Alien Rice; A Novel.

by Ichiro Kawasaki

  "Welcome home!" Genzo said as he saw Saburo. Saburo introduced Alice to his father.

  "This is my wife, Alice, Father," he said bashfully and awkwardly.

  "Hajimemashite [How do you do?]"

  Alice greeted her father-in-law in Japanese. This was one of the few Japanese expressions she had managed to learn.

  Genzo looked at her intently. "Oh, you speak Japanese!"

  Then, turning to Saburo, he remarked, "She is a big woman, isn't she? Hasn't she got a baby yet?"

  After a few exchanges between Genzo and Alice (with the help of Saburo's interpretation), Mr. Tanaka looked more relaxed and even became amiable. The initial stiffness had given way to an air of intimacy. Alice, on her part, did not find Genzo any different from her father, except that Genzo did not understand English. Then she remembered a saying she had heard once, "You cannot hate a man whom you know."

  As they drove toward the city center Alice saw a suburban electric train which was packed to overflowing. The proverbial phrase, "packed sardines," was an under-statement. Streets were thronged with pedestrians and vehicles. There were traffic jams everywhere. Alice saw a young man standing by the roadside, nonchalantly following his natural urge to urinate. She was shocked.

  Saburo and Alice stayed at a downtown hotel. The lobby was so crowded that Alice became separated from her husband and nearly got lost before they reached the counter to check in. And how small the room was! The twin-bed room in which they stayed was not larger than a single room in a London hotel. There was hardly space to move about in the bath room. The tub was deep, about three feet square, and one had to squat when bathing. Everything was undersized: the bed, chair and even an electric socket.

  Saburo took Alice out later in the afternoon for a walk. They stopped at a department store near the hotel. The store was huge, and as imposing as Harrods or Selfridges. In the store, again, there were so many people that one had to elbow one's way through. Aisles between the counters were very narrow. There were salesmen and salesgirls all around, smiling and bowing. Alice's attention was drawn to a uniformed girl who was standing at the foot of an escalator, doing nothing but bowing to the incoming visitors.

  "What is that girl standing there for?" Alice asked.

  "She is greeting the customers as they come into the store and step on the escalator."

  "Is that all she does?" Alice inquired.

  "She is also there to watch the passengers, lest they should trip over the steps and get hurt."

  Obviously the unbelievable congestion within the store made such a precaution necessary.

  After leaving the department store, the couple went to nearby Hibiya Park. "This is the famous Hibiya Park, the largest in Tokyo," Saburo explained.

  "You say this is the largest park?" Alice could not believe it. Compared with Hyde Park or Regent's Park, Hibiya was so small and so shabby that it could hardly be called a park in the Western sense of the word.

  "How small and low these benches are!" remarked Alice, unable to hide her astonishment.

  On the way back to the hotel they happened to walk along a narrow street lined with rickety houses and open booths gaudily decorated with strange signs and banners. There, to her amazement and annoyance, Alice saw several young boys practicing baseball, their favorite game, unmindful of the traffic hazard.

  Overpopulation and lack of space were apparent everywhere.

  Saburo reported to the Head Office to start work on the day following his arrival. He first went to the section chief of the foodstuff department, who was to be his immediate chief. Without preliminaries the section chief said,

  "Tanaka, I'm afraid our foodstuff section is not doing well lately. Competition is keen and the margin of profit of our exports is falling. We must by hook or crook increase our profit for the coming six-month period by 20 percent. I want you to be in charge of the export of canned goods to Europe, since you know the area quite well."

  "I will do my best, Sir," Tanaka replied tersely.

  "By the way, Tanaka, I hear your wife is English. You may have some difficulty in your private life but I expect the fact of your wife being a foreigner not to interfere with the conduct of your work."

  Saburo sensed a certain reserve and felt that his chief disapproved of an East-West marriage as a matter of principle.

