Category Archives: Culture

Ted’s writings about culture

Japan – The End

Culture, Opinion, Travel, , ,

Shinkansen in Utsunomiya Station

Our trip is at its end.

We arrived in Austin last night. Today has been one of jet lag and travel recovery misery. Jet lag is part of the yin-yang of international travel. The enjoyment of spending time with your granddaughter is balanced by the pain you suffer once home.

Our last Shinkansen ride brought us back to Tokyo, this time to Ueno station. UT (the University of Tokyo) is located near there, in the Meguro District. Cassady’s apartment is nearby as well. We stayed in a roykan within walking distance of her, and on Saturday we visited the Komaba campus where she will be studying the next two years. UT has five major campuses, with Komaba housing Arts and Sciences.

Saturday evening we met Cassady’s friends, Lee Taniguchi and his wife, Kaoru, for a departure dinner. Lee grew up in Harlingen (Texas), and his family remains in the Valley. He attended the University of Texas, and we shared stories of Austin and his time here. Of course I wanted to know how the Taniguchi family came to live in South Texas, and how he eventually settled in Tokyo.

Let me digress (or veer off) for a moment. I am a Texan, and as one I grew up in the Jim Crow South. I remember the bill boards along the highway that said “Impeach Earl Warren” (who, for those younger, led the Supreme Court in the Brown vs Board of Education case that integrated schools). The Supreme Court issued its “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” ruling in 1954, but opponents were able to drag out implementation for my entire educational career (assuming that I accept that it is complete today).

Here is an example. In 1968, my senior year in high school, a high-school teacher in Sugarland (the town memorialized in Leadbelly’s Midnight Special), Henry Keith Sterzing, had been relieved of his duties by the John Foster Dulles High School board members. His crime? In response to a question from a student about the marriage of Dean Rusk’s daughter to a black man, the teacher stated that he saw nothing wrong with interracial marriage. They fired him.

In the Houston downtown library, purportedly a bastion of free thought and learning, you were greeted by a water fountain near the front door. The fountain had been placed by the Daughters of the Confederacy, and dedicated to those who served the Gray. My mother taught at St. Vincent’s, where Dick Dowling, the Confederate hero of the Battle of Sabine Pass, is buried. One of Galveston’s mayors had operated one of the largest slave markets along the Gulf coast before the Civil War.

While attending the University of Houston, Lee Otis Johnson became one of the liberal causes. Lee Otis had given a marijuana cigarette to a Houston undercover cop, and had received a thirty-year prison sentence for his crime. When Governor Preston Smith visited the campus, students greeted him with chants of “Free Lee Otis, Free Lee Otis.” When asked afterward what he thought of the display, Smith said that he could not understand why students were chanting about refried beans (frijoles, frijoles).

The Texas travel industry tagline is “Texas – it’s a whole other country.” Does Texas believe itself to be a foreign country? No, but the remaining 49 states rightfully do.

Because of the civil rights movement, and liberal parents, I suppose that I had a more balanced perspective of the plight of African-Americans than most white Texans. But the La Raza movement would come later, and by the time I could focus on other minorities (as though Texas ever has) I matriculated.

Cassady and Virginia at Todai

This is a very circuitous way of saying that I knew nothing about the Japanese in Texas, or in America, for that matter. I knew that a few Japanese had settled near Houston as farmers, and my mother had taught children of one of those families, the Kobayashis. But otherwise I am certain that I did not meet anyone of Japanese ancestry until I graduated from high school. My school administrators felt no need to educate us about ethnic groups we would have little contact with. Interestingly, I do not remember any classes that discussed Viet Nam’s history or plight either, and we had (and have) plenty of contact with them.

Like the downplaying of Japanese militarism in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and my criticisms of that selective telling of history, I can equally criticize my own education and its gaps. At dinner Lee had mentioned that his great uncle had settled in Harlingen after the war. Lee said that he had been interned in Crystal City, and had recruited other Japanese families to join him in Texas. I decided to use Lee as an excuse to fill one of the many holes in my cheesecloth education. I knew of German prisoner-of-war camps in Texas, since one had been situated near my grandmother’s home in Mineral Wells. But I knew nothing of Japanese internment camps here.

