Summer Special Memoir vol. 3

Family Roots at the Town’s Corner

Grandma Fumi’s house can be spotted through the narrow isle between the Yoshino Family (Rice Merchant Family) and the Koresawa family (Grandma Fumi’s maternal home), fifteen yards in from Main Street.  It is exactly where I got hit by the donkey.  Yasu and his parents, the honest watch technician/merchant couple, live in front of Fumi’s house.  We kids often pass through Yasu’s house as convenient.  For instance, I say hi to Uncle Watch (Generally the older male figures are called Uncle and female Auntie for respect and friendliness, even they are not technically family members.) when entering his store from Main Street.  After I socialize with him for a few minutes, I pick up my shoes and go up two steps into the living space right behind his store.  Compared to the commercialized bright, shiny, watch store, their living area is unintentionally as dark as a cave.  Neither the crowded buildings nor the sole window help bring in enough sunlight.  Now I greet Auntie Watch and mingle a little more, perhaps nibble on some candies, and play with Yasu for a while.  Occasionally, he makes incredibly imaginable and creative vehicles out of Legos for me.  If my whole body was the size of Legos, I sure could blast off to space with one of his space ships.  Finally, I excuse myself through their back door to my home.  This shortcut doesn’t really work as well as it should.  Ironically, going through this shortcut takes a longer time than the regular route just because this hunched backed couple and their Lego genius son always welcome me without exception, unlike the Yoshino Family. 

In fact, I have never visited the Yoshino Family’s house.  The keloid faced man is Mr. Yoshino. The dark purple blotches are clear on the dark skin under his glasses.  The house fire was quite unfortunate, but he was fortunate because he at least survived from the terrible inferno when he was young.  Even though I know his past, his facial features scare me away while Uncle Watch’s hunchback doesn’t bother me at all.  I have no interest in learning about him.  He is probably not interested in me either, anyways. 

On the other side of Uncle Watch’s building, Ms. Sato’s yarn store is pretty popular.  In fact, these two business share a building.  Unlike the watch store, Ms. Sato’s yarn store is dark.  Her colorful knitting displays try to cheer up her business space and create a friendly atmosphere.  Some projects are on the wall, and a complicated patterned sweater is shown on the mannequin doll.  Often, the neighbor ladies gather around a small table to chat and share their knitting projects.  This is my mother’s favorite store.  Ms. Sato has a huge smile and welcomes me anytime I visit her with my mother.  But I don’t visit as often as I do with Uncle Watch, because her space didn’t have the shortcut to my house.

In Fumi’s maternal house, Fumi’s mother, Tama, and her first son’s family reside downstairs and the second son’s family upstairs.  All of them are living together under one roof.  These residential buildings (Tama’s, Uncle Watch’s and Ms. Sato’s spaces are all somewhat connected.) Fumi’s and Yoshino family’s houses are both separated with less than three feet of space between them (Sadly, that causes quite a few unpleasant lawsuits among family members and close neighbors.) Huddling together at the corner lot, the buildings still standing there barely survived from the inferior bombs dropping from the sky during the war.  The American military planned to exclude the Japanese historical buildings like castles, temples, and shrines from their “destroy” list. However, the surrounding towns happened to become their targets as a consequence.  Unfortunately, Fumi’s town was a typical target.  After her husband was drafted, Fumi came back from Osaka (217 miles from home) with three little children all under five, in fact, the youngest was the newborn infant.  The respectful visit to her in-law’s house turned out to be her worst choice.  No one wanted their daughter-in-law or their grandchildren.  They, too, were barely surviving during the difficult war time.  “We don’t need any more mouths to feed.” That’s what her father-in-law said.  Luckily, Fumi’s parents extended their arms openly, even though, at that time, Fumi’s parents had about 10 children.  (Fumi is the first child of sixteen siblings.)  This extended family ate together, worked together, played together, and evacuated together under the incendiary rain.  The survival from the fatal war itself was a miracle.  Keeping their house and property was another miracle.  There could have been hundreds of people who died on the street where I got hit by the donkey.  The whole town’s rapid recovery was indescribably miraculous.

Fumi’s kitchen has a special underground room to store food. I suspect it used be an evacuation unit where family members hid when they heard the frequent war siren.  Now she uses it as a punishment dungeon for the naughty children.  My blood freezes immediately when she touches the knob on the floor, even if I don’t do anything wrong.  Grandma Fumi’s bedroom is on the other side of the kitchen.  I often sit on her bedside to ask her to tell me a story of a Japanese folktale, the Peach Boy.  No one except Fumi in our neighborhood has their own modern western type bed.  It is way softer and bouncier than a futon.  I wish I could sleep in a bed someday.  Every evening, the majority of the neighbors take out their futon and cot from their paper sliding door closet.  In the morning, they fold them nicely, and put them away into the closet. Although, owning your own bed will reduce daily physical tasks, owning a bed was something too modern for the general population of the town at that time.  Besides, as an honorably deceased Japanese soldier’s wife, the western items are things you do not consider owning.  But she does what she wants.

When I visit my grandma’s maternal home by stepping on the stones outside of her house, Fumi’s first brother’s white spitz dog, Chiko, greets me with high pitch barks.  I make it through the sliding door entrance only once in five tries without any troubles because of Chiko.  Grandma Fumi’s first brother, Chiko’s owner, becomes known as Uncle Chiko, and his wife as Auntie Chiko.  Uncle Chiko is one of only two boys from sixteen of Fumi’s siblings.  The other boy is Uncle Koma.  Koma means “small and young” in the regional dialect.  Technically, there was another boy between Uncle Chiko and Uncle Koma along with several girls.  Sadly he deceased at age one.  His name was Issai, which means One-Year-Old.  This is one of the several family wonders: why my great grandparents named him Issai in the first place.  It sounded almost like a curse on the innocent and unfortunate child.  That’s what the neighbors and even Issai’s siblings said about behind Tama’s back.

Fumi’s father used to be a famous inventor, known mainly for his carpentry tools.  Someone stole his idea one day, and got a patent with quite a large award.  Despite this nasty fraud incident, Fumi’s Father retained a solid reputation among customers as a carpenter to be able to feed sixteen children.  He was the one respected family man until his secret love affair was revealed by his devastated children several decades after his death. 

To reveal another family wonder: how did the two boys, Uncle Chiko and Uncle Koma, live together under one roof while never got along each other in their entire life? I have never seen both boys together talking or laughing with each other, like regular brothers would, on any occasion, even during the wedding of Chiko’s daughter.  The boys’ ongoing battle never ended even after the judge’s rule in the court forty years later.