Beauty, tradition and the art of letting go

This morning I was telling my mom about the folding method for the little rag used in the tea ceremony for wiping the inside of the tea bowl. It is complex but extremely important because one wrong turn and you'll end up somewhere weird at the end (with the fold in the wrong direction and you can't do the next part of the process). Anyway, so I was showing her with a kleenex as an example, and placed the little folded tissue so she could see it.
"Well, that's all fine and dandy*, but..."
"But, what?!"
"If you can make a good bowl of tea, what does it matter if you can fold the little cloth right?"

I then gave a lecture in slightly incredulous tones about the beauty of ritual and how tradition connects you to history - how when I fold the cloth like that, engage in this ritual, I'm connected to all the people who have ever performed the tea ceremony all the way back to Rikyu himself! The fact is, she understands my feeling and is laughing just as I am laughing through this entire exchange because I also know she knows. I don't think you can be a classical musician and not have some clue about connecting to the past.

Anyway, this episode ended like this: Laughing so hard, my mom began to cough a little, then grabbed the delicately folded tissue I'd made as an example and hocked a loogie into it.

My first footnote:
*'fine and dandy' is only an approximation of what she said in Japanese. She doesn't actually talk like that, though recently she really did say "Gee Whiz"

subtle is her middle name

They were showing this really ornate kimono on TV just now, with amazing gold thread embroidery in patterns reflecting the spring, like cherry-blossoms. "It's something that would be worn by a hight-class..." my mom pauses, looking for the right word.
"Courtesan," I offer.
Evidently she didn't hear me, because she's still searching her brain, looking up toward the ceiling, eyes a little squintier than normal.

"A high-class..." As her gaze falls back toward earth, I try again. "Courtesan?"
"...whore."

This is my mother.

The Tell-Tale Smack

My mom has a habit of kind of making smacking sounds with her mouth right before she's about to say something. Sometimes it takes a while for the words to come out and as a consequence I'm stuck listening to that smacking sound for longer than I'd like. She's unaware that she's even doing it so my pleas to get her to quit are futile. You have no idea how annoying it can be knowing she's on the verge of saying something and having to just wait for her to spit whatever it is out. Anyway, it finally yielded something funny.

I'd heard the telltale smacking, so I turned to her expectantly and asked, "What?"
She looked surprised then began laughing.
"Is it creepy, like I can read your mind and know you're thinking about saying something?" I asked.
"It already felt like you can read my mind" was her reply.

The funny thing is, she relies on this potentiality far more often than she should and it is the cause of many miscommunications and misunderstandings in this living situation of ours. No matter how prescient I may seem, I'm just not.

The new name of fear

We just finished watching "The Silence of the Lambs," me for the nth time, but my mother for the first time. It was, as it always is, a very intense experience. My mom asked me if Jodie Foster was the same person that was in the movie "As Good as it Gets" but I said no, that was Helen Hunt.
"Oh, that's right," she said. "And I always forget the name of that actor...what was the name of the guy who played Lester?"
"Who?"
"The doctor in the movie we just saw. Dr. Lester?"

Fear has a new name, and it is Hannibal Lester.

It's a good thing my mom never worked for Hollywood in that capacity. Somehow Hannibal Lester just doesn't have the power to strike anything but glee into my heart.

Technology 6

"Something is wrong with her e-mail machine"

When she said this, I had a sneaking suspicion she just meant her friend's computer, but then again this is Japan! Maybe her friend really had an e-mail machine. So giving my mom the benefit of the doubt I made some clarifying inquires.

But, no, my gut was right. She meant computer.

Riveting Writing

Last night my mother was telling me about a novel she's been trying to finish. She reads before she goes to sleep and this book, I guess, has her out like a light before even finishing one page. Several times she's woken up to find the light on and her book still in hand.
"It must not be very interesting," I said.
"Oh, it IS interesting!" she countered.
"Then why do you fall asleep?"
"I don't know!"
"What kind of book is it anyway?"
My mom starts laughing and answers, "Mystery."

