by Ioana Lee
In spite of all their bad words about me, I would have liked to invite the two of them to my house, to look them in the eye and allow the universal principle of common sense to prevail. I would have told them that it didn’t matter to me that they weren’t from Bucharest or that their parents were ordinary workers, which is nothing to be ashamed of. These are not criteria to evaluate an individual. I wanted to tell them that I deeply respected their parents even though I’d never met them. I knew that their parents were doing their very best as well, just like all the other poor yet loving and devoted parents who wanted their children to grow up to be good people.
Sadly to say, I had come to live the same type of disappointment two years later in Tokyo. This time it came from a group of “cream of the crop” Romanian students. Even though they’d never met me in person they refused to meet me because I was a model and their snobbish network was way too elitist for someone like me. Needless to say, I became a model through unplanned life circumstances and an intellectual through my own work and endeavors. With most unfavorable things in life, you just have to learn how to live with and sometimes even get to like them. These types of human malice are, strangely, hidden compliments that help you self analyze and go forward with the dignity and serenity of a person who knows that they have never intentionally done anything bad to anyone. This is my ideal type of beauty—to glow through your moral serenity and spiritual poise.
“These people can’t exist in our lives and enter in our houses,” Otoosan concluded.
And Ken continued huffily:
“Ioana (he rarely called me by my first name; only in intensely emotional moments), you have to understand one thing that I kept repeating to you multiple times yet you’ve always ignored: all your life, wherever you go, whatever you do, you’ll have these types of problems. You’ve always said about me that I am presumptuous and prideful, and perhaps I really am, but in your life you don’t have to deal with lower class people because they’ll be the ones to drag you in the mud after them.”
I never liked when Ken talked this way. I knew from my parents that all people should be treated equally and that they’re all worthy of respect. The only difference was in their character. We didn’t use words like “peasant” or “lower class people.” People are people, with strengths and weaknesses, all created by God. I’m not segmenting people in good and bad categories. Even those two Romanian students I can forgive and love, just like I did with many others.
Another similar story from my past comes to mind. This is a story about people who were considered low class based on their social status, not based on their character. One day my landlords from my first year in college, to whom I was paying a good amount of money for a room in their Bohemian villa in Bucharest, told me unexpectedly that they didn’t want me there anymore. This happened without warning while I was visiting my parents over the weekend, without a reasonable explanation. I had only lived in their house for a few weeks and my college semester had just started. After their unexpected request I didn’t have time to look for another place to move to immediately. Even though I had many relatives in Bucharest, all of their apartments were occupied.
So I was told to come and pick up my things from their house. I arrived in Bucharest with my parents on a mucky and “indomitable” day in November, as Charles Dickens would have described it. Crying, I got my things together, not being able to understand why that was happening to me? I felt the same sadness for their needless malice as I felt with the Romanian students. I now understand better and feel sorry for those “ladies who had style yet not class,” my parents and I returned home to the ‘village,’ to Valeni.
After a few days, once arrived back in Bucharest I had come to hear that if one isn’t born and raised in Bucharest one is invariably from the countryside or village, or from the place where people still—horrors!—milk the cows. The fact that a young lady like me had come from a place like that, considered low class for city people, was somehow a threat to them. They were also puzzled by my health, beauty (as it was perceived by those around) and intelligence, and all the more so that I was studying Japanese. On top of everything, a noble Japanese man courted me. I was way too much for the snobbism of these ladies who were part of the communist bourgeoisie. They owned a villa attained unfairly through the nationalization process that took place after the falling of the communist regime. Their house was filled with art masterpieces that had a glorious past and origins, unlike their own… I look back and smile… I met authentic nobility and had the honor to be cared for and loved by people with noble blood. Thus, I couldn’t be fooled by the deplorable mask of those who were trying to copy that which they were not even capable of appreciating. Those ladies had never met true nobility. Its glow shines through affability, generosity, openness, discretion and subtlety…
I believe that the prejudgment that if you’re not 100% from Bucharest you have less value still exists even nowadays in Romania. How deplorable and sad it is to not have anything to be proud of except your geographical area. It’s also pathetic how the phonies living in those buildings in the capital are still looking at newcomers or tenants with a smug feeling of superiority. It all comes from the long time that they’ve owned their buildings. The rule of first-come applies there best, just like in an animal’s world! There is where pettiness is at home. Those people believe that they can measure the entire world “with their elbow,” as the well-known Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu said.
I remember the inferiority complex that another well-known Romanian writer, Emil Cioran, had. In his student life he was underestimated because he came from a village called Coasta Vacii (the cow’s rib). It’s very possible that the whole bias started with some students that were demonstrating, through their behavior, the fact that they came from the countryside. Yet what others saw as a disadvantage I saw as an asset. I noticed in those countryside college students a well-grounded common sense, a way of being that was even more presentable and a desire to express themselves clearly, which bordered on the academic. I admired their enthusiasm when it came to studying and their seriousness towards being a college student. I’ve always admired people’s qualities, regardless of them being from Bucharest or the countryside—or from wherever.
