An old man in a restaurant today in Japantown overheard my conversation with two lovely Japanese ladies, and shared his stories about the books that move him and what he does when he gets lonely.
My best guess is that this old guy was a soldier in World War 2, who after hostilities ended, spent enough time there to fall in love with the place.
It's not all that hard to have this happen. When an American suddenly finds himself/herself in Tokyo, (s)he can be forgiven for thinking they have landed on the moon.
Yes, we are that different. Since my first visit to Japan 24 years ago, I have been driven to figure out how two peoples -- Americans and Japanese -- could have possibly evolved into such different cultures.
Now, I have an in-house tutor, my lovely girlfriend, Junko. Our languages are so different that many of the things we might wish to say simply cannot be said. Beyond that, our cultural assumptions are so contradictory that the easiest outcome of any conversation between us can easily be a fight.
But we rarely fight. She's a guest in my country, a weird place, led by maniacs like Dick Cheney, and dominated by movies good and bad, whose messages do not necessarily translate any better than our words.
I know this much. It gives me a type of pleasure that is ineffable to have a rapid-fire conversation in Japanese happening in my kitchen as I struggle to say something to you, dear reader, in English.
ありがとう
-30-
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