Japan 1

Life on the road

I am aware that next month we remember the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and I mean to offer writing Susan did from her visits to Hiroshima but I want to preface it this month with some diary entries illuminating the more day to day life on the road in Japan. First one from the countryside in Itsuki in the north and then one from Ginza in the middle of Tokyo. Note, Susan talks of a concert at a school in Fukushima this is in ‘97. After the tsunami in 2011 Susan raised money for and went back to perform for a different school in the prefecture, Ishinomaki, which lost many of its students to the wave.

-David

“Itsuki Lullaby” translated by Susan Osborn, Piano - Wing Wong-san, synth- Brian Becvar, percussion- Ryo Watanabe, from “The Pearl”

Japan Diary V

May 1, 1997

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It is the middle of the night and I am awake. The house is quiet except for the ever present sound of water from the hot spring deep in Mount Iwaki, continuously filling the stone bath downstairs. I am in a retreat house called Isukia, in the northern most prefecture of the main island of Japan.

​Yesterday, Wong-san and I gave a concert for 800 Jr. High School students on the occasion of their principal’s retirement after 28 years of service. He invited me over lunch here two years ago to come and sing for his students in Fukushima. It was the largest audience of the tour and they were mostly under 14 years old and I must say were incredibly patient and polite through an hour and a half of relatively quiet contemplative music. It was a challenge for us to maintain concentration, but I just kept thinking of that one child in the audience in whose life this music might truly make a difference, and that was enough.

​We decided not to drive north the 5 hours to this place immediately following the concert, but instead to enjoy the hospitality of Unno-san and his family in their log cabin country home in the hills above Fukushima in central Japan. What a blessing. Clean air, pure sweet water, and the sound of a frog chorus in the freshly flooded rice field next door.

​One friend that I have been sending these diaries to wrote and asked me for more detail. How do things smell and what colors am I seeing. What exactly are the foods that they serve in these delicious dinners. This will be the entry of details from the land that specializes in details.

For example dinner last night. . . Chinese Cabbage lightly steamed and cut in little bundles covered with a nutty sesame sauce. . . A kind of Chinese tasting dish of thinly sliced beef and steamed spinach in a slightly spicy brown sauce...pickled daikon radish and carrots and cabbage. . . sashimi, which is raw fish, sounds terrible for the uninitiated, but it is delicious light protein, tuna, sweet scallops, and mackeral.... steamed tofu and vegies in a soy based sauce....rice and green tea and, of course, sake....a light rice wine served cold this time. A feast.

​A late sleep until 9, brunch, then on the road. We stopped at a farm up the road from Unno-san's house to admire the peach orchard in full blossom. Deep pink arbors, the branches carefully and lovingly tended for 20 years to bend that way. The scent was delicate and intoxicating and we fell down in the mossy grass under the blossoms and just breathed it all in. Totally Spring!

​This place Isukia is outside a city called Hirosaki. As we drove in, we saw a few Sakura trees in full bloom and my heart leapt. We turned a corner and there before us was an entire street lined with cherry trees running alongside a river. . . a pale pink river of blossoms. We had come at just the right time. Sunset on the last day of full blossom. Even now, a few new green leaves were showing thru the pink. And it just kept getting more beautiful. The streets were filled with people strolling under the blossoms. As it turned out we were circling Hirosaki Castle grounds where there are 5000 cherry trees. We parked and walked into the wonderland. Also blooming were incredibly fragrant white tulip trees..... palest pink and white, pagoda-like buildings, rust red wooden bridges over the river, branches of cherry blossoms bending down to the river, one after another completely covering the banks. The only appropriate response was silence and we sat on the grass beside the river and watched as the sunset turned the river and the blossoms and the sky and our faces rosy pink. A whisper of a breeze sent blossoms flying like pink snow...

May 2

​Drove in from the country this afternoon to the hall and past the castle grounds. A wind storm blew in this morning and the trees were bare of blossoms. Another season begins....

Japan Diary VI

May 4, 1997

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A day off. Here in Tokyo...Ginza...Sunday. A little cold hit me the last day in the country. So, slept in, then out into the streets...walking and taking photos. Ginza is a big fancy shopping area and they close the main street to traffic Sunday at noon and set up tables and chairs and it becomes a wonderful place to stroll and people watch and shop. There's a guy walking his 8 pekinese dogs. They are all sitting now in row resting at his feet and at the command, they are up and follow him down the street. Some guy in a businessman's suit brushes up against my breast purposefully and follows me. I am, of course, outraged and surprised. The trains are notorious for this kind of thing with young school girls, but I have never had it happen to me before here in Japan. I turn and begin to follow him, take out my camera and shoot close-up photos of him. He finally figures out that I am not flirting and gets lost. I move on toward the paper mecca of Itoya.