  Saburo Tanaka also detected a certain coolness toward him on the part of his colleagues. This was explained by the fact that only about 8 percent of the total staff of Tozai was normally posted in its overseas offices. Life in Europe or America has always been a coveted dream and cherished desire of Japanese in all walks of life. At Tozai, as everywhere else in Japan, there had always been keen competition to get a foreign assignment, which is hard to come by.

  Hence those left behind in Japan, going through grinding daily life in the overcrowded country, tended to look upon a new returnee from abroad with a sense of envy mingled with jealousy, if not hostility. And in regard to Saburo, jealousy was obviously greater now that he had come home with a Western wife.

  Tozai's Tokyo headquarters were huge. The entire staff of nearly five thousand was housed in an ultramodern nine-story ferroconcrete building. There were over a dozen departments dealing with iron ore, machinery, textiles and foodstuffs, and each department was subdivided into several sections.

  In Saburo Tanaka's section there were twenty workers, of whom five were girls who did miscellaneous work and also served hot Japanese tea to the male members of the section as well as to visitors. Those twenty employees were huddled into the small space allocated to the section. Even the section chief did not have an office of his own. He had a desk in the center while his junior clerks, each with a small desk, sat in rows, facing one another. Every worker could hear and see what the others were doing. There was absolutely no privacy.

  Most of these employees lived in company dormitories or apartments located in the suburbs of Tokyo. Some, of course, lived in their own homes or apartments. Usually it took an hour and a half of travel time from home to the office, which meant that the average worker spent at least three hours every day commuting in overcrowded buses or trains. The resultant physical strain was very great indeed.

  After staying a week in the hotel, the Tanakas moved to a company apartment near Yokohama, some fifteen miles southwest of Tokyo. The rent was a nominal 1,500 yen a month, but Saburo had to spend an hour and a half by bus and train to get to Tokyo. He chose Yokohama mainly because it was a little less crowded than Tokyo. Since Alice was expecting a baby within four months, she needed a quieter place. Also the choice was due in part to the fact that there was a sizable foreign colony there more concentrated than that in Tokyo, and Saburo had hoped that his wife would find some friends and would not be too lonely.

  The Tanaka apartment was one of fifty standard twenty-mat affairs,* housed in one big, drab-looking block, a three-story concrete structure. Each apartment was partitioned into two rooms, plus a tiny kitchen and bath room. The ceiling was so low that Alice nearly bumped her head at the entrance. The apartment was scantily furnished with the minimum chairs and tables, which, however, were so undersized that Alice felt as if she were now in Gulliver's Lilliput.

  There was a tiny strip of open ground, unkempt and covered with weeds, in front of each block of apartments. All over the apartment block the tenants hung their bedding in the sun, drying laundry on small balconies, presenting a scene of indescribable disorder. Alice could not hide her disillusionment.

  "Saburo, do all the company people live in a place like this? What sort of a house has Mr. Takahashi got in Tokyo?" Alice asked.

  "I've never been to his house but I understand that Mr. Takahashi used to live in a company house in the outskirts of Tokyo. Because of wartime destruction the housing situation in Japan is still very difficult, you know," Saburo replied.

  "Is the company house large?" Alice asked with curiosity, remembering Manager Takahashi's luxurious flat in West Kensington.

  "No, the house could not be
very pretentious. It is one of those small Japanese houses with a minuscule garden."

  As in London, Saburo spent most of his time away from home, both during the week and on weekends. He usually left at 7:30 A.M. and seldom came home before midnight. Now Saburo often came home quite intoxicated, with his breath smelling of sake.

  "My section now has to entertain very many clients. Personal relations are very important in Japan and no business can be done without first hosting a dinner party. We also have to entertain government officials."

  "Where do you entertain them?" Alice asked.

  "In a Japanese-style tea house, as a rule."

  Saburo did not go into details, but what happened was that after a normal meal in a restaurant or tea house, the participants, both hosts and guests, repaired to one of the bar and social club combinations found in profusion in the narrow lanes behind the Ginza, Tokyo's main thoroughfare. There they sipped sake and drank imported whisky and brandy and other fancy foreign drinks in the company of young waitresses and hostesses. Such a party would go on almost endlessly. After leaving one night club they would visit another club of their own patronage and then still another. This continuous drinking stint was a popular form of expense-account entertaining.

