Shakuji Pond

About nine years of my life were spent in the Shakuji area in the northwestern outskirts of Tokyo: two years in a tiny apartment and seven in a “house,” a shack with cracks in the wall through which you could see outside and in the winter, the drip from the faucet turned to an icicle in the sink.

Eight years of events took place in that house: we lived there when my sons were born, one after a five day labor, the other after two hours - both with midwives, my then-wife just breathing through the whole process.

My elder son and I had a game when he was a toddler: I’d pile some futons half-way across the six-mat tatami room, and while I’d sit on the floor, he run at me like a mini-sumo wrestler and I’d catch him and throw him through the air onto the piled up futon. One time I cast him with too much enthusiasm, and he bounced off the futon, flew a yard or so further and hit the glass door to the garden head-first. The glass split into a number of jagged teeth, several feet long, like the mouth of a giant lamprey. Through the mercy of G-d, through the tenaciousness of Japanese window caulking, through the raw algorithm of pure chance, the glass held. Just a fraction of more power in my throw and my child would have gone head-first through those teeth. I often think with horror about that event (and truth be told, several others over the years). How many of you have at least one such event in your own life, where, but for a fraction of an inch, a gram more power, a different angle, a moment’s inattentiveness, you would have been part of changing, even destroying your own child’s life?

I travelled everywhere by bicycle in those days, and once won a bet that I could get from central to west Tokyo faster than my friend could in a car, thanks to the way traffic clumped and bundled, while I zipped and careened through traffic like an adderall-fueled bike messenger born a generation too soon. Once at a four way stop near my home, traffic was snarled when some people edged into the center and the light changed. I zigged and zagged, sliding almost sideways past a car moving forward and I was through, when I heard a holler. “止まれ! (Tomare!)” [STOP!]. I pulled to the curb and a Japanese police officer strode up and started scolding me, saying that first of all, traffic laws applied to those on bicycles. I apologized, according to form (though thinking inside that I really hadn’t done anything dangerous, that traffic was jammed up and I just found a way through). Accepting my apology, he said that he wouldn’t give me a traffic ticket this time, and he told me that he’d seen me before bicycling past the police station, so he’d have his eyes out for me. Then he said, “Look, you are a gaikokujin (“outside country person”). Every Japanese person who sees you act that way will think, ‘That’s how those foreigner’s act. Too arrogant and wild to obey the law, and too disrespectful to conform to the customs of the country where he is a guest.’ You are making things worse for every foreigner. Think about their situation thanks to your actions.”

Please imagine the following: a young African-American kid in the USA is pulled over by the police, and . . . “you are making things worse for your own community.” Imagine a flamboyant gay man being silly in public and stopped by the police and told . . . “Just when you people have started to get acceptance, your actions set things back, confirming the worse prejudices . . .” Imagine an inattentive Asian driver told, “You people have an image regarding your driving skills and . . . .” Now imagine any of these incidents blasted on social media.

This creates an interesting puzzle. For the past decades, American society as atomized, and rather than a “melting pot,” we’re increasingly becoming a society of conflicting, Balkanized groups. We believe in groups now. BUT - when one is, as a member of this or that group, designated as responsible for how the group is perceived, we collectively fall back in outrage. The Balkanization is privilege (except for groups that, existentially, are to be criticized, just like the Red Guard’s attacks on the “landlord class.”) The idea that a group may share, proportionately some traits or behavior, is an outrage, and therefore, the individual is not responsible for the image of the group. Again, a further paradox: if someone of the group acts in a way that conforms to a negative stereotype, within one’s own group, one cringes or complains. But nobody outside the group is permitted to do the same.

Japan, on the other hand, very explicitly sees itself as a society of groups: social class, lineage, university, hometown, and racialized sub-groups (like the burakumin, Koreans, white foreigners, dark-skinned foreigners, the tsukimono-suji (those from a lineage believed to have been hereditarily possessed by snakes or foxes). As one goes through the education and employment system, one becomes a member of “virtual tribes,” based on what sports-club one joins in the former, and what company one works for in the latter - and who were one’s friends in grade school. The idea that one’s behavior reflects on the group is a given, and therefore, one has responsibility for one’s actions, based on how your group will be affected. Having accepted the Japanese viewpoint, I thanked the police officer for his concern for the well-being of my “community.”