What I have now learned is that there were three internment camps in Texas – Seagoville, Kenedy, and Crystal City. The camp in Crystal City had been built, at least initially, for those of Japanese ancestry. Crystal City was the location of the largest internment camp administered by the INS and Department of Justice. At its peak there were over 3000 people interned in Crystal City. There were Japanese-American citizens interned there, as well as those of Japanese ancestry brought there from throughout Latin America (such as over 700 from Peru).

How did this fundamental failure of civil rights and the protections of the constitution transpire in my home state? Until talking to Lee I had no idea that the government had established one of the internment camps here, not to mention three. Then I came on this quote from the Texas Handbook:

The official reasons for the deportations were to secure the Western Hemisphere from internal sabotage and to provide bartering pawns for exchange of American citizens captured by Japan. However, the Axis nationals were often deported arbitrarily as a result of racial prejudice and because they provided economic competition for the other Latin Americans, not because they were a security threat.

The Texas legislature in 1921 passed an alien land law that prohibited foreign-born Japanese from purchasing or leasing additional farmland. Racial prejudice? Economic competition? Now, I can relate to those forces. This is the Texas of my youth.

Lee’s great-uncle, Isamu Taniguchi, was one of the California Japanese interned in the Crystal City camp. Born circa 1902, he immigrated to Stockdale (CA) in 1915. There be began a business in bonsai plants and crops. He married his childhood sweetheart in Japan, the only time in his life that he returned.

During WW II, they were interned (along with 120,000 other Japanese-Americans). Isamu was interned at Crystal City. After the war, he remained in Texas, raising cotton, crops, and flowers in the Rio Grande Valley. He retired to Austin in 1967 to be near his son, Alan, Lee’s cousin. By the way, Alan is an architect that has served as Dean of The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture and Director of Rice University’s School of Architecture.

According to the on-line accounts:

Out of gratitude for his sons’ education at the University of Texas at Austin, Taniguchi offered to create a Japanese garden for the City of Austin. The city parks department let Taniguchi have three acres of land in Zilker Botanical Garden. With no more than one assistant at a time, Taniguchi worked as a volunteer for 18 months to create the gardens. All plants and material were donated from local nurseries. The gardens feature a series of ponds that spell “Austin” when viewed from the air, a 12-foot waterfall, a teahouse, a Half Moon bridge, a lotus pond with a miniature island, and extensive Japanese landscaping.

This is the origin of the Taniguchi garden? He created the garden out of “gratitude for his sons’ educations at UT?” After being locked up and denied all civil liberties?

My grandchildren are perfect. They are the ideal blend the two cultures. They are seamlessly bilingual and bicultural. They are, in my mind, the personification of Jefferson’s ideal for our democracy.

But Jefferson never could bring himself to free his slaves. He chose to live in two conflicting worlds, one of idealistic democracy and the other of pragmatic (and, yes, evil) prejudice. I firmly believe in the former, but I have lived in the latter. I know prejudice. I know hated, envy, and mindless fury. I know that these forces lie quietly under America’s skin until allowed to surface. And, since the election of an African-American president, they have been stirred once again. In America, you just can’t keep a good hate down.

Now, at the end of this almost three week trip, I return to America to feel the brutal irrationality of this hatred. In contrast, before we returned to Tokyo we spent one night in Utsunomiya. Cassady’s grandparents live there, and we wanted to see them during the trip. They are wonderfully gracious hosts, and Mrs. Yokoyama had prepared a scrumptious meal (with vegetarian croquettes) for dinner. We sat around the kotatsu as a family, sharing funny stories. We laughed at jokes, and loved each other’s company.

This is my trip. When reduced to common people, to common interests, getting along is difficult enough. But at the national or global level, these interactions are dictated by the additional interests of business, power, imposition, and greed. I can only hope that my grandchildren’s generation, those who were raised without racist water fountains, will carry humanity forward. They have my confidence and my prayers.

