Absinthe & Cookies (a bit bitter, a bit sweet)

Tradition & Change

SDB has a post on Japan that's well worth a read. From a young age, I was around people from Japan. I grew up in a hotel a block from UC Berkeley, and we had many groups of Japanese businessmen go through. Since my father was the manager, he was at a lot of social functions the owner would hold, and invariably, the men, missing their own families, would want to meet me and my brother. I have so many great memories from so many encounters, I'm not sure which ones to talk about.

They were always insatiably curious about American life, and constantly asked us questions. Over the Bicentennial, we stuffed a bunch of gentlemen in our station wagon and went to watch the fireworks. One of the men wanted my brother and I to teach him American children's songs. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has the entire car load in stitches.

There was "Tex", that's what he wanted to be called. One of the younger men, who was obsessed with Texas. He was ready to go to Dallas for the day! He had no real concept of how big the US was. I'll always remember him and his cowboy hat.

One year, it was around Xmas, one of the men was having dinner with us, and my mum was trying to explain what turkey was. That was when we realized that animal sounds are different in other languages! I still remember the laughter when mum was going , "gobble, gobble.

When I was 14, a family moved into the hotel temporarily. The oldest daughter was my age, and we became good friends. After they moved back to Japan, we remained in contact. Four years ago, I was the bridesmaid at her wedding in San Francisco to a man from Rome. Now they live here permanently, and have a doll of a little girl. (I'm 40 now, so we've been friends a looong time!) My friend's father still wants me to come to Japan so he can show me around. Apparently, he has a whole itinerary planned! I hope to be able to do it one day.

I'm not sure if my interest in Japanese culture is a chicken or egg thing actually. But I do find it a fascinating one. I've been fortunate to have met so many people from Japan, and to learn something about them and their very different culture. A series of books I can heartily recommend are the Sano Ichiro novels, which take place in 17th century Japan. Great stuff if you have an interest in history and/or Japan.

Update: Going for the traffic jam!

Posted by Ithildin at December 11, 2003 6:24 PM | PROCURE FINE OLD WORLD ABSINTHE