Cutting Back

by Leslie Buck

  Guardian Angel Tells a White Lie

  December finally arrived. One morning, I stood at my Kyoto bus stop, hugging myself for warmth, when down from the sky floated a perfect snowflake. It landed right on my workbag, where it promptly melted. As more fell, I tried to guess where they might land. They blew in every direction. I pulled my hat down over my ears and sensed a feeling coming on that I’d experienced little of lately—exuberance. Real snow! I hadn’t felt snow since I was a child in Oklahoma, where we’d sledded down the soft slopes near our forested street. I looked around and saw that my bus stop companions remained expressionless, their reactions kept hidden.

  I’d often see a middle-aged woman at this bus stop, a transfer point on my way to work, wearing colorful silk hair scarves tied under her chin. She talked to me in rapid Japanese that I could never understand, much to my chagrin. My mind was hardly functioning at six-thirty in the morning, yet despite my inability to respond in any coherent way, she never gave up on her attempts to teach me new Japanese phrases. When I’d see her, I’d say to myself, Oh, no, here comes the friendly woman.

  That morning I felt worn out from week after week of fast-paced physical labor with the craftsmen, six days a week, sometimes seven. I was nearing the end of my apprenticeship, and as Christmas approached, so did my homesickness. I stood daydreaming about Christmas trees when the friendly woman silently snuck up next to me and burst into a high-pitched, unintelligible monologue. “Ohayō gozaimasu!” (Good morning!) On and on she went, speaking—as though I understood her! I turned and stared at her in disbelief, and in doing so, happened to spot the bus I needed to catch driving toward our stop—a full ten minutes earlier than expected. It normally took fifteen minutes for my transfer bus to arrive, and I’d been at the stop only a few minutes. I barely had a chance to wave it down. Once I’d sat down, frazzled, I looked at my watch and realized the bus had actually arrived at its normal time. How could this be? Where had the time gone? I tried to think back, willing my brain to wake up. The answer found its way, like morning light piercing a dark canopy. I must have fallen asleep at the bus stop while standing up! The friendly woman had spoken to wake me up. She’d saved me from missing my bus and showing up late for work, a dreaded prospect. But she’d done so in such a subtle way, without embarrassing me or calling attention to her favor. Forever afterward I’d see her and react instinctively, Oh, no! but then I’d feel warmth inside and think, Here comes my guardian angel.

  I admired the way my angel and my coworkers communicated ideas and messages indirectly. I’d had little practice in this art form. Oklahoma pioneer culture tends to be pretty direct: “A man is as good as his word,” and “walk your talk.” American culture in general also tends to reward direct communication. For example, one Halloween evening in Berkeley, a tiny soft-spoken ninja showed up at my door. The three-foot-high figure barely managed to whisper “trick-or-treat” so that she could grab one of the small chocolate candies I held out to her. Her mom gently but firmly reprimanded her, “Look at the woman when you speak!” I myself was taught early on to politely say thank you, shake hands firmly, and to look people right in the eye out of respect.

  Every Monday morning, the Uetoh workers gathered to listen to the boss’s speech. They stood silently with their heads bowed and eyes politely averted. During the meetings, I stood with my hands together in front of me and my head bowed like a traditional Japanese craftsman. But I’d still glance up with my eyes, looking directly at the company leader, partly out of rebellion, partly out of childhood habit. It felt odd not to look at someone who was speaking to me, especially someone higher than me in the Japanese hierarchy—elder, teacher, and leader.

  One of the few times I experienced indirect communication in America came from my friendship with Mas, my Japanese American bonsai instructor. Mas was born in America, moved to Japan when he was three months old, and returned when he was thirteen. He eventually served as a U.S. soldier in World War II. Afterward he became a well-known landscaper, bonsai artist, and teacher. I met Mas while he was instructing me and several others on how to move thousand-pound rocks, using his eight-foot-tall wooden tripod with a pulley system. I’d volunteered, under Mas’s direction, to help build the landscape to surround the prestigious Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt in Oakland, California. Some of us women volunteers secretly planted my Xena: Warrior Princess doll in the soil right near the entrance gate to promote female power in the garden. Sure enough, an American female bonsai artist, Kathy Shaner, trained and awarded in Japan, became acting director of the garden.