Virginia, Cassady, Ted, Kaoru, and Lee at dinner in Tokyo

Ted
29 Mar 2010

Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka – Thank the Gods, The War is Over!

Culture, History, Nature, Opinion, Travel, , , , , , ,

View of Nara and the Ikoma mountains beyond the Yamato Plain

Although I have traveled extensively in Japan, I do not profess to have deep insight into the culture or the people. As a westerner (and a Texan, for God’s sake), Asia is blithely enigmatic.

There are certainly cultures in the world that strive to remain apart. The Japanese, for all of their western trappings, do not have to work hard to remain distinguishable. The radical differences in language are, in part, responsible. Although English is commonly seen in Japan, most of it is related to the perplexing English tag lines, slogans, and non sequiturs that Japanese marketing whizzes concoct. Otherwise, Japan is for the Japanese.

Of course we feel welcome. But with a Japanese family we are at a decided advantage. Otherwise Japan is a test for someone who does not speak the language or have entre to the culture.

For example, we are staying in a roykan near our granddaughter’s apartment in Ueno. We walked downstairs for breakfast this morning, and I spent several minutes at the front desk trying to explain that the one-size-fits-all slippers do not fit a size-14 foot from Texas. No matter, the rules are the rules, and they insisted that I shoe-horn a size 6 on before being fed. I ate my breakfast wearing slippers that barely fit my big toes.

The train system in Japan is a marvel, but it does take some time to master scheduling, ticketing, and such. This trip we purchased (as usual) JR rail passes for our time here in country. We also bought the green car pass for a premium, which allows you to reserve a seat in the first-class “green” cars. To our dismay, we learned (and I do not remember this from past trips) that only certain trains are available to rail pass holders. The Nozomi line, for example, is restricted (even though there were many occasions when the line would have worked best for us). We were told that since the JR rail pass represents a significant discount (of course, depending on how many times you use it during your stay), JR is justified in limiting where and when you can travel.

My impression is that while the Japanese love to travel the world, they would be just as happy if the world did not travel to Japan. The domestic travel market here is enormous, and, to be blunt, they do not need international leisure travelers to keep their hotels full. In this entire 2 ½ week trip, traveling from Okinawa to Nagasaki, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Tokyo in peak travel season (cherry blossom time), we have not seen more than 50 foreign travelers.

The two places where we did see a few foreigners were Kyoto and Nara. Anyone with an interest in Japanese history and culture knows about these two adjacent cities, with their extensive museums, shrines, art, and cuisine. The two are among the most recognized Japanese cultural centers. Virginia and I had visited Kyoto first many years ago, yet this would be our first trip to Nara. Cassady, who is beginning her third year as an art history major at Tokyo University (Todai), took particular interest in these two cultural icons. Of course, it did not hurt that Kyoto is among the shopping meccas in Japan as well.

In contrast, I would rather be tortured than to shop. One of the reasons I love the internet is that it allows me to avoid entering stores. Thank you, UPS, just place my package by the front door.

While Virginia and Cassady spent their first day in Kyoto scouring the shops, I spent my first day lounging around our wonderful roykan, Mume. There is an exceedingly funny phrase that my granddaughter uses to describe my method of travel. In Japan a person like me is a “mypasu” guy, one who operates at their own pace. I now remind Cassady and Virginia several times a day that I am a “mypasu” fellow, and to please not ask me to join them shopping ever again. We can always meet for dinner.

Let me share a few more Japanese phrases that I learned from Cassady. The Japanese are exceedingly sharp students of and commenters on their fellow citizens. I suspect in part this comes from living in such close quarters. For example, the Takahashis have been the neighbors of Cassady’s grandparents for nearly 50 years in Utsunomiya. You get to know people fairly well in that time.

We spent our one evening in Utsunomiya with family around the kotatsu gathering a collection of phrases. For example, I learned that a man under his wife’s control is called “shiri ni shikareru,” a man who is a woman’s cushion (in the US, hen-pecked). A couple consisting of a large woman and a small man is called a “nomi no fufu,” a flea couple. A person who follows around someone who is popular (such as at school) is “kingyo no fun,” dung following the goldfish. Funny people, these Japanese.

