We Are

A

fter learning of the death of a close friend, followed by my bout with bronchitis, I had taken off the song that I had been playing, "We Are" by Do As Infinity. I know there are those who don't like music because it slows down the browser, and truth be told, I am one of you. My pet peeve is that table of smiley faces. I can't comment until all the images have loaded, so I sometimes forgo any comment.

Anyway, I said previously that I would translate the lyrics and here it is. It's the words to the original--the lyrics shaded in gray are in the original but not in this concert version. Like poems, lyrics are often hard to translate as it can be difficult to parse phrases. But then, that is the beauty of lyrics and poetry.

私たちは　この幾千の星に生まれたの 君に出会えた奇跡	We were born among these thousands of stars It's a miracle we met.
ずっと昔に　見た夢の続き 幼い頃は　全て信じていた もう一度　会いたい もう二度と　君には会えない	Continuing a dream I saw long ago When I was young, I believed everything. One more time, I want to see you But I know I can't see you again
流れ星に　願いかけてた 約束をしてた　凍える夜 私たちは　この幾千の星に生まれたの 君に出会えた奇跡 二人だけのもの	Wishing on a shooting star The promise we had made on a freezing night We were born among these thousands of stars. The miracle of having met you Is something that belongs to only us.
眠りから覚めて　それが幻でも 心にはきっと　生き続けてるよ どうしても　伝えたい もう一度　君には伝えたい	Waking up from sleep, it will surely live on In out hearts, even if but a phantom No matter what, I want to tell you But I know I can't tell you again
願い星は今ごろどこの街を見守るの？ 今夜もそっと めぐりめぐる　歴史の中で 与え合う出会いが 一番　宝物	Which streets does the wishing star watch over nowadays? Even tonight, softly in our history that comes around again and again the encounter we gave each other is our most precious treasure
廻り続けている 地球の片隅で 君を待ち続ける人が今もいる	In a corner of this world that continues to revolve there is a person who waits for you even now.
思い出して　心みつめて 忘れかけていた　夢を描いて この世界に　君と出会えた 君が来てくれた　聖なる夜 流れ星に　願いかけてた 約束をしてた　あの日のまま 私たちは　この幾千の星に生まれたの 君に出会えた奇跡 私たちのもの	Remember, look into your heart Paint the dreams you were about to forget In this world, on that holy night When I met you, when you came to me Just as we did that day when we made a promise Wishing on a shooting star, We were born among these thousands of stars. The miracle of having met you Is something that belongs to only us..
We need the holy light, waiting for the silent nights.

Growing up J-Town #JT-030

M

y Dad's death and funeral coincided with Nisei Week, the signature festival for Japanese American's in the LA. Every August since 1934, except for a few years in the 40s during the war, the community of Lil' Tokyo sponsored a summer festival called Nisei Week. It is a week during which Japanese Americans put on display its heritage with exhibits on a variety of things from calligraphy to flower arrangement to karate. The festivities started with a Nisei week pageant at which one nubile young Japanese American lady would be crowned Miss Nisei Week, and ended with a parade and carnival.

This year, I was with my family. We visited my brother at the JA National Museum and had lunch together, after which we walked around town as we waited for the parade to begin. One of my sons, Chip--for chipmunk--wanted to get some CDs and so we went to some music stores. We headed toward Mitsuwa in which there is an Asahiya Bookstore. Or I should say, was. It had closed it doors for more than a few months. M wanted to eat some Soba and I told her of a place in Weller Court Called Daisuke. While it was there, it was under new management and the menu had been drastically altered. I was hoping for a yamakake soba--soba noodles with grated tororo potatoes. But I had to settle for regular cold soba.

As three o'clock approached we headed out to the street to see the parade on this last Sunday of the festival. It was the first time I had seen the parade since the early 1980s when I worked at the confectionary store. Since the mid-80s, I had lived elsewhere and had not seen it in twenty years and so was quite curious. When I lived in Japan during the early 90s, my father was actually in the parade as a Lil' Tokyo Pioneer as a cultural leader through his Senryu poetry and as a recipient of the Japanese National Cultural Medal of Honor. However, as the parade began, I was struck by the crowd. Or I should say, the lack thereof. There was a time when the crowds stood six to seven people deep from the curbside, but that day, you could easily park your butt on the curb and watch the parade go by. And reflecting this withering J-Town, the parade looked tired and shabby.

