Asia Calling

My mother and doors have always gotten along well. As usual, the photo is mine but the words are all hers...

I strongly believe if you have the courage to close a door on anything or anybody that is not working in your life that another door will open before you know it. After I quit the restaurant I stepped into a void. But I quickly signed up for a Japanese class at a nearby Jr. College and ran into, not one but two new cultures. I started dating a Frenchman in the class. The love affair was not between he and I but between we and the Japanese.

In 1975 I was deep into my solitary, obsessive studies of the history and culture of China. I was desperate to go there but Nixon had just ‘opened’ China three years before and the only tours I read about were led by communist groups and I was concerned about that. Although Shirley Maclaine and Candace Bergen were not hesitant and wrote books about their adventures. I wrote to the U.S. State department to see if they had any tours and they wrote a very polite note back to say they had nothing for me. As I said before, if you want something badly enough, the universe will help you get it. I heard that the Portland Art Museum was having an art study tour of Japan.

I was a teenager during WWII, a.k.a., the Pacific War . I will not repeat what we thought of Japan at that time nor what names we called the Japanese, and I am sure they felt the same about us. Interesting how we have to demonize our enemies so we feel comfortable while killing them.  You might note how my opinions and observations come from my life experiences.  I had no desire to ever see Japan. However, this tour might teach me the difference between Japanese and Chinese art. The tour had one space left. My mother would baby sit for my youngest. It was fated.

I did learn to appreciate Japanese prints but more importantly I learned to love Japan, and could see it was an entirely different country from China.  China was still my passion but this was a totally new experience. We saw Noh theatre, Kabuki and the unbelievable Bunraku puppet theatre. We stayed overnight in a Buddhist temple, eating fabulous vegetarian food and sitting on the floor in front of ancient scrolls. We slept on the floor on futons in very comfortable ryokans and I learned to go to the bathroom with a hole in the floor while wearing pants. You slip one leg off, well, TMI. The trip opened my mind to all of Asia.

To return to the class. The teacher was a handsome, charming, brilliant young Japanese business man. Japanese turned out to be much easier to learn than Chinese. At least by the end of the year I felt I could have traveled around Japan on my own, making my needs met even if I couldn’t have understood them. Of course the Japanese would not have been comfortable with an American barbarian woman with her red hair, light green eyes, big nose and red face. That Frenchman I had met in class, told me my French pronunciation was deplorable which I already knew, but we were both drawn to the Japanese language and the culture. It turned out he was close friends with several Japanese couples -people from Japan working for Japanese companies and stationed in Seattle for a few years. We began to socialize with them and had the pleasure of eating great food in their homes and every weekend we would go to Japanese movies in the International District.

All in all it was a very pleasant year. Part way through, the teacher asked me if I could board a Japanese college student, the son of a Japanese business associate. I still had a son at home and a three bedroom apartment. Toshii was a bit of a handful but we got along fine and he paid rent. I could practice a bit of Japanese and I learned a bit more about Japanese culture. We also compared the difference between Samurai films and Westerns. I am sure my son was happy when the year was over. A bit of cultural info: I had a degree in interior design and was very interested in the history of furniture. I bought a large and very expensive book about Chinese furniture with wonderful photos but written in Chinese. Toshii’s father was a very prominent Japanese business man whose hobby was furniture. I gave him the book.  Little did I know it meant that he then had to give me a gift of equal or greater value.  The teacher didn’t tell me this but asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this. I said yes. One day after Toshii had moved out he knocked on the door and when I let him in he said he had a gift for me. He was very agitated to the point of shaking. It was a very large book of Chinese temples, with gorgeous pictures and Chinese text. Toshii said as a child he was never allowed to touch it. That it was a sacred family heirloom presented to the family by the Emperor. I tried not to accept it but he refused to take it back.  Mea ignorant culpa.

At the end of the year  the was teacher was leaving. The Japanese were moving back to Japan, the Frenchman took a trip to Europe and when he came back he announced he had met a beautiful young blond woman, (I saw her picture) and they were going to put her two young sons in a French boarding school (yikes!) and get married and move to America. He was 60. Au revoir and bon chance.  I really missed the teacher and the Japanese couples.  C’est la fini. Another door closed. Onto China…

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This is what I think. What do you think? Tell me calmly. No need to come to blows.

-Jean Clarice Walsh 2013