  One evening Saburo was drinking in a bar where he used to go, surrounded by a few hostesses. One of the waitresses spoke to him.

  "Tanaka-san, you don't seem to enjoy yourself here very much. Is anything wrong?"

  "Well, things tend to bother me lately."

  "That's too bad. I hear your wife is a Westerner, and they say that Western women are much more taxing physically and otherwise. You seem to be lacking the spunk you used to have. Do you feel it yourself?" The girl was half teasing.

  "I don't know," he said vacuously.

  In the Tozai staff housing compound, privacy was hard to maintain. Since each apartment was so small and all were built so closely together, everyone was subject to the prying eyes of all around him and was constantly exposed to the comment of others.

  Soon after the Tanakas moved in, a swarm of neighboring children started to peep through the windows. Apparently Alice was the center of curiosity. Children, as well as adults in the neighborhood, would spy on the Tanaka household to find out what they were eating or doing. Their curiosity knew no bounds. The occasional meal of beefsteak Alice prepared was commented on widely by the neighborhood housewives.

  "Mrs. Tanaka buys 400 grams [a pound] of beef almost every other day at the butcher's around the corner," Mrs. Watanabe, the next-door neighbor, was telling another neighbor one day.

  "Mr. Tanaka gets the same salary as my husband. How can they afford to do that, I wonder?" the other neighbor said.

  "Well, Mrs. Tanaka is a foreigner and she must be wealthy," Mrs. Watanabe replied.

  "But I hear Mrs. Tanaka was a typist or something in London, so she cannot be very rich," the other woman opined.

  Alice shopped for daily necessities in a shopping center outside the compound. She made it a point to ask the price of each item and compare prices of various competing stores before making a purchase, which was quite a normal thing for an Occidental to do. Japanese housewives, on the other hand, often made purchases on the spur of the moment and seldom compared prices.

  Kore ikura, meaning "How much is this?" was one of the first Japanese phrases Alice learned after arriving in Japan. Whenever she visited the shopping center she used the Japanese phrase. In no time, both among the shopkeepers and her neighbors, Alice was nicknamed "Madame Kore-ikura," the connotation being that she was a woman of somewhat mean and exacting character. One evening Alice asked her husband,

  "Saburo, whenever I go shopping in the center salesgirls chuckle and mutter Madame Kore-something and whisper among themselves. I feel most uncomfortable. What does Madame Kore-something mean?"

  "It must be your nickname. Since you say kore-ikura? or 'how much is this' they just make fun of you."

  "Oh, they are so rude. And those kids in the neighborhood who come round and peep into our apartment, they are so ill-mannered! Can't they mind their own business?" Alice was furious.

  "Well, in Japan people live so compactly that one cannot be unconcerned with what others do or say. Their interests are so closely interwoven. If, for instance, an individual occupies more than the normal space for a house, the other hundred million people would have that much less room. So they criticize the individual and try to dissuade him from occupying such a spacious lot.

  "Also, because of the extreme congestion of the country, if anyone behaves a little bit differently from others he attracts too much attention and is the object of considerable criticism. Many unpleasant things in Japan stem from this very fact of too many people living in too small a space," Saburo observed.

  Alice had heard of the Union Club of Yokohama as a meeting place for foreign residents in Japan. The club was located on the Bluff, a hillside section of the city overlooking the harbor. It was a club which was first founded by the British residents for their exclusive use but latterly, with the influx of American businessmen, it had become more international and was open to foreigners of all nationalities.

  One afternoon Alice happened to be shopping in Motomachi in downtown Yokohama and, as she had some time left, decided to explore the Bluff area. There she spotted the Union Club, amid comfortable homes and bungalows whose spacious gardens reminded her of the southwestern suburbs of London. It was on the Bluff that most well-todo foreigners lived. What a difference, this Bluff area, from where she lived, Alice thought to herself.