At times the humor is at your own expense. During dinner one evening I noticed that I had forgotten to zip my fly (this is what happens when one turns 60). Cassady quipped “shakai no mado ga aiteru,” that my window to society is open. Chuckle, chuckle.


Sakura in Kyoto


When we first arrived in Kyoto the cherry blossoms were beginning to swell. Two days later, after a couple of toasty afternoons, the cherries burst into bloom. I spent our last morning in the Gion district near our roykan photographing the sakura, as well as the maiko in their traditional costumes.

What we had not counted on were the hordes of Japanese enjoying the warm spring break weather in Kyoto as well. Therefore I looked forward to a more unobtrusive respite in the roykan in Nara, although the accommodations at Mume could not have been nicer. There we would be staying outside of the city in a roykan, Mikasa, adjacent to the Nara Keon.

The weather gods favored our Nara visit. Our one day walking down the Wakakusa-yama trail to the Nara temples (officially the Historic Monuments of Ancient Nara) reminded me of Pennsylvania in the spring. The trail bisects some of the oldest and most monumental forest (the Kasugayama Primeval Forest) that I have seen in Japan, with immense spruce, oak, and pine. Blink your eyes and you would think that you were back on the Longfellow trail among the hemlock and white pine.

As we walked the trail I noticed the first slight signs of spring. Fiddleheads were beginning to emerge, and the wood violets were sprinkled about in first bloom. The uguisu (Japanese bush-warbler) were tuning up, and the magnolias tinted the landscape in white and rose.

Japan’s first permanent capital was established in the year 710 at Heijo, the city now known as Nara. As we reached the extensive temple and monument grounds above the city we decided to start by visiting Kasuga Taisha, the Kasuga grand shrine. This shrine houses a dazzling collection of lanterns: some gilded, some greened with a copper patina, hundreds carved from oiya stone. As Cassady and Virginia wandered down toward Todai-ji, I stayed behind to photograph a few of the lanterns and smaller shrines and temples above the Daibutsuden (the Buddha’s Temple).

As I wandered down from Wakakusa-yama, I came on another of the temples, the Nigatsu-do. Around the outside of this grand hall were wood cuts and paintings of eclectic variety and design. The porch of the hall offered a splendid view of the temples and monuments below, as well as the Ikoma mountains beyond the Yamato Plain. “Each spring there is a water-drawing ceremony at the Nigatsudo Hall has lasted for more than 1,200 years without a single break. The “Water-drawing Ceremony” is formally called the “Shunie.” It is a Buddhist memorial service intended to pray for world peace and a good harvest for all through the repenting of one’s sins.”

The crowds in the upper reaches of Nara were sparse, but by the time I arrived at Todai-ji people were snaking through the main gate like one of the serpents slain by the Bosatsu inside. There are a number of buildings within the Tadai-ji site, but the main attraction is the Daibutsuden. This is the largest wood building extant in the world. The structure holds the Daibutsu, the bronze Buddah that dates to 752. The Daibutsu is around 15 meters high, and the head and neck were cast in the mid-700s as a single piece! There are several bosatsu that accompany the Daibutsu, including two carved figures of impressive stature and complexity.

Religion is one of those confusing, enigmatic issues in Japan (like train schedules and dinner attire). My impression is that most Japanese practice religion-lite. The saying in Japan is that you are born a Shinto and then die a Buddhist (there are virtually no Shinto cemeteries). But I also believe that this casual approach to religion is also a reflection of Shinto traditions. In Shinto, once the official religion of Japan, there is no absolute right or wrong. Shintos believe that people are inherently good, and that evil in the world is due to mal spirits. Working along with humans are the kami, a variety of gods and forces (such as wind, waves, mountains). Neither Buddhism nor Shintoism demands that a follower formally practice, so there is a low-key aspect to religion here that I, to be honest, admire.