Life has taken me far away in the world, on three continents (and counting). I met foreigners from all over and I stick with my belief that one’s first criteria to evaluate people should be their character and how they’re polishing it during their lives, through desire and hard work. During my travels I’ve also discovered how true the Romanian saying of “Tot raul e spre bine” is, meaning, “Every cloud has a silver lining…”
Going back to my unfortunate living situation in Bucharest, while I was looking for another place to live I missed a lot of classes. I was really upset at the thought of being unable to go back to the University right away and also missing all the classes and homework. My parents were doing their best to help me find a place to rent. The only friends who helped me, I sadly came to realize, were two Japanese guys that I had met just the week before. They each lived in separate apartments and kindly offered to move together and give me one of their places, at no cost, until I was able to find something else. I was extremely impressed by their gesture and it hurt when I realized that they were the only ones who cared about me and my challenging situation. I didn’t take them up on it because I didn’t want to inconvenience them. In a relatively short time, I was able to find a place close to Cismigiu Park in Bucharest. I lived there for three years until I graduated from college. I lived with a landlady who proved to be heaven-sent for me; a distinguished soul with an extraordinarily kind heart—Mrs. Motorga. She was like a mother to me. I loved her and respected her enormously. She was with me every step of the way. She helped me to fall in love with Ken and to understand that kindness exists outside of our close families, and that you can become attached to someone when you feel that your destinies intersect, regardless of how far life may take you from one another.
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So, during my college experience I lived with Mrs. Motorga and her 9-year-old nephew Alex, a very handsome and unusually smart boy. Alex used to attend Cervantes, a well-respected Spanish language school in Bucharest. He was also fluent in English. He often took care of me like he would take care of his little sister, only that I was the older one. He was the one making sandwiches for me and not the other way around. Alex never bothered me with anything; on the contrary, his presence gave me comfort in hard moments. Whenever he saw me suffering, he would kindly remind me that I spent too much time locked in my room and that I needed to relax a bit. I am unable to express into words how remarkable both Mrs. Motorga and Alex were and how nicely and lovingly they treated me. To this day, I’m afraid that I didn’t thank them enough, nor told them how much I owe them. I still love them dearly. I’ll always carry them in my heart and memories. Because of them I was able to dedicate my time to Japanese and English literature, which very soon became two of my real passions.
Mrs. Motorga cooked for me, cleaned my room, did my laundry and ironed my clothes. She did all this and much more out of affection for me, as there wasn’t any rule that said she had to do any of it. Many times I felt embarrassed when I came back home and found my room neatly arranged, looking like a 5-star hotel. Alex and I also got along extremely well. We laughed and told stories together. He’d let me know who called me, the precise hour they had called and whatever message they left. His mother Cristina came to visit us often. She never missed seeing me once during her visits. She’d come into my room to chat, to encourage and to give me advice. She’d also tell me about the latest trends in fashion. The purpose of all this was to help and support me.
Mr. Vova, her brother and Mrs. Motorga’s son, was a true gentleman with a very warm soul. Despite the fact that he was coming to visit his own mother, he was the one apologizing to me for creating any inconvenience. In reality, I was the outsider who had come into their family. This was a family that only God could have brought my way. Needless to say, my heart aches with nostalgia when I think of all of them and when I relive in my mind those years spent in Romania.
Ken came to visit us whenever he desired. He and Mrs. Motorga got along really well. Shortly after they met, Ken started speaking Romanian fluently. He also became very attached to this wonderful family. He used to live close by, in an apartment next to Amza Market in Bucharest. We went for walks often in beautiful Cismigiu Park. We also went together to the Conservatory, where he was studying for his PhD. It was there that we discovered another extraordinary family that we admired enormously, that of Professor Grigore Constantinescu.
I’ll always thank God for all the wonderful people that He brought my way. I could talk and write about them for countless pages. If I would have to succinctly describe them I would have to say that they were high quality people with impeccable characters. The love that these fine people inspired in me felt like it would be great enough for me to love everybody. If humanity expressed itself at its highest level through the existence of all these people, then it deserves to be fully honored for the potential that it contains.
Seeking boundaries…
It was extremely hard to have Latin blood, as I did coming from Romania, in a country like Japan. There you must constantly censor your words, behavior and feelings. Exuberance, passion, expansiveness seemed to be non-existent. Could it have existed without me noticing it? To me everything looked too polite, amiable, civilized, modest, discreet, censored and elegant—there was way too much of all of these qualities. Didn't they have any "boundaries" or was my soul too "Romanian"? I was wondering if all of their qualities were genuine at a deep level, or perhaps it was some form of collusion, much more rooted there than in any other parts of the world? I had to come to my own conclusions regarding this; I needed to better understand it. Generally, I can't accept anything that I'm not able to understand. I had to force the Japanese to reveal what was in their soul and to show me their real boundaries. The desire to challenge and provoke their seemingly impenetrable veil was too irresistible not to explore.
