The family...

Yeah, so there we were, 11 years after I had lived with this family, having last seen them on a Bullet Train platform in March 1993. Since that time I had generally saved calling them for those times when I was really, really, really drunk and the time zones were juuuuuuuuuuuuust right. This fell away after a while as I forgot an awful lot of my Japanese - what with not using it and all, it gets pretty rusty, pretty quickly -. Now, after kick starting the language again, I am looking forward to keeping in touch with them a whole bunch more.

The Grandad, who was the head of a country-wide Buddhist sect with 100 or so Temples under him, died in 1996, causing Grandma to move in with my host-mother. Grandma is still around, still shuffling around the house, hunched over a shade, weighing about 45 kgs, maybe 30kgs of that taken up with a big old grin and some super laughing eyes that don`t quit. In spite of the phone conversation of a few weeks ago, she maintained that she remembered me when she saw me again and formed a solid liking of Nic, which was nice.

Grandma shuffles. Everywhere. I remember on maybe my 3rd or 4th night in Japan as a wee 16 year old, sleeping in a room next door to an enooooormous Buddhist shrine, still sort of thinking what the hell I was actually doing there, I woke up at maybe 4:00 in the morning to Grandma bobbing in and out of my field of vision at the end of the bed, muttering to herself, wearing odd socks, digging around in a pile of detritus that had been shuffled aside for my arrival.

It scared me.

Upon seeing me awake, she muttered a cheery hello and went back to her digging. After some moments, when I managed to extricate my fingernails from the ceiling she made a successful "hahah!!" type sound and held up what seemed to be a bog-standard plastic bag from the local supermarket. It was empty, but apparently exactly what she was looking
for. She looked over at me, winked, held the bag high over her head and shuffled out of the room, muttering to herself. She went straight to the fridge and raided it, filling the bag with loot before disappearing off into the night, back to their apartment, ready to make Grandads breakfast when he woke at the crack of 10:00.

I liked her from that moment on.

On this trip back, she piped up at the table one night while we were supping ales and she was cackling into her fish porridge that she knew some English.....and then one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to me took place....

...this 93 year old Japanese great-Grandmother started belting out "God Save Our King". Word-for-word. Start to finish. When she stopped, her face broke into her trademark grin "I learnt that when I was six" she said, "Haven`t sung it since". That's, (Paul - Check-it) 87 years ago people.

Grandad was a regal old fella. You could tell by looking at him that he had some pretty lofty connections "...on the other side..." as it were. He smelt comfortingly of cigarettes and incense. He was a conscientious objector during the war. He told me that he had stated the war wasn`t right, there was no way Japan was going to win it and he didn`t agree with it. If you know anything of Japanese society during the Second World War, you know that conscientious objectors simply didn`t exist, or at least not for long. He was in prison with about 100 other men during the length of the war, and he saw them all shot. The officers in charge of the prison were a little wary of shooting a Buddhist priest of his standing and so just sort of overlooked him. Fascinating chap. He gave me a leather bound copy of Moby Dick when I was over here, saying that he had bought it to teach himself english. In the end he admitted that he read it with the aid of a dictionary. He told me he thought Great Expectations was better. He was cool.

When he passed on my host mother (Mama-san) became head of the sect and is now, after some consolidation, in charge of 80 Buddhist temples throughout the country. She was looking super well and cried when she saw me (aaaaaaaaaawwwwwww) (out of affection people). She complained that she has become a grandmother since I left, but she still manages to be a Buddhist minister and and Aerobics instructor every Saturday afternoon...

I`ll write more about the family soon, including some about the craaaazy Buddhist ceremony Nic and I were allowed to go and witness with them.

We`re off to Kyoto this weekend to bludge off Archs hospitality once again. Yippee!!!

Be well people.
Berin and Nic.