What was only supposed to be an overnight stay in hospital for a very minor operation got botched as infection set in a couple of days later and brought me fever of 40 degrees and another stay in hospital, only this time a stay of 4 weeks, which included another botched operation that needs still to be reversed. Having already exhausted the books I wanted to read, I started just to browse the net looking up on the latest on favourite actors and such, which recently tends to end 6 feet below the surface of the mortality line. So for something more uplifting, I came up with the idea of looking up on a girl for whom I had developed a big crush at the age of 15, a class mate from junior high days.
Nothing came of that infatuation as it was unfortunately not a sentiment returned, so graduation set us apart never to meet again, and in some years rumours at class reunions put her on the other side of the Pacific somewhere in the USA. You see, she was half American with an American father and a Japanese (now I know she was a Nisei Japanese American) mother who proof read for the Stars and Stripes. She and I often got appointed by our English teacher, who was an IJA vet, to show the class the correct pronunciation of some English word or sentence. Our teacher who had fought GIs in the Pacific jungles had no love for Americans and when addressing her called her a nickname he had made up himself. As I stood in front of the class with her I could always feel her cringing in embarrassment at the name the teacher obviously thought funny. This was the only instance that I witnessed her suffering from racist sentiment in Japan, but I am sure there were more. I had been treated like that in my elementary school days in the USA, so I really felt sorry for her, something I had wanted to talk to her about all these years, but never got around to doing. But enough nostalgic flashbacks, let’s cut to the chase, did I find her? Yes, I did, in Texas of all places.
But actually it was not about finding her that I wanted to share with you, but what I learned in that process about her American father. In short, he was a legend in Japanese art circles after the war. A collector/dealer of Japanese art, who now has 412 items from his personal collection enshrined in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the main pillar of their Japanese art gallery! Militaria and art come on the market in very similar ways and hearing his life story carried over the ecstatic excitement he must have felt in finding his treasures. Yes, hearing, as there is a video of a 2010 presentation about his life as delivered at the Met.
It is the story about the dad of a girl that pummelled me into adolescence..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKyKED7UMVE&app=desktop
Nothing came of that infatuation as it was unfortunately not a sentiment returned, so graduation set us apart never to meet again, and in some years rumours at class reunions put her on the other side of the Pacific somewhere in the USA. You see, she was half American with an American father and a Japanese (now I know she was a Nisei Japanese American) mother who proof read for the Stars and Stripes. She and I often got appointed by our English teacher, who was an IJA vet, to show the class the correct pronunciation of some English word or sentence. Our teacher who had fought GIs in the Pacific jungles had no love for Americans and when addressing her called her a nickname he had made up himself. As I stood in front of the class with her I could always feel her cringing in embarrassment at the name the teacher obviously thought funny. This was the only instance that I witnessed her suffering from racist sentiment in Japan, but I am sure there were more. I had been treated like that in my elementary school days in the USA, so I really felt sorry for her, something I had wanted to talk to her about all these years, but never got around to doing. But enough nostalgic flashbacks, let’s cut to the chase, did I find her? Yes, I did, in Texas of all places.
But actually it was not about finding her that I wanted to share with you, but what I learned in that process about her American father. In short, he was a legend in Japanese art circles after the war. A collector/dealer of Japanese art, who now has 412 items from his personal collection enshrined in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as the main pillar of their Japanese art gallery! Militaria and art come on the market in very similar ways and hearing his life story carried over the ecstatic excitement he must have felt in finding his treasures. Yes, hearing, as there is a video of a 2010 presentation about his life as delivered at the Met.
It is the story about the dad of a girl that pummelled me into adolescence..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKyKED7UMVE&app=desktop
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