A Japanese Story

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Going Naked
2007-10-22 00:00:00
Although it might seem strange to some people, particularly those with a more conservative upbringing, but right up until I was 14 years old I had absolutely no concept of male prudishness. None whatsoever. I literal had no idea that one man might feel in any way uncomfortable at the thought of being in a state of undress while in the presence of another man. I'd grown up in a world where such an idea simply didn't exist. On the base, my world had consisted of servicemen who had absolutely no inhibitions at all around each other. The showered together, they got changed together, and they had a penchant for skinny-dipping together at every opportunity. Outside of the base, I went to public baths and hot springs where communal male nudity was the norm and I showered in school a after martial arts practice with people who'd had a similar upbringing and therefore were similarly without such inhibitions. Even in compound dwellers in Kyoto, for all their strange ways, never blinked at ...
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Going Naked
2007-10-21 21:29:00
Although it might seem strange to some people, particularly those with a more conservative upbringing, but right up until I was 14 years old I had absolutely no concept of male prudishness. None whatsoever. I literal had no idea that one man might feel in any way uncomfortable at the thought of being in a state of undress while in the presence of another man. I'd grown up in a world where such an idea simply didn't exist. On the base, my world had consisted of servicemen who had absolutely no inhibitions at all around each other. The showered together, they got changed together, and they had a penchant for skinny-dipping together at every opportunity. Outside of the base, I went to public baths and hot springs where communal male nudity was the norm and I showered in school a after martial arts practice with people who'd had a similar upbringing and therefore were similarly without such inhibitions. Even in compound dwellers in Kyoto, for all their strange ways, never blinked at ...

9/11 2007
2007-10-07 00:00:00
Each year, when 9/11 roles around, my company holds a memorial service for its American employees and any of our American client who happen to be in Japan at the time. Even though I don't consider myself to be American the fact that my Mother is means that I'm permanently on the guest list, and I make a point to going out of respect for those who lost their lives on that day. For the most part, the company memorial ceremony is usually nothing too fancy. A 10-15 minutes of memorial with a basic religious ritual, then a 20 minute buffet and networking session afterwards. All conveniently timed to coincide with lunch. so that employees can meet, greet, and eat, and then be back at our desks without breaking our normal working routine. However, things were a little different this year.However, in 2007 things were a little different.9/10I was just finishing up work on September 10th when my manager approached me and asked if I'd heard the news about the memorial ceremony scheduled for...

9/11 2007
2007-10-06 12:28:00
Each year, when 9/11 roles around, my company holds a memorial service for its American employees and any of our American client who happen to be in Japan at the time. Even though I don't consider myself to be American the fact that my Mother is means that I'm permanently on the guest list, and I make a point to going out of respect for those who lost their lives on that day. For the most part, the company memorial ceremony is usually nothing too fancy. A 10-15 minutes of memorial with a basic religious ritual, then a 20 minute buffet and networking session afterwards. All conveniently timed to coincide with lunch. so that employees can meet, greet, and eat, and then be back at our desks without breaking our normal working routine. However, things were a little different this year.However, in 2007 things were a little different.9/10I was just finishing up work on September 10th when my manager approached me and asked if I'd heard the news about the memorial ceremony scheduled for...

Bedtimes
2007-09-09 00:00:00
October 1995 - BedtimesI know that there is a lot to be said in favor of living in a small community like the Midwest town in which I found myself. From my years spent living on the base as a small child, and from the time that I lived in small town America, I can well appreciate the support that a small community can give you, when it comes together to rally around you. However, I have also seen exactly what can happen when such a community rallies around against you.During my time in the Midwest I noticed that, when it came to my increasingly dysfunctional family, there were three kinds of people. There were those who saw what was happening in my family and tried to help Lucy and myself as best they could, there were those who seemed to be utterly blind to our plight, and there were those who came together to mercilessly attack anybody who tried to help my sister and myself if that person dared to disagree with our Mother.Over the years there were quite a few incidents when the lo...

