Memoirs of a Eurasian

by Vivian Yang

  Man was quick to apologize. “Sorry that was a slip of the tongue. I didn’t mean it disparagingly. I was just saying the demographics ... the demographics …” I had never seen him so incoherent.

  “Don’t worry. I’m above that.”

  “Uncle Fly!”

  “Darling! How have you been? All settled down?”

  “Can’t say all but I’m getting there and doing well, very busy though. Just want to tell you that my Hong Kong birth has been verified so technically Hua Wen’s sponsorship is no longer necessary. However, he did hire me to be a managerial trainee and I got to attend a ball at The Peninsula where he just launched a new clothing label.”

  “Congratulations on your birth verification and on getting the job. Are you still at the same flat?” his voice trailed off.

  I knew at once what he was hinting at. “Yes, but I’ve always been here by myself. I made it clear to him from the beginning that I’m an independent girl … he’s actually a decent guy and I’m really learning things on the job here.”

  “You rent from him, then?”

  “N-not yet … this place is beyond my budget b-but … I’ll look for another place … soon.”

  There was dead airtime.

  “Did you dance at the ball?”

  “No! Oh, please understand, Uncle Fly, it was all work for me as a junior staff member and I had taken the initiative to be included. It was a great eye-opener for me to see how things are done from planning to execution. I observed and kept mental notes of everything as one day I want to be on my own ... I told you that before.”

  “I see.”

  “I … I was actually thinking of you while at The Pen ... what it might have been like for you as a boy staying there.”

  “You still remember.” His tone of voice softened.

  “Of course, Uncle Fly. I remember everything you told me. Anyway, h-how are you? What’s new in Shanghai?”

  There was a pause. “It’s not the same without … y-you … and what’s new? Lots of gentrification going on in the former concessions and the Orthodox Church has finally fallen into private hands.”

  “Really?” I asked excitedly. “Do you know who and what are they going to use it for?”

  “Ah Fang heard that the money came from Japan, a few returnees running the show.”

  “Was the one who had wanted to open the game restaurant involved?” I asked, thinking of a possible Coach Long connection.

  “I don’t know, but the restaurant is defunct. Supply problem.”

  “Good.” I stopped, knowing we were both thinking of Daisy.

  “They’re gutting the church and seem to know what they’re doing. I went over the other day with Peter to take a look and … it’s a shame you weren’t here.”

  “You mean Shanghai or the church?”

  He answered irrelevantly. “You were bedazzling that time we were there.”

  I curbed the urge to tell him the possibility that Coach Long could be the backer and that Condiments and his clique could be the ones doing the work. It was best that Uncle Fly never knew about Coach Long, or Ryu Hideo’s existence, I thought. “Someday I will make it big and become a real hero,” Coach Long’s voice echoed in my mind. He may in fact be finally pursuing a business venture in Shanghai.

  “Also,” Uncle Fly suddenly resumed, “several municipal officials before the Cultural Revolution got de-purged and had their stripped Party memberships reinstated. Apparently they had been wronged, can you believe that?”

  Ignoring his sarcasm, I asked in an urgent voice, “Was former Cultural Bureau Chief Chen who committed suicide included?”

  “Yes, I believe he was on the top of the list. What else … well Peter mentioned that the Russian violinist …”

  I dropped the phone. Hastily picking it up, I apologized. “Sorry about that, the handset slipped off. You were saying – ”

  “Yes, this bloke called from Tokyo to inquire about your mother after not getting an answer from his letter to her in care of the Conservatoire.”

  “Mick Popov ended up in Tokyo, too?”

  “Seems like it. He may just as easily bump into her at some concert. By the way, any word from her?”

  “No. I wrote her right after I got here but never got a reply. I don’t think she wants to be in touch anymore. She couldn’t leave me faster enough. I have always been an orphan emotionally … until I met you, that is.”

  There was another spell of silence.

  “Thank you, darling … it was so nice that you called. Take care of yourself …”

  My voice cracked. “You too, Uncle Fly … Au revoir!”

  “Au revoir!”

  18 A Query from Tokyo

  Although Man came to Club Mandarin regularly, he and I rarely had the opportunity to talk. I had seen him going into one of the private rooms with a tastefully bejeweled lady I was convinced was Helen Jen. Both Man and the modish woman with a defined yet slightly sagging chin appeared to be avoiding eye contact with me. Keeping in mind Uncle Fly’s wish not to have me meet Helen Jen, I held back my urge to verify her identity.

  I tried to learn as much as I could about the Mandarin Club’s daily operations and jotted down its managerial procedures, fanticizing that the new owner of the former Russian Orthodox Church in Shanghai, whether or not he was connected to Ryu Hideo, would convert it into a restaurant. If that were to be the case, I might make a special trip to see the venue and talk to the people there, not to mention seeing Uncle Fly. Remembering Condiments’ rude avoidance of my question about Ryu Hideo, I wondered if he was one of Ryu’s “buddies” in Japan that was sent packing by the big boss.

