I wanted to share this warmhearted story from Sendai. Finding out what my mother had been doing comforted me and from this point, I knew she would be okay no matter what happens.
When the earthquake hit, my mother was driving. She returned to her apartment on the 7th floor, an apartment building with 200 households on 15 floors. She turned off the circuit breaker, the water and the gas and laid down my 8’ long harp (jyuchichigen) and koto, but left everything else as it was. The earthquake had pushed together all her furniture, including her heavy piano, and many things had fallen down all over the floor. This type of apartment in Japan is meant to shake and swing during earthquakes and because of that, the shaking seems twice as bad and twice as scary. She saw the disaster of this building with its crushes and cracks — no electricity, water, or gas and people in turmoil. She quickly saw the need for food for the people at her apartment complex. So, she drove to her company 30 minutes away by car and started cooking 30 pounds of rice in addition to cooking 300 pieces of kombu (cooked seaweed)!!! She did that for the first three days after the quake until the electricity came back.
How could she do this? My parents had a kimono school with a dormitory where my sister and I grew up living with 80-100 students. So, they always had the biggest rice cooker available which happens to operate using propane gas!! My sister and I always knew she kept a lot food in her refrigerator, and it was a bit mysterious why she has so much food but I had no idea it was for 200 households!! She says, “It is so normal for me to do that. I have always done this.” Knowing her, it is quite true and I was laughing so hard and crying at the same time. Her nature of selfless services popped out during this major chaotic event!
She said that this has been such a rewarding experience. She said that people bring her food and someone gave her gas for her car on the street today when everyone else is waiting several hours to get gas. She is pretty content. She says rice and umeboshi (pickled apricot) is the best thing for her body and that the Japanese can be quite content with simple life with little things. She also said this would give her a chance to throw away things from her apartment and clean up! She is a master of “positive reaction to every event!”
There are thousands of people who have been working without sleep for the last 11 days while aftershocks still continue. My cousin, who works for the water department in Sendai, hasn’t gone home and has been working with his colleagues who have lost the parents. As for me, it is no longer a state of “my family and friends are okay.” They are not okay. We are all affected wherever we are. Many of my mother’s students were from countryside in Tohoku, including the coastal towns swept by tsunami. As a child, I remember visiting them and the families during the summer festivals. The nori (seaweed) I have eaten every day since childhood comes from one of these family farms. There are many people still missing in our circle, and I hesitate to ask who is okay anymore…
Getting accurate information from either Japan or the United States was difficult last week. News from Japan seemed a bit too slow for this major emergency and the overly-exaggerating American media (for rating between networks?) was heartbreaking. A reporter said “The radiation is 20 TIMES MORE in Tokyo!” But why is he standing there then? What does 20 times mean? That didn’t help me at all. I wanted my mother to evacuate from Sendai because I was hearing that there might be another major emergency at the nuclear plants. My volatile state shifted after my mother shared with me what she had been doing. I am in a good place now, although still extremely sensitive and emotional in my sheltered life, and I am afraid to switch the conversation to normal life. But knowing my mother is living her life the way she wants to has really has given me comfort and a sense of pride as a human being. To know that we can be so humble and so selflessly serving and loving to the others under any circumstances is so rewarding! I often hear on American TV about Japanese people being so orderly and cooperative. For us Japanese, it is normal, and everyone in the world has the ability to be that way.
Then my question is “What can I do for the mess from both Mother Earth’s natural disaster and the human-created disaster?” First, I have many ideas for fundraising. My son and I will be quite busy doing this…well, once I am more emotionally stable. Secondly, what I strongly feel is that I want to share the positive qualities of the people of Japan with the rest of the world. We are not perfect but there are many great qualities to share.
Besides playing with flowers and trees, another favorite job I have is leading tours in Japan. I am not a scholar or historian, and I still cannot believe I am leading these amazing trips with Journeys East, but what I know the best and most deeply are the Japanese people and their humble and loving hearts. There are so many subtle things they do, and so many of these are ineffable. The coastal towns in Tohoku are very rural, and, to be honest, the people are pretty clumsy at talking. They use small words and are not good at expressing themselves, BUT they have huge hearts. I just know by their nature and by the way they behave. I don’t know how but I am committed to sharing the amazing nature of these people.
