From a Town on the Hudson Read online

  My son was a member of the E.S.L.* class, as well. The class consisted of new students who came from several non-English-speaking countries. This was one of the amazing aspects of the United States, a country of immigrants. Even though the E.S.L. teacher, Mrs. Costantino, taught proper English words, my son learned English taboo words which were frequently used by American boys in the school sooner than he learned the lessons in the E.S.L. textbook. The worse the phrase was, the easier the new students seemed to pronounce it. My two sons exchanged the newly learned phrases including the accompanying gestures every day at home. I told them not to learn those bad words so eagerly, but I carefully listened to and memorized them. Especially when there were traffic jams, it was helpful for me to understand Americans who were yelling at each other. In other regular middle school classes, my son seemed to enjoy observing everything. It was pleasant for me to hear about it from him while we had supper together. During the first two months in the school, the eyes of my older son were opened to the world—the world outside of Japan.

  From the first day, however, my younger son, Masahito, eight years old then, was in a situation that was different from his brothers. At 8:30 A.M., April 18th, 1985, in the office of School #3 he waited for his new homeroom teacher to come to pick him up. The secretary, Mrs. Makroulakis, kindly offered to take care of him and I left him there, looking as timid as if he were going to be kidnapped. Since we had just moved into our new home five days earlier, I was busy all day unpacking the many boxes we had sent from Japan. Before three o'clock, I went to pick him up at school. Many mothers were waiting at the gate for their children to come out of the school building. After a few minutes, I saw my son coming with a friendly lady who looked like a teacher. She was holding my son's hand. He looked tired and still nervous. I greeted the lady. She responded with "Konnichiwa!," introduced herself as my son's homeroom teacher, and explained some rules of the school, school hours, how to order lunch, and so on. Her name was Mrs. Benedict, and she told me that my son said he didn't like American school. "However," she continued with her face beaming, "don't worry. Most of the new pupils say that in the beginning, but time opens their minds. Your son will be all right, too." I have forgotten what the weather was like that day, yet her sympathetic manner, like the warm sunlight of spring, certainly put me at ease. My son was in Mrs. Benedict's class for only two months until the school year ended in June. He, too, automatically became a member of the bilingual class as well as the E.S.L. class but couldn't explain what the classes were like as exactly as his older brother did.

  I got to know the classes and the teachers, Mrs. Hishikawa and Mrs. Amato, when the parent-teacher conference was held. In the bilingual class, my son seemed to prefer to take a rest as Mrs. Hishikawa, who was married to a Japanese gentleman and had raised their four children in Japan, understood how new pupils felt stress. In other classes, my younger son seemed to spend most of the school hours observing his new surroundings and especially enjoying the snack time for kindergarten through second grade. Having a snack between classes was something that never happened in Japans elementary schools. He acquired a taste for American snacks such as Fruit Roll-Ups. The class he could participate in with confidence seemed to be math class. He certainly knew numbers, but it should have been impossible for him to understand the meaning of the problems written in English. When I saw his math textbook and the tests that he brought home, however, I realized why he could solve the problems. I found marks such as +, —, and x below each problem. Mrs. Benedict marked them for him so that he could distinguish the addition, subtraction, and multiplication problems from one another. He looked happy showing me the results of his math test, but because of the help he received, he didn't get a grade on his report card for this marking period. One day in the middle of June, he told me immediately upon coming home from school about the "show and tell" class. His face lit up when he told about how he had tried to do his best when speaking his first English sentence: "This is a game-watch." I was sure that Mrs. Benedict had applauded for him. He added, "All the class applauded for me, too." The most important thing he learned about in the first two months may have been the American hospitality that his teacher showed.

  Footnote

  * English as a Second Language.

  THE SINGER wasn't applauded at that time because he sang the Japanese National Anthem, "Kimigayo," at the opening ceremony of the official tour of Japan's national sport to the United States. However, I thought he was a professional worthy of being praised.