Traveling without moving
2007-09-09 00:00:00
August 1995 - Traveling without movingIn geographic terms, I was well traveled boy. By the time I was 16 I'd been around the world a couple of times on planes, boats and cruise ships. However in real terms I'd managed to grow up with a rather stunted experience of what life is like in other countries.I knew what other countries should be like but only because I have read about them in books had seen pictures on them on the television, and with the exception of Hawaii and Spain, where my family draws its non Japanese roots, my experience of other countries can be summed up as being like looking at the inside of a plush hotel. Which was exactly where I'd spent much of my time over seasIf I hadn’t been well read, and raised in Japan, I might well have grown up thinking that everywhere from Sicily and Paris to Vancouver and Macao was pretty much like one continuous hotel suit where everything was written in English and where every restaurant was part of a chain that served an e...
More About: Moving

Bedtimes
2007-09-08 20:46:00
October 1995 - BedtimesI know that there is a lot to be said in favor of living in a small community like the Midwest town in which I found myself. From my years spent living on the base as a small child, and from the time that I lived in small town America, I can well appreciate the support that a small community can give you, when it comes together to rally around you. However, I have also seen exactly what can happen when such a community rallies around against you.During my time in the Midwest I noticed that, when it came to my increasingly dysfunctional family, there were three kinds of people. There were those who saw what was happening in my family and tried to help Lucy and myself as best they could, there were those who seemed to be utterly blind to our plight, and there were those who came together to mercilessly attack anybody who tried to help my sister and myself if that person dared to disagree with our Mother.Over the years there were quite a few incidents when the lo...

Traveling without moving
2007-09-08 20:41:00
August 1995 - Traveling without movingIn geographic terms, I was well traveled boy. By the time I was 16 I'd been around the world a couple of times on planes, boats and cruise ships. However in real terms I'd managed to grow up with a rather stunted experience of what life is like in other countries.I knew what other countries should be like but only because I have read about them in books had seen pictures on them on the television, and with the exception of Hawaii and Spain, where my family draws its non Japanese roots, my experience of other countries can be summed up as being like looking at the inside of a plush hotel. Which was exactly where I'd spent much of my time over seasIf I hadn’t been well read, and raised in Japan, I might well have grown up thinking that everywhere from Sicily and Paris to Vancouver and Macao was pretty much like one continuous hotel suit where everything was written in English and where every restaurant was part of a chain that served an e...
More About: Moving

Gadgets
2007-09-02 00:00:00
January 1995 - Gadgets While Japan is widely thought of as being one of the most high-tech nation on earth by most young Americans, it is a misconception to think that this means that every Japanese household is a mass of gadgets and wizardry. Actually, in Japan we tend to live far simpler lives than our American counterparts and, unless they’re ‘cute’, the gadgets seen on the television in America are usually reserved for a few city dwellers and ‘hip teens’. When it came to gadgets, or even electrical appliances, my childhood existence in Japan was very simple even by Japanese measure. Downstairs we had an icebox, an electric whisk, an oven and a vacuum cleaner, and upstairs we had an air conditioning unit. Apart from a couple of telephones and four lights, this was it the sum total of electrical appliances in my home. We didn’t have a computer or a television and we certainly didn’t have a Tricorder or a household robot as many of my Amer...

Gadgets
2007-09-01 12:16:00
January 1995 - Gadgets While Japan is widely thought of as being one of the most high-tech nation on earth by most young Americans, it is a misconception to think that this means that every Japanese household is a mass of gadgets and wizardry. Actually, in Japan we tend to live far simpler lives than our American counterparts and, unless they’re ‘cute’, the gadgets seen on the television in America are usually reserved for a few city dwellers and ‘hip teens’. When it came to gadgets, or even electrical appliances, my childhood existence in Japan was very simple even by Japanese measure. Downstairs we had an icebox, an electric whisk, an oven and a vacuum cleaner, and upstairs we had an air conditioning unit. Apart from a couple of telephones and four lights, this was it the sum total of electrical appliances in my home. We didn’t have a computer or a television and we certainly didn’t have a Tricorder or a household robot as many of my Amer...