Osaka basho


Where one does enjoy the formality of Shinto ritual is in sumo. There are six Grand Sumo Tournaments (honbasho) each year, with the one in Osaka occurring in March. After Nara we continued on our journey to Osaka to attend one day of the basho. I confess; I am absolutely crazed about sumo. There is something about the tradition (the origins date back perhaps 2000 years), the formality of the match before and after, and the violent brevity of the match itself. While the preparations may take 10 to 15 minutes, the actual match itself may only last seconds. Each move has a name and tradition, each preparatory move has a name and tradition (such as hand clapping, leg lifting, and salt throwing), and each piece of clothing (brief as it may be) has a name and tradition.

Like baseball, sumo must be seen in person. Old men in the crowd yell in support of their favorite rikishi. The crowds swell at the entrance to the hall as the rikishi march in, with girls shrieking with glee as they would if seeing a rock star. The basho lasts most of the day, and many come to see the entire set of matches.

I drifted away from our seats and down near the dohyo to photograph the bouts. As I have studied the photographs I again recognize elegance, beauty, and athleticism in what appears to Americans to be near-naked fat guys in a brawl.

Yes, the rikishi are enormous, but there are shockingly agile as well. The first blow of each bout, the tachi-ai, shakes the walls with its force. Rikishi are pushed, shoved, bounced, and forced around the ring as though they were weightless, often resulting in one of the fighters being ejected from the ring itself. In the midst of this violence (and it is a violent sport) stands the referee, the goyji, in his fantastic Shinto wardrobe. The simple pointing of his glistening fan, the gunbai, confirms the winner.

We were joined by a friend, Asaka Shinagawa, who works for the Osaka tourism department. Asaka will be coming to Austin in April, and we were put in touch by a mutual friend, Rebecca Burgman. Neither Cassady nor Asaka had ever attended a basho in person, and yet both are big sumo fans. We arrived early and stayed until the last match (between the yokozuna, Hakuho, and a rikishi from Estonia, Baruto). FYI, Baruto lost only one match this basho, and will be promoted to ozeki, only one level below yokozuna. Please enjoy the photos, although I do know that fat men battling each other wearing thongs may take some getting used to.

Ted
27 Mar 2010

Nagasaki Reminiscences and My Red Vest Day

Culture, History, Opinion, , , ,

Oura Catholic Church, Nagasaki
Today I am 60. In Japan men wear a red vest on this day (I will make do with a green shirt). Last night we kissed my fifties goodbye, and this morning I am contemplating geezerhood. As a child I thought of my grandfather as being ancient, yet he died at only 64. Last night my granddaughter reminded me that “you are only as old as you feel.” True, except that you are only as old as your body allows you to feel. Age is both body and soul.

We are in Nara, in the Mikasa roykan within the Nara Koen (Park). We are well above the valley that holds the city, surrounded by forest, deer, and silence. Given the tourist bustle of Kyoto, I welcome this peaceful interlude.

Before I regress and try to bring my travel accounts current, I must tell you about last night’s dinner. On this trip I have noticed similarities between Cassady and Virginia. The two share eyes, cheeks, and noses. They love each other’s company, and will spend the day sifting through shop after shop. And, they share laughter.

Cassady and Virginia do not just guffaw. They are choked by diaphragm-paralyzing paroxysms, incapable of communicating to the sober minded what they find so amusing. When they are finally able to breathe and speak again, the joke is a pale imitation of the laughter witnessed. With Cassady and Virginia, the fun is in watching how they react to a joke, not in hearing the joke itself.

Cassady is also like her mother and Japanese grandmother, marrying their dry humor and reserve with the American brashness and bravado of her father. She is a perfect amalgamation of the best of the two countries, and a delight to be around. I treasure the moments we share.

Now to retrace our steps. If you recall, after Okinawa we continued to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. I believe that I delved into the bomb issue in my Nagasaki account, and, to be honest, I have little interest in doing the same with Hiroshima.

