TO CITE THIS ARTICLE PLEASE INCLUDE ALL OF THE FOLLOWING DETAILS: Yoshimoto, Mika (2005). Late-blooming student/Roots of loneliness run deep/As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry, 2(1) http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home Mika Yoshimoto University of Ottawa, Canada Abstract Postcolonial, transnational curriculum should value the experiences and knowledge of everyday lives, understanding the space of “interlanguage and intercultural differences” (Aoki, 2003, p. 6). Elsewhere in this issue, William Pinar says of Ted Aoki, “He is questing (rather than questioning) for the ‘original ground of curriculum as a human study’”. The focus of my writing is on language in a socio-cultural context. It amazes me how much everyday life and language are interwoven, especially that language which is unspeakable or untranslatable. During the summer of 2004, I returned to Japan to visit family and attend my fifty-year class reunion, which gave me the opportunity to revisit and reflect on the past and present. Like Hongyu Wang (2004) revisiting Beijing, I felt estranged from my homeland. Asanuma (1999) says, “Meaning is created out of the knowledge of past experiences and one’s interaction with others” (p.23). The idea that our lives are composed not only of major events but the countless little events intrigued me and I could not help but keep note of them. This paper describes my struggle from the in-between spaces of insider/outsider, in multiple re-writings of tangled memories. I recorded the day-to-day happenings in a diary. I drew on the poetic discourse of Haiku as I felt that diary entries, alone, would inadequately convey the deep-felt emotions in these moments. A poetic discourse of the mundane of everyday life “seikatsu tsuzurikata” (daily diary) becomes an invocation for “questing” in- between languages and cultures. さ “ ”(Aoki,2003. p.6) よ フ - ㈻ ♣ Ⅴ ㎲ ゼ ┤ http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 14 ┞ り オ ├ ┊ ㎲ ヤ さ ㎲ Background information This diary was originally written by hand in Japanese during my trip in Japan in the summer of 2004, mainly written during my stay in Kasugai City. Every summer, since 1994, I have returned to visit my home since moving to Canada. For each journal entry, I wrote a haiku poem in Japanese summarizing the day’s events. For the convenience of English readers, I also wrote an accompanying English haiku, which attempts to convey a similar feeling. As a response to the comments of the reviewers, I have included “A lingering note” and a short autobiography as an appendix to my diary, which attempts to clarify many aspects of my writing. Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home June 26, 2004 Suspended in air Nausea, scent of cologne Generation gap Today I awoke at 5:20 and the taxi was already waiting in front of my house, even though I had intended to set my alarm clock for 5:00, but failing eyesight probably caused me to set it incorrectly; that or my clock is cursed. At the airport, I used a strange machine to enter my credit card information, flight number and baggage count, in order to get my airplane tickets for Vancouver and Nagoya. I felt relieved after seeing how long the other line was. After that was over with, I had time to get my favorite Tim Horton’s coffee and freshen up. On the airplane, the person sitting beside me was a Japanese high school exchange student who came from Ritsumeikan in Kyoto. He had blonde hair, gold earrings, and was wearing some very strong cologne. I asked several questions, but each time he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “maa maa” (so, so). My futile attempt at communication made me think of Derrida. What I mean by this is that this boy’s context is beyond my imagination. The person on the other side of the boy, a woman in her thirties who had studied in Japan, also tried to communicate with him. She was singing the Japanese children’s song, “arupusu ichimanjaku”, assuming he knew it too, but to my surprise, he did not know this song. I really felt a generation gap. http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 15 Soon the in-flight movie, Miracle, began. This movie is about the American hockey team of 1980 and how they overcame the supposedly unbeatable Soviet team. The American coach said that patriotism and unwavering belief in their ability would allow them to win. I remembered my supervisor said a similar thing, “If I would not have believed it, I would not have seen it”. However, the movie was boring, because it is just like Japanese training, making players perform the same motions over and over again ad nauseam. So I started reading the National Post. They were commenting on the role of America in Iraq as “mission not accomplished as planned” and “Iraq to get handover of chaos”. I noticed a particularly shocking sentence in this article: “As her girlfriends held up a hand-printed sign in Arabic that read: ‘Please bring Saddam back!’ Ms. Faoud added, “of course Saddam was not a good man. Our economy was bad and he oppressed us. But we had security and stability.” I can imagine how scared they are and the expense of freedom. How can I judge this war as a war for justice? Is there a war for justice? I think of Derrida. Maybe the language of justice is open to many different interpretations and we should start thinking that we can never truly understand each other, although we are capable of dreaming that we are. Another interesting article was about President Clinton’s autobiography. The title is “Clinton fails presidential benchmark” and it goes on to describe his book as a cheap perfume. Kelly McParland says that President Grant’s autobiography, about a man who lived 120 years ago, is a well-written piece of literature and has everything that Bill Clinton’s doesn’t. I thought that the language of “presidential benchmark” is very misleading. Clearly President Clinton is unique, he engaged in a sexual affair in the White House and lied about it to everybody. However, is there a benchmark for Presidents, professors, and scholars? If we consider human beings to be individually unique and valuable, this language “benchmark” seems strange to me. One other article that I found appealing was about Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg who tried to kill Hitler and did not become a hero for a long time. Harold Marcuse, a history professor at the University of California comments, “The people who lived through it did not want to acknowledge that there were people who were bold enough to take a stand.” Reflecting on my life, I think that this is really true. While I was struggling in my unfortunate marriage, I did not want to acknowledge that there were women who were bold enough to take a stand. In Japan, for a long time, I had this vexing and contradictory feeling of admiration whenever I heard about courageous woman. I regret that I did not have courage to think critically until late in my life. Maybe, women who are struggling in Japan might have the same annoying feeling towards me, because I escaped to Canada to be free from a demanding husband. bell hooks (1994) says, “In our society, which is so fundamentally anti- intellectual, critical thinking is not encouraged” (p.202). Now I realize that to think critically is to encourage my own growth. The Japanese Asahi newspaper says that the Japanese birth rate is 1.29, the lowest since after the war. Japanese women’s decision to not have a second child is a serious one. For example, my second daughter does not want to have a second child. My first granddaughter, who is 8 years old, got a dog, instead of a brother or sister by her parents’ choice. Because they have only one child, they travel a lot enjoying life more than other families who have many children. Maybe because I raised 4 children and my husband did nothing except earn money, my daughter thinks that raising many children is not rewarding. There is a saying, “ko wa kasugai (A child is a pledge of affection. Literal meaning: A child is a clamp). Nowadays, 60% of Japanese women aged twenty to forty-years old agree that marriage and having children is a different issue (according to a 2002 survey by Cabinet). The word “clamp” in http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 16 this case is something of a negative connotation, suggesting that a woman’s freedom is clamped down once she has a child. I have heard that Princess Masako is in the hospital, feeling pressure from people working in the Imperial Household about the expectations for her to produce a boy to become the next Emperor. I think that the current generation gap between young and old is wide. Princess Masako once worked at the foreign ministry and had the new image of a career woman unlike the traditional one. The pressure must be so great because the Prince recently held a press conference regarding how some people in the Imperial Household are criticizing and insulting the Princess’ personality. Another eye-catching article was about the crime of a teenaged girl (13) who pushed a 5- year-old boy down from the roof of an apartment building. She lived in South-East Asia before and in both countries she was bullied as an outsider, called “gaikokujin (a foreigner).” The doctor who gave the psychiatric tests says that her Japanese was not good enough to recognize the subtle nuances of Japanese, but good enough for daily conversation and furthermore noted that her state of mind was in all likelihood, not mentally fit. My son in law (Jay) is a Canadian, who has lived in Japan for more than 12 years and is still called “gaikokujin” (a foreigner). He used to get angry every time people called him this, but he became more and more aware of the homogeneous culture of Japan and how it is so deeply group oriented. Every time I see Jay, I feel as if he is becoming more Japanese and that I am becoming more “gaikokujin”; and to me, the Japanese boy who sat beside me on the airplane this morning was more “gaikokujin” than Jay. June 28,2004 Home, cicadas chirr In the garden while bamboo Bends low to the ground From Vancouver, I sat next to a Japanese man who took a two-day tour of Banff. He came from the city of Matsuzaka, proudly describing his town as the second city of Japan whose citizens live longer, Nagano being the first. As we continued to talk, he mentioned how he deplored recent changes to pensions by the Government. He strongly criticized the Koizumi cabinet for being cruel to people who live on their pensions. I arrived home to find bamboo leaves strewn about my front gateway, making it appear as though a jungle had grown around my house. I immediately set out to clear up all of the leaves, so that I wouldn’t make my neighbours’ houses look bad, having to live so close to my house-made jungle. To my surprise, soon after I returned home, my eldest daughter showed me a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings about old-age pension. My daughter worries about government changes to pension and my old age after my retirement. Today’s Asahi newspaper had a poll regarding people’s reliance on the government in their old life. In this poll China totalled 24%, India 21% and Japan 0%. (American survey conducted by financial service institution during February and March of 2004) My eldest daughter’s dog of 15 years died last summer. When Miwa was twenty years old, this stray dog wearing a leather collar, chased her. I imagine that some time after birth, the dog was set out on its own, and this collar was so tight that it was cutting deeply into his neck and causing a lot of bleeding. Miwa took him to the vet and the doctor said that if Miwa left the dog, this dog would choke to death within two