the news was not fear but relief

 

In voice mail, there was a message from my father that said he needed to be called back immediately. I was chilled to the bone. I have never received a single phone call from him that’s not disturbing. When he calls me, he does it to vent his spleen about his daily life and about my career as a musician. What comes out from the receiver is his lengthy verbal abuse. Nevertheless, I mostly return his call because things get worse if I don’t. This time was no exception and I called him back fearfully with trembling hands. Instead of a spurt of anger, he told me to come home as soon as possible and stay for a few days. I asked him what happened and he didn’t answer that. As his request sounded urgent, I repeatedly asked for the reason. He just dodged and kept saying that he wanted me to come home right away. I hung up and felt alarmed. Something must have happened. Since he had never given me good news, that something was most certainly a bad thing.

My parents’ home is located in Kyoto that is 500 miles away from where I live. It takes me over five hours to get there by bullet train. I don’t have so much free time to take that long trip without the reason. Besides, such an unusual request requires extra caution. I called my mother’s cell phone and asked her what was all about. She told me that they had decided to sell their house and move out. They were looking for a condominium to buy and moving in as soon as the house was sold. The house could be sold next month at the fastest, and they wanted me to sort out my stuff and spend time together under this house’s roof for the last time.

The house was built when I was nine years old at the place where our old house was torn down because it was too old to live in. That old house was built about 100 years ago. My ancestors lived at exactly the same spot generation after generation for over 1000 years since my family used to be a landlord of the area. We are here for around 63 generations. My father succeeded the family from my grandfather, and I would have been the next successor if I hadn’t left home to be a musician. Because my father failed the family business and didn’t have the next successor for help, he had sold pieces of our ancestor’s land one by one. Now his money has finally dried up and he can’t afford to keep the last land where the house stands.

When my grandfather passed away nine years ago, he complained to me again about financial help I wouldn’t lend. I promptly suggested that he should sell the house and its land. He got furious at my suggestion. He shouted, “How could you say something like that? Do you really think it’s possible? All ancestors of ours lived here! I live to continue our lineage right here for my entire life! Selling the house means ending our family lineage! It’s impossible!!” He bawled me out like a crazy man while banging the floor repeatedly with a DVD that I had brought for him as a Father’s Day gift.

But nine years later, the time inevitably came. Considering his mad fury about selling the house back then, it was easy for me to imagine that he planned to set fire on the house during the night I would stay and kill my mother and me along with himself. That seemed the true reason why he wanted me to come back. Those murder-suicide cases sometimes happen in Japan, especially among families with long history.

But the first thing that I felt at the news was not fear but relief. As I had known my father wouldn’t sell the house, I had thought that I would end up reaping the harvest of his mistakes as his daughter even though I didn’t succeed the family. I would have to liquidate everything in the house to pay his debts and sell the house and the land by myself after I would argue with all my relatives in the family’s branches who would most certainly oppose strongly. That picture of my dismal future had been long hanging low in my mind. But now, completely out of the blue, my father was taking up everything and I was discharged…

Episode from

Living in Kyoto: My Early Life with Japanese Traditions by Hidemi Woods

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I faced the first crucial decision unexpectedly

 

We all face decisions every day, big or small. It may be as trifling as what to eat for lunch, but sometimes it is as important as what decides a course of our life. And the big one often comes abruptly like a surprise attack when we least expect it, unguarded. I faced the first crucial decision unexpectedly on my 20th birthday.In Japan, 20 years of age is regarded as the coming-of-age and there is a custom to celebrate it. When I was 20 years old, I lived in a big house with my family. My parents had a hefty fortune inherited by my ancestors as it was before they failed in their undertaking and lost every thing. For them, my coming-of-age was such a big event that they had bought an expensive sash of kimono for me months in advance for a municipal ceremony held in the first month of the year. 

Since I defied the custom and didn’t attend the ceremony for which the sash was wasted, my parents determined that my 20th birthday should be memorable at least and planned a party. I wasn’t told about the party because they wanted to surprise me.On my birthday, I was hanging around and having fun with my friend until night, not knowing that my parents and my sister waited for me with 20 red roses and expensive steaks cooked and delivered from a restaurant. As crazy as it sounds, my curfew was 9 p.m. back then. I had too much fun and broke it that particular day. I came home half an hour late bracing for a rebuke from my parents. What awaited me was beyond rebuke actually.I usually came in from the back door that was left unlocked, but it was locked that night. I went around to the front gate that was locked too. I thought my father had locked them by mistake and pushed an intercom button. 