Yet the two cities illustrate a challenge that I face in my work. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are known, at least outside of Japan, for one defining moment in their histories. Yet both have complex (and fascinating) histories and cultures that reveal more about Japan than the tragedies of one war. Consider the following.

In the mid-16th century Portuguese missionaries (including Saint Francis Xavier) arrived in Japan and began their missionary work throughout Kyushu. As interest in Christianity grew (along with the arrival of firearms), the feudal lords became increasingly concerned about their restless masses. Christians were publicly crucified in Nagasaki. Christianity became a capital offense, foreigners were expelled, and for over two centuries Japan closed itself to the outside world. Japan became the North Korea of the Victorian age.

Closed, except in Nagasaki. The Japanese ejected the Portuguese, but allowed the Dutch to maintain trade relations since they were far more interested in making money than converts. The Dutch, however, were sequestered on a small island specifically constructed for this purpose in 1636 – Dejima. Only through Dejima did Japan maintain contact with the world. This exclusivity remained intact until 1857 and the opening of Japan and the Meiji Period. Soon other ports eclipsed Dejima in popularity, and by 1902 Nagasaki had reclaimed the island and reconnected Dejima to the mainland.

In 1952, however, Nagasaki began acquiring the private lands in and around Dejima in hopes of restoring the Dutch trading post. By 2001 the land had been acquired, and the restoration began. Now there are ten buildings that have been reconstructed, and visitors can experience what was once the only contact between Japan and the western world.

Next we visited the Koshi-byo, a Confucian temple constructed by the residents of Nagasaki in 1893. The grounds of the temple also house the Chinese History Museum, with an impressive display on loan from the Chinese government. In the museum there is a splendid ivory carving of a Happy Buddha surrounded by children.

We ended the day at Glover Garden. After the reopening of Japan a Scotsman, Thomas Glover, chose Nagasaki as the place to make his fortune. He introduced the steam locomotive to Japan, modernized coal mining, and began the Kirin beer company. This garden contains his former mansion, as well as a number of trade-related buildings from that era. There are statues of both Puccini and Madame Butterfly in the garden, since Puccini set his famous opera in Nagasaki.

Adjacent to the Glover Garden is the Oura Catholic Church, constructed in 1863 to commemorate the 26 Christians crucified in 1597. According to the literature this is the oldest Gothic-styled building in Japan. As I entered the church I found myself curiously at peace, at home. I am certain that Christian traders must have felt the same so far from their homes. One does not have to be particularly religious to feel a connection to kindred spirits while in a foreign land.

How ironic that the one city in Japan where the cultures mingled (Christian, Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto) would be the target of the second atomic bomb. Even more wry (particularly for Nagasaki) is that the US military had chosen Kokura as the primary target, but bad weather forced Bock’s Car (the B-29 carrying the bomb) to a secondary target – Nagasaki.

But isn’t that war?

War is madness. War is a boda de sangre, with victim and victimizer fated to seal the marriage in the final bloodletting. For this reason war must be avoided. Once engaged, sanity, logic, and love fall victim to madness, passion, and hatred.

My opposing war (all war) is neither political nor religious. My opposing war is not naïve (trust me, I sincerely believe that there are bad people in the world). My opposing war is recognizing a fundamental flaw in the human soul. My opposing war is knowing that once unleashed the dogs of war are impossible to cage, and only calm once satiated with the blood of innocents.

Ted
22 Mar 2010

Star Wars Toilets

Culture, Opinion, Travel, ,
Shower toilet hand control

Let me begin with an apology. You did not expect an article on toilets, I know. But after Nagasaki and Hiroshima, I decided to interject some humor, some levity, before I address issues about which it is impossible to laugh.

The Japanese know high-tech. But of all of their technological contributions, nothing comes close to their bathrooms.

Here is my first example. I travel constantly, and probably spend 100 nights or more annually somewhere in some hotel working on some project. Among my pet peeves is the bathroom mirror that fogs after I shower and before I can shave. Invariably I am scrambling for a dry towel, then trying to wipe away the moisture before it reappears. Of course it fogs again as soon as I place razor on skin.