days. Miwa called the dog “Poko” and http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 17 took care of him like her child, so Poko was especially loyal to Miwa until the last days of his life. Her grief for Poko is tremendous and since his death she has been writing a diary in his memory. She still keeps everything concerning Poko, such as his food, collar, pillow, cushion and so on. She also cannot go into the garden without being reminded about him. One day Miwa received a letter in the mailbox from our neighbour complaining about the cherry blossom tree branches, because this tree’s leaves fall on the roof of their garage. Miwa had been trying to avoid our neighbour because she wasn’t able to go into the garden because it reminded her too much of Poko. I asked my youngest son to help trim the branches, and we spent the whole day, in the brutal heat, cutting branches. I was sad, because this tree was so beautiful in the spring and while my youngest son was cutting the tree, I suddenly thought of the play “The Cherry Orchard” by Anton Chekhov. I saw this play in Tokyo when I was young. It felt like a comedy describing the weakness and strength of both groups between the rising merchant class and falling aristocracy during the times of economic change in 19th century Russia. Everything changes; even on the personal level nothing is static. When I planted this tree, I was rich financially, but mentally I had no freedom. My family is becoming poorer and poorer, but my relationship with my children is becoming better. As we continued to trim the branches of the tree, one by one, I could hear the scream of the tree, because Miwa was looking at the tree tearfully, it reminded her of how much Poko loved to sit under it. Today’s column in the paper, “tenseijingo” features the comments of Shigeru Mizuki, a cartoonist. He says, “If we go deep into the jungle of New Guinea, we experience absolute darkness and silence and we might experience a chilling atmosphere that make us believe that ghosts exist. This feeling is attractive as much as it is dreadful. We are afraid to believe that human beings are inherently cruel, but if we look at the evidence, we should control this savage emotion with reason, not denying this brutal state.” I know of many massacres in the history of humanity. I felt the same courageous attitude as Derrida, accepting that we cannot understand the contexts of other people, which are individually unique. Other courageous citizens were featured in today’s newspaper, most notably a 75 and 76-year-old couple. Over twenty years, they fixed 1300 pairs of shoes belonging to handicapped people, free of charge. They regret that they could not fix 1500 shoes, because of their bad health. Such ordinary people are real heroes and I am happy knowing about these old people that live in today’s rapidly changing individualistic society. There is no ideal society, but these warm-hearted people make the society different. Miwa gave me a book titled “The Present” by Spencer Johnson M.D. This book discusses a practical philosophy that people can follow to lead a happy life. The gist of this book is to live in the present having a wonderful image of the future world. Living in this world, full of war, hate and revenge, I feel difficulty imagining a peaceful world. But I was happy that she gave me this book. She also prepared lots of food including calcium for my bones. She is 35 years old and has a strong distrust of men. When men approach her; the hair on her skin stands on end. Life is quite ironic; my second daughter chose the opposite type of man to my husband and she is doing well in her marriage. But Miwa got hurt and I did not notice that while I was struggling in my marriage. As I was going through mail that I had received over the last year, I noticed a letter from my alma mater. Sophia University holds many lectures and one of the lectures featured Michiko Inukai (a journalist). She was talking about Japan’s unsociable closed borders to other countries and was proposing accepting more refugees. She says that in 1982 Japan signed the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the Displaced Persons Act, http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 18 nearly the last country among those in the United Nations to sign. During the 20 years since signing, Japan has accepted only 300 refugees. I think this number is terribly small and shameful. I want to know the definition of refugees. Another lecturer was Hisashi Inoue (a novelist) and he was speaking about the method of democratic meetings. He says that Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd president of the United States, wrote the Manual of Parliamentary Practice in 1801 and this became an excellent text for the conference in the world. Later in 1876, Jefferson summarized rules and practices for Congress based on the small book of rules made by Henry Martyn Robert, a civic-minded engineer. Hisashi says that Jefferson stated that the meaning of silence is agreement. I thought that this was very informative for most Japanese people, because we don’t say anything in meetings and after a decision has been made we complain a lot. I think that we (including myself) don’t know how to continue discussion, sometimes criticizing one person and sometimes showing complete silence. I usually regret not having said anything in a meeting and my silence does not mean agreement, but I understand what Hisashi is trying to say. Especially as a woman, I am not trained to discuss in the democratic way reflecting my life. Whenever I have voiced my opinion, I was hurt, because implicitly women are expected to be quiet. June 29, 2004 っ Trash Mountain outside Neighbours stares I can’t avoid Shame, stress, sweat, and strain. Today is garbage day, and so I carried many bags using a cart, which we used to take Poko to the park in, after Poko developed a problem with his legs. I was so embarrassed at the amount of garbage I threw out today, I felt like my neighbours were staring at me the whole time. In yesterday’s evening news it was written that President Clinton’s affair exemplifies every man’s fantasy. A newspaper used the Japanese proverb, “suezen kuwanu wa otoko no haji” which means “it’s a shame for men if they do not eat food which is served by women.” In this instance, food is women who are willing to be eaten by men. Many Japanese men use this excuse for extramarital indiscretions; there is no equivalent proverb for women. June 30, 2004 ぜ Happiness above Brutal heat and sudden tears Happiness below I saw an interesting article in the Asahi newspaper’s reader’s column. An old woman was talking about her daily life of small happiness using the Japanese proverb “ue mirya kirinai, shita mirya kirinai, minotake ni atta shiawase” (Looking upwards, it is limitless, looking downwards, it is limitless, the happiness that suits your height is the best). I cannot find this concept in English. I can find many such similar proverbs in Japanese, such as “kani wa koura ni awasete ana wo horu” (A crab digs its hole according to the size of its shell), “bun wo wakimaeru”(to know one’s place), and so forth. When I went to my Korean friend’s house, I saw, on fancy paper, written “chisoku”(to know one’s legs). I think that this concept developed in Asia through Confucianism and stresses modesty, and controls http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 19 people to maintain the status quo of the country. I don’t like this proverb, because there is no small or big happiness. However, if she is saying that it is always ordinary people who find happiness in life, then I agree. The National Language Institute announced the rephrasing of thirty-three katakana English into Japanese, such as “accountability”(setsumei sekinin), “tool”(dougu), “conference”(kaigi) and so on. These are very popular katakana English words. The National Language Institute, however, gave up on rewording such words as “online”, “data base”, “forum” and “mesena”. Mesena is a loan word from French “Mécénat”, and if rephrased into Japanese, it might be very long. I don’t know why they don’t just leave people to their preferences and stop trying to control language. I understand that an English invasion of Japanese is happening, but the country cannot control people’s minds, by only changing language. This evening, it was extremely warm and humid – still 30 degrees outside. I was clearing away my old pictures and suddenly tears came. Miwa looked at me, sighed and said that you should not only count what you lost, but enjoy the present. It’s true; I am always too stupid not to notice something until it is gone. At that point, the words of Roland Barthes (1975) came to mind, “Thus impossible to imagine a more tenuous, a more insignificant notation than that of ‘today’s weather’” (p.53). How can we assign importance to daily events? Every experience has meaning, no matter how small. July 1, 2004 Violet blue rose Unnatural creation Quivering alone The Japanese whisky company Suntory, created a blue rose by implanting the gene that leads to the synthesis of blue pigments in pansies. The picture in the newspaper looks more violet than sky blue. Suntory explained that the reason why they created blue roses is because they believe that they add flavours to people’s lives and help sustain spiritual health. I am not sure if I think that a blue rose is beautiful. There might be some deep meaning as to why God did not create it, even if we don’t know why. I feel as though human beings are defiant in the face of nature, embracing this unnatural rose. I once wrote a poem called “Blue Rose”, remarking about how it looked so unreal, but with this unnatural creation, my poem has lost its flavour. July 2, 2004 Ever since my youth, Wanting success but I’ve found, I chose a long road I read in a magazine, the metaphor, “makeinu onna” (literally, the woman like a defeated dog). I did not know this phrase, so I asked Miwa about it. Miwa explained that these days, this metaphor is very popular in Japan and everyone knows it except me. She says it refers to women who are over 30 and are unmarried and childless just like her. While she may laugh about it, I feel irritated by this expression. Women who are over 25 and not married are called http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 20 “Christmas cake”, because it means they are leftovers. Women who have divorced once are called “batsu ichi” (one strike), like teachers writing X for the wrong answer at school. This metaphor, however, is not extended to single men. I asked my son, what do you call men who are older than 30 and not married and without children? He said that they are called “dokushin kizoku” (single aristocracy), because they are rich and enjoying an elegant lifestyle. What a male-centered language! The phrase “Makeinu onna” was created by a 30+ unmarried, childless female novelist but feels positive about her life-style. However this word spread so quickly and became popular, because this word reflects social ideology in Japan that its meaning was quickly twisted to the ideologys of society. Bakhtin (1986) said, “Our thought itself—philosophical, scientific, and artistic—is born and shaped in the process of interaction and struggle with other’s thoughts, and this cannot but be reflected in the forms that verbally express our thought as well.”