11. High School

After my father passed away, my mother, older sister and I lived together in Kurume where I enrolled in the local junior high school. Although money was tight and we lived modestly, I must say I enjoyed this fleeting moment of tranquility in our lives. Unfortunately, by my third year of junior high, my grandfather and his wife decided to adopt me.

Whatever their motivations, I was desperately against the arrangement, but my mother bowed to her father-in-law’s ultimatum. As a result, I had no choice but to move back to Kurakata, where I reluctantly took the entrance exam of a local high school. I didn’t really want to pass the exam at first; however, on the day of the test I happened to run into some old friends from elementary school. Seeing them, my mood lifted somewhat, and, with a little luck, I managed to pass. Two months later, in early April, my high school life began.

It was 1964, the year of the Tōkyō Summer Olympics. A generation that knew little of the destructive war that had ended only 19 years earlier had become adults. In the meantime, Japan steadily modernized: The transportation system, such as trains and buses, were improving. More and more families had a TV set, a washing machine, and a rice cooker; more leisure time to enjoy themselves. Society was changing, too: you could say there was more freedom and democracy. But, while the life of the average Japanese was tangibly much better than ever, my own went from bad to worse.

There were three live-in maids, plus an additional three or four apprentice nurses in our home at the time. They came into my grandfather’s employ in order to support their families once they had finished junior high school, the minimum compulsory education. We were all about the same age. While they did the housework, cleaning, washing and cooking, in our house, I went to high school.[1]

Now that I look back on it, I suppose that Hiroko must have been happy at first to have a daughter she could call her own, but such sentiments didn’t last long. For one, I was never able to warm up to her and refused to call her my mother no matter what a document at City Hall said.

Complicating matters were rumors about Hiroko that I had heard from my own parents. Looking back, I suppose I should have been more mature, more tempered in my judgment toward the woman, and given her the benefit of the doubt. That, however, was impossible for a sixteen-year-old high school girl who felt as if she had been kidnapped.

No sooner did I start going to high school than the harassment began. Hiroko did all she could do to stoke up envy among the young maids. One day I overheard her talking to them about what a good-for-nothing I was, how I never helped out with the housework. She then gave them firm instructions: none of them were to ever assist me, even if I asked nicely. And so, the very next day, one of Hiroko’s lackies prepared a miserable lunch on purpose and handed it to me with a cold, hard look.

One evening, Hiroko told me that it was time for me to take my bath. I had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss, so I went to the bathroom. In Japan, the head of the household customarily takes a bath first, and in our home that person was my grandfather. On this particular evening, however, he was out for a meeting, so Hiroko suggested that I go ahead and bathe.

As I put my leg into the bath, I was shocked to discover that the water was scalding hot, far too hot for anyone to take a bath. In those days, bath water was heated by a fire just outside of the house. If the fire burned too hot, the bath water could boil. If the fire burnt out, the water would cool. As you might expect, it was difficult to maintain the temperature of the water just as you liked it.

I called down to a maid to add some cold water from the well outside as tap water alone wasn’t enough to cool the water.

Hiroko stopped the maid, saying in a hushed tone, “You shouldn’t help Motoko. She needs to start pulling her own weight in our house.”

I was dumbstruck. Wasn’t I doing what she had told me to do in the first place? But that was typical of her in those early days. No matter what I did, she would manipulate it and use it as one more opportunity to criticize me in front of the others, further hardening their hearts against me.

Only then did I realize what was going on behind my back. I had never heard words so full of venom, but they encouraged me to stand up on my own two legs, to become independent. And from that day on, I did almost everything without any of the others’ help.

Now, going to school in the morning was no trouble at all for me in those days, but returning home always made me feel sick to my stomach. I never knew what to expect and just coping was a daily struggle. Hiroko would spy on me, waiting for any chance to embarrass or scold me in front of the others. If I received a letter, she would open it before I returned home from school. One day, a boy from my high school wrote to me, so she read it aloud before the live-in staff then laughed with derision. This constant—drip, drip, drip—of harassment and bullying almost drove me mad.

