Listen and Speak, Give and Take

It’s a bit chilly for spring but that may be because it’s still a bit early. Many of the stores are only starting to open. The sales are calling to us. It’s such a nice day and I thought the fresh air would do him some good.
It’s not yet summer, the rainy season, when a damp stiffness seeps into your joints, making movement feel like annoyance. It’s also not winter anymore when it’s so cold everything in our bodies freeze and movement becomes beyond impossible. I’m holding the grips on his chair as tightly as I can. But even my grip isn’t so good these days. Even that seems to be deteriorating. Who will push us? Will they even allow us to wander the Hondori, me chattering away, him listening and inclining his head to show his opinion?
Oh, I’m sorry. He is my grandson, my first grandchild. And he is disabled. He specifically has Down’s shoukougun, the doctors said when his hands wouldn’t unlock. No grasping reflex that could be easily displayed. I was there when he was born early. His mother, my daughter, passed out, a difficult birth. I saw him and was shocked, put off even. I harangued my daughter about what she had done to cause this. I’m embarrassed now by my almost reflexive disgust. But in my day no one saw that. No one talked about it. You’d catch a glimpse in a screen on your way to school or there would be gossip but, sadly, people with disabilities like my grandson were unseen. Spoken of, but not seen. None of us knew what to do. My son-in-law’s mother joined me in asking what my daughter had done. I can’t imagine how she felt. How she still feels. We were ignorant. In these cases, the blame always falls on the woman. Even when doctors say it isn’t her fault you can still hear it in their voice. I wonder how she bore it?
Or you can see it in the eyes of people as we walk past. Some stare and some try aggressively not to see. I can imagine they have a million questions, but we don’t feel like devoting too much of our attention to them. Let them think. If they bothered to learn, they’d see him as I see him.
No one listens to me anymore in my family. I like to talk and tell stories but everyone seems so put off by this. It’s always “hai hai okasan” not even able to repeat what I said. But I noticed one day from his chair that he was looking at me with an intensity in his eyes that he understood me. Until then, I’d been embarrassingly like most people. I’d figured he couldn’t understand language so I talked over him, about him, like he wasn’t even there. I’d assumed that because he couldn’t speak he couldn’t understand. He must have been about 3. I started to sing to him, watching his face react to mine, to my music. I’d tell him stories my mother told me. I would try to hold him. I would smile at him. My daughter, still heartbroken, still blaming herself was more than happy to let me take him. She was worried she would break him if she touched him and I think she feels him reproaching her for “making” him this way when she looks at him. But he has no such malice for her, for anyone. He’d place his usable hand on my chest and feel the vibrations. He still does when we laugh together. He was a happy and quiet baby who has grown into a happy and somewhat quiet child. It would make me, and still does, angry when we get on a streetcar and mothers with children screaming their heads off glare at us, sitting quietly and respectfully in our allotted space as though we were the ones creating a disturbance.
I know these looks embarrass my daughter and her husband and they will try to “correct” some perceived offense. As parents they feel disapproval very keenly. I get mad. If these people bothered they wouldn’t see some “ugly child in a wheelchair who is probably an idiot who has to wear a diaper! (at least when we go out. I can’t toilet him alone)”. They could educate themselves, they don’t have to live in ignorance but they want to. If they really looked, saw my speaking and his listening, the give and take, the real communication that we have, they would understand. If they saw the boy who will look at old lady’s clothes and tell me if blue is really my color, who treasures our interactions, then maybe, they would not stare. Maybe then my daughter would be proud of her son. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen to my grandson when I leave this world.
Shoukougun- The syndrome part of Down's Syndrome. Down's is written in katakana.
Hai hai okasan- “yeah yeah mom” hai hai can be a way of fobbing someone off.

I’ve only read a bit about the changing state of special education in Japan. Modern Japan seems to be fairly accessible from some of the disability websites I read while writing this story. So rather than focus on the reaction of society as a whole I chose to look at the individual experience of a grandmother and her grandson (I guess). I saw them from the 2nd floor of the Hondori Tully’s and it made me smile because it did look like they had a great give and take. I also got to see people stopping and looking when their back was turned. I worked with people with developmental disabilities in my undergrad days and I think the reaction is the same everywhere. There are always people who will act that way no matter how “normal” your consumer/relative is acting. They seem offended by the existence of a developmental disability. I say to these two: Shop on! I’d really like to see them again.

Dancing Robin Hood

Does no one know where I’m going, I hope no one knows where I’m going. I know no one knows what’s on my ipod and that’s good. No one knows or even guess that this mild mannered company man is actually…THE DANCING OUTLAW *theme music that is of course suitably danceable.* Yes! It’s shocking to think that you too could be riding the train and that man you’re sitting next to could be…THE DANCING OUTLAW! And you would never know it. You can’t see my sparkling costume cleverly concealed under my suit. You can’t feel the techno or trans or classical or rock or hip hop or jazz or whatever pumping though my headphones. The source of my power. That’s a secret, dear readers, please don’t tell my arch nemesis The Keisatsukan!!!!!

