footstool. When I was a kid I loved assembling plastic models. I just plain loved building things. So I started with models where every piece was set, went on to make things out of odd stuff that was thrown away, and moved on to the musical instruments I make now.
Cooking developed the same way. Ifve tried making sake, beer and wine. Things that are fun and things that taste good fascinate me. Cooking can satisfy all of our senses, but music speaks to what goes beyond them. Social relations are like playing an instrument.
Given that people perceive things differently, itfs probably a good thing to use onefs own senses as broadly as possible: tasting things, seeing things, staying open to different experiences. I think this way of sharpening onefs senses through experience comes from my father.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:41 PM
To lovable parents from lucky kidsc by Sayaka Terasaki
What is it between parents and childrencfirst and foremost a relation of trust, I thinkc
1) Mother and grandmother
If you look at mom and grandma together, therefs something interesting going on there. First off, my mom actually callfs her mom gmotherh. Therefs a kind of formality there that no one ever uses around our house. Well, sometimes, Grandma, when shefs being cute, will actually call herself gmotherh, but thatfs it. Mom is such a warm person. I canft imagine her ever being so stiff with Dad or me. In fact, if there werenft a relation of very deep trust between them, her formality with her own mother would be either impossible or just plain awful.
My mother runs our house in such an even-tempered fashion, a forever bright, forever young housewife. Ifm an adult now. Letfs just say I can feel it in my skin. For the first time I understand when they say that with age, beauty comes only with unceasing effort. I think I have a lot to learn from my motherfs example.
And Grandma! Shefs got a better figure than I do! Shefs so active. She travels more than anyone else in the family. Half the phone calls we get at the house are for her. Her cooking is so good that I heard my fatherfs friends visit just to eat. Shefs really something else!
2) Father and daughter
When I was little, I used to go out with my father. Recently I heard him say that a daughter makes the best girl friend. So I guess those were not just outings. They were all dates.
My father is someone who enjoys life to the fullest. Letfs say he likes himself. But then he also likes me. So, therefs no way I could ever be worthless, is there? Just like him, I want to enjoy my life to the fullest.
When I look at things from the childfs point of view, it seems like somehow in our own haphazard way we managed to be a real family. Personally, I think I was really lucky to be born where I was. My ambitions and hopes about my music have a lot to do with that. And someday later on, I hope to become a parent whose children feel just as lucky to be where they are as I did.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:35 PM
PROPOSE by Sizzle Otaka
gI want to marry Sizzle!h, my son told me.
gI uh em happy but, well, I canft really marry you Earthh
gHuh!? cyou, but why?h
The look of utter bewilderment in his eyes made me so sad.
My heart started beating in my head.
Being a parent can be so brutal.
Up till then marriage hadnft been such a special word for me.
But there, in that moment, a whole new world of meaning opened up.
Marriage could be a word full of bashfulness, both bittersweet and a little oppressive.
But Ifll keep this little secret with Earth.
With kids, words can be lethal.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:29 PM
SCENE FROM THE BACK by Masaru Fukuda
Four or five years ago, I returned to Viet Nam, a place where Ieve been often. While I was there, I had a seizure of parental doting in downtown in Ho Chi Min City, which I report here despite my embarrassment.
Whenever time and finances are right, my son and I take off traveling together. We donft go off after famous places, historic ruins or culinary splendor. Our thing is to just displace our daily life, out and away from Tokyofs Asagaya where we live. I have my picture postcards and my son Yuta brings his guitar.
We were at a small hotel (clean and cheap!) tucked back in a maze of backstreets. Itfs a place we know well where we always get separate rooms, where the days are steeped in the smells of grilled squid and pickled vegetables mixed with incense lit to fight off the same cloying odors. Besides eating meals together, wefre both pretty much on our own.
So it was that in the early days of our trip, on a day much like the others, we decided to have lunch in a local canteen (home-style Ho Chi Minh cooking: great taste at a small price!) just in back of our hotel, and once finished, went our separate ways. Not that I had any particular place to go. I never know where Ifm going. I just go out and run around, walking like some driven spirit looking for a home. And, now that I think of it, I remember it being said that my son has this same way of walking.
Ifd been walking around for some time while trying to keep clear of the blistering sunlight. I needed something cool to drink, tea, anything, so went into a café on the main drag (no taste at a big price!!). I was just taking my first sip when something attracted my attention. Way down on the other side of the street, across the current of bicycles and cars, Ifd spotted the back of a man walking down the opposite pavement. ???? By the time Ifd figured out there was something familiar about the silhouette, I realized that it was Yuta who Ifd just left behind me. His shoulders were slowly rolling down the street. He looked so much bigger than usual, as if he were somebody else. Or as if therefd been some transformation in the little time since Ifd left him.
And then, just as quickly, he was swallowed up by the oncoming crowd. For a moment I had the strangest feeling. I realized that I had just seen my son for the first time. At first, this filled me with emotion, but then, just a little pride.
The little part of me that had gone off so long ago and made its way to become Yuta was now showing me the next step in its evolution. Out of nowhere, it had sent the image of this gallant figure in the streets of Ho Chi Minh straight to the heart of my brain, where its winds blow still to this day.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:20 PM
THE TROUBLE WITH NAMES by Yuta Fukuda
My fatherfs name is Masaru.
gDadh cno, that doesnft work.
gDaddyh cno better, probably even worse
gPopsh cnot right, utterly terrible in fact
gFatherh cpublic use only
gMarsyh cmaybe ten years ago, but even then I didnft use it
gHey MaSaRu!!h cno, never
gMachuuh cthatfs it. Back home at last.
Thatfs what came out when I was a kid. It stuck and it still fits. Ifve been calling my parents by nicknames for as long as I can remember, and Ifm sure that both my mother and father would be uncomfortable with one of the standard monikers. So, as far as Ifm concerned, therefs not going to be any gDadhs or gMomhs between us.
On the other hand, what to call them outside of the house, thatfs the problem. Nicknames can be so embarrassing. So, when I talk to friends about Machuu, itfs always like gWell, you know, my fatherch. (Geez, I hope none of my friends see what Ifm saying here.) At the same time, calling him Father or Dad to his face is just too much. That would be troubling, whereas gMachuuh is so comfortable. I just know he feels the same way.
He used to say to me, gDonft be ordinary. You are you. Go your own way!h Thatfs the way he brought me up. The nicknames are part of that. He may be my father, but therefs no way Ifm calling him by that name. Just too embarrassing. But then they say that the humiliation of exposure is the night soil of art, and thatfs certainly true.
If someday I ever have any kids, I hope theyfll find me a name. Something so absurd itfs cute. Thatfd be perfect. Then they too can see what itfs like when they come face to face with their own embarrassment at the local schoolyard. (laughing) But therefs nothing wrong with that.
Come to think of it, therefs one other person who shouldnft see what Ifm saying here. Machuu! I mean, citfs embarrassing.
(translation © victor woronov 2007)
Posted by oyako-staff : 01:12 PM