  After completing the volunteer project, I began chauffeuring eighty-something-year-old Mas to my community college once a month so he could teach pruning at our Merritt College Bonsai Club, the only bonsai club in the state run by volunteers, without dues or fees. In exchange he’d take me out to sushi dinner before each class. Over these meals Mas hardly spoke, but what few words he said, I remember. One such evening, as I picked up the last piece of nigiri sushi between my fingers (Mas told me it was acceptable not to use chopsticks), I asked him a question that had been in the back of my mind for a while. It was a month before I was to leave for Kyoto in search of my apprenticeship. “Mas,” I spoke hesitantly, “to be honest, I’m not sure I’m good enough to work in Japan. What if I’m a burden to any company I end up working with?” This was hard for me to ask, but I trusted Mas. “Don’t worry,” is all he said. I figured that maybe his focus was on his chirashi, a small bowl of rice with raw fish and traditional Japanese vegetables on top. It usually took him about an hour to finish, while I chatted away and drew sketches of him or anything else in my vision.

  The following week, Mas called to ask if I wanted to come over to his house to prune the tallest pine in his backyard Japanese garden, where he cared for and displayed his bonsai, including the juniper featured on the cover of the 1994 edition of the book Sunset Bonsai. I was thrilled. The pine that needed work stood more than fifteen feet high, taller than any conifer I’d ever pruned. Mas had styled it for more than thirty years. It leaned over his big koi pond, where “Mama,” a fat two-foot-long orange koi, would come to Mas and eat fish food right out of his hand when he stomped on the pond’s edge. Mas’s bonsai plants poetically dotted the perimeter of the pond. He’d tell me, “My trees are old, you know, just like me.”

  Despite my eagerness to prune a tree in a famous garden, I dreaded my new assignment. Dennis warned us, “If any of you are asked to prune in Mas’s garden, you’d better know what you are doing. If you botch the job, people will find out, and your reputation will be ruined.”

  Dripping with sweat, I worked several days on the multibranched pine. Mas worked from a nearby chair, delicately snipping one of his bonsai, perhaps the first bonsai he ever collected fifty-seven years earlier, a Sierra juniper, one of the three that he later donated to the prestigious Pacific Bonsai Museum in Washington. I had to regularly move a fifteen-foot ladder around the pond, maneuvering it around his potted bonsai plants. “Do you want help?” he’d ask, yelling out from the other side of the pond. “No, no, I got it!” I’d stubbornly insist. How could I ask an eighty-year-old to help me carry a ladder? I tried my best to be careful while I navigated the twisting paths. But sometimes I’d come perilously close to his priceless black pine bonsai from the 1915 San Francisco Panama-Pacific International Exposition, estimated to be more than four hundred years old, or to the large potted pine said to have been smuggled out of the Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden the night before rioters attacked the garden during World War II.

  At such moments, I’d feel the tail of my ladder being steadied, and I’d look behind me to discover Mas guiding me to just the right spot, where I could reach the next branch I needed to work on. Just as silently as he’d appear, he’d go back to his bonsai and recommence his patient, tedious styling. I worried every minute about my competence. At the end of three long days, we looked together, and even I had to admit that the hundreds of zigzagging branches that Mas had touch
ed for years, and that I now touched, looked beautiful silhouetted against the azure sky. Mas said, “That’s good work, Leslie.” Before he’d even said it, I felt deep down that I was ready for Japan.

  The day my guardian angel saved me at the bus stop, the crew and I worked in a formal garden, the Kyoto Prefectural Reception Hall, under vibrant green pines and red-flowering camellias covered with a light dusting of snow. Uetoh Zoen had previously built the garden in one of many future collaborations with international Japanese landscape designer Shunmyo Masuno.