Technology 5

I forget why it even came up, but my mom was saying this morning how she wished she still knew someone who knew flag signals like this but in Japanese, obviously. I guess she learned it once when she was little. Now I assumed that, as that link may have shown you, this kind of flag signaling probably had some kind of military origin, so I asked if she knew what it used to be used for.

"Well," she said, "this was before there were cell phones..."

I think of all the youth in Japan currently spending every waking minute texting from their cell phones and then try to imagine what life must have been like when my mom was young. I guess, you never left home without two handkerchieves.

Maybe there was something in the water...

My mom arrived back yesterday and her suitcase was overflowing with things purchased or given to her while she was in LA. I'm ecstatic about the two bags of candy she brought me! They don't have licorice here in Japan (!?) so she brought me a bag with an assortment of red and black licorice and licorice flavored things as well as a bag with assorted gummy things which she knows I love, too. But, as she was looking through her suitcase for these bags of candy to give me, she pulled out this huge wad of snack-size ziplock bags. She had taken them out of the box so that they'd take less room, but here is the story of how she came to have them in the first place:

My mom has an old friend in LA who grew up in Tokyo with her. When my mom was visiting her, I guess she saw one of these small snack bags and commented that she had never seen that size before. The next part of the story is that my mom's friend gave her a box of ziplock snack bags to give to me as a gift. I have no idea what the common thread is through any of that. So, like I said, I think maybe there was something in the water in post-war Tokyo that affected left lobe development or something.

I'm beyond caring, though. I have everything I need in those two bags of bad-for-me things.

"It was good to hear you"

Latest quote from mctm's email. This was sent, naturally, after we had spoken on the phone. I can hear her now, telling me, "I meant it literally." Which I'm sure she did.

All you mctm fans out there, fear not! She is coming home tomorrow so we can hope for more things like this happening in person. Although I did have to comment that I don't know why these kinds of things still make me smile. I mean, she is the product of this crazy culture that not only has a TV station called BS (devotees will remember) but feels no sense of irony that the news brief of said channel is called "BS News" and that the commentator begins every edition with the words, "Now I will give you the BS News" (of course in Japanese).

Condonlences received

My mom just emailed me condolences about my toe. Here is the excerpt from her email: "Sorry about your toe. How did you stab it."
I might as well have stabbed it for how much it bled. Also, the period was part of her sentence. CUTE!

mchjd post 3, or, the world's worst stubbed toe

The pain is still so acute that I feel the need to post this. This is not for the squeamish - who knew a pinkie-toe could bleed so much. Also, why is it that whenever my mom leaves town, I injure myself? Oh, right. 'Cause I'm her crazy half-jap daughter (dot blogspot dot com).

"The Damage" - after cleaning with ethanol...ouch!


"Post-Self-Conducted-Minor-Surgery to remove skin flap"


"The Final Look"


Now I'm in pain and limping like crazy everywhere. Karma much?
In the words of Ren Hoek, "I am hurting."

Cuteness meets mystery

I was flipping through TV channels this evening and the movie channel was showing an old (maybe 70s era) Jackie Chan movie. I knew my mom liked him so I called her attention to the TV. "Oh, it's Lucky Jan," she said. It was funny. Also, I've been trying to brush up on my kanji recognition skills and since this movie was in Chinese with Japanese subtitles, I thought it would be a good opportunity to practice, not that I'm any good (at all!). The following conversation then occured:
N: "Did that last kanji say 'thought'?"
Y: "What?"
N: (drawing the character in the air) "Is that the kanji for 'thought'?"
Y: "Did it say that? I wasn't reading the subtitles."

Which makes me wonder, was she just watching the movie in total oblivion or does she secretly speak Chinese? I asked but received no answer. I guess I'll never know.

Sadly, I think the joke was on her

After eating lunch with my mom's friend, the three of us sat around jibber-jabbering and ended up talking about politics in the US, of course making disparaging remarks about Bush. I recounted a funny story I'd heard on NPR about a fictional conversation during the meeting between the then-newly-Nobel-prize-awarded Gore and the prez. It was kind of funny in English, but somehow when my mom translated it for her friend, it simply became tedious and unfunny. I noted this, of course. He agreed.