(p.92) Ivanič (1998) describes this intertexuality citing Fairclough (1992), Bakhtin (1986) and Wertsch (1991) saying the idea that any instance of language is “double-voiced” means that, in addition to the writer’s own, unique role in shaping the discourse, it is “interanimated” by what Bakhtin calls “social languages and speech genres”. (p.49) What will be Japan’s social ideology if I were to say “makeinu otoko”? (a man like a defeated dog) I know that people never say that about men in a male-dominated world, but perhaps if the man were older than 40 with no job or money, then he might actually be referred to as “makeinu otoko”, because men are expected to provide financially. This idea of “loser” and “winner” seems to be so deeply rooted in Japanese education that it makes students highly competitive and leaves little room for striving for variety. Concerning power structures in Japan between men and women, I think that Foucault’s philosophy is insightful. If we only think that dominant groups like the rich ruling class, or men, or the social elite hold power, it will mislead people because identity, like power, are not fixed. “Men” are not one unified group and I have heard of many men who have committed suicide after losing face, losing their job and losing their money. The power structure between men and women is really a complex one and changes in different situations. However, I dream the impossible dream of an equal society in Japan between men and women, like in Canada, because nobody calls women “makeinu” (a defeated dog) and Canadians are generally more accepting of a variety of different lifestyles. According to Jacques Derrida (1982), western paradigms are logocentric and need constant deconstruction and the possibilities of presence within any contextual language are ever changing, leaving only a “trace” of the subject/object exists. While “makeinu onna” refers to an unmarried 30+ woman, recently in Japan, advertisers have begun to target this age group to increase sales. In this way, the makeinu have become powerful just as the 16-24 male is powerful, because of consumerism. Japanese social norms are very much reflected by the vast amounts of contradictory language. I am hoping that Oriental thinking heads in the opposite direction, learning towards western logic without losing insight into the contradictions in life. Japanese illogical language also requires deconstruction. While I am walking, I notice another difference between Canada and Japan. In Canada, when I am crossing a crosswalk, the car trying to turn right waits very patiently for people to cross its street. So today I was crossing the road, expecting the car to wait, and I was nearly hit. Everything here is busy, quick and competitive. Today’s reader’s column introduces a 68-year-old woman’s opinion. She has raised her grandson for ten years, whose mother died from illness when the boy was 2. She says that education is like lacquer ware, demanding many layers of lacquer. She believes that the basic http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 21 child’s personality will be formed during their elementary age, and then need lacquering through their life. She is looking at herself who needs more lacquer. Japanese craft lacquer ware has a long history from the Edo period (1600-1868) and it is very beautiful. I was given a miso soup lacquer ware bowl as a wedding gift and the tasteful character and sense of quality only increases with time and the beauty deepens with use. It’s interesting that this plant, harmful to people, produces such an attractive beauty. I liked her metaphor, because I believe that our identity should be formed through time. I thought of her difficult job in her lacquer-coated golden years, and what type of distinctive colouring that might create for her. July 3, 2004 God is everywhere Crying while we modify His most sacred sites Kumano-kodou, (Sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in the Kii mountain range) was announced as a world heritage site by UNESCO. These pilgrimage routes reflect the fusion of Shinto, rooted in the ancient tradition of nature worship in Japan, and Buddhism. The Nature God (Kami) lives in stones, trees, grasses, water, mountains and so on. Shinto does not consider nature in opposition to human beings. Nature is not under the control of men. Nature and human beings live together worshiping God in the mountains and trees, no binary thinking. I think this religion respects human ecology, even though I think that for western people, this is a difficult concept to swallow. If you live in Japan, frequent earthquakes and typhoons might make you realize that you cannot control nature. July 4, 2004 Trapped in a culture Where I must follow customs, Or be called “bad wife” Today, Miwa went to work early in the morning. Her job is to help old people and disabled people. Even though in Japan these jobs earn low pay despite the hard work involved, she has always been a girl who has wanted to help others and she does so happily. I feel that I must learn a lot from her displays of altruism. This afternoon I went to the bookstore and noticed that Japanese bookstores are not like Canadian ones; I cannot find any chairs or benches to sit on while I read. So I just looked up some interesting titles, and later on I did an Internet search for them. One eye-catching title was, “Vampire bats never forget their obligations”(literal translation from Japanese). I wondered why the book was so oddly titled. It turned out that English title was “Cheating Monkeys and Citizen Bees” by Lee Dugatkin. Dugatkin explains the cooperative behaviour of animals: baby-sitting mongooses and squirrels that willingly die to save relatives: fish that switch sexes in order to share reproductive duties: and vampire bats that regurgitate blood for their hungry mates. I thought that this Japanese title really reflected the Japanese obsession for meeting obligations. Most wives of salary men feel a heavy duty and stress because of the habitual giving and taking that occurs in Japan. This gift-giving custom is a seasonal occasion called “ochuugen” in summer and “oseibo” in winter where one gives gifts to bosses, coworkers, acquaintances and http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 22 teachers, who have helped you. This is done in a hierarchical fashion from lower ranking to higher-ranking. Every department has special sections for these gifts and the common gifts range between 3000 yen to 5000 yen and come specially wrapped. We don’t give “ochuugen” to close friends. I hated this custom, because if you forget, you will be called “akusai” (a bad wife) who is lacking common sense of important obligation. We have a word “akusai”(a bad wife), but we don’t have a word for a bad husband. Another word we use so often is “giri”(living with unending obligations). “Giri” is built up through doing unsolicited favors in one’s network of mutual obligations. It seems to me that an obligation is an actual legal rule in Japan that is a never-ending circle dance. Whenever I violate this rule, I felt like that I am forced to feel shame toward other people. Thus the Japanese translation, “Vampire bats never forget obligation” really make sense to me, as it truly reflects societal norms. In Canada, I like to go to the Salvation Army and Value Village to find something cheap and good and I appreciate Christianity’s free-gift concept. Often in the summer my best friend Andi and I will spend much of a day searching for garage sales and looking for good deals on useful things we want. This concept of reusing or recycling is not popular in Japan. While in Canada most people will only put useless or unwanted old things out at their garage sale, in Japan the idea is to only put out nice things at a garage sale to ensure that your reputation and those of your neighbors are protected. Doing what your neighbors do is very common in Japanese culture; there is a deep-seeded “Keeping up with the Jones’” ideology in place. July 5, 2004 ┊ ‘Til the day I die, I would like to liberate, The woman in me Miwa suggested that I read the book, “Shinumadeni shitai 10 no koto” (Ten Things to do Before You Die). Ten people each write one short essay about the top ten things they would do if their doctor told them that they had only two months to live. Reading this book, I realize that my present life is not so bad, because I am doing what I want to do right now. I was thinking about my top ten all afternoon long. I read the book, “tetsugaku annai” (the guidance to the philosophy) by Tanizawa Tetsuzou. He was criticizing Sartre’s existentialism as leading to nihilism and decadence citing “the word of Emile Brehier in France.” Before I used to believe everything said by those with authority, but I am happy now that I can read critically and I think that his interpretation is not mine. The first time became interested in Sartre was during my university days. At that time Simone de Beauvoir’s book named “onna zakari” (literally be in the prime of womanhood/ memoirs of a dutiful daughter) was translated by Tomiko Asabuki and published. We, university students, were all fascinated about the new love-style of emotional and professional companionship between Sartre and Beauvoir. For me, this relationship looked ideal rather than traditional marriage and it was eye opening, because I knew of many marriages without love. Once lovers become close, they become needy and romantic love disappears, and it might have been the case that Sartre and Beauvoir never lived with one another. Life is full of contradictions and I thought about Derrida’s performative contradiction. I disagree with Brehier’s criticism of Sartre, because he was always certain of his own value to society. Sartre positively attended politically related events and didn’t act nihilistically. In Japan Youko Kirishima seems similar to Beauvoir, sans http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 23 Kirishima’s children, in that they both had the courage to defy the roles their society imposed on them. Kirishima, who wrote the book “Lonely Americans”, had three children without marrying and she traveled with her children all over America and reported on American society. Her book won the Ooya Souichi Award for Nonfiction. Since I have come to Canada, I have encountered many relationships that exist without marriage called “living partners”. During my university days, even though Beauvoir was my idol, I did not have the courage to resist traditional marriage, likely because I grew up in a traditional family while Kirishima was raised by rather liberal parents. One can see how we are socially constructed, but our social beliefs are individually distinct because of our unique interactions with others. July 9, 2004 Sweet granddaughter’s face, Target of a rude remark; She smirked nervously Today I went to the public bath with my second daughter Mio and my granddaughter Mine. The Japanese bathhouse is not just a place for washing your body; it’s also a place to relax socially. There is a karaoke machine and people enjoy singing while bathing, or drinking beer while getting a massage. The bathhouse also includes many different types of bath, such as bubble, jug gee, herbal, ginseng and electric. Today’s herbal bath was lavender and the colour was purple. While we were enjoying the outdoor hot spa, one bossy noisy old woman came and stared at Mine’s face intensely and said, “Your face doesn’t resemble your mother’s”. Mine ignored her comments, scowling all the while, but the noisy old woman shouted, nodding her head, “ainoko dane” (you are a mixed). When she said this arrogantly, I felt offended by her prejudicial remarks against my granddaughter implying that she was no pureblood Japanese. I felt so upset as I whispered to my daughter, “What an insensitive woman she is!” But my daughter was very cool-headed and said that she is accustomed to this attitude. Mine is either treated like a young flower in a greenhouse, needing careful attention or is bullied by