[Oe List ...] Japan in ST June 1

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Nippon,Nihon, Hapon - Japan
 
It might not have been Tenno Jimmu who kicked the first dirtoff Kyuden some 2600 years ago, but ImperialJapan has had an unbroken family line ever since. My name in Zhongguo is Liu Ji Mu, so I feel a close affinity to Jimmu the starter of Nippon'simperial heritage.
 
Liujia (Liu family) is my relation in China bymarriage and to demonstrate the contemporary notion that identity is a matterof choice rather than as a kneejerk patriarchal privilege, I named myself byher household.  Zhimu is the closest I come to for Spanish Jaime, or English James, (sounds like Zhang Yimou, the movie director) but a family member conferred Ji Mu. My calling card bears that name.
 
I was on Saipan when Emperor Akihitoand Empress Michiko visited ten years ago. Shorn of the pomp and circumstance of a state visit, it was a memorableone.  A couple of articles I wrote werethought to be "different" (Radio Australia) compared to the standardcoverage.
 
At 71 and 70, the two immaculatelyattired but ordinary looking visitors paused for moments of silences onlocations where people died during the ferocious Battle of Saipan.  Akihito and Michiko were pictures of decorum,honor, and good graces that "fell from the sea" sans Yukio Mishima's sense of glory in death.  In fact, the imperials came to honor ALL thedead and prayed for World Peace.
 
In post-WWII Pea Eye, the Tenno Showa (Hirohito) and the "Nips"were "evil".  Atrocitiescommitted in the Philippines were regularly rehearsed.  A bottle buyer in Davao turned out to be amilitary officer, adding to the deception theme of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
 
My immediate family was not a rabidNippon hater.  My father by profession wasan agent of compassion and reconciliation rather than hatred and discord.  After he returned from five years graduate studiesin the United States, he bought me a bottle of San Mig (he was a good father inspite of being a Methodist teetotaler) and told me the story of how a Lieutenantof the Imperial Army warned him that his name was in the Kempetai list and should skip town, pronto.  At the time, I was but a little lizard slitheringup my mother's womb.
 
I discovered that American-ledguerrillas in the middle of town quartered my “collaborator” Uncle, a teacherwho translated for Japanese officials. My nationalism conditioned as anti-Japanese took a deep dip down murkywaters.
 
Attending ecumenical functions with Nihonyoung people present made me realize they were ordinary human beings, hardlythe ogres of popular biases.  Invitingone to my home in Northern Luzon after a conference in Dumaguete's Siliman U inthe south a good twenty years after Yamashita was hanged in Manila, the depthof racial prejudice was still fresh as stone rained on the house roof at midnight.
 
Later, I visited Yokohama (its wharfand Chinatown) and Tokyo (dined in Ginza at the first rotating restaurant and walkeddown the University town of Shinjuku before I knew there was a red district in thearea) in the late 60s, went down to OsakaBanbaku Expo '70, and trekked upto Sapporo on Hokkaido in 2002 on the Shinkansenfor a week-long brooding before attending to a speaking engagement in WestTokyo, so I got comfortable saying domoarigato gozaimashita!  Stops atNarita these days make one feel one is still in L. A.!
 
When the Saipan Japanese Consulate inviteda number of participants to their two-hour program at their office in LowerBase, I beat the path to the front of the line.  I sharpened my konnichiwa, o genki desu ka?
 
The name Nippon or Nihon, the"land of the rising sun" has been used longer than the English"Japan", the latter derived from the Portuguese appropriation of theHokkien Jit-pun, Zeppen in Shanghai, Jet pun in Guangdong, adopted by theThais as Yipun, Jepun to the Malay, Jepang in Indonesian, and Hapon in Pilipino.  China calls the country Riben in Mandarin (pronounced irben), not too distant from the Hanggul Ilbon.  In the archipelago, people's heart opens withthe freshness of the early morn sun, notwithstanding the intrusive Commodore M.C. Perry and the reforming Meiji dynasty!  Wakarimasu ka?
 
At Lower BaseThursday afternoon, we were feted the Nihon touch, with green tea first("very hot", Yasuko Kobayashi said in perfect English), then wentthrough a session of folding three origamiof "a crab, a polo shirt and a bird" with Noriko Muña.  My dexterity at 70 did not come easy.   Thenwe were treated to an introspective experience of the movie "Nitaboh"of itinerant blind shamisen musiciansat the onset of the Meiji reforms.  Unobtrusively, CG Hitoshi Kikuchidiplomatically managed from a distance. 
 
No attempt atarticulating "meaning and significance" was attempted in the two-hoursession.  Quietly Zen, we experiencedtea, origami, and the movie, with an understated welcome for our presence andattendance, Yasuko making sure she had first names pat at every introduction ofan arrival.  I suggest the CG and staffhold more events of this nature.  
 
(All Japanesewords are pure pretense.  Please ignore.)Yoi ichinichi o.  Sayōnara.
 
 
 


j'aime la vie


yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!






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