Conservatives, Liberals....and mad dogs
2007-08-07 00:00:00
Conservatives, Libera ls ....and mad dogs (1996) Having spent the better part of teenage years living in a small Midwestern town; somewhere out past the boondocks, I have long had a familiarity with the well known killjoy that is the All-American-Conservative. Indeed, I have encountered them, and come to blows with them (usually verbally, sometimes physically), on many an occasion.Throughout that part of my life, the part that I spent in the Midwest, I generally considered said conservative to be the polar opposite from normal. A breed of man (and often woman, too) whom could find vulgarity in purity, whom saw egalitarianism as being a plot destroy their way and quality of life, and whom saw the first amendment as giving them the constitutional right to try and impose their views on the rest of society. However, for all those years, it never once occurred to me that they normalcy was actually a middle ground and that there was something on the other side of it that was actually the po...
More About: Dogs , Conservatives , Cons

Conservatives, Liberals....and mad dogs
2007-08-05 19:05:00
Conservatives, Liberals ....and mad dogs (1996) Having spent the better part of teenage years living in a small Midwestern town; somewhere out past the boondocks, I have long had a familiarity with the well known killjoy that is the All-American-Conservative. Indeed, I have encountered them, and come to blows with them (usually verbally, sometimes physically), on many an occasion.Throughout that part of my life, the part that I spent in the Midwest, I generally considered said conservative to be the polar opposite from normal. A breed of man (and often woman, too) whom could find vulgarity in purity, whom saw egalitarianism as being a plot destroy their way and quality of life, and whom saw the first amendment as giving them the constitutional right to try and impose their views on the rest of society. However, for all those years, it never once occurred to me that they normalcy was actually a middle ground and that there was something on the other side of it that was actually the po...
More About: Dogs , Conservatives

Blueberry Muffins
2007-07-09 00:00:00
Blueberry Muffin s (December 1994)While my first few year in Midwest were less than auspicious, and lead me to develop to dislike America and most things America on general principle,there were some aspects of my new surroundings that weren't quite so bad. Particularly those involving blueberries.Despite having spent the first 14 or so years of my life living amongst American ex-pats my experience of Western food was very limited when I arrived in America. For the first 9 years of my life I spent more time with my Japanese grandparents than my own parents, and I ate more meals with them too. After that my general desire not to be in the Kyoto compound generally meant that I didn't eat there either (My Mother wouldn't have cooked, even i was there, she simply wasn't that kind of woman), and that I instead lived off of a mixture of food that I purchased from street vendors and train stations, or which was cooked by the mothers of my school friends (most of whom I was closer to than...
More About: Fins

Blueberry Muffins
2007-07-05 20:56:00
Blueberry Muffins (December 1994)While my first few year in Midwest were less than auspicious, and lead me to develop to dislike America and most things America on general principle,there were some aspects of my new surroundings that weren't quite so bad. Particularly those involving blueberries.Despite having spent the first 14 or so years of my life living amongst American ex-pats my experience of Western food was very limited when I arrived in America. For the first 9 years of my life I spent more time with my Japanese grandparents than my own parents, and I ate more meals with them too. After that my general desire not to be in the Kyoto compound generally meant that I didn't eat there either (My Mother wouldn't have cooked, even i was there, she simply wasn't that kind of woman), and that I instead lived off of a mixture of food that I purchased from street vendors and train stations, or which was cooked by the mothers of my school friends (most of whom I was closer to than...

Surreal
2007-07-01 21:27:00
If I had to choose just one word with which to describe the compound in which I lived in Kyoto it would probably be "surreal". Indeed, living there was a very surreal experience.Outside of the compound's walls was one of Japan's oldest and most traditional cities, a world of vibrant colors and smells where Japan's past and present intermixed freely. However, once you passed over the compound's threshold, and its large barred gates swing shut behind you, you were no longer in Kyoto, or any other place that could be found on a map of Japan. Or so it sometimes seemed, at times.Inside the compound everything was as American as Apple Pie, or at least as American as you can make a converted Siheyuan (Chinese courtyard) style mansion. The Stars and Stripes flew from every apartment, red white and blue bunting hung from ever eave, and everything except the architecture was kept artificially American, from the pick nick benches and the barbecue pit in the outer courtyard, to th...
More About: Surreal

