by Tracy Slater
“Yah, maybe three times a week, maybe sometime even four, but you know, not at expensive places. Not that often,” he insisted.
“What does ‘not expensive’ mean?” I asked, wincing at the thought of those octopus balls at plain food stalls becoming our thrice-a-week night out.
“Like, not too gorgeous,” Toru said, using his term for “fancy.” “Like, not Ritz!” He held out a carrot he knew would appease me. “Like new Indian place, or somethings like that,” referring to a dive we’d just found down the street that we both already loved.
Deal, I thought.
So I began trying to cook at the apartment Toru shared with his father. A few afternoons a week, while Toru worked long hours at his job, I’d go over and download recipes from the Internet, and Tetsunobu-san and I would sit together and list the ingredients on a little pad of white paper. I’d say each item aloud in English, and he’d write them down either in his tight English script or Japanese characters. Sometimes I would have to repeat the words a few times before Tetsunobu-san could understand what they were, and occasionally we had to look up translations.
“Pecorino cheese,” I tried to explain one afternoon, “like, do you know what Parmesan cheese is?” I made a triangle with my hands. “It’s kind of like that.”
“Paa-meshan cheez-u,” he repeated, thinking. “Maybe had better to be looking it up.” Then we bent together over the computer in the tiny room that used to be Toru’s mother’s. Usually, we’d find that the market didn’t have either kind of cheese anyway, and we’d settle for the little squares of cheddar they sold.
Tetsunobu-san would help me identify the food on the market shelves, since many items came wrapped in Japanese-covered packages. Yogurt and milk bore similarly shaped cartons, which I discovered only after trying to make oatmeal one morning on the hot plate in our studio: I’d ended up with a hot fermented mess. Even soy sauce was hard to identify, shelved alongside a slew of other brown sauces: dashi (bonito fish broth), mentsuyu (a noodle-dipping sauce), gyosho (a southeast Asian condiment), and dark vinegar.
The first time I cooked at Toru and Tetsunobu-san’s apartment, I planned chicken parmigiana with a cheddar substitute. Quick, easy, simple, I reasoned. After Tetsunobu-san had taken me to the market and we worked out that panko, or Japanese breadcrumbs, contained the same basic ingredients as Italian ones minus a few seasonings, I carefully followed the recipe. Standing in their tiny kitchen, I added a dash of oregano I found in a cupboard, then layered each item on a large plate while Tetsunobu-san watched TV in the living room.
“Okay, Tetsunobu-san!” I shouted out to him when I was ready to put the whole thing in the oven. “Where’s the oven?” I called out, thinking it strange I had never noticed it before.
“O-ben . . .” he mumbled as he gathered himself off the couch and made his way into the kitchen, substituting a b for the v the Japanese language lacks. “Hmmm,” he said, when he saw me, plated bird held aloft.
“You know,” I said, miming a door being opened, a rack being pulled out. “An oven. Where I can cook this. With a grill-like thing on the bottom.”
“O-ben is, actually, it is here.” He pulled out a tiny fish grill from a slot under the stove, no more than six by nine inches across, four inches top to bottom.
“No, I mean a big thing. Big black oven. Like that,” I gestured toward the fish grill, “but bigger. For cooking,” I added uselessly.
“Japanese house don’t have oben!” Tetsunobu-san admitted, and then he tipped his crown back and laughed. He pointed at the microwave.
“How do you microwave chicken parmigiana?” I asked.
Tetsunobu-san went to the microwave, examined it for a moment, checking the dials, the row of Japanese kanji running up its side. “I don’t know!” he finally said, laughing again. He had never eaten chicken parmigiana before.
Later that night after Toru arrived from work, he explained that you could set the microwave to a convection oven setting, but I had already sliced up the chicken and cooked it in pieces on the fish grill, smashing down the cheese topping so it would fit, splattering tomato sauce everywhere. The men were totally unperturbed by the strangely flattened bird. At least until they learned there would be no white rice accompanying it, a development they found utterly bewildering.