Dance, my one true love and passion, the way to liberate all of Japan from the cares and worries and uniforms and obligations is illegal, forbidden in parts of our beloved country. In clubs and bars the music plays but people stand and at most dare to sway a little. But in some daring, underground locations, my Sherwood forest if you will, people dance with abandon! Led of course by me, THE DANCING OUTLAW!!! One moment we are leading carefully choreographed gyrations to Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance” and the next moment we may chose to perfectly execute only the most glorious of Viennese Waltzes. And in that moment of dance there are no gaijin, no sarariman, no parasite signals, they are all my dancing merry men and we dance until the Keisatsukan come to disperse our merry band and fine the owner an exorbitant sum. Come the dance revolution I will put the Keisatsu on trial and fine them for not dancing.

You may ask, my gentle readers, how I became THE DANCING OUTLAW. The question itself is laughable. One does not become THE DANCING OUTLAW. One is born that way. It’s like being in the imperial family. No one would think to ask the Emperor how he became Emperor. The answer would simply be the just is and so I am. I do not have blood in my veins but pure music. My pulse is rhythm and my voice is a melody so that if need be I can be and feel my own music. Music is everywhere and anywhere there is music there is dance. So dance should be everywhere. Think of how much better the world could be if instead of sitting in meetings bowing and exchanging business cards, we started the meeting off with some break dancing and then the kenchos would begin an intricate pas de deux. And then I would no longer be THE DANCING OUTLAW but the Dancing King. And then maybe someone will write a song about me. Instead of ABBA I would like a collaboration between musicians from every continent and I would like dancers from every school and even those who simply dance around their apartment to pay me tribute monthly with a dance.

But I must keep it all inside now. No, the train is not the right place yet. As of now the train is just a collection of bodies. But oh, lovely indulgent readers, how I long ot take the bodies standing close together and encourage them to touch, to dance. I want to pull the obaa-chan up from her priority seat and send her tango-ing with that middle school student who looks like he’s trying to crawl inside his backpack. Or maybe have that gaggle of school girls imitate the back up dancers from a Backstreet Boys video. As for me I would like to do something experimental, Cunningham-ish maybe. Of couse I know who he is, I am THE DANCING OUTLAW, and I know all of dance and the dance of the future too. I am not who you think I am Hiroshima, and I am coming for you…once I get off this train! *end theme music*
Keisatsukan-policemen
Gaijin- outsider/nonJapanese person
Sarariman- salary man, those guys in suits on trains who work crazy hours
Obaa-chan- grandma/older woman

This story takes a turn for the silly but is a bit more reminiscent of what I love about this project. A part of this project is to realize that people’s lives and struggles are both unique and similar to our own at the same time. The other half is the pure fun of speculating about someone’s life, particularly in a rather absurd way. The man who inspired this story was on the Kabe line with me one night on my way back from Mitaki. He was tapping his feet and to me it looked like he was really into the music. He also looked like a Japanese version of Gaius Baltar so I took some notes. But the story about him didn’t come to me until 3 months later in the middle of the teachers meeting. I know it keeps me up at night knowing that THE DANCING OUTLAW is somewhere in Hiroshima city…DANCING!?!?!?! And yes, dancing is technically illegal due to a loophole in Japanese law from what I’ve read. Hiroshima seems to be one of the few places that enforces it. Clubs get raided because people are dancing. Lack of dance saddens me.

The Language of Flowers

I just finished the big arrangement. It took me a while because the woman who made it was very specific about what she wanted and wasn’t the kind of customer who could be told “This flower will look horrific next to that one”. It’s for her daughter’s first baby so what can you do? There’s no telling some people. They think choosing the right flower is easy, but every flower and arrangement can say something. Sometimes it feels like the mood I’m in transfers into the flowers as I arrange them. Maybe that woman’s arrangement seems off to me because she put me off. Flowers are, I think in some ways, more sensitive to how others feel than people.

When people are handled poorly they may try to hide it, they may lash out, or they’ll just retreat quietly into a flower shop. It wasn’t ijime or anything like that. It wasn’t anything so obvious. I just didn’t feel like I fit in some ways. That I was separate from my classmates but I had no idea really why and neither did they. They’d sometimes tlak about me like I wasn’t even there. I didn’t really factor in to their language or how they think about the world. We were high school students then and I should have been used to it but one day it just broke. I didn’t go home right after school. I wandered the main drag of Hiroshima city feeling separate from everything. I know what the teachers say about me. I’m quiet. I keep to myself. I don’t have many friends. But I get good grades at least so I don’t raise too many questions. My school is big anyway, 8 classes per grade so it’s easy for me to blend in. I was walking past this store and I noticed an older man in the window. He didn’t say anything to me but I sat, transfixed, watching him arrange flowers. He had the most serene expression, like he was above it all but because he chose to be rather than just being outed. I must have stayed there for an hour or so just watching him. When we both finally came out of our trances he asked me if I was going to buy something and I ran away. I thought maybe if I could do that then maybe I could feel that measure of peace that he had.