  As I raked thousands of fallen leaves and red petals, I watched curiously as Masahiro placed several floating bamboo poles in a pond, forming a half-circle. I eventually deduced that if leaves fell into the pond while we pruned the maples above, the poles would create a sort of drifting fence, holding the leaves in a small area so they could be easily dredged out later with rakes. Told to shake dead leaves out of trees above another pond, I searched for some bamboo poles. I learned new tricks each day, silently observing the men while working on other tasks. A Japanese landscaper I met called this type of learning “stealing knowledge.”

  Not only did the craftsmen teach me indirectly, but the gardens did too. For example, if I saw a black rope wrapped around a rock in the landscape, I’d slow down. Most Japanese visitors know that a black rope signifies “Do not step past here” or “This is a sacred place” without needing a sign to spell it out. Likewise, a visitor might walk down a path and come upon an extra-large flat stepping stone. Subconsciously, she might slow to a stop, the wide stone allowing her to stand comfortably with both feet. The visitor might then look around, noticing a particularly striking view. The use of a large stepping stone is a common landscaper’s trick to invite visitors to slow down and feel as though they’ve discovered a vista all on their own. Japanese landscapes guide the visitor, her pace and path, gently.

  A fascinating high-tech design featured in the Reception Garden was so subtle that most nighttime visitors experienced it without knowing about it. I later found an article written by Shunmyo Masuno about the Reception Hall garden in the journal Process Architecture in 1995 discussing how a computerized lighting system was installed in place of nighttime spotlights. Lights came on and off in different areas of the garden throughout the night, in a preprogrammed pattern that could be altered into different arrangements. Each time a visitor looked out from the main building, a different waterfall, rock, or plant would appear under the light’s focus, entertaining the mind both consciously and unconsciously.

  Toemon Sano, Uetoh Zoen’s leader, also wrote in this special issue of the journal. He said that although the gardens of Masuno, when first built, might look “somewhat demure in character,” the quality of his gardens “becomes apparent with the passage of time.” He said that Masuno was not so concerned with “making” a garden as with the “raising of a garden.” Like a child, a garden needed to be guided and raised with care to develop into a mature beauty. Hence, a Japanese garden combines the designer’s plan with the gardeners’ care, the pruners’ encouragement, and nature’s influence over time. Mr. Sano’s final words stuck with me.

  The mixture of traditional plants and modern lighting at the Reception Hall struck me as impressive, but to be honest I couldn’t have cared less about its enchanting beauty or sophisticated design. All I focused on was what Kei had told me earlier in the day: “Leslie, we’re traveling to another out-of-town job next weekend.” I already had plans for that weekend. My American friends and I intended to put on a festive Sunday dinner. If I worked out of town with my crew, I’d miss Christmas in Kyoto.

  Christmas in Kyoto almost always fell on a weekday, so most Americans I’d met just skipped it. One expat mentioned that he’d felt so depressed after years of not being able to find a Christmas tree in Kyoto that he decided to drop Christmas altogether. Hearing that made me so sad. This year Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday, so my most warmhearted American friend, Maya, and I had dreamt up finding some kind of branch to take the place of the Christmas tree, as well as having a celebratory feast. Ever since Kei told me about the work trip, I imagined my friends gathering in Kyoto while I endured inn isolation—the men all in one room at the hotel, me by myself in the other. My disappointment grew throughout the day, and my actions became equally weathered.

  No matter how many floating bamboo fences I constructed, thousands of dead leaves clogged the water. Despite the fact that the ponds, connected by streams, had a clear flow downhill, the men decided to clean the leaves out of the lower ponds first, moving up to the highest ones last. This meant that as we cleaned leaves in one area, more streamed down from upper ponds, clogging it back up. In these kinds of circumstances, I’d learned to scratch my head and do as I was told; there was always a good reason for doing what looked odd. But this day, I proclaimed the process stupid in my thoughts. I walked to an upper pond and began raking by myself. If I have to go on the Christmas work trip, then at least I’ll do things my way today, I reasoned spitefully, with a certain emotional immaturity that sometimes besets me when I’m overwhelmed by loneliness.