• • •
ONE EVENING, about halfway through my stay, Toru’s aunt and uncle held a dinner for me, a special honor to welcome me to their city, their home, their nephew’s heart. I knew this was a rare privilege in Japan, a country with houses so small and boundaries so cherished that usually only relatives are invited to enter. Toru’s aunt was his mother’s only sibling, and although I’d already begun to delight in Tetsunobu-san’s easy warmth, I sensed the other side of the family might be slightly more traditional.
Toru told me to refer to them as Michiko-san (his aunt’s first name, plus the suffix denoting respect) and Hamatani-san (his uncle’s surname, meaning Mr. Hamatani or Hamatani sir). They lived in a house on the outskirts of Osaka, larger than Toru’s family’s apartment but similarly modest in style. Michiko-san spoke barely any English; Hamatani-san was dean of the English department at a nearby private high school and spoke formally but clearly. I already knew from my own disastrous teaching two summers before that English in Japanese schools is taught for grammar and reading, not conversation, and students rarely learn from native English speakers, so I wasn’t surprised by Hamatani-san’s stilted manner. But he and Michiko-san were kind and generous and attentive, wanting to know all about the literature I had studied in school, my family in Boston, and how I liked Japanese food so far.
Hamatani-san would place his palms together and lean into the table, asking each question as if opening a philosophical discussion, while Michiko-san spoke softly and gently, laughing as Toru tried to translate or I blurted an inelegant oishii! (“delicious!”) in Japanese. She served a procession of small dishes—fried chicken pieces, stewed vegetables, little bread-and-cheese squares wrapped with a thin strip of nori seaweed, rice with simmered mushrooms—placing each on the table, then jumping up to pour more beer, or the wine we had brought, or tea. She barely ate anything herself, she was so busy serving.
After dinner, she walked us to the door. Then, before we stepped into our shoes lined neatly in a row, she dropped to her knees and bent so low her forehead grazed the ground. I bent with her, thinking she had dropped a contact lens or stubbed a toe.
“Stand up!” Toru whispered, his voice coming hoarse and sideways out of his mouth. I froze, confused, and it took me a second longer to realize that she was bowing, not searching for something missing or staunching a sudden wound. I waited uncomfortably for her to rise, certain that when she did, she’d stand with shame etched across her features: shame that as a woman she was expected to bend so low, in her own house no less, to curve her aging body in self-effacement until she was eyeing nothing but her blank and spotless floor.
Instead, she straightened in a fluid sweep, her limbs surprisingly agile, her movements calm, and on her face a gentle yet fierce pride: that she had brought me to her house; had so fully honored me and her nephew, her dead sister’s only son; that this was her culture and her home and she had welcomed me so beautifully to them.
I felt lost for a moment and then suddenly released. I realized once again how imperfectly my judgments could cull meaning from this strange world, even from this group of potential new relatives. So many of my beliefs and instincts were irrelevant here. I had no choice but to relinquish the task of navigating this place—and now this family—with any real acuity, of anticipating its slights and wounds and managing them or guarding myself from them.
• • •
ALTHOUGH I FOUND an unexpected comfort in my limited ability to engage in Japanese family life, I knew that, to build a normal existence here even part-time, I’d need friends. Struggling constantly with the language and culture was alre
ady exertion enough, though: I decided I wanted to socialize with only English-speaking expats, preferably from Western countries. I recognized the provincialism of my choice, thinking back to my years in academia. I imagined former professors shaking bearded heads, murmuring under their breath about my disappointing cultural chauvinism. But I’d taken on enough of Toru’s world, I decided. I’d stop short at searching out his countrymen for socializing. Besides, I’d had a few Osakans try shyly to strike up conversations with me in random cafés only to segue into broken, red-faced requests that I help them practice English. I didn’t want to work that hard with friends.