One group of Japanese dancers had to stop in the middle of their Bon Odori routine when the generator running the loud speaker died. One young man in his official Nisei Week happi--the colorful buttonless cotton shirt worn my sushi chefs--tried to revive it by slapping it and cursing at it, while the dancers from five-year olds to retirees stood helpless in the hot August sun. Another float broke down and again young men in their official Nisei Week garb rushed to help, if only to push it to the side of the road. These events only confirmed my opinion of a community in decline. And for me it was indeed a sad sight, for I remember when Nisei Week was truly an event. When any and all JAs came to J-Town to hang, to see and be seen.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The death of my father and my last visit to Nisei Week has triggered intermittent memories over the past few months. And when I lied in bed with a fever last week, these memories reconstituted themselves in a deluge of images in my feverish brain. And so, while the images are still fresh in my mind, I thought I would indulge myself by a jotting down these memories before they fade away forever.

Growing up J-Town #JT-020

J

-Town is now an empty shell of what it once was. Portions of the area reek of decline. On the north side of First Street between Central and San Pedro, there is a row of make-shift video rental shops with videos of pirated Japanese TV shows. Most of the retail stores are geared toward tourist traffic--key chains, post cards, t-shirts of Nomo or Ichiro, or worse, with the Chinese character for samurai or love emblazoned in front. Indeed, the decline of J-Town is such that the Japanese Consulate, which used to occupy two floors of the Sumitomo Building on the corner of First and San Pedro, has moved out to the resurgent downtown area of LA. Where it once wanted to be a part of the Japanese American community, the Consulate has now divorced itself from the withering remains of a once vibrant JA center.

It is hard to believe that Japanese Americans living in and around the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area used to gravitate here. This may sound like an exaggeration to many these days, but I assure you it is not. People I know used to come on the weekends from Santa Barbara to the north, Chino to the east and Del Mar to the south, just to feel connected with the community. However, Southern California JAs have gone through a diaspora of sorts, and they have all gone their own way, pursuing the dreams of the middle class, or whatever class they feel they belong to.

I am no historian and certainly no sociologist, and perhaps I should do some digging before I offer any pseudo-socio-psycho-babble. But you know me: I can't keep my mouth shut. In my experience--and this is admittedly a microscopic niche in the entirety of the Japanese American experience--JAs have led, like the ancestors of their heritage, a paradoxical, and at time contradictory life. As I am so quick to say, Japan is a nation that suggests ambiguity itself. It is a nation proud of its traditions and yet so willing to adapt to new and foreign ways. It is always adopting new foreign loan words into its vernacular, and yet vertical writing--anachronistic in today's world of the Internet--still dominates its print publication--newspapers, magazines, novels--unlike Korea or even China. So the Japanese cling to much of their tradition, but adapt to the world, playing the hadn it was dealt.

Japanese Americans have also had to play the hand they were dealt. As a minority, many of us recognize the traditions of our parents and grandparents, and proudly follow those we still remember or understand. I still take off my shoes before I enter my home. I still eat mochi in soup on New Year's day. And no matter how old I got, I woudl always listen to my mother and father. (Okay, there's a gap between the ages of 17 and 22 when I didn't listen at all...) However, I am two generations removed from the Alien Land Law passed in California in 1913, legislation created to prevent Japanese from owning land. In 1922, in Ozawa v. US, the Supreme Court decided to uphold the Naturalization Act of 1790 that restricted naturalization to free white people. As a person of Japanese descent, Ozawa could not become a US citizen. Anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting marriage between Whites and Asians were in the books in California as late as 1948. I am also a direct descendent of a community that was sent to internment camps during World War II, simply because they were of Japanese heritage, never mind that fact that many were born in the US and were de facto US citizens.

Circumstances such as this compelled many JAs to prove their Americanism over the years by mingling with their non-Asian counterparts, by denying their heritage by discouraging their children from speaking Japanese. Many people I have met of Chinese, Korean and Hispanic descent speak the tongue of their heritage at least into the third generation, but not so for most Japanese Americans I know. While being proud of their heritage, they are also victim of circumstances that caused them to lose a part of it. In an attempt to blend into the American landscape, we had to lose a part of our identity.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense...

The point is that Japan tries its best to maintain its traditions, but at the same time it adapts and adopts things foreign to its heritage in an effort to advance or to fit in with the world at large. Japanese Americans show this same trait by being proud of their identity as JAs but forgoing the maintenance of certain aspects of their heritage in a similar effort to fit in with society at large. I have previously wondered if this was part of our genetic code, but this idea was easily dismissed after I'd met Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese descent whose attitude resembled our Chinese and Korean counterparts rather than my own. While there is room for individual differences, to a greater or lesser degree mainland JAs, as are most people I suppose, are a product of their circumstances.

Growing up J-Town #JT-010

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n the summer of 2004, Dad died. Mom had passed on two years earlier in 2002, and now, there is really no compelling reason for me to return to Los Angeles. My brother still lives in LA and works at a museum dedicated to Japanese American history, but I am reluctant to disturb his seikatsu (activities of everyday life) rhythm. He has his own life, and I don't want to just "drop in" as I used to when I visited my parents. Our collective home is not the same as our individual ones.