children’s honesty and cruelty judging her as being different. Mine’s reaction was also levelheaded saying “Heiki” (I don’t care). I felt sad thinking about how many times they got hurt by this type of narrow-minded person. Jay says that Japanese people are xenophobic. It seems to me as though Japanese people are one of two extremes; either unconditionally welcoming or unwaveringly rejecting of outsiders. My second daughter is planning to come to Canada within the next two years, because she does not want Mine to enter the Japanese educational system, because it is so standardized and it puts too much emphasis on getting the highest marks or being the best at everything. Mine enjoys summer camp in Ottawa, because nobody cares that her mother is Japanese. When I was in junior high school, my best friend was Korean. She did not give her real Korean name and nobody knew. She whispered to me confessing her secret and said, “Please keep this secret, because most of the Japanese think that we are inferior to them”. I kept it secret, but one day she disappeared completely from the school and from the town. I don’t know what happened to her, but I felt that she was stigmatized. We played Anne of Green Gables, naming trees and rivers with our own secret words. Her family was very poor like most other Korean families who were living in Japan at the time and their jobs were limited to being janitors or butchers and the places they were allowed to live and go to school were also restricted. My friend never took me to her house and said, “ You are so lucky being http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 24 Japanese”. Whenever I remember her, I feel shame as a Japanese person, because when I was a child, passing through this Korean village, I felt scared, feeling a deep-rooted grudge, feeling that they were different. If I had known that she was a Korean from the beginning, I am not sure I would have become her best friend, because at the time prevalent social perceptions and prejudices were great, even in a small town. By stigmatizing others, certain groups of human beings feel superior to other groups and we all have this dark side inside us. Without facing this inner dark side, how can we criticize others? In Japan, lower-class Korean people were called “Burakumin”(the hamlet people). Prejudice in our country is ubiquitous. When I came to Canada, I made friends with another Korean person. But if I had stayed in Japan, I am not sure if I, personally, could have cleaned off these social prejudices towards Korean people. The phrase “Burakumin” was, and still is taboo to talk about and one journalist who used this word in an article resigned due to a flood of telephone calls from the Burakumin Liberation League. “Kusaimono niwa futa” (Cover up smelly things with a lid). We cover up our discriminatory language, as if it did not even exist. I think of Derrida’s argument against the death penalty, that cruelty is always associated with blood, and even if they solve this problem by using drugs for euthanasia, the cruelty still exists, because the person who is to administer the death penalty has the ability to choose whether or not to follow through with the act. We cover up many taboo phrases with acceptable language, and we cover up murder with a “clean” execution – how cruel! We are becoming desensitized to the nature of discrimination by covering it up with language that no longer acknowledges the essence of the language – denying the history associated with the word – erasing the image associated with the taboo symbol. Why is it impossible for Japanese people to break the ice on these taboo topics? Karel Van Wolferen also points out that the phrase “shikata ga nai” (It cannot be helped.) places Japanese people in a political cage and closes the doors of democracy (p. 29). July 10, 2004 Grade Two Reunion Speaking local dialect, Going back in time I decided to attend a class reunion of my former elementary school in Odawara, because I wanted to see my grandchildren and Odawara is located between Nagoya and Tokyo. My eldest son who is working as a member of financial minister by the government was promoted and moved to Tokyo recently, so I can go to Tokyo after attending my class reunion. For me this is a 50-year reunion. I was worried whether or not I would be able to recognize people’s faces and names. I moved to Tokyo when I was in the 5th grade, but I missed this school so much. The school was in a castle surrounded by a moat, so we crossed a round red bridge every day. Around the moat, there was a beautiful cherry blossom boulevard. In spring, I worked busily to make cherry blossom wreaths. After school, I gave my leftover bread from school meals to the carp, which swam in the moat. I loved this school and I hated the school in Tokyo. The teacher, now 78, whom I thought extremely beautiful when I was a child also came to the reunion and delighted in finding me, because I was the teacher’s pet. Everybody wondered what I was doing in Canada and I wanted to know about their lives just as eagerly. Some of them recovered from severe illness and most of them had children, but amazingly only a few http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 25 people had grandchildren. They asked me to think of Odawara as my hometown. I lived in many towns, but Odawara is very special to me because of its beautiful natural surroundings and all of my friends from there. One of them said that his mother always scolded him saying “Mika chan no youni narinasai!” (Behave and study like Mika!) I apologized to him and was surprised about my influence on his school life. He jokingly complained that because I kept a diary while we were in the same grade, his mother forced him as well. My mother was very eager to have me keep a diary, because a well-known elementary teacher of that time, Muchaku Seikyou of Yamagata prefecture, made his students keep diaries as a method to express their life experiences called “seikatsu tsuzurikata”. One of his students, Kouichi received an award from the minister of education for producing a essay of particular quality. His essay reflected the poor lifestyle that he and his family lived on a daily basis, and demonstrated social and political awareness, concepts, which were not commonly well to the labour class in the more feudal regions of 1920’s Japan. Muchaku Seikyou’s style inspired thousands of parents, my mother included, to notice that education was the key to success. Because of Muchaku, seikatsu tsuzurikata became a fashionable educational trend during the 1920’s. This is well described in Shigeru Asanuma’s article, “The autobiographical method in Japanese education”. Asanuma cites Freire (1970) in his article, “Freire addressed the concept of “codification” which “mediates between the concrete and theoretical contexts of reality (p.214)” going on to say in his own words, “The tsuzurikata is one authentic method of accomplish this goal of codification.”(p.154) When I wrote as a child in the second grade, I would always write to appease my mother and father because of my father’s tuberculosis and never being able to truly bond with him. This was my main way of letting him know about me, so he could be proud of me. I was always so sad, having to wear the facemask, and talk through the glass, because it kept us apart, but mostly I was sad because I could not hug him. I wouldn’t have remembered this diary if my classmate had not have reminded me today. Suddenly hearing about my diary again brought back all the memories that were attached to it such as my father’s smile while reading my diary, or his reaction when he found out I was doing ballet, and remembering how eagerly he wanted me to dance for him. All I wanted was to make my father smile. I wish more Japanese teachers would have their students do seikatsu tsuzurikata, because it fills in the distance between teacher and student, especially in Japan where teachers just teach, and students just listen. I was very comfortable speaking the Odawara dialect with friends who know me without the feeling of obligation to speak reservedly. Feeling at home, I promised to see them again, even though I forgot the Japanese custom of pouring drinks as being the woman’s duty, but they kindly turned a blind eye to that. One of my classmates handed out many pictures with the attached resumé of his daughter expecting soon an arranged marriage because he was worried his daughter will soon be 30 and still be unmarried. Those of my generation seem to be slow to adapt to change; the fact that most young people these days do not prefer arranged marriage, for example. One of my country’s famous poets, Ishikawa Takuboku, wrote, “furusato wa toku ni arite omoumono”(Your hometown becomes hometown, only when you are far away). If I had become close to them, I am not sure how I would have felt, because clearly I am experiencing Vygotsky’s (1962) cultural historical theory of psychological development and development of the personality. Culture is a learned behaviour and my culture is an ever-changing flow, like everyone else’s, but my flow seems faster than most others in Japan, because of my experience mediating two cultures. I think that I have experienced many identity transitions. http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 26 July 11, 2004 Elders hanging on, Pensions being slashed away, Japan is so cruel I had a nice time with my grandchildren in Tokyo. This morning, the topic of conversation was the result of the Upper House election. The popular Prime Minister Koizumi of “jimintou” (The Liberal Democratic Party) received only 49 seats and “Minshuto” (The Democratic Party) got 50 seats. This means that the Minshuto boom emerged while the Koizumi votes crashed. My eldest son is very critical about Japanese politicians as well as the mass media. He says that they have no vision of how to lead Japan and their only concern is for keeping power. Today’s newspaper’s title is “sabakareta shusho no ogori” (passed judgment by people to a prime minister’s conceit). However, when the Koizumi boom occurred, all the mass media gave all the compliments to him. My son said, Japanese proverb, “kateba kangun, makereba zokugun” (If you win, your war is the government army, if you lose, your war is a rebel army, similar to the saying, “History is written by the victors”). Three years ago, when I returned to Japan, Tanaka Makiko in the same party supported Koizumi and declared, “Koizumi is both strong and flexible, I act as his wife, mother and sister”. However, this time, Tanaka says, “He turned out to be an unexpectedly inferior and defective product and I will recall and scrap him”. The Japanese election is an image election without any vision. The recently passed pension reform plan threatened the lives of those people who depend on their pension. On the way back to Japan on the airplane, I had already heard these complaints. Japan is an aging country. July 15, 2004 ー Cherry blossoms and Chrysanthemums, nurtured by Fallen soldiers’ blood I decided to go to Awaji Island, where my parents’ graves are. On the way to Awaji, I visited Osaka City where my cousin opened a hospital for children. I stayed one night and we talked late until just after midnight. Mihoko is a 72-year-old female doctor and these days she travels a lot. Her husband passed away when she was in her 60’s from cancer and recently North Korea reminded her of how her husband hated the concept of the Emperor. She says that North Korea had a terrible general, and we had God. Her husband was severely beaten in the training camps during World War II. He hated cherry blossoms and chrysanthemum through out his life. In April, most of Japanese