  Listening to music was a new hobby after buying a second hand CD player from Apliu Street, the Kowloon electronics bazaar. The stall vendor gave me a few “throw-in” CDs, one of which was The Byrds’ Turn! Turn! Turn! I was surprised and thrilled to discover that its lyrics were almost verbatim from The Ecclesiastes.

  I knew I would wait for the right time to see Uncle Fly again.

  From the same source came an electric typewriter, as a personal computer was beyond my budget. Unlike Mother, I never laid my hands on a piano. Learning to touch type was the closest to it.

  From the dictionary, I had the words down -- abasement to azure; zeitgeist to Zen. Dao De Jing and the Taoist concept of Wu Wei -- knowing when and when not to act or to believe.

  And The Byrds were singing in the background:

  To everything - turn, turn, turn.

  There is a season - turn, turn, turn.

  And a time for every purpose under heaven.

  The latest issue of The Mandarin Literati, a complimentary copy of which I saw in the Club, printed my “Initial Impressions” entry with little editing. With that I became a published (letter) writer, in English at that! I could hardly contain my excitement when I next saw Man.

  “Thanks for using my two cents in the first impressions’ column,” I said. “You should have told me beforehand so I could have been looking forward to it.”

  “Sorry I never got a chance. Glad you liked it but next time we may print some letters rebuffing your opinion.”

  “I’ll definitely want to read those. By the way, how have I been doing on the job front, Boss Wah?”

  He laughed. “You’re doing just fine so keep up the good work.”

  All at once I couldn’t wait any longer. “By the way, was the lady I saw you with in the private room Helen Jen?”

  “Ahh, y-yes. Now if you would excu…”

  “I’m sorry but is there something that I should know about her that I’m not being told?”

  “N-nothing I’m aware of. Incidentally, do you know anyone currently living in Japan?” He asked as an afterthought, clearly trying to change the subject.

  “Yes, I do. Why?”

  Man stared at me funny, weighing whether to resume.

  “My mother contacted you?” I ventured.

  Man’s tone of voice became tense. “She lives in Japan?”r />
  “Yes, in Tokyo, as far as I know. Her name is Mo Nadi, or Nadia Mo. Did she contact you from Japan?”

  “Nadia? Wait, you are that ille- … that child of Miss Nadia, the one who taught piano at the Wah residence years ago?”

  I stared at him. “I can’t believe it! You were the rich brat that she used to teach? She got in touch with you recently?”

  Man shook his head and muttered under his breath “Christ!” He wrapped his arm around my waist and steered me over. “Come with me to my office,” he said.

  As we entered he said, “You might want to take this sitting down.”

  I sat on the edge of the lime green upholstered sofa across from his desk as he searched in a drawer. As though to quell misgivings in himself, he said, “You know when you print a small pamphlet, people send you all sorts of crazy things … and this one crossed my mind when it first came in and then … well, anyway, here it is.” He passed me a letter and clasped his hands together.

  The Editor

  The Mandarin Literati

  P. O. Box 10280

  Central Station

  Hong Kong

  Dear Editor:

  I am writing with an idea for a feature story. I hope that my suspicion that a Chinese friend of mine was the victim of cannibalism here in Japan will be proven false but trust that you can help bring about an awareness of this most distressing incident if it proves to be true.

  Two weeks ago, during a routine search of Aokigahara, a lush forest nestled at the foot of Mt. Fuji famous for Japanese seeking to commit suicide, police discovered six sections of a female human body stuffed in two heavy-duty garbage bags and squeezed into a large black canvas suitcase closed with a FOREVER brand padlock. Both of the last items were made in China and neither was available in Japan. It was apparent that the corpse belonged to a homicide victim rather than a suicide one as parts of the flesh from the breasts, biceps, inner and outer thighs had been sliced off sashimi-style. The severed head has not yet been located but her arm pit hairs and pubic mound were a smoky brown. The forensics experts have concluded that the corpse belonged to a female 35-45 years of age who was fifty percent Caucasian and fifty percent Northeast Asian -- defined as being of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean race. The Yamanashi Prefecture Police have not conclusively determined the identity of the deceased although they have named Japanese national Matoko Mori, who himself was later killed, to be the suspect responsible for the murder-cannibalism of the female victim. They also pressed murder charges against a Chinese man living illegally in Japan under the alias of Ryu Hideo for Mori’s death.

  Like millions of other Greater Tokyo residents, I learned about the murder-cannibalism in grotesque details from the media. It immediately reminded me of Kazumasa Sagawa, the acquitted Japanese cannibalistic murderer popularized by the 1983 Mick Jagger song Too Much Blood:

  A friend of mine was this Japanese.

  He had a girlfriend in Paris.

  He tried to date her in six months and eventually she said yes.

  You know he took her to his apartment, cut off her head.

  Put the rest of her body in the refrigerator, ate her piece by piece.

  Put her in the refrigerator, put her in the freezer.

  And when he ate her and took her bones to the Bois de Boulogne,

  By chance a taxi driver noticed him burying the bones.

  You don't believe me?

  Truth is stranger than fiction.