One day on my way back from school, my head was clouded with peculiar thoughts such that I felt as if I were losing my mind. It was so odd: I wondered why a person stopped when the signal turned red. And now that I had stopped, I no longer remembered how to walk. I just stood there at the crosswalk, disoriented. How on earth will I ever learn to walk again? I wondered. Should I start with my right foot or left? Now that I think about it, I was probably exhibiting signs of neurosis.

It’s no wonder then that I was often physically ill in those days. I once broke out in a terrible, painful rash. Even though my grandfather was a famous dermatologist, I couldn’t tell him or his wife. So, I just suffered in silence.

After several months of this abuse, I started to miss my real mother and sister and decided to travel to Kurume to visit them. It was just after the end of the first term of my first year in high school, and summer vacation had begun. The trip seemed to take forever, but at long last I had returned.

“Tadaima!” I called out when I arrived. “I’m home!”

My mother gave me a long hard look and, then rather coldly said, “You’ve changed.”

I happened to be wearing an expensive order-made dress. It was not the simple casual dress most high school students wore in those days, so when my mother saw me in it, she grew wary of me.

Hiroko had made me wear the dress the day before. I suppose that she had hoped to convey to my mother that I was being taken care of, but the extravagance ended up sending the wrong message.

And if the cold welcome wasn’t a rude awakening enough, I received another shocking blow the following morning. When I sat down at the table and started to have breakfast with my sister, my mother remained standing in a corner of the kitchen. I told her to join us, but for some reason she wouldn’t come to the table. Urging her to take a seat, I looked under the table to pull a stool out for her only to discover that there wasn’t one. Only then did it dawn on me, that my mother had not bought a chair for me. The one I was sitting on was hers. A cold sweat dripped down my back as I realized that I no longer belonged in her home in Kurume and should not have come back.

And so, thoughts filled with dread, I walked back to the station by myself and boarded the train for Kurakata. I do not know why, but I didn’t cry out. Instead, I trembled—the whole way back—terrified of the hardship the coming years had in store for me.

Mustering what little strength I had left within me, I resolved then and there that no matter how badly my step-mother treated me, I would just have to grin and bear it, if only to make life for my mother and sister easier. I no longer cared what would happen to me so long as the two of them were okay.

---

[1] Unlike in the United States, high school in Japan lasts only three years, from grade 10 to 12.

A Silent Ovation is available in print and digital version at Amazon.

9. Death of My Father

In the autumn of 1954, my father, Yūki, moved from Fukuoka to Kurume City in the south of the prefecture where he worked as a professor of dermatology at the university. He lived in a boarding house near his office, staying alone during the week as he always had and returning to Kurakata on Friday evenings to assist at his father’s clinic on Saturdays. He would go back to Kurume early Monday morning by “express train”, which in those days took about 90 minutes.

Even when he was home, he would continue to do his research, make dictations, or study English while listening to “Ringer Phone” records. Sometimes he enjoyed listening to classical music and would pretend to be the famous Wilhelm Furtwängler or Herbert von Karajan conducting an imaginary orchestra.

My father also listened to the music from movies, such as Doris Day’s “Que Sera, Sera” from the Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much. I remember humming along with the tune when I was only eight years old even though I had no idea what the lyrics meant.

“Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be.”

Little did I know then that this song would help me get through the difficulties I would face in later life.

My father’s favorite pastime, though, was watching movies and he used to take me to a theater in town since I was the only person in our house who had any free time. The movies depended on whatever was popular at the time and we went almost every weekend. My biggest concern during these outings was whether my father had money on him or not. One day when we reached the theater, he suddenly turned to me and asked, “Have you got any money on you?” I was only six or seven years old, but I was shocked to discover that my father could be so unreliable. From then on, I always asked if he had money before we departed. Everyone in the family remembers this and still gets a good laugh out of it. “How undependable Yūki was!”

Another one of his pastimes was walking our dogs. As he approached our house on Fridays, the dogs would begin to bark excitedly and welcome him home. Shigeru would get particularly excited and bark loudly, begging to be taken for a walk. Despite being tired, my father would grip the dog’s leash. To be honest, it was actually Shigeru who took his master out for these long walks.