  At 7:30 P.M., Saturday, June 15th, 1985, the seats of Madison Square Garden were filled. The opening ceremony for the second day of the three-day grand sumo tournament in New York had begun. Everyone rose. As soon as the first part of Japan's "Kimigayo" sounded, the noise of the crowd in the large hall ebbed away. I recognized the voice of popular baritone singer Sumito Tachikawa. He looked very neat in a formal, black Japanese kimono and was singing near the dohyo (the raised sand-and-clay ring where sumo wrestlers fight) in the center of the pit. The middle-aged singer, who stood erect, seemed to overwhelm the tens of thousands of spectators with his sonorous voice before his appearance attracted their attention. The song affected me strongly at once. I wondered if it was nostalgia, but it seemed different. The stillness of the hall as well seemed distinguished from a mere sense of respect for the national anthem. Everybody seemed to be listening to him intently. A solemn feeling spread through the large sports arena and the song stood out in the hushed silence. "Is this really 'Kimigayo'?" I gazed, enraptured by the scene. To me, for many years this song had seemed different than it was today. The tempo had been as slow as the plodding of an ox, the melody as monotonous as a blowing siren, the words as tranquil as a lullaby. It had always been a dull chorus, besides. What's more, in Japan the song used to give rise to criticism among leftist circles because it hadn't been made the official anthem by the Constitution. So I never fully appreciated it in the right way. Tachikawa, however, successfully showed the charm of the song: His rich voice set off the gentle tempo, making the melody mysterious but graceful. The words were particularly peaceful: "May the reign of the Emperor continue for a thousand, nay, eight thousand generations and for the eternity that it takes for small pebbles to grow into a great rock and become covered with moss."* Unexpectedly, an image of the seahorse-shaped Japanese archipelago across the blue Pacific Ocean flashed into my mind. It was my homeland, lush and green. Because of this song, a feeling of pride that I was from Japan formed in my mind for the first time. I found myself a Tachikawa fan by the time the male American vocalist finished singing the bright "Star-Spangled Banner."

  The tension in the hall was relieved as people burst out talking again, in anticipation of seeing Japanese sumo. Breathing in the sweet smell of popcorn, I looked forward to going to see a Tachikawa show after I returned to Japan. Six months later, however, the vocalist suddenly died of a brain hemorrhage in Japan. He was fifty-six. When I heard the news in the United States, I realized that I had been able to see only his back when he had so majestically sung "Kimigayo" at Madison Square Garden.

  Footnote

  * Nippon: The Land and Its People. Nippon Steel Corporation, Personnel Development Division. Tokyo, 1984.

  FOR AN AMERICAN audience, the parade of forty barefoot wrestlers at the dohyoiri"* ritual seemed significant in the sense that they saw Japanese who were different from a group of Japanese businessmen wearing suits and glasses in Manhattan. The audience shouted with joy—as if anthropologists had finally discovered a primitive Japanese man. Everybody looked wide-eyed at the extraordinary, ancient-looking wrestlers and welcomed them with applause. The bulky wrestlers were dressed in colorfully embroidered keshyo-mawashi† and all wore the same distinctive hairstyles. They moved slowly in single file and performed their mysterious ring-entrance rite on the dohyo.

  To tell the truth, I had never appreciated their old-fashioned appearance while I had lived in Japan. When I was small, I even mistook sumo wrestlers for big, tou
gh women. The dour expressions on their faces made me think they were unhappy, as well. I was interested in championship matches between big-name wrestlers such as Taiho and Kashiwado as I grew up, but I had never been an eager sumo fan. However, in New York in 1985, the parade of sumo wrestlers represented a race and an ancient culture that greatly contrasted with the modern, Western surroundings. Besides, the tremendous acclamation by the audience roused me. I was beginning to see sumo culture in a new light. The way that it combined martial arts with Shinto, the pantheistic, indigenous religion of Japan, became apparent. Yokozuna Chiyonofuji's elaborate grandchampion ritual even looked like an ukiyoe woodblock print from old Japan. The audience cheered loudly as they watched this grand man, steeped in tradition. Of all the Japanese visiting America at that time, the sumo wrestlers were the most warmly welcomed, even more than a prime minister.