people go to watch the cherry blossoms bloom and fall from the trees. No matter how many times she asked to go, he insisted that ume-blossom viewing or peach-blossom viewing was better. Cherry blossoms, which are considered to be the souls of Samurai, reminded him of the many Japanese soldier who died as kamikaze pilots. Many young duty-bound soldier were forced to die beautifully like a cherry blossom scatter and were forced to say “tennou heika banzai” (Bless The Emperor!) by the nation. Her husband, Ichiro, believed that young men’s deaths are the murder of cherry blossoms that symbolize the nation. Another flower the chrysanthemum is the symbol of the Imperial http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 27 Household. Usually we decorate funerals with many white chrysanthemums, but my cousin uniquely displayed white carnations, roses and freesias instead of chrysanthemums respecting Ichiro’s will. When Mihoko was a small child, every Japanese school had a tiny building like a cabinet named “Houanden” (respected castle). Behind the locked door of this small building, there was a picture of the Emperor and Empress. When someone passed the building they had to bow deeply in front of it. Even children who were playing tag had to bow while passing. If the school was on fire, the principal’s job was to rescue the picture of the Emperor and Empress from the locked cabinet. One principal who failed to do this actually committed suicide. In Japan, the topic of Emperor is still taboo, because if you even talk about the Emperor, radical supporters of the Emperor would look to do harm to you. Mihoko often worries when she thinks of the dictatorial situation in North Korea. Furthermore she wonders how Japan can be democratic, without allowing one to speak freely about the Emperor. I thought about the book, “History of Madness” by Foucault. Foucault’s analysis of history from different lenses is insightful. Looking back on our history, when did the Emperor become “God”? Why do we not delve into the original reason for believing that “the Emperor is God”? We should not stifle discussion that attempts to uncover the connection between social perceptions and the power derived from these social practices. Strathern, in his book “Derrida in 90 minutes”, mentions that Derrida insists that the interpretation of history should be open. July 16, 2004 ㊪ Awaji Island Near my parents’ grave, at dawn I see birds flocking When I arrived at my parents’ hometown, Awaji Island, the first thing I had to do was turn on the water and gas. Then I opened all of the windows and aired many futons, and put clothes out to dry in the sun. Soon after that I went to greet my next-door neighbour, an old woman of 78 years, with a gift I brought from Canada. Each year when I am about to return back to Canada she drops by to give me a gift which is always double the price of the one I give to her, it’s an ever-ending routine. Each time I receive a present from her, I feel guilty and so every year the presents I give to her are becoming more expensive. My daughter suggested, “What if you just said hello when we arrive, and then when we are about to leave, we drop a gift in front of her gate, not allowing her time to give you such an expensive gift?” However, the problem is not so easy as my daughter sees it. If I violate Japanese customs, our neighbour will feel guilty and frustrated. Good relations with neighbours are always a difficult matter in Japan, even though my neighbour on Awaji Island is a wonderful lady. Today I also went to visit my mother and father’s grave to tell them about how my life is now. They died when I was a young university student. My mother died from stomach cancer and my father died from tuberculosis, but I suspect his death was accelerated due to my mother’s sudden death and the shock it caused him. Their house became my house after their death, and so it holds special meaning to me. The location of my small house on Awaji Island is very convenient one for swimming, being surrounded by the ocean, so every evening I go swimming to see the beautiful sunset. At night from my window, I can see a small castle on the top of the mountain, lit up by artificial lights, and I am overwhelmed by all the memories that I had with my children when I was raising them here. I was always alone with children in this house. In http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 28 Japan, most of salary men of my generation are too busy to spend holidays with their family. I am glad that my eldest son spends his holidays with his family. I was so restless tonight that I could not fall asleep until dawn because I could not help but think of all the memories of my parents and how I could never return all the love they gave to me. July 17, 2004 If like a stray dog, I could do what’er I please, Then I could be free I read yesterday’s newspaper, because I did not have time to read while driving. A full-page spread opinion piece about the phrase “makeinu onna” (a woman like a defeated dog) appeared in the Asahi newspaper. The opinions of Kitahara Minori (essayist) and Ushikubo Megumi (marketing writer), two 30+ women and Peter Frankle (mathematician), a man who was born in Hungary, and is now living in Japan were printed. It was funny that a Hungarian man’s opinion appeared instead of a Japanese man’s. Basically Minori suggested living like a stray dog, not being afraid of what people say, and Megumi proposed changing the phrase from “makeinu” to “ohitorisama” (honorable alone). Peter deplores drawing a line to distinguish women as being winners or losers. He also points out that binary thinking is influenced by the Japanese education system being completely standardized. To think about a postmodernist curriculum, we need to change these metaphors, such as “kachigumi” (the group of winners) and “makegumi”(the group of losers). Jacques Derrida (1988) says, “Every concept that lays claim to any rigor whatsoever implies the alternative of “all or nothing.” Even if in “reality” or in “experience” everyone believes he knows that there is never “all or nothing,” a concept determines itself only according to “all or nothing.” (p.116) I married at the age of 22, being afraid of my mother’s expectations and social pressure and in the following years had four children. In Japan, the wife is expected to have at least one child within the first three years of marriage, or she will be called umazume (a barren (lit. a stone) woman) and I was not eager to be thought of as a barren woman. I relied upon my husband for all of my happiness, and it turned out to be a big mistake. I felt like a loser in my marriage, even though from the perspective of others, I seemed like a winner. Helen Keller managed to enter this “linguistic universe”, connecting the word “water” to the sensory experience of water itself. However, I feel that this “linguistic universe” establishes cultural concepts, which are beyond our control. bell hooks (1994) suggests thinking of education as the practice of freedom against racial, sexual and cultural boundaries. I wish that young women in Japan would choose their own way of life, keeping their distance from these misguided words. July 19, 2004 Like a fish on land A political ordeal Tricky to survive http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 29 This morning I received a call from an old friend who is the wife of the professor of law at Nagoya University. Our conversation shifted from our family’s news to the news of the “Soga” family who returned to Japan today. There was a rumor that people were missing and that North Korea had been kidnapping people. My friend says that she has never believed until recently that North Korea could do such a cruel thing. Hitomi Soga (43-year-old) in a light gray suit held her husband’s hand firmly, an uncommon behavior among old couples in Japan, reminding us that she is American now. The French kiss that she gave her husband shocked most Japanese people. Her husband, Jenkins (64 years-old) looked frail but handsome, holding his walking cane, and wearing a dark gray suit. Their two daughters in a simple white shirts and black skirts look like healthy North Korean university students. When I think of their checkered life, I feel angry towards North Korea for kidnapping people as hostages for the purposes of espionage. Before the Upper House Election, Soga Hitomi’s story was very prominent, because Prime Minister Koizumi expected his efforts to allow for Hitomi’s return to Japan in order to give his party an advantage in the upcoming election. Koizumi even had an airplane chartered and waiting for them. Jenkins, his wife and children might be used as diplomatic bargaining chips and their destiny lies in the hands of those who have political power. I think of Hitomi’s cultural transitions from Japan to North Korea and as an American wife. She looks very strong with her determination to live in Japan with her family and I wish that she could live in Japan peacefully apart from political involvement. However, I worry about her daughters’ adaptation to Japanese society and Hitomi’s psychologically and culturally calculated transformation since 1978 caused by her abduction. Soga Hitomi is called by her maiden name instead of Hitomi Jenkins in order to appeal to the mass media and to the people, portraying a Japanese person who needs help from the Japanese government. Their tearful reunion makes me think about the relationship between the nation and its citizens. July 23, 2004 That which kills most is Not just one person, but is Public Opinion Today’s newspaper amazed me, because in it I read that last year 34427 people committed suicide, the highest number on record since 1978, increasing mainly among those people in their 30’s, 4603 people and 40’s, 5419 people. A total of 8900 peoples’ motives were believed linked to debts, slow business, unemployment and other financial woes. The influence of the Japanese recession on people’s lives is severe. I wondered about the suicide rate in Canada and checked the Internet for information. To my surprise, in 1997, 3681 Canadians took their lives. Although Japan’s population is only 4 times larger, suicide rates are ten times higher. Clearly, this number indicates there is something about Japanese society and that for some reason; more people are willing to take their own lives. Japanese men choose to die rather than lose face to their family, ashamed of their inability to bear the duty of earning money for their family, which is the man’s role in Japanese society. I don’t think that these numbers are not suicides, but rather homicides. They are led to death by the society just like “kamikaze” pilots. Prime Minister Koizumi is known as an admirer of “kamikaze” pilots and I understand their love of their nation, but what a dangerous society we are building and living in! On the http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 30 surface of all beautiful things, politeness, arts, technologies, dedicated responsibilities and self-sacrifices, but are we paying too high a price to establish this way of life? July 24, 2004 バ A naïve mind is More guilty than the fraud that It surrenders to I called my granddaughter who is visiting her grandparents in Vancouver, because today is her 8th birthday. She was watching “The Magic School Bus”, a science program for children. In Japan, we don’t have many good children’s program like we do in Canada. Science programs, in particular, are scarce. My second daughter, Mio, says that the difference is probably because science is not introduced until the fifth grade in Japan. But, when my granddaughter attended a second grade class in Ottawa for three