Then she turned to me and said, "Do you know the joke?"

It was such a random, generic question. I really had no idea what she was talking about (with her it might be anything!), so of course I started laughing, and she said, "So, you do know it!" My continuing laughter made it evident that I, indeed, did not know the joke. I tried to indicate that I didn't even know what she might possibly be referring to, but that's a hard thing to do when you're rolling on the floor. I couldn't stop, even when she gave me that patented scowl of hers. I'm still laughing.

Technology 4

She's catching up to me in her quickness, I must say. This morning she was using her new computer and I heard her making frustrated sounds; then she suddenly started laughing. Of course I had to know what it was all about.

"When I moved the mouse up on the table, it would go down on the screen and if I moved it down, it went up on the screen and I didn't know what the problem was, but I just figured it out: I was holding the mouse upside down."

Does life get any awesomer than this story? I submit that it does not.

fact v sentiment, or, about a Canadian ex-pat: 2

Last night we were watching that program with the fattanug Canadian guy, once again marveling at his amazing knowledge of Japan and all things Japanese. His knowledge and pronunciation of the Japanese language really is astonishing, and I mused aloud, “I wonder how long he’s lived in Japan?” to which my mother replied, “I think he’s married to a Japanese.”

Tea time with Yoko

It's snowing and cold and my mom and I had bought donuts at Mister Donut for our afternoon tea. (Incidentally, Mister Donut makes this thing called a Pon de Ring which is the best thing I've had of the donut variety since my first taste of a Krispy Kreme.) I was making us black-tea and asked my mom if she wanted to put any sugar or anything in hers.
"I want everything," she told me. "Sugar and milk. Or whiskey."
Apparently she likes tea with sugar and Wild Turkey. Anyway, today she opted for the softer version and we enjoyed our tea mit donut as the snow fell quietly outside.

Having eaten our donuts, we were meditating on the quiet mess of the dining room table when my mom started to peer curiously at this tin she uses to keep stamps in.
"What?" I asked her.
"I was trying to figure out where this came from," she answered.
"It looks like it's maybe from England...Let me see it."

I looked at the picture on the front and read the little blurb under the name "Neuhaus."
"I think it must be French. It says 'Neuhaus - créateur de chocolats frais depuis 1857.' "

"I guess so if it says depuis."

The ridiculousness of that sentence hadn't penetrated my heavy Pon de Ring fog before I heard the raspy wheeze of a cackle coming from my mom. Actually, this was one thing I might have even let go except that it was funny that she thought it was funny before I even recognized it as being funny. She finally beat me to the punch.

Technology 3

My dad recently told me about this youtube video:

It coincided with my mom's finally buying a new computer and now whenever she asks me (simple) tech questions I can't help but think about this video and it makes me laugh. Then she gives me her patented 'Yoko scowl' to let me know she's not amused at my amusement. But I cannot help myself. I can't tell you how many times I've directed her to click 'okay' and she closes the window, then looks at me in surprise.

Anyway, yesterday she called me down stairs because, as she told me, her email was all gone. She has a free yahoo online account so I knew right away that there was no chance it was 'gone' but went down to see what the problem was.
"I clicked the 'yahoo' bookmark, and there's no mail!" she explained.
I looked at the book mark she'd clicked. It was for yahoo's homepage, not the mail page. Admittedly Japanese websites are notoriously hard to navigate and so she couldn't find the link to yahoo's mail service. Anyway, I told her that she should just use the yahoo mail bookmark in the future. I had put it at the top of her bookmarks so it would be easy to find, but the person who was helping her set up her new computer had collapsed the folder with her usual bookmarks. So, I opened/uncollapsed it for her and showed her where it was. "Oh, so you have to do that first?" she reflected. I can't help but imagine her in a medieval monk costume and it makes me smile.