 I did not know whether my father liked saké or not, but I have heard that his drinking could be excessive. That said, he could hold his liquor better than most people, so I never really saw him drunk in our house.

He used to drink a big mug of beer at dinner when he came home. Since no one fussed over him much, I would sit at the table beside him. One evening, he wanted me to join him in drinking beer even though I couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old. Unable to resist, I drank the beer he gave me. The moment I did, my face turned red and I became very chatty. My father called my mother and, unable to control his laughing, said. “Motoko’s drunk. Give her some medicine.” The taste of the medicine was so bitter that I vowed never to drink beer again.

Happy memories such as these, common in any family, sadly came to an abrupt end.

In the autumn of 1959, my father became severely ill. By the time he was operated upon, the stomach cancer was at such an advanced stage that the situation was hopeless. There would be no treatment, no cure, just a slow, agonizing goodbye. My mother moved to Kurume to be at his side and take care of him.

I was never told how serious his condition was, but a few months later in early 1960 my mother called Taichirō on the phone and asked him to let me go and live with them in Kurume during his final days. At the time, my elder sister was boarding with a family in Fukuoka where she was enrolled in a private high school. It would be the first and only time for me to live with my parents in peace without any interference from others.

With my mother at our home in Kurakata

Compared to Kurakata, Kurume was much larger, more modern and sophisticated. It was warmer, too. The world-renowned Bridgestone Tire Company and other major companies related to the rubber industry were located in the city, and the town was filled with the hustle and bustle of companies’ workers and their families.

In his final months, my father never got angry and my mother never dared go against his opinions which allowed the three of us to enjoy a peaceful, albeit short-lived, chapter in our lives.

After a ten-month-long battle with cancer, my father finally succumbed on the 8th of August 1960. His death was an agonizing one—both physically and emotionally—for he took many of his many hopes and dreams with him to the grave. Eager to not only continue on with his research, he had also wanted to solve the intractable troubles facing his family. This tragic theme would unfortunately be revisited time and time again like the mournful chorus of my life.

I was in the sixth grade of elementary school at the time of his death, but already felt much older.

---

A Silent Ovation is available in print and digital version at Amazon.

8. Enter Hiroko

By the mid 1950s, ten years had passed since the end of the war but the social situation was still unstable and life in Japan was somewhat backwards. Women in those days still wore loose-fitting dowdy work trousers, called mompé. There were dirty-looking beggars and street urchins milling about here and there; homeless people camped out under bridges; injured veterans, still in their shabby old uniforms, wandered aimlessly about on crutches. They would play songs on out of tune accordions at the seasonal festivals in town. In those days, we could still see the debris of buildings or houses that had been destroyed in the bombings. Many which still stood had been painted black or had windows covered to hide them from America’s B-29 Superfortress bombers.

My grandfather’s dermatology clinic in Kurakata, however, was so successful that he was able to support a large number of people, including not only his wife and children, but their families, as well. He also employed more than ten male and female servants in his home.

People were always coming and going at our house. One of them was my grandfather’s butler who helped him with his letters or ran errands in his place. Another was a mercer, or dealer in fine textiles, who procured the silk for our kimonos and cotton for our western-style clothes. There were also run-of-the-mill street thugs and shake-down artists who would brashly demand a beer when they ate lunch or dinner in our home whenever they would come over to extort money from my grandfather.

My grandmother, Kanamé, was not what might be called the typical “good Japanese wife” for her husband. Taichirō would sometimes get annoyed with her temperamental character, but she took good care of him and her grandchildren regardless. Best of all, she always made a big show of the yearly events, such as the Tanabata star festival in July, the Tsukimi moon-viewing in autumn, and so on. Kanamé also introduced European events and customs into our home, such as Christmas meals and Christmas present exchanges. She even did sumo wrestling with her grandsons. Sometimes she gave us snacks which she would remove from the bosom of her kimono. These little surprises always delighted us.