months, she was provided with scientific activities and loved the experience. Why do we choose to hold off the study of science until the fifth grade? The target of most commercial broadcasters is to obtain a high audience rating, presenting shows of a violent nature in an effort to appeal to the viewers. The role of Japan’s sole public broadcaster, NHK, is to provide appropriate programming for children, promote Japanese culture, and be responsible to the people. Sadly, one of today’s top newspaper articles was about fraud on the part of an NHK producer. The article explained how Katsumi Isono, one of NHK’s top executives, was fired for embezzling $430,000 in station funds for false production costs over the last five years. Isono was a well-known producer of NHK’s annual year-end song festival called “Kouhaku Utagassen” (The Red & White Show) which nearly half of Japan watches annually. From this program alone, annually, Isono was accused of stealing $55,000(US) from 1996 to 2000. Fees paid by every household TV owner fund NHK, and so the responsibility for ethical business practices is very important. This year in Japan, there have been 38,000 cases of fraud-related crimes. (47% increase from last year) When I think about fraud, I also think about the Japanese proverb, “uso mo houben” (lies are a convenient tool to make life simple) because I believe that fraud is a culturally rooted crime. I also think about the proverb, “nagaimono niwa makarero” (it’s better to be on the good side of those in power) While NHK has a responsibility to the people to do business ethically, there is always the opportunity for those in power to be corrupted, as the saying goes, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. This year, I heard of two instances of fraud, which were of particular interest. The first one, targeting primarily elderly people, is called “Ore, ore sagi”. (It’s me! – fraud) In this instance of fraud, the criminal poses as a relative of the senior citizen and says that there is some sort of emergency and that money is needed right away. In shock, the elderly person immediately brings their cash to the bank to send to their “relative”. This need to solve a problem with money is culturally rooted, and involves wanting to avoid shame, and meet cultural obligations. Last year, over 2,300,000,000 yen was misappropriated in over 4000 incidents of fraud. It should be noted that “ore” is the exclusively male way of saying “me”, while “watashi” is a more female-leaning way of saying “me”. Because Japanese society is more male-centered, with the belief that men are more valuable, it is always “Ore, ore sagi” and never “Watashi, watashi sagi”. The second incident involved an “Imperial Family Wedding”. A man claiming to be Prince Arisugawa of the Imperial Family sent out 2000 invitations to celebrities, managers, http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 31 and other people who might have money. When the day finally came, 400 guests showed up to a private club where the ceremony took place, with the bride in a beautiful kimono and the groom in traditional formal court attire. One man alone gave 300000 yen, approximately 3500 Canadian dollars. In addition to other gifts they received, over seventy people had their photo taken with the “Prince” and “Princess” themselves, each for 10000 yen (approximately 120 dollars). In total, the couple ended up receiving $150,000 in total. The fake royals were eventually arrested in 2003. Even though the royal family is just a figurehead for the Japanese state, any connection to the royal family is still a prestigious honour. Blind ambition drove 400 people to give money to two “royals” so that they could say that they were at a royal wedding. Even though talk of the emperor is taboo, there still exists a silent respect and admiration for the royal family who, after WWII, fell from divine right, to simple human being again. One interesting phenomenon in Japan that has grown in recent years, is the attention given to so-called “foreigner crimes”. When I arrived in Japan this year, I had heard from many people about this and reports of a foreign crime wave have been all over print news and authorities are wondering what to do about it. In many cases, this news is leading to wild ideas and increased arrests of foreigners who happen to be near crime scenes. Police investigations in Japan can legally deny suspects a call to a lawyer or consulate for two days and worse still, detain them another 21 days on the approval of a judge. The US State Department reported credible cases of abuse, both physical and psychological, last year, making accidental arrest in Japan a very serious issue. In 2000, Tokyo Governor Ishihara told the Self Defense Forces of Nerima that in the event of an earthquake, they should round up illegal foreigners in the event that they incite rioting. The Governor did not however, mention how to identify an illegal foreigner. Other such similar incidents such as Tokyo Metropolitan Police flyers, which said, “call the police of you hear someone speaking Chinese”; illustrate the racial profiling prevalent in Japan today. Moreover, this propaganda is very dangerous to Japan in that its already existent xenophobic social traits are becoming more overt and developing into racism. Japan must understand that its much of its population is aged and that foreign immigrants are essential for continued growth. August, 1, 2004 Miwa’s switching roles Her attentive mothering Encourages tears My return flight to Canada was this afternoon, so I had a lot of time to say goodbye to Miwa. Miwa acted like my mother, checking everything, my passport, my ticket, my souvenirs and so on. I was overwhelmed, thinking of how lonely she’d be after I left. I know that I cannot always be there with her to help her, and I’m saddened that I cannot be there to talk to her and spend time with her. I hope that my way of living teaches her life lessons for better or for worse. When I enter customs at the airport, I found myself crying, because nobody guaranteed that I would be able to return again next year in good physical health. I appreciated being able to spend this summer with her and thanked her for everything she said, and promised to live true to the philosophy of the book she gave me; to live enthusiastically in the moment with a positive outlook. Through September, I will be preparing for my PhD. comprehensive http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 32 examination diligently and her smile and encouragement are good enough reasons for me to do my best. As I approached the ticket gate, my mood switched from that of a mother to an independent woman again as I began my trip back to Canada. Suddenly, our stewardess announced that there would be a delay for an indefinite period of time due to mechanical problems with the plane. This caused considerable panic among some of the passengers. Japanese tourists’ responded mostly by making call after call on their cell phones, complaining to ticket vendors, and regretting that they did not buy a ticket with JAL, (Japan Airlines) anxious to find another flight without having to speak English. Of most couples that were calling, the husband was interacting with the Japanese stewardess who was talking to the Canadian ticket vendor – quite a stretch to communicate. Most Japanese people are not fluent English speakers but they often go to Canada or the U.S. on sightseeing tours. While the sightseeing company does most of the organization, if something goes wrong, they are instantly helpless. This inability to speak English causes difficulties when trying to deal with unforeseen difficulties. Compared to Japanese tourists, most foreigners were cool and calm, reading a book or magazine to kill the time. In another contrast to the older Japanese tourists, the younger Japanese exchange students sat around in a circle on the floor and started to play cards. Their calm but playful attitudes, using spare time in such a manner, made me happy because the young generation seems to be more flexible and confident. Three hours later the Captain reported a hydraulic leak and Air Canada delivered snacks. Another three hours later, the Captain finally decided to fly. At the airport in Vancouver, I waited, exhausted, another 5 hours due to a lost connecting flight. When I finally arrived at Ottawa International Airport, it was very cool outside and the taxi driver told me that we had a very cold summer. Japan’s summer was the hottest of recent memory, so it was an interesting juxtaposition. I felt so relaxed and at home in this cool weather, being able to talk to the taxi driver (in Japan taxi drivers don’t speak to their customers) that Japan seemed so far away and unreal. I arrived home to find that my garden was surviving with some unknown yellow flowers growing that I did not plant. My neighbour’s mountain ash was like a decorated Xmas tree with brilliant red berry-like fruits. I also noticed that many apples had been falling into my backyard. I was excited by the possibility that I would be able to make apple jam very soon. Life is certainly unpredictable and life is worth living. Acknowledgements I wish to thank my PhD supervisor Dr Barbara Graves for her guidance throughout my studies as well as asking me to write this diary. Thanks also to Dr Patricia Palulis who kindly lent me much reading material, and gave me many insightful ideas for which I am deeply grateful. I am also grateful to Dr Raymond Leblanc for his guidance and suggestions. More thanks go to Andi Gray for her friendship and words of encouragement. Finally, thanks to Michael Blakely for editing much of my work and being able to help convey my thoughts in a way reflecting the nature of the in-between space that I now inhabit. “A lingering note” (Pinar, 2005) Tuesday, May 23rd, 2005 As I look back on my summer diary from last year, I feel as though there is one more experience I want to write about, the process of writing the diary itself. This diary began as an http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 33 assignment from my PhD supervisor. It involved reading a number of books, all of which are listed in the bibliography of my summer diary paper, and to write about my everyday experiences, while integrating elements of the theories I was reading. It was also my last assignment prior to my comprehensive examination of last December, and was intended to prepare me for that task. My original intention was to read one book per day, however this eventually proved impossible given the social and familial obligations during my vacation. This diary was originally written in Japanese and translated into English by myself. The only change was the translation of the text from Japanese to English along with any grammatical changes that were required and I would also add that no entry was excluded. Deep in a dark well Like a frog, I want to leap Over language walls Inonaka no kawazu taikai o shirazu (A proverb: A frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean) Pinar (2001) says, “It is clear that autobiography is not just about oneself but also about the other. It is, in Leigh Gilmore’s (1994) phrase, a technology of self-production. It is, as well, a technology of the production of other.” (p.2). When I finished this summer diary, I could see the socially constructed aspects of my personal experiences, and my “technology of the production of other” in a different way. Janet L. Miller (1990) says, “Thus the statement ‘the personal is political’ (deLauretis, 1986) is a way of understanding oneself in relation to shifting interpersonal and political context, and thus as multiple and sometimes even