  The friendly audience, however, started raising clenched fists as they were informed that the tournament would begin. They were ready for the grand sumo tournament, and the hall was thrown into an uproar.

  Footnote

  3 Entrance to the dohyo.

  † Ornamental apron worn by sumo wrestlers.

  AS SOON AS the tournament began, the audience had changed from gentlemen to a rowdy crowd. They roared like lions in Africa. They whistled like a hurricane. Had the Americans gotten angry? They sat, started to come out of their seats, stood, applauded, and then sat back down. They repeated these actions each time a new bout started. My seat shook every time. An announcer who seemed to be a real sumo-lover stirred up the spectators excitement with his quick-witted explanations. The hall was filled with loud voices and constant movement. Do Americans exercise while the players fight? Elderly men looked as excited as the young people; they stood cheering and shaking their fists in mid-air. When the American wrestler, Konishiki, who weighed over 250 kilograms* then, fought with Sakahoko, all the Americans cried out Konishiki's nickname "Sally!" in chorus. The voices of the announcer and the traditionally dressed referee on the dohyo were completely drowned out. Someone's drink sprayed onto my neck from behind. Konishiki won the first round and was welcomed with a storm of applause. The air vibrated as if a plane were roaring over my head. How dared the Japanese to have fought against these energetic Americans in the war! I was overcome by the Americans' strong reaction that bore down on me, and I even began to miss the calmer audience at sumo tournaments

  in Japan. Could the wrestlers perform in such a different atmosphere as this? What I saw through the excited crowd, however, was the happy faces of wrestlers, something that was never seen during the regular tournaments in Japan. When the long struggle on the dohyo was over, the audience, which glowed contentedly, gave a very loud cheer for the completely changed wrestlers, who were now disheveled, gasping for breath, and covered with sand. The wrestlers and the audience shared the moment. It was a different, and terrific, way of seeing sumo.

  January 12, 1993, two and a half years after my family had returned home to Japan, I went to see a New Year tournament at Kokugikan, Tokyo's sumo arena. On the first floor, in each of the box seats arranged like terraced paddy-fields, I saw elderly people leisurely enjoying sumo as I had expected. Some napped there or ate a box lunch and drank sake, talking loudly with the others in their group. There was the smell of soy sauce all around. Men in costume from a teahouse walked busily through the narrow aisle between the box seats delivering shopping bags stuffed with sumo souvenirs. Women enjoyed talking with each other and frequently burst into raucous laughter. Others wandered up and down and from side to side in the arena. The audience apparently wasn't looking at the center of the pit. This was not during intermission but while the sumo wrestlers were fighting on the dohyo. Except for the big matches, the spectators in the box seats seldom got excited. Even during the climax of a bout, they couldn't move freely, partly because they were sitting cross-legged and partly because they had gotten drunk. Of course, they seemed to be happy and relaxed. They looked as if they were relaxing in the living room of their father's house while enjoying sumo.

  More than pointing up differences in temperament between Americans and Japanese, the scenes in Madison Square Garden and in Kokugikan brought home to me anew the long history of sumo. The original form of sumo culture, polished through three centuries, has attracted Americans. Tradition in Japan has never hurried people into loving sumo, but it is something that both Americans and Japanese enjoy.

  Footnote

  * 550 pounds.

  SATURDAY, June 15, 1985, around 10:30 P.M., my husband was driving our car along the Henry Hudson Parkway in New York on our way back to Fort Lee. Soon we saw the beautifully illuminated George Washington Bridge ahead on the left. Our family was going home after seeing Japan's Grand Sumo Tournament in Madison Square Garden. The excitement of seeing sumo in the brilliantly lighted hall was still vivid in my mind. We would be home in fifteen minutes.