I’ve heard from people outside the family that Kanamé could be rather strict and demanding of others. She had a rigid, unbending character, and because of it, she might not have always been as understanding of someone like her daughter-in-law—namely, my mother—as one would have hoped. Still, the time did eventually come when Kanamé realized that her daughter in-law was without fault. She also had several expensive kimonos made for her as a way of showing her gratitude.

In the early 50s, Kanamé suffered from lung cancer and had to be hospitalized at Kyūshū University Hospital in Fukuoka City. She was treated for the disease which, I suspect, must have been caused by the air pollution in the coal mining town. I remember visiting her and staying one night in the same bedroom with her. I couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time, but I can still smell the antiseptic solution of that room.

Early the next morning I took a walk around the hospital buildings. The outer walls had been painted black. Here and there the paint was peeling.

When I returned to Kurakata, I asked my mother why the buildings were painted black and why the hospital was so dark inside. She answered that it had been done so that U.S would not be able to find them from their bombers. I was too young to completely comprehend the situation. Nevertheless, in my own way, I could understand. In those days, we could still see a lot of traces of the war, but like the peeling of the paint, reminders of the violent past were disappearing.

After her treatment, Kanamé returned to our home in Kurakata but sadly passed away on June 5th, 1953 at the age of 63. Her funeral was conducted on a rather large scale in a temple and Taichirō had a large tomb built on a hill for her.

I’ll never forget the day of her funeral because it took place on my fifth birthday. Naturally, my birthday party was canceled and, even though I was only a child, I understood that I had to behave with respect.

After our grandmother Kanamé died, none of our birthdays were ever celebrated again. And the annual events we children had always looked forward to also fell by the wayside.

A year after my grandmother passed away, my father Yūki moved to Kurume University in the south of the prefecture to become a professor of dermatology while the rest of us remained in Kurakata. The biggest change to our lives, however, came the day that Taichirō introduced our family to a woman named Hiroko.

My father in a lab coat conducting a lecture about common psoriasis

I heard that Taichirō first met Hiroko through the proprietress of an inn and had been keeping her as a mistress in Fukuoka. From that day on, Hiroko began to frequent our home, lavishing us with gifts whenever she visited. One time she brought a cute white Persian cat and a pedigree Cocker Spaniel like the one that appeared in the popular Disney movie “Lady and the Tramp”. We were a little surprised by the extravagance of her gift, but happily welcomed the new pets into our home.

Hiroko was born into a wealthy family in Shimonoseki City and her mother, a graduate of Tōkyō Women’s Higher Normal School[1], had married three times. Rumor had it that Hiroko’s biological mother was uncertain as to who the real father was when she became pregnant early in her third marriage. So as to eliminate any doubt in her new husband’s mind, she gave the baby up for adoption. The elder sister of one of her maids who was childless took on the responsibility for raising the baby.

Hiroko’s biological father was a businessman who sold shipping supplies and materials. During Japan’s various wars in the late 19th and 20th centuries, he made a fortune—so much so that he could afford to donate a fighter plane to the Japanese Armed Forces. Hiroko once showed me a photo of the man. The spitting image of her father, there really should never have been any doubt in the matter.

Hiroko’s story was corroborated by the fact that many of her blood relatives went on to graduate from top-name universities. Her cousin’s son, for instance, graduated from the prestigious Keiō University and became a doctor; her younger sister’s husband was a professor of German at Tōkyō University, and so on. Later on, these relatives would sometimes visit my grandfather’s house where they talked about their work and interests. They had good taste and were all very stylish. Even as a small child, I could sense that their status was much higher than the others living in in Kurakata.

My own parents once met Hiroko’s mother, her younger sister, and their relatives in Tōkyō. Upon my mother’s return to Kurakata, she said that they were all good, sensible people. I suppose that the relationship between my parents and Hiroko’s relatives could have been better if only they had had more chances to meet with them. Unfortunately, things did not go well. I do not know what had happened between Hiroko and her relatives, but the relationship soured.