About Me
2007-07-01 14:57:00
About MeOK, so who am I? Well, to start with my name is Akito, and I'm a Japanese-American who is currently living in Tokyo, where I work as a business linguist; which is a bit like being a professional translator a bit like being a public relations agent and a lot like being a typical Japanese wage-slave. I'm also a martial arts expert, an avid collector of Anime and Manga memorabilia, and a recovering victim of years of sustained psychological abuse. Though I try not to let it get me down.My StoryUntil the age of 9 I technically lived with my Mother (American) and my father (Japanese) on one of the lesser known American bases in Japan. Though, in reality, I spent 5 ½ days a week living off base  with my Japanese grandparents owing, in part, to my parents being workaholics and, in part, to my grandfather's house being far closer to my school.Early in 1989, my parents separated. Which is to say that - while my father was out of town - my Mother packed her suitcase and...

Vendetta
2007-07-01 00:00:00
Vendetta (November 1993)As school children, most of use have, at one time or another in our lives, come to the conclusion that one of ours teachers was out to get us. It might have been the math teacher who always called you up to the board when a particularly nasty equation needed solving, the geography teacher who used to shout out at you in front of the entire class if he didn't think that you were paying attention when it was clear that you were, or even the psychotic gym coach who seemed to be unusually fond of making play dodge ball. We've all been there.Of course, as adults most, of us have grown to realize that it wasn't true - that said individuals were just teachers doing what teachers do - and they weren't really out to get us. Not me though; I know for a fact that my school Councilor was out to get me.He grabbed onto a chain of thought and refused to let go, and never missed a chance to push his own personal agenda on to me. More than this though, he also made it his...

About Me
2007-07-01 00:00:00
About MeOK, so who am I? Well, to start with my name is Akito, and I'm a Japanese-American who is currently living in Tokyo, where I work as a business linguist; which is a bit like being a professional translator a bit like being a public relations agent and a lot like being a typical Japanese wage-slave. I'm also a martial arts expert, an avid collector of Anime and Manga memorabilia, and a recovering victim of years of sustained psychological abuse. Though I try not to let it get me down.My StoryUntil the age of 9 I technically lived with my Mother (American) and my father (Japanese) on one of the lesser known American bases in Japan. Though, in reality, I spent 5 ½ days a week living off base  with my Japanese grandparents owing, in part, to my parents being workaholics and, in part, to my grandfather's house being far closer to my school.Early in 1989, my parents separated. Which is to say that - while my father was out of town - my Mother packed her suitcase and...

Surreal
2007-07-01 00:00:00
If I had to choose just one word with which to describe the compound in which I lived in Kyoto it would probably be "surreal". Indeed, living there was a very surreal experience.Outside of the compound's walls was one of Japan's oldest and most traditional cities, a world of vibrant colors and smells where Japan's past and present intermixed freely. However, once you passed over the compound's threshold, and its large barred gates swing shut behind you, you were no longer in Kyoto, or any other place that could be found on a map of Japan. Or so it sometimes seemed, at times.Inside the compound everything was as American as Apple Pie, or at least as American as you can make a converted Siheyuan (Chinese courtyard) style mansion. The Stars and Stripes flew from every apartment, red white and blue bunting hung from ever eave, and everything except the architecture was kept artificially American, from the pick nick benches and the barbecue pit in the outer courtyard, to th...
More About: Surreal

Vendetta
2007-06-30 13:06:00
Vendetta (November 1993)As school children, most of use have, at one time or another in our lives, come to the conclusion that one of ours teachers was out to get us. It might have been the math teacher who always called you up to the board when a particularly nasty equation needed solving, the geography teacher who used to shout out at you in front of the entire class if he didn't think that you were paying attention when it was clear that you were, or even the psychotic gym coach who seemed to be unusually fond of making play dodge ball. We've all been there.Of course, as adults most, of us have grown to realize that it wasn't true - that said individuals were just teachers doing what teachers do - and they weren't really out to get us. Not me though; I know for a fact that my school Councilor was out to get me.He grabbed onto a chain of thought and refused to let go, and never missed a chance to push his own personal agenda on to me. More than this though, he also made it his...