There was a large pond in walking distance from my house, with a walking path around it, a few shops selling oden and ramen and candy. I was once walking through the park in the later part of the afternoon, and saw a young woman struggling in the arms of a man, crying, “Yamate! Yamate! Hanashite!” (Stop. Stop. Let me go!). I’d prepared my whole life for this moment. I started having dreams of rescuing maidens from evil doers when I was five years old. I ran forward, yelling, 彼女から離れろ! (Kanojo kara hanarero!) (Let her go!). The guy looked up with fear in his eyes, the young maiden, eyes wide, saw her hero running forward, fist raised, and then, to the side, I heard. ちくしょう! カット！カット！(Chikusho! Katto! K-A-T-T-O!) (“Goddamn it! Cut! Cut!) I turned and there was a Japanese TV director, complete with black horn-rimmed glasses, a beret and a cravat, camera’s, extras and film crew, all staring at me, some with mouths open, some laughing. The director started to say something to me, but I realized the best course of action was to turn on my heel and quickly walk away without a word. . . . for the life of me, I never understood why that didn’t turn up on a blooper reel some day.

The pond was a water-bird haven of sorts, full of reeds to hide in and open water as well, so I went there frequently. One beautiful August day, I was taking a walk, the sun warm on my skin and as I passed a park bench, a half-recumbent form, reeking of old sweat and alcohol snarled at me, “おい外人。今日は何の日か分かってるか？
(“Oi Gaijin. Kyō wa nan no hi ka wakatteru ka?”) “Hey, gaijin. Do you know what day it is today?” I turned and I saw one of Japan’s war wounded. Tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers returned to Japan after the 2nd World War, crippled: missing eyes, limbs, disfigured, suffering from PTSD and moral injury beyond measure. Many, perhaps most of Japanese veterans returned home and picked up their lives. Some couldn’t. Some were not allowed to. Japan was (I cannot really speak of the current generation) always very cruel to those who were different: school bullying was on a terrible level in Japan, not only for the obvious: the kids less attractive, too fat, too not-pretty, clothes not new, etc. But a girl could be bullied unmercifully because she was too pretty, or her natural hair color was light instead of raven-wing black, a child too smart. Any difference. So, the disfigured and the damaged became almost an untouchable class. You would see them on the street, dressed in a white (which in East Asian cultures can, in certain contexts, symbolize death) pseudo-military uniform, missing legs or arms, faces twisted and melted in keloid scars, begging. And often drunk. A few people dropped coins in their hats. I never once saw someone stop to speak with one of them, never once heard, “Thank you for your service.”

This man had no white clothes. He was in rags, though with an old military cap. He had a hook for an arm, and one eye just a red raw socket, his flesh black with grime. This was a discussion I really didn’t want to get into, because I did know what day it was: the day the Americans dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima. So I mouthed some platitudes, “Terrible, terrible, blah, blah blah, those poor people, blah, blah, blah,” hoping to move on.

He replied, “What the fuck is wrong with you? I went off to war because the Emperor told me I had to. I left my mother and sister behind. While I was over there, being turned into this, they had my mother and sister practicing with bamboo spears, saying that with pure Japanese spirit, they could repel tanks. Those fucking pricks, sitting in their offices and palaces, making war, ready to put my mother and sister on the front lines when the Americans came, while they would hide in their mansions eating fine food, ready to make a deal, and take over once again. And then you Americans dropped that bomb. And then another one. And the pricks got scared because they could be touched too. You Americans dropped those bombs and saved my mother and sister and all the other women of Japan from being run over by tanks, from being shot to pieces. You saved them. And here you are, apologizing? You are a fucking weakling. Americans used to have balls to do what had to be done. What happened to you people?”

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