  The publication of Sagawa’s memoirs (“The flesh of her butt is incredibly soft and juicy like genuine filet.”) and a self-illustrated comic book each chronicling the murder of his girlfriend has turned him into a media darling, with critics calling his illustrated manga “a sashimi epicure’s ultimate gourmet guide.” His books’ reception has been phenomenal. The police have not ruled out the possibility of a copycat Makoto Mori imitating the murderer-turned best-selling author. The murder victims had one thing in common -- being Caucasian, either pure or partial. Mr. Sagawa’s victim at the Sorbonne was Dutch. Sagawa admitted in his memoirs that he had always been fascinated by Caucasian women’s “snowy white flesh” and wondered how it would taste.

  A brief background of myself: I was a violin instructor for young adults in New York City before completing a one-year teaching assignment at the Affiliated Middle School of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music last summer. I fell in love with Asia and decided to stay in the region. After some research in Hong Kong, I went to Japan, the empire of the sun, the Shinkansen bullet train, and the Suzuki method for music, and became one of thousands of gaijin (foreigners) in Japan working as a “Native English (euphemism for Caucasian) Teacher”. American English, not its British counterpart, is most enthusiastically embraced here, so good luck was waiting for this 29-year-old yours truly, known as the Amerika-jin Popov sensei (teacher).

  It is my freelance work, not my English teaching that enables me to rent a 6-tatami-mat-sized room in Tokyo. I put on a robe of a Western clergyman and perform wedding ceremonies for young Japanese couples in front of makeshift hotel lobby altars in Amerika-eigo (English). Strange as it may sound to folks in the West, a Caucasian face has been known to sell everything from canned sodas to votes here in Japan. A balding Bruce Willis is featured in practically every automated vending machine sipping a popular carbonated drink bearing the name Calpis. Don’t ask. Richard Gere, the star of “Red Corner”, in which he played a hotshot American businessman in China engulfed in a one-night stand with a Chinese sex kitten, would know the feeling first hand. This actor of “American Gigolo” fame, with his squinting eyes and wavy mane, epitomizes the ideal looks obtainable by aspiring Japanese. A household name since starring in Akira Kurosawa’s “Rhapsody in August” as a Hawaiian nisei Japanese-American, Gere has been linked to “the best Western-style suited man”, the politician Junichiro Koizumi, who sports a wavy salt-and-pepper hairdo much like Gere’s.

  Last Wednesday afternoon, a Chinese woman whom I’ll refer to as WH appeared in my English class and broke the ice with an outrageous proposal. “Popov sensei,” she began, looking straight into my eyes. Such boldness would be inconceivable from Japanese women who are culturally conditioned to avoid eye contact with men with a kind of affected coyness. “I can make you the richest English teacher in Japan. You must have heard about the body in Aokigahara, the man who ate parts of her, and his murderer. I know everything about the woman who was killed, the man who killed her, and the man who killed her killer. I can give you all the information for one million yen (about US$10,000), cash, and you can sell it for a lot more and keep the difference.”

  “Excuse me, I have to go,” I snickered.

  “Mo Nadi, your co-teacher in Shanghai!” WH called out.

  I stopped in my tracks. Mo Nadi, whose Western name was Nadia Molotova, was the half-Russian half-Chinese colleague I had an affair with at the Conservatory.

  “I see I have your attention now. You don’t know me but I know who you are. Do you think I would just go to any English teacher in Tokyo to propose this? I practically grew up in the Conservatory and maintain close ties to it today. Your letter to Teacher Mo was never answered, was it? And that’s because she was in Japan herself.”

  “She was?” I blurted out, astonished. “Since when?”

  “That’s not important anymore as she’s already been slain and mutilated. If you want to hear more, agree on a number first. Three quarters of a million?”

  “Wait. Tell me first about how I can get in touch with her.”

  “I told you she’s dead -- murdered and partially eaten by Makoto Mori. It’s all in the press.” She stuck an open palm before me.

  I couldn’t bear to hear this but I wanted to hear more. I handed her a 10,000-yen note and said, “But they haven’t positively identified the victim.”

  “I have. It has to be Teacher Mo. She had fights with Hideo over him not loaning her money to buy a piano. The money she made from Snow White Saloon was not enough. And Hideo had been furious over her
forbidding him to sponsor her daughter to come to Japan. Teacher Mo had threatened to expose Hideo’s identity to the Immigration Bureau of Japan if he did. Anyway, Teacher Mo got picked up by Mori-san and put up in this manshon in Hiroo. It must’ve been during their Hakone hot springs trip that Mori-san sliced her up for sashimi and sent her decomposing body off to Aokigahara. When Hideo realized that Teacher Mo was missing, he tracked Mori-san down and killed him but now he is on death row for that.”

  “Sounds like a lot of it is your speculation. How can you be certain?”

  “Just the instinct of a girl from Shanghai,” WH piped snappily. “Besides, how many people in Japan have sekushii (sexy) natural wavy and smoky brown hair like her?”

  I swallowed a breath of air. “Have you filed a missing person’s report?”

  “No, and I don’t plan to. I’m not stupid enough to ‘beat the grass and startle the snakes,’ – the Immigration, you know. Anyway, with all these unexpected happenings I may be forced to return to Shanghai before they deport me. I’ve told you everything and my own circumstances. Now you pay the balance, please.”