In Japan, they have developed a bathroom mirror that has a heating element in one corner that prevents the mirror from fogging. No matter how obscured the remainder of the mirror might be, this corner is always fog free. Score one for the Japanese.

And what about a bathtub that fills itself, then plays Jesu’ Joy of Man’s Desiring when ready for you to immerse? Score two for the Japanese.

The Millennium Falcon of Toilets

Yet nothing (NOTHING) approaches the panache of a Japanese toilet. This is the Millennium Falcon of toilets, Hans Solo’s throne.  At home I only have to worry about pushing a handle down. In  Japan, to use the toilet is as nerve-racking as programming a DVR. These toilets don’t just flush (normally my only concern). They heat, spray, rinse, dry, and buff. A Japanese toilet is a car wash for your derriere.

I would love to take one home, but I would have to completely rewire and replumb my house. Score three for the Japanese and their toilets. They have elevated a simple biological function to high-tech nirvana.

Ted

18 Mar 2010


Okinawa Time Travel

Culture, Food, Heritage, History, Opinion, , ,
Dance performance, Shuri-jo

America imports oil from Saudi Arabia, cars from Japan, wine from France, shrimp from Viet Nam, coffee from Costa Rica, jalapeños from Mexico, and even toothpicks from China. We have perfected consumption, and the world feeds our insatiable appetite for stuff.

In return, America exports pop culture. No matter where you might wander, blithely expecting to be swallowed in a culture unlike your own, your first meal likely will be accompanied by the viral voices of Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga.

A couple of years ago I traveled with a group organized by Jerry Adelmann of Openlands to work in three World Heritage Sites in southern Yunnan. This is end-of-the-road China, hugging the border with Burma. Enjoying an evening in a pizza joint in the walled city of Dali, we were circled by young Chinese who could have effortlessly blended in New York, Paris, or Tokyo. Fast food, rap music, IPods, cell phones, and reality TV will be our legacy, I suppose.

You can no more escape American culture in Japan than you can in America. A few minutes ago we arrived in Nagasaki, and while walking through the train station we were met by American pop music blasting from every pore in this city. Consider the irony for a moment. We are in Nagasaki, for God’s sake, and our Japanese hosts effortlessly embrace an Americanized culture.

Please don’t mistake these observations for cheap America bashing. I have seen more of America than virtually anyone I know, and my love affair with our country is unquestioned. I am constantly reminded that we also gave the world pragmatic democracy, and that contribution will (hopefully) remain our bequest to future generations such as my granddaughter’s.

I am not referring to the jingoistic democracy that has been imposed through misguided nation-building (or unraveling) in recent years. I mean the democracy that grows organically through our examples of selflessness and good works (consider the Occupation here, for example, or the Marshall Plan in Europe).

Let me offer a case in point. No single issue has haunted America since its founding as has slavery. Slavery is the one irreconcilable impasse that the founders failed to resolve in Philadelphia, passing it on to future generations to address. America invested over 700,000 lives in a Civil War to finally make good on the promise of liberty for all, yet only in my lifetime in the Jim Crow South have our black citizens, our neighbors, been invested with the rights enjoyed by the rest of us from the beginning.

At this moment we are led by a president who is himself an African-American, married to a woman who is the direct descendent of African slaves. According to a recent article in the NY Times, “In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.”

“In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.”

“Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.”

Let that sink in for a moment. Where else in the world would this be possible? Michelle Obama’s grandfather was a postman, and her father worked as a pump worker at the City of Chicago water plant. Barack O’Bama’s paternal grandfather was a Kenyan mission cook and herbalist, and served time in a British prison for being involved in the early African liberation movement (as well as where he was tortured). The president’s father served as a government economist in Kenya.

In contrast, George W. Bush’s grandfather, Prescott Sheldon Bush, served Connecticut in the U.S. Senate from 1952 until January 1963.  His father, George H.W. Bush, followed Ronald Reagan as the 41st president of the United States.