self- contradictory (p.95)”. I can now see that when I write about myself, I write about the other because I can only claim I exist in relation to others in Sartre’s sense of existentialism. Pinar (1975) says, “Sartre writes of the anthropological context in which existenz dwells. That one finds oneself, finds self-consciousness, already constituted, but existentially free to constitute the constituted, is able to remake what is already made.” (p.407). By writing my autobiography, I can free some of my socially constructed self but at the same time I find multiple selves in the in-between space that is full of tension and contradictions. My diary reflects the nature of my in-between space, filled with many contradictions. For example, while the Japanese exchange student that I met on the plane ride to Japan disappointed me, I was still pleased at the reaction of the Japanese students who handled the delay maturely during my trip back to Canada. The young generation is not a unitary group, consisting of many unique personalities, obviously all not the same. My contradictory feelings reflect the importance of a new space that is the context of transnational living. My everyday life, which is beyond my control, reflects the significance of the connection between language, context, and contact. Sumiko Nishizawa (2002) says that we learn the world through translation and that something is unavoidably missing. She says that the imperialistic nature of translation is unavoidable due to the existence of untranslatable words, however it’s effect can be minimalized if the translator is willing to allow elements of the original work to seep into the finished product, permitting cultural elements to remain. I also learned about the world through translation. The problem is regarding the textbooks that are used in Japanese schools disregard some of the atrocities committed by the Japanese military in the past against China and Korea. I never heard about comfort women in Korea until I came to Canada, this is http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 34 another example of events being obscured from our sight. Because we, Japanese people, learned history through translation, there are many parts of history that I do not know about. I am interested in the missing parts, being the frog in the well, I want to know about my “blind spots”. Noel Gough (2003) explains this under the subheading “How can we think globally?” Gough says, “In Wagner’s schema(1993, p.16), what we ‘know enough to question but not answer’ are blank spots; what we ‘don’t know well enough to even ask about or care about’ are blind spots—‘areas in which existing theories, methods, and perceptions actually keep us from seeing phenomena as clearly as we might’” (p.63). His question, “How can we think globally without enacting some form of epistemological imperialism?” is an important citation for internationalizing curriculum inquiry and ‘the third place’. ぜ Deep within my heart Countless faces of myself Staring back at me According to Lemke (1995), the traditional view of seeing identity, as a biographical identity may not entirely agree with one’s temperamental characteristics. Lemke refers to personalities in the plural sense and Bakhtin’s (1981) concept of multiple voices supports Lemke’s claim. In this genre theory, Bakhtin says that when we speak, we do so in the role of one of our voices. In my diary I speak as a woman, a mother, a teacher, and a student. Bakhtin calls this phenomenon, “the speaking personality” and Lemke (1995) refers to it as “the social individual”. Tomi Suzuki (1996) says, “Since the late 1960’s, Western critics have attacked the assumption of the ‘self’ or ‘subject’ as an a priori, self-sufficient entry. Lévi-Strauss, Barthes, Foucault, Lacan, Derrida, and others have questioned the notion of the subject as a controlling consciousness and the ultimate origin of meaning” (p.3). What we may speak as depends on our cultural, language and ideological background. Dorinne K Kondo’s (1990) “crafting selves” describes selves that were inseparable from context. She says, “Above all, my Japanese friends, co-workers, and neighbours helped me to see and to appreciate the complicated tangle of ironies and ambiguities we create for ourselves, and that are created for us, as we craft our selves and our lives within shifting fields of power” (p.308). Dorothy E. Smith’s (1987) book “The everyday world as problematic” also explains the situation of women as problematic. She says, “We had thought that women would be treated equally in law, in business, in jobs, and so on, were it not for distortions of rational process created by men’s sexism. But the deeper our analysis, the better our knowledge of history, the longer of the experience of the sources and modes of resistance to change, the more visible also is the gender subtext of the rational and impersonal” (p.4). In my diary, linguistic terms of “makeinu onna”(a woman like a defeated dog) and equivalent terms of “dokushin kizoku” (a single man enjoying a life of aristocracy) is itself a powerful description of patriarchy. I have anger towards these metaphors, although I have both “makeinu onna” and “dokushin kizoku” in my family. Trinh T. Minh-ha (1989) says, "Writing weaves into language the complex relations of a subject caught between the problems of race and gender and the practice of literature as the very place where social alienation is thwarted differently according to each specific context"(p.43). My writing inevitably shows my specific context. Understanding each specific context and the specific language use buried within the ideology of English and Japanese extracts the complexity of the shifting identity construction of the culture from http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 35 which it is derived. Pinar (2004) uses the term “currere” (latin infinitive of curriculum) to describe a method of self-study through autobiography that allows one to better understand oneself which should lead to action. I hope that my diary invokes a feeling of solidarity with women worldwide who are struggling in situations of inequality. Pinar (1975) comments, “Before we learn to teach in such a way, we must learn how to learn in such a way. And this means that we teachers, and this has been implicit throughout, must become students, students of currere, which is to say students of ourselves, before we can truthfully say we understand teaching in this sense” (p.412). Why was I so desperate in Japan, unable to exist outside of my home? This sort of question serves as a guide along the road of my mental pilgrimage in the Third Place. Through my currere, my own individuation, I want to pay attention to education that has persisting problems of gender, race, age, and class. In the same way autobiography creates an in-between space, education too has a role in creating that space that allows one to seek the contradictions and tensions of prejudice. In the dark cellar We are all bottles of wine Of unknown flavour Now I am drawn into the third place of which Homi Bhabha (1990) describes, “But for me the importance of hybridity is not to be able to trace two original moments from which the third emerges, rather hybridity to me is the ‘third space’ which enables other positions to emerge. This third space displaces the histories that constitute it, and sets up new structures of authority, new political initiatives, which are inadequately understood through received wisdom”(p.211). Aoki (2005) describes this third place as an in-between space of vertical in which meaning is fixed and a horizontal space in which meaning is constantly shifting. Aoki says, “As for me, it is a site of metonymy—metaphoric writing, metonymic writing” (p.429). Aoki stresses the importance of theorizing about curriculum in the place between curriculum- as-plan and curriculum-as-lived. From the post-modernist stance, the body and the mind are not separate, and lived experiences have value. Michel de Certeau (1984) explains the practice of everyday life, “This goal will be achieved if everyday practices, ‘ways of operating’ or doing things, no longer appear as merely the obscure background of social activity, and if a body of theoretical questions, methods, categories, and perspectives, by penetrating this obscurity, make it possible to articulate them”(p.xi). My everyday life and practices have become my craft, but at the same time my social background has already created them as a means for me to create. We cannot escape our social construction, the way of life that we take part in. Pinar & Irwin (2005) says, “The educational point is not to overcome the tension of the zone between curriculum-as-plan and curriculum-as-lived-experience; the educational point, Aoki teaches us, is to dwell ‘aright within it’”(p.15). My diary is exactly that, my everyday lived curriculum, “aright” in an Aokian sense in which my conflicts occur when multiple discourses confront each other in a struggle for identity. Thus, the story of curriculum work might also be the story of “self”, and for myself in particular, the story of a Japanese woman’s voice in my diary which assists me in my third place. I came to Canada at the age of 50 and every day was a painful struggle to figure out how I might exist here. In order to live transnationally, I must live in the doubling space of “home/lessness” and being lost/gained. In Zen philosophy, “emptiness is fullness”. Mary Yukari Waters (2003) describes http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 36 the process of women losing their security and identity by citing Masahide’s poem, “Since my house burned down/ I now own a better view/ of the rising moon”: / / ぜ (p.21). Although I did not write much criticism of Canadian culture in this summer diary, I will be looking to do so in my upcoming PhD thesis. Marylin Low and Pat Palulis (2004) write, “I read internationalizing texts of currere as liminal, un/translatable spaces, spaces troubled within multiple and complex losses and gains of language-in-flux (p.10). I have found that haiku is my liminal and un/translatable space. Though I want to cry English tears come painfully So I cry haiku. Through the window, while I am writing this, the petals of apple blossoms are floating on the wind. The color of the flower looks the same as the cherry blossom but the feeling it evokes is different, one is cheerful and the other is sad. I respect Ichiro-san’s hatred of the cherry blossom and chrysanthemum. I hear the scream of the Japanese soldiers who did not want to die like a cherry blossom falling to the ground. Is there a sacred war for justice? Who judges? Pinar (2004) says, “In the concept of “private-and-public intellectual,” it is possible, even necessary, to combine the two conceptions of our pedagogical work……Such autobiographical testimony required a “double consciousness” to remind oneself and others that this world was not the world, that everything could change, that someday everything will change” (p.250). My summer diary is my love and anger towards both countries with the hope that all wars will end and that we will be able to improve equality among men and women. For me, Haiku is a space in which I can cry silently, that which I cannot express in English. In Haiku, I dwell within the space of ambiguity. Haiku might be my third space, my hybrid space. A brief autobiography explaining my title Suddenly spit blood, Redness permeates the floors Staining it for life. Born in Tokyo in 1943, the first child to my parents. Two years later, my younger brother was born. In 1946 my father was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was quarantined in a sanatorium. He just smiles