From a Town on the Hudson (9 page)

ON DECEMBER 6, 1989, the doll-making class welcomed a new lady who looked to be in her late eighties. She didn't seem to want to join the class herself. Elaine, the director of the senior citizens center, and the lady's middle-aged son talked to her as if they were coaxing a child into the hospital. In the end, the elderly mother agreed to observe the class for the time being, and so she took a seat. As soon as Elaine and the lady's son left the room, most members of the class who had waited impatiently started speaking to her at the same time. The lady was from Hungary and seemed to be unable to speak English fluently, as Elaine had explained. She sat with a look of confusion upon hearing the ladies' welcomes fill the room.

When I began to cut the fabric for the dress for Muriel's baby doll at the table by the window, Rose, who had been sitting with her back to me, suddenly stood up and went over to the Hungarian lady. Rose weakly smiled at the lady and then touched her shoulder. Crouching a little, she began speaking eagerly to the timid-looking lady. As the ladies' welcome speeches came to an end, I went back to my work and started to pin two pieces of fabric together, listening to the words of Rose behind me. The voice sounded beautiful but painful. The previous week Rose's brother and her favorite nephew had died. Even if she might have been the most suitable person for soothing the lonely newcomer, I thought, she didn't have to put on a good show. There hadn't been enough time to heal her sadness yet. When I turned around, however, I saw Rose beaming. If I had been an American woman, I wouldn't have hesitated to hug her saying, "Oh, Rose, how great you are! I am proud of you," just as she used to do for me. I, a shy woman, could do nothing but smile at her with all my heart. I realized that there were some customs that are hard to change no matter what the circumstances are. Even if I wouldn't be able to have her comprehend how much I thought of her, this was my way. However, Rose quietly smiled back and nodded twice as if she understood what I thought. In the room filled with women chatting, I felt at that moment as if Rose and I stood in a special, still place, facing each other.

Other members of the class also were people who might have experienced many sorrows in their long lives. Nevertheless, they were always cheerful and genuine about their feelings. They were especially open to newcomers. I, too, was a Japanese volunteer who had been welcomed warmly to this Senior Citizens Center two years earlier. The newcomer that day didn't have the shape of a cherub with wings, or a bow and arrow like the ones you see in pictures, but in my mind she had been as helpful as a Cupid. She made the class lively, Rose regain her confidence, and me believe that the differences between two cultures didn't matter as long as we trusted in each other. All of these, however, originated in the most admirable characteristic that Americans have: hospitality. The class was full of love that day.

These accounts were from the doll-making class at the Senior Citizens Center, Teaneck, New Jersey, before Christmas of 1989. Then the class welcomed newcomers Eileen, Ruth, Evelyn, and two ladies named Hazel. A new instructor, Yoko, also joined us.

AMERICANS, generally speaking, seem to be a people who essentially love freedom. So far as I saw during my five-year stay in America, they were apt to do what they liked in any given situation, even while they were driving. It seemed that they were willing to carry out most of their routines, except for going to the bathroom and to bed, at the risk of their lives.

One chilly afternoon in December 1989, on the way back home from Manhattan to Fort Lee, New Jersey, I took a New Jersey Transit bus from the Port Authority Bus Terminal on 42nd Street. I sat down on the front seat on the right side. The bus left soon and passed through the Lincoln Tunnel. When the bus came to a hill, the driver let go of the wheel with his left hand which had also been holding a wad of money that passengers had paid. He then removed his right hand from the steering wheel too. As I looked on in disbelief, he held the wad again tightly with his hands and began to count the bills. In Japan I had never seen such a terrible scene, bus drivers doing another job without holding the steering wheel while they were driving. The lives of about forty passengers—including my own—should have been in his hands, but the money was there instead. The bus kept moving ahead. I fixed my eyes on the daredevil driver's fingers, which were leisurely turning over the bills one by one instead of holding the steering wheel. Eventually I could see that he hadn't let go of the steering completely: He was using his elbows to steer the bus! He glanced ahead sometimes, too, but none of these things reassured me. "One, two, three . . . thirty-eight," holding my breath I counted the number of bills with him. I prayed he would finish his performance as soon as possible—and then he started recounting the money to make sure, like a slow bank clerk! What's more, no American passengers around me seemed to care about the driver's risky behavior. Almost unintentionally I turned to get a look at the oldest man in the group. I expected that elderly people, in general, should be expert in dissuading people from doing wrong, as I used to rely on my older brothers and sisters to take care of problems for me. The ruddy-faced old man noticed me and smiled and then nodded as if he fully understood what I wanted to ask him. Even if there were some differences between Americans and Japanese, I thought at that moment, we could have mutual understanding as human beings. I felt relieved at last. "Hey!" the old man bravely said to the driver on behalf of all the rest of the passengers, "Hey, you made money, did you?"

On a bright morning in May 1990, near the middle of the downhill part of Fort Lee Road in New Jersey, my car was in a traffic jam because of some construction work. As cars slowed down on the slope, I could see the smoke of a cigarette rising from the slightly open rooftop window of the car ahead of me. The sunlight streamed through the gentle green leaves over the road. When I opened the windows, a fragrant breeze blew across my face. Some cars honked their horns. Most of the drivers passing by seemed to become irritated. I, too, became nervous in this irregular situation. When my car and the one behind mine proceeded to a level part of the road, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a handsome man smiling and holding something brown. He seemed to be playing a guitar while driving.