As you might imagine, Hiroko’s own life was filled with dramatic ups and downs. Discarded by her true, biological mother just after her birth in 1914, she was adopted by a respectable, yet stern woman. Later on, Hiroko’s adopted mother would sometimes come to stay with us in Kurakata to take care of my grandfather and me from time to time. Despite the severity of her character, she was actually a kind and proper woman and I’m certain that she had tried to raise her adopted child with a firm but kind hand. Even my mother and sister admitted that she could not be faulted.

Hiroko’s adopted father was a ship’s cook who sailed around the world and was frequently away from home because of his work. He had already died by the time Hiroko came into our lives, so I don’t know much about him. While they weren’t what I would say was affluent, they did lead a better, more comfortable life than most people in those days. Although she never talked about her adopted father, I got the feeling that they were not very close to each another.

When Hiroko was young, she went to a school which was located on the other side of the bay and had to commute by ferry. One day, a person who had got off the ferry before her said, “Oh? I just saw you at the other side of wharf. How did you get here so fast?” After this happened several times, she started to suspect that she might have a doppelganger, a twin sister perhaps, somewhere in the area.

I don’t know exactly what happened, but she eventually learned the truth about her adoption and discovered that her real family was unimaginably rich and lived in a mansion surrounded by a high clay wall.

Not knowing what to do at first, she eventually made up her mind to visit her biological parents’ home. When she rang the doorbell, a young girl who looked just like her answered the door. It was Hiroko’s younger sister. In the hall, Hiroko’s real mother appeared and with no emotion in her voice said, “I never gave birth to a girl like you. Now, go back to your own home.”

Nobody really knows what happened after this, but I heard that Hiroko eloped to Shanghai with a young man. This had to have been in the early 1930s when she was only 17 or 18 years old. As you can probably imagine, things only went from bad to worse for her from then on until she met my grandfather.

Now that the existence of Hiroko was no longer a secret, my sister and I went to visit her a few times at the elegant home she was living in. It was located in a nice neighborhood in Fukuoka City; her taste in everything left nothing to be desired.

My father Yūki, on the other hand, could not accept the idea of his father remarrying. Whenever he returned to Kurakata, my parents would quarrel about it.

Despite my father’s reservations, Hiroko eventually moved in with us in Kurakata. And her first order of business was to evict my aunt, the war widow, and her two children from the house. Somehow or another, they fell into her trap and eventually decided that it would be best for everyone if they moved to another town where they relied on another one of my aunts.

I was around seven years old at the time and I couldn’t quite understand what was happening. It broke my heart to see everyone fight and I often wished I hadn’t been born into such unhappy circumstances. It was then that I began to hate both the home and the city we lived in.

It’s no exaggeration to say that with Hiroko’s arrival my once happy and close-knit family unraveled and descended into hell.

---

[1] Tōkyō Women's Normal School was founded in 1875 in Tōkyō’s Ochanomizu neighborhood. It has undergone a series of name changes over the years: “The Women’s Campus of Tōkyō Normal School”, “The Women's Campus of Higher Normal School”, “Women’s Higher Normal School”, and “Tōkyō Women’s Higher Normal School”. Today it is called Ochanomizu University and is one of Japan’s top institutions for higher learning.

7. Early Childhood

I have been teaching Japanese to foreigners for almost two decades now. Some of my students can speak Japanese very well, but, unfortunately, few of them can read or write, even the Japanese script, hiragana, which is relatively easy to learn. Whenever I think about that, I can’t help but remember my nanny.

When I still had to be pushed around in a stroller, in other words, when I was still too young to walk, a new nanny named Katsué-san came to our home to learn the manners of a big house. One of our distance relatives, she was very loyal to us and took rather good care of me.

The day after Katsué arrived at our home, my mother asked her to take me to a physician. As she was new to the area, I had to point out the direction with my hand from the stroller.

One night, my mother asked Katsué to read me a fairy tale. As she began reading the story, I noticed something odd. At last, I sat up and asked her to show me the book. Taking it from her, I started reading the story to myself. Only then did I realize she had been making a mistake reading the particle ヘ as “hé” rather than “é”. When I finished reading the story, I looked over to Katsué and discovered that she had fallen asleep. Who was really babysitting whom, I couldn’t help wonder.