Racism
2007-06-09 00:00:00
Racism (March 2001) While I have often complained about my life in America, and how I had many less than enjoyable experiences there, there is one area in which I consider my self more fortunate than most of my fellow non-White-Americans. This being the area of racism. Don't get me wrong, I've encountered my fair share of problems. I've been refused service, had derogatory comments made about me, and on a couple of occasions I have even been accused of being part of some insidious plot to destroy America's manufacturing industry (Mostly by people who mistook me for being Chinese). However, on the whole, I been subjected to far less abuse than most of the Blacks, Asians and Latinos whom I've known over the years. Indeed, most of my trouble has been with people people who didn't understand me, didn't want to understand me, or who wanted change me to be like them in the honest belief that I would be better off for it, rather than people who actively hated me because of my race...
More About: Racism

Another Job
2007-05-26 00:00:00
Another Job (July 1994)Over the course of my time in America I met a great many people, some of these people were my friends, others loathed me, and many saw me as a background actor in their lives and simply ignored me. A few of these people, however, saw something more in me and intervened in my life in such a way that I will be forever grateful to them.On of those whom falls into this last category was one Mr. Hank H Grey. He was a friend, mentor and a benefactor to me, and was probably the closest thing that I had to a father figure during my life in America. He was the man whom restored a great deal of my faith in humanity and whom taught me that there was more to the "The American Way" than firearms, consumerism and conservatism.Mr. GreyPut in the simplest terms, Mr. Hank H Grey was an American’s American. A larger than life embodiment of the American spirit of enterprise, equality and opportunity.Mr. Grey  had lived the American dream. During his high sch...

Another Job
2007-05-24 00:00:00
Another Job (July 1994)Over the course of my time in America I met a great many people, some of whom I loathed and whom loathed me with equal abound, and some of whom I am extremely glad that I met.One of the people who falls in to this second category is a man named Mr. Grey. He was a friend, mentor and a benefactor to me, and he was the man whom restored a great deal of my faith in humanity by giving me a chance to put my talents to use at a time when I felt that the entire town was trying to impose mediocrity on me.Mr. GreyMr. Hank H Grey was an American’s American. A man whom was larger than life and the embodiment of the American spirit of his day. He was a varsity quarterback in high school, and was a big name in college ball too. He married a girl who was both the homecoming queen and the head cheerleader, and people even said, as they are want to do, say that he could have become one of America’s all time greatest football stars had he not shattered his knee whil...

Vendetta
2007-05-02 00:00:00
Vendetta (November 1993) As school children, most of use have, at one time or another in our lives, come to the conclusion that one of ours teachers was out to get us. It might have been the math teacher who always called you up to the board when a particularly nasty equation needed solving, the geography teacher who used to shout out at you in front of the entire class if he didn't think that you were paying attention when it was clear that you were, or even the psychotic gym coach who seemed to be unusually fond of making play dodge ball. We've all been there. Of course, as adults most, of us have grown to realize that it wasn't true - that said individuals were just teachers doing what teachers do - and they weren't really out to get us. Not me though; I know for a fact that my school Councilor was out to get me. He grabbed onto a chain of thought and refused to let go, and never missed a chance to push his own personal agenda on to me. More than this though, he also made i...
More About: Vend

Guns, guns, guns, and idiots, too.
2007-04-30 00:00:00
Guns, guns, guns, and idiots, too. (October 1993) With the tragedy of Virginia Tech and the murder of the Mayor of Nagasaki in the news, I've been thinking a lot about guns, gun ownership and my relationship with guns in general. Yes, it's true that I've lived around guns for a long time, that I've used them on many occasions, and it's even true that I used to own several (Some of which I doubt were legal). However, it's also true that none of the above were due to any actual choice of my own. Indeed, I'd be quite happy to live in a world where they weren't a factor. The Early Years For those of you who don't know, Japan is one of the least gun friendly places in the world. We don't have the constitutional right to bear arms, quite the opposite in fact. Handguns are reserved for the police, and assault weapons are reserved for soldiers. We can't sign off on a gun permit for one of the few legal types of firearm (mostly shotguns and low power rifles) without a psych ce...
More About: Idiots , Guns