After the experience with the bus driver, I wasn't surprised to see a driver doing something else while he was driving. However, I got confused again when I saw that he was using neither his elbows nor the lower part of his arms to steer his car. In my mirror he seemed to be singing a song accompanying himself on a guitar, as if he were enjoying the most beautiful season of the year. He opened the window as he found an audience before him, not under a shady tree but in a traffic jam. Afraid of being involved in an accident, I couldn't enjoy listening to him. The palms of my hands started perspiring as I worried about this crazy man colliding with my car. When we approached the construction site, I thought he would surely be warned against such stupid behavior by those who were directing the traffic around there. His voice was so beautiful that it made me feel sad. Cars proceeded at a snail's pace to where the work was being done. His song and the sound of the guitar aroused curiosity from the men at work along the street. There was a policeman there just as I had thought. With a look of keen interest he approached the car behind mine in a more authoritative manner than I had expected. What I heard as I left, however, was the officer saying in a loud voice to the musician, "Fantastic!"

On a depressing morning in June 1991, at home in Japan, I found an article titled "California Commuters Find Ways to Pass the Time" in
The Japan Times
^*
The article was about ways to overcome the boredom of long drives, citing many examples including a report from Peter O'Rourke, Director of the California Office of Traffic Safety. It opened my eyes to the fact that my two previous experiences in the United States had been matters of everyday occurrence for Americans. According to the article, people shave, put on makeup, drink coffee, eat breakfast, read the paper, talk on the car phone, play musical instruments using their knees to steer the car, exercise by pushing their body against their seat belt or working their face and neck muscles by making grimaces, floss their teeth, and so on—all while they are driving their cars! Even though I still thought that such behavior invited traffic accidents, I couldn't help but be impressed with the Americans' free way of thinking.

In the year and a half since I returned to Japan, I have never seen such breath-taking scenes like the ones I saw in the United States. At most, bus drivers in Japan will politely raise their right hand with a white glove to the forehead to greet another bus driver as their two buses pass each other. Consequently, I can comfortably doze in the bus seat. Yet, because I have been influenced by the risky way Americans drive, the safety of the Japanese way now sometimes bores me to death.

*
The Japan Times
, June 27, 1991.

ON JUNE 22, 1989, during the fifth year of our family's sojourn in Fort Lee, our older son was graduated from Fort Lee High School a year early, as an accelerated student.

The reason he rushed was that he wanted to go back to Japan and start his college life with his old Japanese friends beginning in April 1990. In Japan, school begins in April, and he would have been a senior at a high school there from April 1989 to March 1990. He liked the United States, but I think he was unable to bring himself to accept social problems such as drugs and teen pregnancy, which he heard about and saw around him in his high school.

The American school system complied with the Japanese boy's personal request. My husband had some interviews with the high school guidance counselor to help accomplish our son's hope of acceleration. Consequently, our son became very busy studying during those three years. To fulfill the requirements at Dwight-Englewood summer school, he took additional credits in geometry in 1987 and in pre-calculus in 1988, while I was his chauffeur. When he took the TOEFL,
^*
my husband took him to the test centers.

During his school years, our older son led a regular life. He left home at 7:55
A.M.
and returned at 3:05
P.M.
Unlike in our hometown in Japan, no shops that teenagers liked were along the road from home to school. He mostly seemed to walk under the big trees along Linwood Avenue and Lincoln Avenue as he watched squirrels holding acorns. Though he had passed the E.S.L. and bilingual class at the end of ninth grade, in 1987, he still had a few language problems. Even in doing homework, he had to take more time than his American classmates did, but he no longer needed his father's help for his daily work. He went to bed later than we did and got up before we did sometimes. He often looked pale, but he was happy at the same time because the teachers recognized his achievements. They kept on encouraging this foreign boy who was coping with difficulties alone. He came to respect some teachers, not only as teachers but also as ladies and gentlemen. In each high school class he always was allowed to concentrate all his energy on a problem, and he made efforts to create his own solutions. This was one of the splendid things he learned from American education. He also loved the camera club and became its vice president when he was in eleventh grade. All these were just because he had wanted with all his heart to get back to Japan earlier. Because of this desire, however, his second American life turned out to be busy but at the same time became richer and more promising than he had expected. In the end, he was chosen to be a member of the National Honor Society. His face was as bright as the gold-colored shawl hanging from his shoulders at the graduation ceremony.

At the high school, not only the regular class teachers but also the bilingual teacher and the guidance counselors supported him. He made good friends and met a kind crossing guard, as well. Also, he met a lady who gave him encouragement from across the lunch counter every day. Mrs. Irene Guidera, who was a high school cafeteria worker as well as a nice next-door neighbor, also made a point of inviting our sons over when the Halloween candies were ready.

On June 24, 1989, two days after the graduation ceremony, our older son completed his stay of four years and two months in Fort Lee and returned alone to Japan from John F. Kennedy Airport. Since my husband's assignment in New York wasn't finished, we asked our son's grandmother to take care of him in Japan until the rest of us got back home. That day, Kyosuke, whose wings had been clipped in the beginning of his American life because of the language problem, seemed to spread those wings at the airport. My husband and I saw him off and watched until the airplane had vanished into the blue sky with a load roar.

In the fall, as a returning student, he took several university entrance examinations in Tokyo and was accepted by three universities. He chose the law department at Keio University and started his college life the next April.

*
Test of English as a Foreign Language.