The fact that Katsué could barely read hiragana was not surprising. In those days, there were a lot of people who could not go to primary school for one reason or another. Even though they were illiterate, they still managed to find work and lead productive lives.

When Katsué-san was in her twenties, she married a carpenter and moved out of our home. She must be in her late 80s now, but in my mind, she is still a naïve teenager.

As I write this, memories from those days have been flooding back to me.

A carpenter once came to repair the lock to my aunt’s room. A few days later, he returned to steal some money from her room. I happened to be returning from kindergarten at that moment and went upstairs where I noticed someone hiding behind the door. I told this to my mother and a few days later she took me to the police where I reported what I had witnessed. I learned later that the carpenter confessed everything.

My grandfather and grandmother were enthusiasts of sadō, or the Japanese tea ceremony, and often invited guests to our house. We children had to be quiet during these visits and whenever we got too noisy, my grandmother would threaten to put us in a dark underground storage room as a form of punishment. We were always afraid of getting into trouble during their tea ceremony gatherings.

My grandparents’ garden, which was laid out in the karé-sansui, or dry landscape style for the tea ceremony, expressed a natural scene of a mountain, river, waterfall and valley. They were all made of stones—there was no water—which suited the calm mood of the tea ceremony room very well. The garden’s stones and trees are still there today.

Because of the rampant poverty and hunger in the region during and after the war, our home was often the target of burglars. One night, my grandmother caught a thief. He had snuck into the tea ceremony room to steal whatever he could find that was of value. As my grandmother Kanamé was waddling down the breezeway towards the teahouse to prepare it for their tea ceremony lesson, she caught sight of an unfamiliar figure with one hand in her pot of sugar, the other hand in his mouth. Mesmerized by the sweet taste of sugar—so scarce in those wartime years—he must have completely forgotten what he had actually come to steal. As soon as Kanamé discovered him, she grabbed onto the belt of his kimono, pressed the burglar alarm, and shouted at the top of her lungs: “THIEF!!! THIEF!!!”

I once saw the sugar pot myself several years later. A rare article, it was made of green diamanté glass with cracks in it and shaped like a melon. I suspect that the sugar must have been Kanamé’s own stash that she hid in the teahouse for safekeeping. Life used to be simpler back then, something which we cannot imagine now.

Before summer arrived, a tatami-mat craftsman would come to change the straw mats that covered our floors. It was one of our yearly events. The servants would help the craftsman carry the mats to the garden where he would remove the old covers and padding, then sew on new ones, using a special needle, stitching awls, and picks. I always enjoyed watching the craftsman’s skillful way of sewing the mats which was so different from sewing clothes by hand. Unfortunately, the work is mechanized today and the cushioning is made from polystyrene foam rather than rice straw. In the past they were living things with souls; now, I’m afraid, they are just mass-produced floor coverings.

After finishing up his work, the craftsman would sprinkle lime on the wooden floorboards, and then all the servants would carry the new tatami mats back into the house. The floor was higher than most other houses, something my grandfather took pride in.

There were many children among my relatives and neighbors. Sometimes they played hide-and-seek in our house. There were a lot of rooms and closets, inner steps. There was no end to our “playground”. My sister once hid in such an out-of-the-way place that she couldn’t be found. After a while, we became hungry and gave up looking for her and went home, something that still makes us laugh today. We also played kick-the-can in the alleyway until it got dark.

As I have mentioned before, my grandmother was terribly sensitive to the cold and always kept a pocket warmer which contained volatile benzene. One day she forgot to remove the warmer from her clothes. She changed out of her kimono and left it on a futon. Her maid brought the futon out to the balcony and hung it on a wooden hanger. Before long, the futon and the wooden hanger caught fire. I was in the children’s room upstairs near the balcony and noticed black soot falling. When I looked down from the balcony, I discovered that the futon was on fire, smoke billowing from it. Running downstairs, I told my mother and with the help of the maids she threw water on the futon, dousing the fire. In olden times, causing a fire, even by accident, was considered a serious crime, but nobody was punished. I heard that my grandmother could be very unforgiving towards others but she never apologized for her own mistakes.