Back on the Base
2007-04-23 00:00:00
One Disenchanted Evening (September 1993)When I first moved America I was expecting to live in a large modern city, and was somewhat dismayed when I found that my new home town was a rural backwater. I'd been expecting skyscrapers and malls and bright city lights, and I ended up with barns and tractors and a complete lack of the trappings of civilization that I'd been expecting. To be frank, at first I wondered what on Earth could have possessed my Mother to move there. However, understanding soon followed. When it came to picking a place to live, my Mother had apparently done her homework very well.Back on the Base Although the Midwest was unfamiliar territory to me, the town had a very familiar feel to it. The scenery might have been different, and people were driving pickups and station wagons rather than jeeps but other than that it felt almost exactly like being back in the family compound of the base where I had lived as a child. Seriously, the feeling was overwhelming. The w...

Master and Student
2007-04-23 00:00:00
Martial Arts (July 1993)While the two sides of my family, the Japanese side and the American side, are probably about as different as you can get, they do have one single thing in common. This being martial arts. It was one of the very very few things to do with Japan that my Mother didn't instantly loath.HistoryOn my Japanese side, my grandfather had been an expert from a long line of experts. He learned from some of the best that Japan had to offer and in his younger days he had trained the children of the clan that we served (Historically, my family served as retainers to one of Japan's, now largely defunct, noble families). Even when he was old and crippled he was still formidable and could break a man in two with his hands even though he could barely move his legs enough to walk. My father too was a martial arts expert. My grandfather and great uncle trained him to be a formidable fighter, and every minute that he had of his own time he spent practicing the ancient arts.On my...
More About: Student , Master , Mast , Aster

Sex Ed
2007-04-21 00:00:00
Sex Ed (February 1996)At various points throughout my time in the Midwest my school tried to educate my fellow students and myself about sex. Overall, the school went to a lot of trouble to do so, and its lessons were very varied. Various educational means and methods were used as were various levels of detail. Occasionally a guest speaker would even be involved. However, while diverse, most of these lessons had two thing in common. The first being that they included very little about the actual physical act of sex, and the second being that they included no mention whatsoever of contraception.Sex EdDespite having some form of sex ed most every year (ranging from heath class to biology), there was pretty much nothing anywhere in the material that we were given that mentioned the fact that sex usually involved a man and a woman engaged in a physical act, or that it involved certain parts of the body that the law requires use to conceal when out in public.Seriously, unless you had acc...

Comic books and candy, or plane tickets
2007-04-13 00:00:00
Comic books and candy, or plane tickets (April 1994)When my family arrived in America quite a lot changed. Language, customs, scenery, they were all different. Unfortunately, they were not all that changed. My Mother changed quite a bit too.In Japan I had been virtually without parental restriction. My Mother barely registered that existed, and cared even less, so I could basically come and go as I pleased, and I often did. However, as soon as we arrived in America, my Mother suddenly became a lot more concerned about where I was and what I was doing there. My near total freedom vanished in a heartbeat, only to be replaced by a life of near total control. My Mother became the arbitrator of just about my entire life, and it wasn't a temporary situation either. It went on and on and on, right up until I left for college.With this said, my situation was eased at time, when others intervened on my behalf to give me some small escape from the life that my Mother was busy organizing for...
More About: Comic , Books , Book , Andy , Tickets

Janurary 1994: 住めば都 (すめば&#
2007-04-12 00:00:00
住めば都 (すめばみや こ) - Sumeba Miyako There is an old Japanese saying that goes 住めば都. Loosely translated, it means that you can get used to living anywhere, or that if you live somewhere for long enough it will become your home. It's a good saying, and while I would like to believe that it is true, for my Mother and myself though, it was not. She tried living in my world, but was too stubborn and too resentful to accept it as her home. Likewise, I was the same when it came to living in the place that she called home. My Mother thought of Japan as a prison that she had been confined in when her father died, and she thought of her marriage to my father as being a chain that further bound her to somewhere that she did not want to be. She also saw me, and my Japanese nature as being a reminder of part of her life that she wanted to forget. In much the same fashion, I considered Japan to be my h...