My initial translations of the haiku in this book proved to be only a crude beginning. I owe a special debt of gratitude to poet and author Arthur Binard, who contributed his poetic talent to many of these translations, preserving the wit and beauty of the original Japanese text. At a later stage in the process, Bill Higginson made sure my translations were consistent with American haiku usage. I must confess to a stubborn streak, and I did not always follow their wise counsel. Any infelicities in the haiku translations are my own.
Every author needs a good editor, mentor, and advisor. John Gribble took on this thankless task, sticking by my endeavor and offering sound counsel, especially during those many times that I declared the manuscript and myself hopeless. Without John’s help, this book would not now be in your hands. After Stone Bridge Press accepted my manuscript, Elizabeth Floyd took over the editing process. Working with someone of her talent and integrity has been a pleasure.
Over time, writers become incredibly boring, distracted souls. I am infinitely grateful for the love of my husband, Eric Passaglia, and our children, Abraham, Martha, and Samuel. It has been a long journey, much longer than any of us anticipated, and I thank my family for their grace, understanding, and humor.
A.F.
NOTES ON THE TEXT
The events and people I describe in this memoir are real. The events took place over a two-year period in Japan. For the sake of the flow of the narrative, I have condensed the events and conversations into a one-year time frame. On matters of foreign policy, the opinions and views I express in this book are my own and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department of State or the U.S. Government.
A word on Japanese pronunciation: Japanese vowels are pronounced as in Spanish: a, i, u, e, o. In haiku, the beat of each word is important to counting syllables. Spoken Japanese sounds very regular because each syllable is one beat. Some vowel sounds are lengthened and held for two beats; this is indicated by a macron over the vowel, as in ō. Where the Japanese reading would consist of two o’s, this also is indicated by a macron. A regular o counts as one syllable, while ō counts as two. One other point to note about counting syllables in Japanese is that the letter n, when it comes at the end of a word or at the close of a syllable, is a single syllable in itself. So the word mon, or “gate,” is actually two syllables: mo-n.
In rendering Japanese names into roman script, I have followed Japanese custom of giving the family name first.
All the translations of haiku are mine, unless otherwise stated.
1
珍しさ
mezurashisa
THE EXTRAORDINARY
one
THE MAN FROM HIROSHIMA
It was a man from Hiroshima with a Buddha-like smile who introduced me to haiku in Japan. Thinking back, there was little else that distinguished him. He was about sixty-five years old, bald, and of middling height. He wore a polo shirt, polyester pants, and loafers—much like a golfer, which he later told me he was.
I had just finished giving a presentation on the topic of Northeast Asia to a group of about twenty elderly Bunkyo University alumni and their friends gathered in a midsize hotel in downtown Tokyo. As an American diplomat in Japan, I spent many evenings talking to informal groups like this one about world events and especially about North Korea, whose worrisome missiles and nuclear ambitions were front-page news in Japan.
It was late, and I was tired. I sensed my audience did not care what I said; they were of a generation where a foreigner speaking Japanese was enough to grab their attention.
Still, the evening was far from over. Nearly every occasion in Japan requires a brief aisatsu, a mixture of a toast and self-introduction, and I knew tonight would be no different. I had not thought about what I would say. Giving a speech in Japanese was hard enough. Although I had lived in Japan for nearly eight years spread over two decades and had spent a good ten years learning the language, I had still devoted the better part of a month preparing for this speech. I wrote a draft in English and had it translated, then asked a Japanese colleague to read it into a tape recorder. I carried the tape around with me for days, earphones on, tape recorder running, mumbling aloud as I pushed my way through the crowded streets of Tokyo. The previous Saturday afternoon I practiced the speech while sitting on the sidelines of my nine-year-old son Sam’s soccer practice, mouthing the phrases, pausing the tape now and again to look a word up in the dictionary. At one point, Sam came over to tell me his team was switching fields and that I had to move. Later, his foot appeared on the ground in front of me. I looked up at him as from a fog. Mom, tie my shoe, he instructed gently. I stopped the tape and tied his shoe, wondering as I did so whether my failure to run up and down the field cheering him on would make him a less confident adult. I finished tying his shoe and kissed his chubby leg. He ran back onto the field, and my uncertainty evaporated in the crisp fall air as the distance between us grew.
People were getting up from their chairs, and heading out. I followed them into the room next door, where there were several buffet tables, seats along the back wall, and a standing microphone in the center. I took a seat and looked at my watch. It was 9:30 P.M. By now our three children would be in bed and my husband would be quietly reading. I had missed another evening with my family. What was I doing in this hotel among strangers? Someone was at the microphone. It was hard to tune into his Japanese mid-course. I listened to his voice without hearing the words, a waterfall of sounds splashing in no predictable direction.
We were on the tenth floor of the hotel. My thoughts drifted. What would happen if an earthquake hit right at that moment? I thought I might be feeling some tremors. Earthquakes are common in Japan. At home we had moved all the bookcases away from the beds and we kept a half-dozen gallon jugs of water under the kitchen sink in case the water supply became contaminated. I tried to size up the strength of the beams facing me. If there were an earthquake right now, would it be better for me to hug the vertical beams or run to the door frame? Everyone in Japan is told to run to the door frame; I would use my wits and go for the beam. People would be shrieking and shouting. Sirens would be going off. A woman would grab her purse and then drop it when she realized her survival was all that mattered. I imagined myself crouching behind the beam, protected from flying shards of glass. I would spring into action—cool, levelheaded, reassuring people and directing them to safety. If it was a really big earthquake, I would call the State Department Operations Center in Washington from my cell phone: the first to report it, our woman in Tokyo.
The bald man in the polo shirt came to sit in the empty seat next to me, and I floated back to reality, mechanically reaching for my business cards. As a professional woman in Japan, I had learned to get my meishi, or business cards, across early, not just because women are often underestimated in Japan, but because of an important corollary: rank trumps gender. Once they saw I was a diplomat, I came to life for my interlocutors.
I kept my meishi in a neat leather holder; his were jammed in his billfold. He spent a few moments searching through his wallet, slowly pulling out and replacing a few until he found the one with his own name on it:
This was a very odd Japanese calling card. Mr. Ōiwa had no company affiliation. What was the Numamomo Haiku Group? Did Mr. Ōiwa work there? And if so, what was his position? I knew a little about haiku, those unrhymed Japanese poems capturing the essence of a moment, usually seventeen syllables in Japanese. I liked reading haiku at night before going to bed. They were short and quick to read, and I was a busy person. I liked being able to read a beautiful haiku for relaxation while at the same