  The lobby had a Victorian air about it, and Alice entered with some diffidence, avoiding the usual stares reserved for strangers by members of such a club. In the main lounge she saw a middle-aged woman who looked British. She appeared haggard, however, and had a sallow complection. The two recognized each other as com-patriots and felt a certain kinship, so conversation ensued quite naturally.

  "Good afternoon. Are you a newcomer?" the woman inquired.

  "Yes. I arrived in Japan only two months ago," Alice replied.

  "I've been here nearly twenty years. I am married to a Japanese but I originally come from London."

  Alice was pleasantly surprised.

  "Oh, I'm married to a Japanese, too. I am Alice Burns. My husband works for the Tozai Trading Company. We used to live in London but now my husband works in their Head Office."

  "Well, what a coincidence! I am Lilian Hailey. I, too, was married in London to Hideo Saito, employee of a Japanese shipping company. My husband works in the Yokohama office. We've had only one foreign assignment since London, that was in San Francisco soon after the war. The rest of the time in Japan. I'm longing to go abroad again."

  Alice was overjoyed to meet this woman, who must be in similar circumstances and who shared the same problems as herself.

  "How are you getting along in Japan? Life does not seem to be very easy for us here," Alice asked.

  "Well, when I arrived in Japan I was so shocked that I almost wanted to go back to England the same day. Then the war came but still I stayed on because of my children. I'm stuck here." Lilian Saito said sadly.

  "Are there many foreign wives like us?" Alice asked.

  "Oh, heaps! There is even an organization in Tokyo called the Society of Foreign Wives. But not many of us seem to be happy. We never can integrate into Japanese society, because the Japanese world is meant for men. Once in a while there are some enterprising foreign women who make a lot of money by taking advantage of Japanese. But I am not that sort. Besides, the climate here is enervating and the food poor and insipid. Many Europeans, when they arrive here, have healthy reddish complections, but in time they invariably lose their color. The Japanese are proud of their fat, juicy pears and strawberries, but their fruits and vegetables are all watery and tasteless. There must be a certain organic element lacking in the soil."

  "Are your children doing well?" Alice inquired.

  "Not really. It's a big problem. There is absolutel
y no place for the children of mixed blood here and no future for them. Fortunately my children both happen to be girls. I send them to St. Mary's College in the hope that they will one day marry Westerners and live abroad.

  "We must see each other often from now on. We have so many things in common and have to commiserate."

  Alice's heart sank as Mrs. Lilian Saito finished her grumbling.

  A few months after Saburo's return to Japan, the director of his department was going to London on a business trip. Alice had met this director casually in the London office a year before.

  "Our director, Sasaki, is going to London and New York next week," Saburo casually mentioned to Alice. Saburo seldom talked about company affairs with Alice at home, especially since his wife no longer worked at Tozai. But one evening, quite accidentally, he spoke about Sasaki's trip to Alice, since Alice was no stranger to Sasaki.

  "Is that the same director who came to London about a year ago?" Alice asked.

  "Yes, the director visits Europe and America at least twice a year as a rule, but when there is urgent business he goes oftener, sometimes three or four times a year," Saburo explained.

  "How long does each of his trips last, as a rule?" Alice asked.

  "It depends, but his travel schedule usually is very tight. For example, on the coming trip the director is to stay two days in London, a day in Hamburg, and on his way back he will stop at New York for two days and San Francisco for one day."

  "Does the director travel first class?"

  "Yes, he is entitled to go first class. The air fare for his coming trip is 2,500 dollars and his per diem is 30 dollars."

  "Does he really have to make such an expensive trip?" Alice asked.

  "Well, it is for the purpose of consultation with branch office people." Saburo did not elaborate.

  What Alice could not comprehend was that the company which could afford to spend so much money on these trips did not pay its personnel enough to maintain a more decent standard of living. She also wondered if the extravagant expense-account spending of the company was not responsible for the pitifully small pay which her husband was now getting. The more Alice pondered on the matter, the more baffled she became. Surely something was wrong somewhere.