In any event, I was conscious of the fact that I would no longer be returning to LA with any great frequency and spent time visiting places I used to frequent: Atlantic Square, Santa Monica beach, the UCLA campus. However, the one place I wanted to spend quality time was an area near the LA Civic Center, Lil' Tokyo.

In its heyday, the Japanese Americans--JAs or Buddha-heads, as we used to call ourselves--referred to the area as J-Town. The only one's who called it Lil' Tokyo were the Chamber of Commerce and the tourists that it relentlessly tried to attract. For us JAs, it was always J-Town, an abbreviation of Japanese Town, the term referring to our heritage and nothing else. Monikers such as Lil' Tokyo or Japan Town, as the Japanese community is called in San Francisco, sounded too much like an attempt to recreate Japan. This was not where we hung out. J-Town was a community created by immigrant Japanese for themselves and for their descendants. It was our own little subculture in which we could feel safe, empowered. It was our place.

So I walked around the streets with my family, and visited some stores that have been in business since my own youth. But they were few and far between. I visited Bunkado--a shop filled with Japanese trinkets that also sold Japanese CDs--back in the day, it was 45s and LPs. I said "Hello" to the owner, Mrs. T, but she no longer recognized me and it seemed too much trouble to try to jog her memory for a mere thirty seconds of satisfaction. We also went to the former Yaohan--now called Mitsuwa, I think--but the entire second floor was closed and it was only a shell of its former self. I even visited the Japanese confection store where I had worked for so many years, but was chagrined to find not a single recognizable face. (It was later that I learned that Mrs. H had been feeling ill and visited her for the last time at her home.)

While it was a bit sad that there was little of the J-Town I remembered, I would be the first to recognize that things change, that nothing stays the same. However, it was distressing that the feel of the place had changed drastically. It seemed to have actually changed into "Lil' Tokyo". Virtually every store was owned by Japanese nationals who were obviously new to LA. There were few signs of Japanese Americans, of a presence that suggested that this place was a center for the Japanese American community.

There are, of course, the cosmetic signs: The Japanese American National Museum, the Japanese American Cultural Center. But these are relatively new structures created in a place that was historically Japanese American, and not necessarily populated by them now.

Resolutions

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was so out of it this week that I didn't even know what illness I had. But my mind has cleared up a bit and I've been getting myself in order. I was straightening out the area around my bed and found a couple of sheets of paper that outline my diagnosis. Basically, I had acute bronchitis, which is why I had trouble breathing and was coughing all night long.

Thanks to the medication and rest, my fever's down and I cough with less ferocity. For a while there the hacking was scary. Also, I think the fever seems to have cleared my mind a bit, like one of those self-cleaning ovens: Turn it up to 600 degrees and the crusty burnt gunk turns to ash and the oven is as clean as a whistle. I think all the gunky stuff in my brain has burned away and my mind feels strangely clearer. Or maybe it was just a near-death experience. But I am still fatigued from the ordeal, and a second cup of coffee has me tired from an accelerated heart rate. Seriously. I am weak...

Anyway, the clear mind has made me think of my life and my future. Last year, for some stupid reason, I made no New Years resolution. Someone had written about how creating resolutions and not following up on them leads to disappointment, if not depression. So perhaps, it might be best not to have resolutions in the first place. I thought this made sense, but the back side to this is that I have no motivation, not even some kind of mock motivation. So I've decided to make a list for this year.

1. Make M happy--Okay, I think I do alright to make her happy, but I gotta do more. She is not your typical high maintainence types, she atypical high maintenance. It doesn't take money to make her happy; it takes time and effort. More quality time with her, which means less time on Xanga... okay, and maybe a little less TV.
2. Publish--This is a no brainer and has been in the back of my mind since forever. As an academic type, I have to publish research. Unfortunately, my teaching takes too much time. Most profs can teach their research, but I'm usually teaching basic stuff that is totally unrelated to my research, That changes this year with my bungo class. Poetry, poetry, poetry. They are going to kill me...
3. Write my story--Sammy already has a headstart on me I think, but I want to write and I'm thinking of writing it here, at least in parts. If Soseki can write a novel in serial form daily, then so can I. Not that I'm half the genius he is...
4. Exercise more--I've been slacking off so much, it isn't funny. I've gained so much weight this year, it's either lsoe it or buy new clothes. Since I have no money, then I'll have to lose it. Besides, this attack of acute bronchitis was, I think, in large part made worse because of my flabby health. Whe I was exercising regularly, I never got this sick. I was usually able to shake anything and everything off after a few days.

Okay, unlike Haruki who found 79 to be a manageable number, I think 4 will do just fine for me. Wish me luck.