So, I decided to start my own unconventional anthropology study. I came up with a complex action plan aimed at one target: I had to understand Japan. Finally! I was tired of discovering it through reading books or my own life experiences, which only offered me an incomplete and fake image, one influenced by my constrained social environment. Japan was an island limited by oceans, yet unlimited in its diversity to be explored. To be more precise, I made the decision to get out of my "golden cage" and mix in with the real world. I came to test reality through my own carefully chosen psychological methods.
I started my experiment on a beautiful summer day in Tokyo. That morning I put my make-up on (white powder and pink lipstick), dressed elegantly (light pink suit, high-heeled sandals and leather purse, all matching the color of the suit—brand names, obviously!) and I went out to… buy a car. I would have to admit, without any embarrassment, that all of the events that followed were deliberately planned. I had no real intention to buy myself a car, as driving was not interesting to me at the time. I didn't even have a driver’s license. Truth be told, there wasn't even a need for a car in Tokyo. If I wanted to be driven anywhere I always had a driver at my disposal. That day I wanted to play a bit. Through my game I wanted to be able to understand some essential things.
I went to visit many car dealerships; beautiful and luxurious car expos, with cars that looked like they were out of a science fiction film. Friendly sales people were happy to have me cross their doors, greeting me with a large smile and a polite "Welcome to our store!" Ultimately, I decided to make a longer stop at a Mitsubishi dealership. They had a gigantic car expo, with many cars that I couldn't have even dreamed of.
I was welcomed with rare courtesy by a gentleman dressed top-notch. I told him that I intended to buy a car from his dealership. Happy to hear this, the man invited me to sit down. At the desk a sales representative took care of me, while a woman brought out a tray with green tea and cookies. The man introduced himself and offered me his business card. He assured me that he'd be more than happy to help me solve "my challenge." My challenge had to do with a psychological curiosity, unbeknownst to him. It took me a while to learn all the technical automobile words in Japanese, since I hardly knew them in Romanian. I started by explaining to him that I wanted a two door compact car, small yet spacious and strong, front wheel drive and strong horsepower, four cylinders… shock absorbers… etc. I thought to myself, “If I drop the ball they wouldn’t know that I have no idea of what I’m talking about. They’d blame it on the fact that I am a foreigner and it would be impossible for me to know all the technical words in Japanese.” I liked giving the impression that I had everything under control. While I was talking, I tried to discern the meaning of the expressions on the man’s imperturbable face. His age could have been anywhere between 30 and 50 years old—agelessness is typical of many Asian people.
I was expressing myself with reticence and delicacy, typical of Japanese women. I had my head timidly tilted, slowly sipping my green tea while trying to penetrate into the unreadable soul sitting in front of me. After listening to me carefully, the distinguished gentleman started explaining to me, in a pointless series of details, the conditions under which the car could be bought, the contract specifications and the different types of offers, etc. During his talk I finished my tea and cookies. After two hours of conversation, he suggested that I pick one of the cars for a test drive, so that I could fully experience the quality and excellence of the cars sold there. Finally, the moment of truth came.
“Thank you very much for your offer! Wow, it would be wonderful to drive now. Are you sure that I could do it right now?”
“Absolutely!” he answered.
“Ohhh, how unfortunate! – I answered – I don’t have a driver’s license.”
I’ve never seen anyone change his facial expression so suddenly, from contentment to shocking disappointment.
“You don..
don’t have a driver’s license???”
“No, I don’t. Why? Is it mandatory here in Japan?”
In spite of all my aberrations, because I was interested in their cars, the Japanese man offered me a camera on behalf of his company. Impersonating my mother’s playful character I paraphrased one of her jokes, innocently asking the man: “Would it be possible to pay for the photo camera and get the car as a gift?” Even though my joke wasn’t perceived as one, which I would have never expected since the European sense of humor is very different and unique, the Nipponese politeness proved to be impregnable.
When I arrived home I told Ken what I did.
“This is impossible!!! How were you capable of doing this?! It’s not polite! Why did you have to create such a huge problem?”
“Why did I do it? Because I wanted to understand!”
“What did you want to understand?”
“How far the Japanese politeness goes.”
“Ohh yes?!... And what did you learn?”
“That it’s infinite!” I said, leaving the room with my head innocently tilted and with a fake regret for what I had done…
The cool style – Shibuya
I tried lots of different experiments on the Japanese, regardless of their age and social status. One evening I dressed in a skirt that was indecently short, with a blouse that had all the colors of the rainbow: turquoise, light blue and pink. I matched my short blouse (which revealed my belly button) with a turquoise purse, shoes and a Walkman, and headed to Shibuya, the top meeting point for young Japanese—the 109 Store. Once I arrived there, I put my Walkman on and pretended to be listening to music. Only I knew that it was turned off. I wanted to be able to fully hear all the Japanese slang being spoken around me. I got close to a group of young people, pretending to be waiting for my lover. At first I looked around and noticed that I was the first one to arrive for our date. I already had the young guys’ attention…