  In fifteen minutes, however, we found that we had lost our way. "Where are we?" "That's what I wanted to ask you." "Look at the map!" Our first exciting night in New York had changed into panic. I was sure that we had lost our way before we had taken the road for the George Washington Bridge. I opened to the page with the bridge. We had moved to the United States just two months before. To me, the maps small letters of many unfamiliar street names looked like crawling worms. It puzzled me even more. I looked up and tried to see the names of the streets we were passing at each corner. No signs could be seen in the area. Most of the lights were broken. Few cars passed by, either. Along some of the nearly deserted streets, the headlights of our new '85 white Pontiac 6000 LE lit up smashed cars, dilapidated shop signs, and damaged show windows.

  The scenes of urban decay stirred my imagination. Many violent scenes from American movies like "Dirty Harry" came to mind one after the other. In real life, however, Clint Eastwood never came to help. Even the bulky Japanese sumo wrestlers I had seen at Madison Square Garden about thirty minutes earlier were of no help now. Also the sumo tournament's cheers, sweet smell of popcorn, and spotlights immediately vanished into the darkness that was as black as ink. Everything was so still that I could hear my heart beating. I began to worry about whether we would be able to return to our home in Japan alive or not. At that moment, I missed the safe, secure towns in Japan.

  After a while, we found a blood-red light streaming out of the slightly open door of a building on the far right corner of the intersection. I had a ray of hope that somebody would tell us the way to the bridge. Our car moved forward slowly, and as we approached the corner, we could see a liquor store sign and a group of people around the door. Some were lying down on the sidewalk holding bottles and others were leaning against the wall. They seemed to be drunk. I almost gave up hope. Our car slowly turned right. When we were about to pass the store, one of those who had been lying down sat up suddenly, stood up, and then began to approach our car. A few men started following him. They all tottered. One lifted his hand. I held my breath.

  I urged our older son, a sleepyhead, to check the rear door locks while, with a forced smile, I pretended to be a calm mother. My hands were moist with sweat because of fear. I looked at my husband, who must have been confused too. He said nothing but slightly pinched his nose a few times. I knew he was perplexed. However, he was calm as he slowed down so as not to hit those men. I prayed nothing would happen, but my imagination ran ahead of me; in my mind our family was at the point of death already.

  The tottering men came on. Right in front of our car, with open arms, the astonishingly tall men moved like big puppets. The blood-red light of the liquor shop looked like a flame flaring up behind them. Waving bottles in mid-air they all shouted something to us in hoarse voices. I closed my eyes as I felt our car shake.

  Even though our car had shaken only because my husband had suddenly put it in reverse, even though the group, perhaps out of kindness, had come to tell us that we had missed the ONE-WAY sign, and even though the sign had been pointing to the ground, it took
a while for me to accept the situation. I shivered with fear and at the same time was ashamed of myself for my presumption that the drunken men were going to attack us.

  We finally got back to Fort Lee at almost midnight. "We enjoyed the sumo, didn't we?" our younger son, who had been sleeping in the rear seat, said drowsily. I looked up at the modest but heart-warming porch light of our home.

  OUR TWO sons were promoted, one to the eighth grade, the other to the third grade, in September 1985. After the long summer vacation, they had reverted to feeling like nervous newcomers. Even though they couldn't follow most of their classes yet, they wanted to participate more fully in school life with their American classmates. The older son especially didn't like being a guest any longer. My husband and I had been helping them with their homework from the beginning. We also started to explain what they would be learning the following day in science and social studies. We read the textbooks with them. My husband helped our older son, and I worked with the younger one. Because both brought home a lot of homework, including leftover classwork that they couldn't finish at school, all of our family spent time doing homework in the evening, and sometimes the next morning as well. My husband and I didn't want our younger son to stay up later than nine o'clock, so he went to bed earlier than his brother.