The drainpipes of our house were made of copper. One day, a pair of thieves tried to steal the drainpipes because they could make some money if they sold the copper on the black market. A maid encountered the two men in front of the house and cried out. When my mother heard her voice, she ran out of the house and chased after them in her sock feet, but failed to catch them.

The kitchen in our home was 15 tatami-mats in size, or about 30 yards square if my math is correct. It had hardwood flooring, rather than an earthen floor like most traditional homes had in those days. Three sides of the kitchen were covered with order-made cupboards that my grandmother had designed. One of them separated the kitchen from the dining room and had cabinets and drawers accessible from both sides. Food and dishes were placed on a shelf from the kitchen side, then taken from the dining room side. The cupboard was divided into the shelves for trays and big dishes and small drawers for spoons and forks, and so on. It was quite innovative for the times.

The kitchen’s southern side window faced the earthen floor. It also had a skylight in the ceiling such that it was relatively bright. A scrap box was placed beneath the bay window near a big sink and was connected to a garbage bucket outside the kitchen. The idea was quite good, but I don’t think my mother or the maids ever used the garbage shoot for sanitary reasons.

There was an island table in the center of the kitchen. The table had board shelves underneath it. When live-in servants and maids had their meals, the cooking table was used as a dining table. There was another gas oven countertop which was made of tiles as well as an old Japanese style cooking oven, known as a kamado outside the kitchen. It was used to cook rice.

I never heard about the usefulness and conveniences of it directly from my grandmother, but even though I was a child I understood how elaborate and new it was for the times. My grandmother might have been trying to bring the modern times into her home.

Unfortunately, the Japanese furniture was all made of wood and brown in color, rather than painted. When you see famous western-style houses in Japan which imitate the European-style, almost all of them are made with unpainted wood furniture. My grandmother’s elaborate kitchen was no different.

There was a dining room next to the kitchen which had a hori-gotatsu. This is a kind of pit in the center of the room, over which a low table is placed. In the winter, a charcoal-burning or electric heater is placed under the table to keep your feet warm.

Our cat was always hiding in the hori-gotatsu, and would bite or scratch at our feet whenever we sat down. When I was in kindergarten, there was a radio on a small cupboard. We would enjoy listening to popular radio shows every night.

There were two telephones in the house. One was at the hospital and the other was by the dining room. It was one of those old-style phones with a separate receiver and mouthpiece that you sometimes see in classic movies. You spoke into the mouthpiece and listened with the receiver which was attached by a long cord. In order to make a call, you had to pick up the receiver and tell the operator the number you wanted to be connected with.

In the room next to my grandfather’s bedroom, there was an oshi’ire closet with a peculiar door. Although it looked like a typical Japanese-style sliding door made of paper with a wooden frame, it had a bell attached to the back of it. Whenever someone slid the door open, the bell would ring. Even when you were on the other side of the house, you could hear if someone was trying to get into the closet, where a small safe was hidden. We called the safe “Charin” after the sound the bell made. It was used for keeping money and important papers. My mother was in charge of the safe and almost no one was to supposed to go near it but her.

I don’t know who named it, “Charin”, but it was a cute name and we were all fond of it.

Every summer, my aunts came back to our house with their children. My grandparents had eleven grandchildren altogether who would stay for a couple of weeks during the long school breaks. The family would become big and noisy during their visits and my mother and the maids had a hard time taking care of the lot of us.

Going on “bus hikes” with my cousins is one of my happier memories. Sometimes Taichirō would let his eleven grandchildren massage his legs and arms while he lay on the tatami mat. One of my mother’s hobbies was taking photos, so we have many photos from those good old days.