A black American president is as likely as a Jew being elected leader of Iran, or an Aboriginal as prime minister of Australia. Yet it did happen in America, and as a peaceful blessing of a stable democracy. I am writing, at this very moment, in Nagasaki, a city utterly obliterated in WW II as the result of a despotic government, led by an emperor thought to be divine, willing to sacrifice the blood of its citizens to the last drop.

Our country, in moments of greatness, finds a way to rise above its limitations, its prejudices, and its hatreds. Of course we have every right to criticize the policies and actions of our presidents. The first amendment to the constitution guarantees that right. In fact, let me remind you of the entire text of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Those who would slander and personally attack our president or his wife because of their ethnicity or color damage our democracy, I believe. The “birthers” who have questioned his citizenship and those who have alluded to his Islamic heritage (which, even if a practicing Muslim, would be his constitutional right as protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment), besmirch the promise of our democracy so needed by much of the world. Of course these people have to right to express themselves under the protections of this same First Amendment, just as I have the right to call them misguided, bigoted fools.

Dragon print, Shuri-jo, Okinawa

I am ahead of myself, though. On our third day in Okinawa we left the Marriott (talk about American culture) and wandered back south toward Naha in search of this island’s cultural soul. There are several World Heritage Sites on the island that have been restored to honor the Ryukyu past. We first visited Zakimi-jo, one of the citadels built during the Ryukyu era to defend the interests of a local lord. The remnants of the walled fortress offer an unobstructed view across the island, from the East China Sea east to the Pacific. Given Okinawa’s importance to trade between China, Korea, and Japan during the Ryukyu, these elevated vantage points were invariably sites of forts and fortresses such as Zakimi-jo. In the small museum there were several examples of ceramic funereal urns, an important tradition to the Ryukyu. After a period of years the Ryukyu would cleanse the bones of their loved ones, and place them in these urns.

We left 15th Century Ryukyu Japan to beam up to the 21st Century and the Kadena AFB. After the war the U.S. military established several bases on Okinawa, Kadena among them. These bases have been sources of tension here for decades, and the strain still influences politics throughout the country. Many here would like for the U.S. military to leave, or, at least, to consolidate the bases. There are others who are adamant that the U.S. should stay. Every time North Korea lobs another missile across Japan, or another U.S. sailor or soldier commits a crime while off base, the issue flares once again.

We stopped across from the base and climbed to the top of an observation tower to view the base. What fascinated me were the small farms and gardens that locals were cultivating at the base of the sound baffles that border the runway. As I said before, no land goes to waste in Japan. And what about Tommy Lee Jones on the vending machine in the lobby? The boss?

Mr. Iwana next led us to one of his favorite restaurants in the village of Kadena. This soba shop is the archetypal Japanese cubbyhole, with three tables and two additional in the tatami room. The owner/chef specializes in Japanese-style buckwheat noodles made daily. He is also a jazz buff, and one wall of the café houses his impressive collection of vinyl albums. There we slurped our noodles to the music of Coltrane and Monk.

As with so much of Japan, our final destination is significant at multiple levels. Shuri-jo is the finest example of Ryukyu on the island. This extensive castle is still in the process of being restored after being obliterated during WW II. The interpretation in Shiri-jo, sadly, failed to mention precisely why the complex had been destroyed during the Battle of Okinawa.

Underneath the castle, as much as 100 feet below ground, were extensive tunnels and caverns that housed the Japanese military commander, Ushijima, and at least 20,000 of his troops. The American military relentlessly bombarded the Shuri site, with little impact on the Japanese. These caverns today are closed to the public, although there are access points if one knows where to look (such as Mr. Iwama).

We also were treated to a dance performance within the castle grounds. According to my granddaughter, the dance consisted of elements of both traditional Japanese dance as well as that most likely attributable to the Ryukyu. Whatever the genre, I thoroughly enjoyed the slow-motion, expressionless dancers in their splendid costumes.

Next we fly to Fukuoka, and then catch the express train to Nagasaki. We will spend three nights at a famous ryokan, our first chance to relax for more than one night in the same hotel.


Ted

15 Mar 2010