  After a while, Masahiro hiked up to where I was busily cleaning and motioned for me to work downstream with the others. I simply pretended I couldn’t understand him. I looked at him with a sweet smile and proceeded to carry out my duties. I felt I had a slight grasp of the indirect communication thing and devised using this newfound power to my benefit. They’ll know I’m right, I insisted. Finally, Kei came over and explained, in English, “Leslie, you must work in the lower area.” I acted surprised and innocent, “Oh, that’s what Masahiro was trying to tell me. Sorry!” I knew I was being childish, and passive-aggressive to boot, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d join the men and be good for a while, then fall back into plotting new ways to annoy them the next. My silent rebellion persisted most of the day.

  At the end of the day, back at the office, Kei approached me with his second announcement of the day. He said, “The office found out that, due to housing problems, you cannot join them for the out-of-town work trip.” I almost hugged him. I actually allowed myself a slanted grin a brief second, before responding, “Okay.” Later I wondered about my sudden ejection from the work trip. Toward the end of my stay with Uetoh, Kei told me, “Next time you come to Japan, you should do some reading on culture and traditions.” I defended myself, “But I read three Japanese culture books and interviewed countless people,” adding, “You have no idea how many times I kept silent when I wanted to speak out!” Kei, nonplussed, added, “Oh, we knew how you felt.” “But I never said anything!” I exclaimed with big eyes. “We watch your emotions,” he finished with a sly grin. Oh. I’d never considered covering up my facial expressions. Damn. The men knew how to steal knowledge from the American girl.

  My mom would pick huge, enchantingly perfumed snow white flowers from the southern magnolia tree outside my parents’ bedroom. She’d float a single blossom in a large bowl of water, and warned me when my tiny fingers reached too close, “Don’t touch the magnolia flower or it will die.” I passed this information on to many friends as an adult. Not until twenty years had passed did I realize that touching magnolia flowers did not kill them. They wouldn’t even bruise! My mom’s story was what I call a white lie, an innocent fib told for the greater good, a noble attempt to keep a flower-enraptured girl from crushing a delicate petal. I could never be sure why Uetoh higher-ups canceled my participation in the Christmas work trip. Could they have noticed my agitation and made up a white lie about lack of housing to help sooth my burgeoning homesickness?

  I had encouraged my dad to plant a rare species, little gem magnolia, behind his house in Oklahoma to complement the white swans that circled his lake. Little gems are a dwarf version of the huge traditional southern magnolia. Years later in San Francisco I had the opportunity to prune a whole grove of little gems on the terrace of a contemporary San Francisco sculpture garden owned by one of my clients. Remembering how my father, just a few years before his death
, had loved watching his little gem magnolia grow, I tried my heartfelt best to preserve as many of these San Francisco blossoms as possible each time I pruned them.

  One evening, an extraordinary man would walk under these very little gems on his way to a special fundraiser dinner held at my client’s house. I felt so proud that President Barack Obama had strolled under the trees I’d had the opportunity to prune. My dad would have been thrilled to vote for Obama, but he died two years before he had the chance. Yet he did campaign for Obama, in his own indirect way. He participated in many antisegregation protests and restaurant sit-ins in Oklahoma before I was born, so that all Americans could have opportunities. Gardens morph and seasons change. Clients give birth to children who play under the trees I prune. Clients grow old watching these trees; some clients die. Trees grow old, and I recommend to my customers that they plant new ones for future families to enjoy. I’ll style a tree over many years, helping it find its beauty, its place in the world. The delicate scent of the magnolia still entrances me.

  Finding Heart in the Landscape

  Forgoing a beautifully mowed front lawn, Kyoto private homeowners often build a tall fence completely enclosing atmospheric three-dimensional gardens. Five days before Christmas, I opened a sliding wooden door to one such garden, stepped off the sidewalk, and entered a rich landscape that reminded me of the wooded area around my first childhood home. Outside the garden wall on the street, cars with honking horns sped by, kids rode bikes while talking on their cell phones, and old ladies tottered by carrying crinkly plastic bags. Inside, nature thrived, looking like a compact forest. Houses on either side sandwiched my client’s property, but they were so cleverly hidden you’d never notice them. The perimeter trees and shrubs of the inner landscape were kept just high enough to distract from surrounding buildings, allowing the viewer to feel enveloped by a forest.