I found personal ads in the back of Kansai’s two English expat magazines. Lounging in our weekly mansion studio, pale winter sun filtering through the polyester curtains, I scanned each ad in the Friendship section, squinting at their tiny font, puzzling out their abbreviations. There were posts such as 20YO WSM FROM ENGLAND, LOOKING FOR JW FOR FRIENDSHIP, DRINKS, SITESEEING, FUN. Or a headline LOOKING FOR A JAPANESE WOMAN WITH 2-5 YEARS OLD CHILD, under which appeared I, AUSTRALIAN 38YSOLD WANT TO HAVE RELATIONSHIP WITH A JAPANESE WOMAN WHO HAS A CHILD IN HOPE THAT THE CHILD FEEL I AM LIKE A FATHER AND THE MOTHER FEELS HAPPY PLS EMAIL.
Gross. Not to mention the atrocious grammar.
I knew Western men here far outnumbered Western women. I’d seen it in the glances Toru and I attracted, not just because we were a mixed couple, but because almost all mixed couples comprised white men with Asian women. We offered a surprising reversal. People would look from Toru to me, then swivel their heads back to Toru as if perhaps they were mistaken, had gotten backward what they thought they’d seen. Mostly, Toru and I found this funny. My favorite were the elderly men, sometimes small and slight, gently stooped or leaning on canes but always neatly put together, zooming through the subway or along the block with an agility rare among the aged in the U.S. They’d glance at Toru, then down to his hand clutching mine, then up to my face, then quickly back at Toru. Sometimes they’d even do a final double-take back to me. Occasionally, they’d give a little grumble or a soft harrumph. Frankly, I was charmed—although then I’d pause momentarily, wondering if they were thinking about World War II. Do they hate Americans? Did they fight, lose loved ones, way back then? Were they in Hiroshima, Nagasaki? Or did they participate in atrocities in Nanking? I didn’t want to know.
Now I forced myself to go through all the personals in the expat magazines before giving up. Finally, in one of the narrow columns of Kansai Scene, I found a promising ad. A British woman in her late twenties was looking for “mates,” either women or men, just to befriend. I e-mailed her, mentioning what a relief it was to find an ad that wasn’t creepy or date oriented. Would she want to meet for tea someday?
The next week, Lea and I met at a café near Shinsaibashi, one of Osaka’s main shopping districts, with neon signs running up and down tall buildings and an enormous cartoon poster of a Lichtenstein print on a signboard spanning one whole block. On one end, high-end department and brand stores bordered tree-fringed Midosuji Boulevard: huge, shiny windows announcing Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Daimaru, a Japanese equivalent of Saks. On the other, a maze of streets coiled through the district, hemmed in by tiny boutiques, cafés, restaurants, karaoke booths, and pachinko places, or Japanese gaming parlors.
Lea had a funky blond haircut with pink stripes and, alongside her typical English reserve, she was warm and down-to-earth. She was younger than I and, I was excited to learn, had married a Japanese man. Like most native English speakers in Japan, she was here teaching.
She sipped her tea and in her clipped accent told me how she loved Japan, had never felt at home in England, and hoped to stay here forever. “Even if I were to divorce Shin,” she said, “I’d still stay here.” I was shocked to realize that some foreigners actually chose without reservation to reside long-term in Japan, as opposed to settling here reluctantly, fingers over eyes, peeking out in trepidation.
She also gave me the name of her hairdresser, who she promised could speak English and cut layers and highlights to match my hair. I wasn’t sure I had enough in common with Lea that we would have been close friends if our romantic situations weren’t so similar. But I admired her honesty, her sense of certainty about her life’s decisions, and I was eager to keep in touch.
On one of my last nights in Osaka, Lea called me to tell me she was meeting another new friend, this one American, like me. And Jewish. Jodi was from Florida by way of upstate New York, owned a business in East Asia working with American law firms, and spoke no Japanese, hiring translators to take care of logistics. Best of all, she lived half the year in Japan, half in the U.S., where she returned frequently to manage the domestic side of her company. They were going out that night for dinner: would I care to join them?