I came back everyday, of course. I would usually hide behind some bigger displays and run when he would catch me. But I started hearing him talk to himself, explaining what he was doing. One day said if I kept coming in here he was going ot put me to work. He offered me a baito for the spring and summer. I was mostly on the register but he would teach me about different flowers during breaks. I find flowers easier and more responsive than people. People can change easily but flowers are very upfront about their natures. A delicate flower looks delicate and instantly lets you know if you offend it. A stubborn flower will consistently refuse to bend to your will. They make sense to me in a way that people don’t. I’m older now. I’m not part time. I work in the shop and it’s understood I’ll inherit it when the owner finally dies. My parents don’t like it. They want something more stable, I mean what if he leaves me in debt and I’m foced to pay it off. But I trust the owner. He’s shrewd and does good business. To him, it is all about the flowers and the business of flowers. I ownder if the cycle will repeat itself, if one day I’ll be arranging flowers and I’ll see a young boy and I’ll slowly start drawing him out, teaching him, becoming his pseudo father. In my head I have a story of this being how the flower shop has carried on for decades. I know it’s not the truth but I kind of wish it was.

Ijime- bullying
Baito- the shortened form of “arubaito” which is the Japanese word (borrowed from German) for part time job.
There’s a flower shop near the hotel I like to stay at in Hiroshima. I’ve passed it many times but I’m always in too much of a hurry to stop in and I don’t know if it’s bad manners to go in and buy flowers instead of ordering an arrangement. But when I walk past I always see the same youngish man in the window. He is looking very intently at something or he always seems very busy even if no one is in the store at the moment. I’ve never seen the old man I mention in the story. Now that I’ve written the story I’m too afraid to go in because I feel bad printing stories of people I actually know something about.

Become

He looked past me and said to become a good woman. I’ve been turning the words over in my head all day. I’ve been trying to piece it together even as I’m out kareokeing on what should be a school night. If I wasn’t carrying a bouquet of flowers I’m sure of the older people walking past would give me reproachful looks. Staying out late would mean I had become a bad student.

But now I am not a student, I’m an adult. Whatever that means. What do you think he meant, saying “become a good woman”? I don’t know because while there’s a general idea of a good woman, maybe my idea of a good woman and his idea of a good woman are different. I spent three years getting to know sensei, my homeroom teacher. We’ve gone on school trips, run so fast in takusai that he had to drag me to keep up, prepared a budget for the classroom exhibit in the bunkasai. That’s good right? Or rather that’s good for as student. A good student is what I know how to be. It’s easy to figure out how to be a good student. Teachers are very transparent in what they think is good. Good grades in all subjects, involved in clubs and the student council, never sleeping or reading or texting during lessons. While staying awake is tricky, it’s not so hard to live up to expectations, at least for me. I know some of my classmates, even some of my friends who struggle to be good students. Some of them just gave up after their first year when things were harder than they expected.

I’m almost mad at his response. Without a hint of sadness at me, his good student, leaving. He just smiles that same smile he’s been giving everyone today and said to me “become a good woman”. Was that what I worked so hard to get? Beyond my diploma and entrance into college, that’s all I get, and “Osotsugyo Omedeto Gozaimasu”. No “I always liked you. You were my favorite student. You always tried your best to be a good student. I know how you stayed up late studying, came to school when you had a high fever, and never cut class with fake stomach pains.” All I could say to him, stunned and pulled away by my friends was “ganbaremasu”.

How does one go about persisting to become a good woman. What is a good woman? Is a good woman one who gets married and has babies right out of high school? I can’t do that, boys think I’m too serious. Is a good woman one who graduates university? My grandmother says I shouldn’t work too hard, that I should try to find a boyfriend at university. Don’t want to wait too long, you see, and I’ve already “wasted” high school without a boyfriend. Is a good woman one who dyes her hair and wears the latest fashions? What is the acceptable skirt length for a good woman? What is her job? Is she a wife, a mother, an office lady, a teacher, a lawyer (haha, yeah right!), a farmer? What!?! What did sensei mean? And why did he say it to me and not to the other girls clamoring to say good bye. Why is it up to me to be a good woman? Haven’t I worked hard enough being a good student?

I just wish he’d given me some guidelines, a school handbook, a life handbook, so that when I see him out in the world he will look at me and finally tell me what I want to hear “You have become a good woman. You were always a good student, my best student, and now you are a good woman, the best woman.”

Taikusai- sports festival, think American field day
Bunkasai- cultural festivals, students make really elaborate booths in their classrooms
Osotsugyo Omedeto Gozaimasu- Congratulations on your graduation
Ganbaremasu!- I’ll do my best! (from the verb ganbaru meaning to persist or persevere)
My third year students graduated on Monday, March 1st. I was sitting in the teachers room and I heard one of the teachers say “become a good woman” to one of the third year students. She smiled and I figured it’s a cultural compliment that I’m missing out on by being American. When I was walking to the bus center from the graduation party for teachers I saw large groups of students walking with bouquets and various graduation presents. One girl I stood next to at a stop light was looking mournfully at her bouquet. I wondered what words her teachers had sent her off with. A side note on the lawyer parenthesis: It’s extremely difficult to pass the Japanese bar exam so being a lawyer in Japan is a HUGE deal. And from what I’ve heard it’s not particularly hospitable to women.