My mother answered and I asked her to open the door. She said in a tearful voice, “I can’t. It’s no mistake. Your father shut you out of the house.” She started crying and continued, “We were preparing a party and waiting for you from this afternoon. We waited and waited until your father got furious. He said that he didn’t want you to come home because you never appreciated this important day and your family. I can’t open the door. Your father doesn’t want you in this house any more.” I was astounded at the deep trouble I suddenly got into.I could have apologized repeatedly and begged her to let me in. Instead, I was wondering if that was what I really wanted. I didn’t have anything but now it was a chance to leave the house. Totally out of the blue, the moment for a decision for life came up. If I lived in this house forever as a family’s successor like I had been told to, I would inherit family’s fortune. But if I threw it away, I could do whatever I want for my own life.In a matter of seconds, I decided. I chose freedom over money. I said, “That’s fine. I’m leaving.” I felt oddly refreshed and upbeat. My chained life came to an abrupt end through the intercom. 

My mother panicked and shouted, “What do you mean that’s fine? Wait! Don’t go! I’m coming to open the door! Stay there!” I saw her rushing out of the house and dashing toward the gate. She grabbed me in. On the dining table, there were two empty plates that were my father’s and my sister’s and two untouched steak plates that were my mother’s and mine. In the center was a big vase with 20 roses. I ate steak with my mother who was weeping through on my completely ruined 20th birthday.Shortly afterwards, I eventually left home and became a musician. My mother, my grandmother and my aunts were married unwillingly for money. My father and my grandfather gave up what they wanted to do in order to succeed the family. They all looked unhappy and I didn’t want to live like them. But I also didn’t know freedom didn’t come cheap and my decision would lead to trials and hardships that I had to endure as a consequence…

 

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My School Days in Kyoto: A Japanese Girl Found Her Own Way 

 

The Katsura River hr658

 

Back in those days of my childhood, a person who was going to commit suicide always took his or her shoes off and put them together neatly before jumping from the top of the building on Japanese TV dramas. It seemed Japanese people wanted to take off their shoes even when they tried to kill themselves just as they took them off at the entrance of the house. I somehow feel convinced.

There is a bridge called Katsura-ohashi Bridge over the Katsura River about a twenty-minute walk away from my family's house that used to stand in Kyoto where I was born and grew up. The bridge is about 400-feet long as the river under it is quite big and wide. On one summer day in the fourth grade, I went to the bridge with seven or eight friends of mine to play by the Katsura River. Because it was probably the first time each of us played at the riverside without a grown-up chaperon, the outing was felt like an adventure and we were having so much fun by the river.

After a little while, one of my friends seemed to have enough spree to suggest we walk in the river along the bridge piers  toward the opposite bank. It was midsummer and the river banks had widened with less water. To us, the river looked shallow and easy to walk in and go further. Since we were all feeling adventurous, we persuaded ourselves that a fourth grader was a big, old kid for whom crossing the river on foot was a cinch. We started splashing across the current with a war cry.

In the beginning we were only ankle-deep in water, but soon water reached to our knees. Our walking speed dropped tremendously. By the time our thighs dipped in water, the stream got fast. It was hard just to stand still without holding onto a bridge pier although we had trod across merely one third of the river. The fast stream crushed against the bridge pier and my thighs, splashing big waves. Suddenly, fear sprang out from the bottom of my guts and yelled at me, "You're in real trouble! You can't possibly move ahead. What if you get swept away? Not to mention the opposite bank, you'll drown to death right here!" Panic engulfed me. I looked back to return, but I was too scared to move, feeling that with this one step I was going to be carried away by the current. There was no way either to go forward or to go backward. I was stuck in the middle of the strong current. Thinking that wasn't what was supposed to go, I looked around other kids. They also had stopped walking with a scared face just as I did. As if a tacit agreement, we slowly tried and managed to move backwards. When we finally returned to the riverbank where we had set off, our spree had thoroughly gone. Dejected in heart, without talking, we plodded our way home.

About ten years later, I was looking at the Katsura River again from the edge of Katsura-ohashi Bridge after taking off my shoes and putting them together neatly. It was when over a year had passed since I started my career as a musician despite dissent from my parents and friends. Although I had tried harder than I had ever done before, nothing had worked. On the other hand, I didn't want to live doing what I didn't want to do. I was stuck without either way to go forward or to go backward, again. I leaned over the parapet and stared at the surface of the river, seriously intending to jump into it. Then, something came into view. I saw three ducks swimming out from under the bridge. They stopped right down below me and just floated there. I vaguely thought I might strike and kill them when I jumped and hit the surface. All of a sudden, that thought drove me out of a daze. I came to my senses and pulled myself back away from the railing. Until that point, the world around me had been completely silent, but noises came back to my ears all at once. I noticed some cars honked at me while passing by. I hurriedly put back on my shoes.

You should challenge at the risk of your life if you wish to fulfill your dreams. Only after you brace yourself for death, can you live your own life. To attain that understanding, I had had to do a few more suicidal attempts in the course of my life. I understood after all and keep challenging, thankfully.