Since I was headed back to Boston in a few days, I had a date planned with Toru that I didn’t want to cancel, but I agreed to meet them earlier and have a drink while they ate. We gathered again in Shinsaibashi, outside the new Starbucks down the block from the restaurant, because I wouldn’t be able to find the place myself since the streets were all labeled in Japanese. It was cold, and I exited the subway station adjacent to the café in a long black-and-gray sweater coat I had brought from Boston, flared a little at the sleeves, shaped at the waist. I saw Lea standing next to a thin, brown-haired woman about my height, faint crow’s-feet tracing her large dark eyes, highlights streaking her head in a pattern just slightly chunkier and blonder than mine.
“Oh, my gawd, I love your coat!” Jodi gushed before we’d even concluded our requisite handshake, her New York accent betraying her childhood upstate.
I had, I knew, just found my first true friend in Japan.
SEVEN
WHEN I LEFT OSAKA A FEW days later, Toru and I had agreed on a few things. In April, I’d fly back to Japan with the frequent flyer miles I’d earned. This time, I’d apply for an extension of the ninety-day tourist visa and stay for four months or so. Then I’d return again in early December. I could still teach both semesters in Boston because my MBA writing seminars were only six-week courses. As for the prison, since the students weren’t going anywhere, they let me double up on class sessions for the term’s first half.
The other agreement Toru and I made was to marry.
We didn’t set a specific date, and neither one of us wanted a wedding. Toru thought it was a lot of fuss for nothing. I, as yet one more political statement, was firmly against the entire “wedding industry,” which I thought lured people into spending their life savings for a tacky dress, a rock derived from ethically questionable sources, and the false fantasy of a perfect day. Plus, I wanted to save for future flights home.
In Boston, my family took a similarly skeptical view, although not in support of my politics. My mother began vigorously researching Japan’s custody laws, enthusiastically pointing out the country’s failure to sign the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, meaning Japanese parents living globally have carte blanche to move their children back to Japan in the case of an international couple’s divorce. I promised my mother that, if I ever got pregnant, I would hire a lawyer.
“What in the world are you going to do over there?” my sister Lauren asked, one of the rare times she and my mother had agreed on anything. “Are you really going to use your Ph.D. to teach ESL?”
I imagined her curled up in her shabby-chic living room in Somerville, her scruffy-bearded, stay-at-home husband making an organic whole-wheat version of SpaghettiOs for their two kids. The shelves behind her would slope under the weight of her award-winning essays and books, and above them the diploma certifying her doctorate would hang: quiet trophies from the impressive career of an accomplished woman who had come so far from such a dim place. Upstairs, her aging dogs’ paws would clack peacefully across the wooden floorboards. “How can you give up so much of your life, give up your whole world, really, for a man? You, who’ve a
lways been so progressive!”
“I’m not giving it all up,” I retorted. “I’m only going to live in Japan part-time, like I’ve been doing,” I insisted. “It’s fascinating over there, and I’ll only be giving up half of my life, of my . . .” I heard myself, too late to retract my awkward phrasing, to deny the ways it felt terrifyingly close to true.
My eldest sister and her husband raised more practical concerns. They knew me, they knew my own materialism, and they saw potential trouble down the line. My brother-in-law had come from a hard-pressed, working-class Jewish family in Queens, his father perpetually in debt, his mother toiling long hours in a retail store to send him to private school. But then he’d gone on to Wharton, earned two graduate degrees at Harvard, and become a partner at a major asset-management company. Eventually, he started his own private-equity firm in Boston and stopped flying commercial: the kind of upward mobility both my parents staunchly sanctioned.
He and my sister took me out to lunch at the country club where they, along with my mother and stepfather, were members. My sister wore pleated shorts, my brother-in-law a golf shirt and sweater, sleeves rolled up above his Chopard watch. As we threaded the way to our table, well-fed, polo-shirted men popped up from their chairs, palms outstretched to shake my brother-in-law’s hand. Some clasped his shoulder, quipped about market fluctuations, deals, or their golf swings, nodding a quick greeting to my sister.
“How much does Toru actually earn?” my brother-in-law asked after we sat down, getting right to business as he tore into a freshly baked roll. My sister began pushing a chopped salad—no bacon, light dressing—around on her plate.