Kansas, after returning to his homeland, told and retold this story of a conversation with an ancient Chinese, he calls Ojii-san, on various occasions during spring and summer 1995--which was the year marking the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of WWII. Kansas is fascinated by people's personal memories as well as the collective memories of cultures passed down through elders to their children over generations.
Often, during the retelling of such encounters, Kansas will ask "Wakarimastika?"
Hopefully, you can nod sometimes and truthfully say, "Hai, wakarimashita."
That final spring in Japan, "Kansas" (his nickname) had arranged a 15-day home stay with a local family prior to taking a subsequent extended Japanese Golden Week excursion to China.
Kansas was planning to return to his homeland in the USA in a few months to finish his masters' degree in teaching English to non-native speakers, so he was very grateful for this last minute home-stay, his first opportunity to stay with a more traditional Japanese 3-generation household. Kansas needed to return home soon because he had started this M.A. at the University of Kansas several years earlier after he had unsuccessfully discontinued working on a different degree at a university in Wuppertal, Germany about five years earlier.
Kansas now had only one year left to complete his degree within the prescribed period of time. This was why he had not renewed his contract to teach a third year in the local high schools. Kansas was very frustrated by his inability to master Japanese language or dialects after living almost two years in a rural rice-growing region of the Land of the Rising Sun.
It should be noted that prior to coming to Japan, Kansas had done home-stays with families in every country he had ever worked in or studied in, including Germany, Spain, Mexico, and France.
Through such experiences, Kansas had gained much insight into these cultures and the lives of individual citizens in each land while working, living, and studying in these different households. He had also begun to be a lifelong diary writer of sorts and was always reflecting on what he had done or saw.
In Japan, Kansas had run up against a cultural wall of sorts. Since many urban and rural Japanese live in fairly small homes, which many of them refer to as "rabbit hutches", very few Japanese feel that they have enough room for foreign guests to stay with them. This self-conception of the Japanese thus certainly posed a strong argument for not offering foreigners insight into their daily lives.
This was likely why during the two years Kansas had lived in Niigata Prefecture that few Japanese had ever invited him to visit them at home-let alone ito invite him to stay over. (This was true even if they were Japanese who were otherwise active and interested in the process of "internationalization". )
In the seaside Itoigawa township, where Kansas was living and teaching at three local public schools, there was generally more room in the size of homes, i.e. where potentially visitors might have over-nighted. So, in the final of his six semesters teaching in Itoigawa, Kansas --in the Japanese way--had indirectly approached one Japanese family, who had family ties, i.e. connections to his alma mater back in his home state of Kansas. He talked with this family about his dream of doing a longer home-stay in a Japanese household. In turn, this family then had asked another Itoigawan family they knew well whether they would host Kansas before he left Niigata Prefecture in Japan that summer. By the way, Niiggata-ken is the most famous rice-growing and saki-producing prefecture in that country.
As it turned out, Kansas already knew the Tomie family in Itoigawa City already; both the older male patriarchs in the household were in a Kendo-club and both had invited Kansas to join the club's practices in Itoigawa town the year before. It is important to note that Kendo is a Japanese martial art, which is quite similar to the (form of competition and) training in swordsmanship that Samurai in Japan had long been practicing for many centuries. However, the sword or stick, used in Kendo, is only made of wood for many obviously important purposes of safety and for specific training experiences.
The oldest resident of the Tomie house was 82-years of age. He was the grandfather, who everyone called ojii-san out of respect and familiarity. Weekly, Ojii-san practiced with his son, Takoshi, and others in the Kendo club. Along with Ojii-san and Takoshi in the Tomie household lived Takoshi's wife, Mazumi, and their four children. However, the oldest child was off at college. That is why a visitor's room had become free for Kansas to stay in.
Among other things, during his stay with the Tomie's, Kansas on several mornings, even managed to get up around 4am to help deliver the newspapers on the family paper route. Through these early morning deliveries, Kansas learned of the humility and hard-working ways of the Japanese extended household up close.
Kansas notes, "As Takoshi and I delivered papers, the rising sun would begin to peer over the tops of the summits of the western Japanese Alps, between Itoigawa town and Nagano Prefecture. During this early morning paper route activity, I not only was able to enjoy the rays of the early morning sun, but I also began to feel more unity with the rhythms of life in rural Itoigawa-especially as we passed farmers heading out to their rice fields for a few hours labor before returning to their homes again for breakfast-followed by their later commutes to their primary office jobs. Meanwhile, these same farmer's parents or wives would continue to work the fields or gardens till later in the long day."
Obviously, just as in America, most farmers in Japan needed a second full-time job just to get by in this post-industrial world.