​The buildings here are mostly skyscrapers and neon and huge video screens, and then every once and a while an old traditional soba house or obi shop with a small rock garden in front. Just like the people....most dressed conservatively Western, the kids in the latest wild gear, and a few mama-sans in kimono and traditional wooden sandals. There are only new cars here. . . black, white, grey and sometimes dark blue. There is some law that requires a strict inspection after 3 years and most people figure it's cheaper to but a new car. You'd think that the car companies have something to do with this, neh? A wonderful variety of scents fill the air. Bakeries with traditional sweets. The pastries are usually filled with a sweet bean paste. In the winter there are stands steaming hot sweet potatoes and chestnuts. Tempura and, soba noodles, sushi shops and sweets. All the big department stores....Matsuya, Mitsokoshi, and Matsuyaka. Thousands of Japanese on their day off spending lots and lots of yen. Average simple lunch, $25.

​In the basement of all these department stores are the food floors....like a huge deli selling all kinds of fresh foods....fish, beef, vegetables and also prepared foods. The floors above hold all the riches of the world. I love the housewares floor. It is like a museum. Beautiful Japanese tableware, plates bowls and teacups, laquerware and pottery. I can spend hours just looking and wondering at the beauty. I used to try and take it home with me. My bags weighed a ton. Then I got into Japanese blankets of all things. They make gorgeous warm blankets. Must be my Minnesota blood! Then there's the Japanese custom of giving gifts. I always bring an extra bag to carry home the small traditional Japanese gifts.colorful wrapping cloths, hashi (chopsticks), laquerware boxes and trays, china dolls, little bags and books, incense and origami paper figures. I have just spent an entire evening rearranging my bags and repacking just the gifts. Such incredible generosity. But of course this will not stop me from indulging in my very favorite Japanese art item....paper. I have arrived at Itoya Art and Office Supply. 9 floors of great stuff and one whole floor of traditional papers. This is like the candy shop for me. Such beauty. Red, purple, gold, black, silver, yellow, green. Patterns of flowers and water, sky and trees printed on paper more like cloth than the paper we know. Brilliant and subtle. Drawer after drawer of surprises. Then there is the section of gossomer papers....like silk hanging on wooden rods, all colors, some look like they are tie-dyed. In the end I gather just a few small items with the memory of the weight of my bags in mind. But the feast of color and texture has filled me. After lunch in one of the department stores, I head back to the hotel for rest and relaxation. ​

​A day off here also includes a good dose of Japanese TV. Now this is a trip. From ridiculous talk/game shows, I have been a guest on a few of these, to beautiful programs on gardens or traditional crafts to shows about crazy things to eat like bugs, to a show I watched last night of a Japanese family and TV crew visiting a tribe of the rainforest in South America and then bringing a family from there to Tokyo. Very strange. Lots of shows are just people sitting at a table eating and talking. I like to watch as I think that it helps me with the language and the culture...but I don't know for sure. It may just be TV.

May 6

​Somehow I have lost track of time. Trying to rid myself of this cold. They have these wonderful little heat packs with sticky backs that you put on your skin on accupressure points for various ailments. Don't know if it works, but it sure is comforting. I leave for Osaka in a couple of hours to teach tomorrow. Taught a one day class here yesterday. Basically the class is about singing as a practice in creativity. How to relax the breath into the body and then make sound from there, trusting the feelings that arise and using the energy of the emotion to create each tone. It is really about power and the choices we make about how to use it. Yesterday was difficult because I have this cold, but more so because I can see the deep suppression of who these people are. Of course, I am looking through a Western cultural lens and my own experience. This is the challenge for me. To always remember that I am in a very different culture and as Westernized as this place appears, it has only been open to the West for 100 years. Before that it had hundreds of years of developing a very refined culture and way of being.. . both shadow and light.

​Yesterday I asked the 45 people of the class how many of them sing with a group of people every week. No one responded. I realized that I no longer do that either. We used to sing together all the time. Around the piano or organ at home, in church, at school, in the bars....I feel we are losing something vital. At the concert in Hirosaki, 350 people of the audience sang two of the songs with me in Japanese. What a sound! It has been a very long time since I heard that sound. I think of my Aunt Elizabeth's story about the sing-a-longs during the war. And my friend Ysaye of Sweet Honey in the Rock who has dedicated her life to helping people remember the power of singing together great songs. I want to hear that sound more in my life. Guess I'll go home and start something.

“Green and Wild” (Suzukaki no Michi translated by Susan), track arranged by Bobby Irving who played keyboard for Miles Davis. From “Wabi” Masato Ushijima Producer.