On New Year’s Day, we used to put on impromptu plays under the direction of an elder cousin in front of the whole family and live-in maids. I remember an elder cousin named Hiroshi played the lead character in the skit “Kunenbō”. This is a story about a tree that gives fruit every nine years. He directed the children and starred in the leading role of the planter of the trees. We enjoyed putting on these impromptu plays and the audience always gave us a big round of applause.

In September of 2012, I visited the City Art Museum.[1] It was the first time for me to go back in 21 years. While there I had the chance to see the outside of our old home. The curator of the museum was a generous person and showed me around many places which are closed to the public and are now being used for storage or office space.

Since I had brought my video camera with me, I was able to capture it all on tape. I was particularly interested in the outside of the buildings. There were both western style and Japanese style buildings, which today are still closed to the public. Not even close family members can see them.

As soon as the curator unlocked and opened the door to the passage leading to the entrance of the house, I was so surprised that tears fell from my eyes. I started to take a video, but I couldn’t stop crying. It felt as if I had found soldiers returning from a hard-fought battle. They quietly saluted me as I entered, generously showing me their proud exteriors.

The curator of the museum returned to her office, leaving me alone to reminisce.

The buildings have changed little over the years and the condition was not bad; far better than I had imagined. I had expected the weeds to have become thick and bushy, preventing me from walking through the passage. It was a clear autumn day and there was not a cloud in the blue sky. It allowed me to take some very good shots which contrasted the western-style and Japanese buildings and roofs.

While I was taking the video, my imaginary old soldiers began to whisper about the good old days. Our house was always busy, with people coming and going, chatting noisily in every corner.

Whenever a guest would come through the front gate and make his way along the gravel path, a maid would notice, and, looking through a window, find the visitor. She would report it to my grandmother, who would instruct the maids to prepare the tea. One of the maids would put china on a tray; another would boil the water and make tea. They were already using a coal gas oven in their kitchen back then because of the coal mine industry in the area. The other maid would lead the guest to a round, western-style guest room.

As I recalled these images I felt as if I could hear the sounds of pans clanging, china rattling, and steam whistling from a kettle. Above all I could hear the hustle and bustle of people busy at work.

When I walked around the backyard to the kitchen, memories of our pet dog “Shigeru” came back to me. I don’t know why, but my grandfather named the brown little puppy after the Prime Minister, Yoshida Shigeru. The Akita-inumix ended up living for over 15 years, witnessing all of the trials and tribulations of our lives.

Shigeru lived under the engawa just outside of our dining room by the well on a chain, with another young dog.[2] Shigeru was smart and loved by everybody. He understood the differences between family members and servants, and could tell people by the sound of their footsteps. He knew who his master was and who fed him. On the other hand, Shigeru seemed to be rather strict towards the younger dog as if it was his responsibility to inculcate the ways of the house.

Shigeru would sometimes escape from his chain, but before running away, would first dash up to my mother’s room on the second floor, gesture goodbye, then go back down the stairs and run out into the street. He did this every time he escaped.

One day Shigeru was caught by a dogcatcher, who sold dogs for their meat and fur. In those days there were a lot of stray dogs. Since they were a danger for public health, the municipal office hired dogcatchers to catch strays. My mother had to visit the pound to get Shigeru back. The poor dog’s body was still shaking when he returned home. Even though he had only been missing a few hours, he was a different dog and we couldn’t help but laugh at how haggard he looked. That said, everyone, including the servants, were relieved to have him back.

I played a trick on Shigeru once by pretending to be a stranger. I completely fooled him by wearing a disguise and changing the way I walked. As I came down the gravel path, he barked loudly, but as soon as he realized who I was, his tail wagged excitedly to show that he was sorry for his mistake. I enjoyed this immensely.

Shigeru kept good watch over our house and did an excellent job protecting us throughout his life.

---

[1] The museum is located in the building that once housed my grandfather’s clinic.

[2] An engawa (縁側) is a Japanese style loggia, or a wooden-floored corridor that cuts off direct contact of a room with a garden. The en runs around the room on the outside of a building or house and resembles a narrow porch or sunroom.

A Silent Ovation is available in print and digital version at Amazon.