softly Never crying for mother My little brother. http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 37 My younger brother also contracted tuberculosis and died shortly after my father was put in medical isolation. Much of my primary and high school life was spent enduring hardships. With my father in the hospital, the pressure of achieving well in school, and the rebirth of Japan after World War II, it was not a simple existence. My mother worked hard to be independent, running a kindergarten. My mother encouraged me to get an education and I wanted to be as independent as she was. After graduating from high school, I wrote the entrance exam for Sophia University and was accepted. I was fortunate because only 7 of the 50 students selected were women. With trembling fingers She penned a sign – “gratitude” And drifted away. During my last year of studies at Sophia, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and so I had to take on extra duties in addition to my studies. I visited her hospital room daily and often slept there to keep her company and take care of her needs. I was able to graduate, despite the extra responsibilities, and 1 month after graduation I got married. The reason I married so quickly after graduation is because my mother wanted to see me get married. She worried about me becoming, “ ” (unsold merchandise). At that time, the age of 25 was the limit of what was socially acceptable as far as being single went. After graduation I applied to the Asahi Newspaper for a job as a journalist. That year, however, they only hired men, and I felt disheartened by this gender discrimination. Of all the women in my graduating class, none of us were awarded jobs with any newspaper in Japan. The practice at the time was to not hire female journalists, and so I was not so much surprised when I did not receive the job, as much as I was discouraged. Given this implicit disapproval of my gender, I grudgingly accepted becoming a housewife. One year into my marriage, my mother died of cancer one month before her fiftieth birthday. During that awful year, she did not complain even once about the pain. On her deathbed, even though she could not speak and her hands were trembling, she asked me to give her a pencil and paper. She wrote the word , “kansha” which means appreciation or thankfulness. The word itself is composed of the characters meaning feeling and apology. I feel as though there was a subtext to the message she wrote, apologizing to me for having to take care of her. In Japanese culture, the concept of apologizing is deeply rooted in the concept of humility and modesty. Even when thanking someone we often say “sumimasen” (I’m sorry). The social expectation placed upon Japanese women of that era was that she should sacrifice everything she had for her family. I would be interested to see how strong that expectation is today with the latest generation of young Japanese women. My child cries for help I grasp my mother’s ordeal At the crack of dawn http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 38 During the course of my marriage, I was fortunate enough to raise four children. My marriage began to crumble after 8 years. When I reached the age my mother was when she died, I began thinking to myself whether I, like her, could write “kansha” when I passed away. I felt as though, to accomplish what she accomplished, I would have to be independent like she had always encouraged me to be. During my university career, because it was an international catholic university, many of my courses were taught in English. I had a decent understanding of English so I had decided that I would teach part-time at an English-language conversation school. I had been reading the book; “Eigo wa onna wo kaeru” (trans. English changes a woman) and I felt deeply influenced by what it had to say. The authors of book were simultaneous interpreters at conferences. They said that learning another language is to reveal and learn that culture’s ideology. Having read this book several times and working at part- time at this English school exposed me to the cultural ideology associated with English and it began to influence how I thought. Being able to make my own money, the exposure to a cultural ideology in which woman have freedom and recalling the encouragement of my mother all helped to nurture my independence. I finally decided that I needed to be independent and needed to make a big leap in my life. http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 39 Tulip Festival Weaving a dream of friendship Discarding the past. Kiyomizuno butaikara tobioriru: lit. Leaping off Kiyomizu stage. (Kiyomizu is a famous theatre in Kyoto) (To gather up all of one’s courage before dashing into a new stage in one’s life.) I remember the day my pen fell down on the paper, pointing to Ottawa. I had written down four Canadian cities on a sheet of paper and I intended to allow my pen to fall flat onto the paper, and whichever city it pointed at, was going to be the city I would move to. I tried to imagine myself surrounded by tulips in the spring, in a strange city with no friends, no identity and no money. I hesitated and was very scared about my decision to leave Japan. Yet, deep inside there was a very courageous, adventurous girl who pushed me, insisting that I go. It was a very risky decision to enter a new environment, as I was one month away from turning fifty years old, the same age at which my mother died, but I listened to my heart and jumped off the stage, as it were (Kiyomizuno butai kara tobioriru), without even asking myself “why?”. This year, the Tulip Festival will be held from May 5th to 23rd and the theme is, “A celebration of peace and friendship”. I remember that same picture of the tulips that I examined intently in the travel magazine before I came to Ottawa, full of fear and anxiety. Every spring I see many Japanese tourists with their cameras, standing near me at the Tulip Festival, but at the same time, standing so distant. I walk along Dow’s Lake with my friend and see the same things that I saw in the travel guide, but differently now, because I have a story behind the tulips, I have a reason for being here. Unlike the spider Tangled in the web I spin Foreign arachnid. After settling down in Ottawa I enrolled in Carleton University’s ESL program, and would in the following years enroll in CTESL, the Master’s program at Carleton, become a Japanese instructor and begin my PhD studies. I found myself, in the class, surrounded mostly by people in their twenties from many different cultural backgrounds. In Japan, I was very confident about my English, however when I moved to Canada, suddenly my confidence began to wane and I found myself having more and more difficulties writing. What I thought was good quality writing in Japan was not up to par here in Canada. That which is valued in good writing in Japan, ambiguity, passive sentence structures and subject omission are often frowned upon in western-style essays. I would frequently, in an attempt to be ambiguous, scatter hints about the subject in my English essays but my teachers would always mention that they were not able to fully grasp what I was referring to in several different contexts. This difference in approach to writing truly reflects the western tendency to be direct and the Japanese style of being indirect – the language itself holds up the cultural ideology of the culture to which it belongs. Uno Chiyo, a female Japanese novelist and kimono designer who http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci Mika Yoshimoto (2005) Late-blooming student Roots of loneliness run deep As I return home. Transnational Curriculum Inquiry 2 (1) 2005 http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci 40 lived to be 98 years of age declared that the secret to living a long life is “ ”(kodawaranai), being illogically optimistic. In fact, Japanese culture embraces the illogical -- zen philosophy, illogical metaphors, ambiguous and passive styles of speech, but all with a purpose. One might even say it is logically illogical. These ideologies maintain a culture of politeness, collectivity and hierarchy. Derrida (1982) says that western discourse is logo- centric. I am desperate to meet the teachers’ expectations. Many teachers say, “Clarify, articulate, manipulate, spell it out…”, I am paralyzed by a tsunami of words. As I lived 50 years in ambiguous Japan, this search for clarity and articulation is like an impossible mission and a painful process to create bridges in my writing. I envy the spider on my ceiling, tonight. References Aoki, T. (2005). Curriculum in a New Key: The Collected Works of Ted. T. Aoki. Pinar, W.F. & Irwin, R.L. (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Aoki, T. (2003). Locating living pedagogy in teacher research. In E. Hasebe-Ludt & W. Hurren (Eds.), Curriculum Intertext: Place/Language/Pedagogy. pp. 1-9. New York: Peter Lang Asanuma, S. (1999). The autobiographical method in Japanese education. In W.F. Pinar (Ed.), Contemporary Curriculum Discourses: Twenty Years of JCT., 70, 151-167. New York: Peter Lang Bakhtin M.M. (1986). The Problem of Speech Genres and the Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology and the Human Sciences. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press Bakhtin M.M. (1981). The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, (Ed.) M. Holquist, (Trans.) C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press. Barthes, R. (1975). The Pleasure of the Text. Toronto: Doubleday Canada Ltd. Bhabha, H.K. (1990). The Third Space: Interview with Homi Bhabha. In Jonathan Rutherford, (Ed.), Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, pp. 207-221. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Certeau, Michel de. (1984). Practice of Everyday Life. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Culler, J. (1982). On Deconstruction. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press DeLauretis, T., (Ed). (1986). Feminist Studies, Critical Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Derrida, J. (1982). Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Derrida, J. (1988). Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Ellis, C. (1997). Evocative autoethnography: Writing emotionally about our lives. In Tierney, W.G. & Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds.), Representation and the Text: Re-framing the Narrative Voice. 115-139. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. London, England: Blackwell Gilmore, L. (1994). Autobiographics: A Feminist Theory of Women’s Self-representation. Ithaca, NY: Cornel University Press. Gough, N. (2003). Thinking globally in environmental education: Implications for internationalizing curriculum inquiry. In International Handbook of Curriculum Research (Ed.) Pinar, W.F. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc. Hokugou, M., et al. (2004). Various articles. Asahi Shinbun, June 26 – Aug 1 hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress. New York, NY: Routledge. Ivanic, R. (1998). Writing and Identity. 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Author Mika Yoshimoto is currently working on her PhD Studies in Education at the University of Ottawa, all the while working as a teaching instructor for Japanese language studies at Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Fourth Annual Meeting of The American Association for the Advancement of Curriculum Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, April 8-11, 2005. Correspondence: myoshimoto@sympatico.ca http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci http://www.nitinat.library.ubc.ca/ojs.index.php/tci