Tonight it’s Italian.
“The food’s already been ordered. It’ll keep coming out. You just eat.” I’m given clear and specific instructions from Kazu-san.
“Okay. That’s good, ‘cause I’m hungry.”
“Did you eat today?”
“Sort of.”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“You didn’t, did you?”
“Not really.” And then he gives me a very proper brotherly speaking to. I'm told in no uncertain terms "how-the-hell-do-you-expect-not-get-sick" and am chastised for my sloppiness.
The gang arrives in ones and twos. The city council member is very late and makes his way in with a slew of “sorry”s.
“We knew that was you coming up the stairs,” Taro-san says, half drunk.
“Huh?”
“You shuffle,” and as if they’ve been keeping this secret to themselves all night and have just let it out, they all start to laugh. I do, too.
“Hmmm, shuffling?” The city council member is half-concerned and half-nonchalant. Does he dare believe the not-quite-fully-drunk Taro-san's comment about him shuffling?
The food does keep coming out, and conversations fly across tables mixed with mock insults, gossip, and updates. Someone whips out their phone.
“Facebook?”
“Yup.”
“What’s the latest?”
This is now how they keep tabs on each other.
“You still haven’t friended me,” Tomo-san says to Taro-san.
“Huh? Really?”
“Not buying that act of yours,” and Tomo-san who is definitely drunk says, “you’re doing this on purpose.”
“Huh?” and Taro-san looks at me and smiles, knowing I know he’s absolutely doing this on purpose.
Shige-san who’s sitting next to me leans over and shows me a photo on his phone.
“What’s this mean?” It’s the photo of crayons in various skin tone colors first (evidently) posted by George Takei and shared throughout Facebook. Including me.
“Oh, right. That symbolizes the fact the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday celebrates the various races in the US.”
“Interesting,” he says and then, “what’s this you wrote?” and points to the three lines I added under the photo.
“My family is very diverse which is why I posted the photo of the crayons. I’m celebrating them,” I tell him, “and I was just telling them I love them and miss them.”
“Like who?” Kazu-san says from across the table.
“Like who what?” I’m confused. Who am I saying I love in my family?
“Like who do you have in your family?”
“Oh. Well, I have a Chinese sister-in-law and two half-Chinese nieces, a cousin who married a Lakota woman, another cousin who married a Jewish woman, a cousin who married an Egyptian, a cousin who’s half-Creole, several Korean cousins, an African-American uncle, several half-African-American cousins, two brothers-in-law from the Ivory Coast,” and pause, “I think that’s about it.”
“Yeah,” he laughs. “I guess that’s diverse.”
***
Fast forward one day and I’m sitting around a table with ten kids, ages two to five. “The flu is going around and it’s pretty bad, so there aren’t that many kids today,” the principal of the day care center tells me.
“That’s okay. We can still play. If that’s alright with you, of course.”
“Yes, of course,” and with that I follow her into an uncharacteristically very quiet classroom.
I ask if I can sit down on one of the miniature chairs, and am told “okaaay” in English by one of the boys. I say “Hey, that’s good!” in reply, and offer up a high-five. He takes it. Soon other hands are asking for high-fives as well. I hit all ten hands. We’re all smiles.
I pull out the picture book of fruit and vegetables and I point and talk about the ones they know. I get to the potato and ask, “Do you know what this is in English? I bet you do.” The kids can't decide if it's actually a potato, and after making sure the group actually agrees it’s a potato and not a gourd, I slowly say “po-ta-to” to which I get a table full of kids saying “Oh, I knew that!” and “like potato chips.” I’m impressed all over again at how much of their vocabulary contains English words and tell them this. Two year olds who have just been given a compliment they don’t quite understand are indeed a sight to see. Simply put, they’re adorable. They know something good just happened, but they have no idea what it is or why.
Once we’re done with the fruit and vegetables I pull out the box of crayons I borrowed from the principal and go through the colors. Again, they all know red, blue, white, black, yellow, pink, orange in English. I get to brown, and ask if they know what it is.
“Chairo,” one boy says.
“Right. Now do you know how to say that in English?”
Here he pauses a minute, and says in his best foreigner accent, “cha-ee-roh” which is so delightful, sincere, and hilarious that the adults immediately crack up.
“Let’s draw” one of the children says, and the teachers quickly stand and get paper. I point to the apple and cherries in the book and ask the kids around me if they can draw me these. I get shy looks in response but both kids pull out their red crayons and start drawing something resembling red circles.
I hear the boy who knew how to say brown in Japanese having a very animated conversation with one of the teachers at his end of the table. Soon, I hear the teacher say, “Go show Amya-san.” He gets up and brings his sheet over to me. I see small blotches of beige, orange, and lots of brown.
“Would you like some custard?” he says, holding out the sheet. It is definitely a very good thing my son was an imaginative child as I caught on immediately I was being invited to play, right there and right then.
“Yes, please,” I say in English. And then in Japanese, “What do you recommend?”
“This one,” he points to the beige one.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll have that.” He pinches the air above the beige splotch “picking up” the custard and puts his fingers in my mouth. (I will not get the flu, I will not get the flu, I will not get the flu.)
“That was good!” I say and he grins.
“What’s this?” I ask, and point to the brown spots.
“That’s chocolate.”
“Ooooh. I like chocolate. May I have this one?” and I point to the biggest piece (of course) and quickly add, “And, what color is this?”
He looks at me and I swear he’s enjoying this as much as I am, “brown.”
“Yup.”
“Yup,” he says back in English but it sounds more like “up” and I make sure my smile is really a smile and not another “you crack me up” grin. I quickly look back down at the “chocolate” on the page. When I look up, I see him grinning with that “gotcha” look of pure pride.
“Unfortunately, we’re sold out,” he then says. Ooh, I did not see that coming, little stinker you.
“What?!”
“Sorry.”
“No way!” I’m just the slightest bit upset by the fact I have just been one-upped by a four-year old, and can’t help shake the feeling I’ve really been denied real chocolate. I’m determined to get this chocolate, though, and so keep playing.
“When is your next chocolate delivery?
“When are you coming back?”
“In a few weeks.”
“I’ll have it by then.” And, here I really want to say, “you better” but instead say, “thank you.” I look down at the paper again.
“What else do you have?” But, while triumphant, clearly he’s bored now and walks back to his chair leaving me to now think about the faux chocolate I some how missed out on but now can’t get off my mind.
How the color brown single-handedly managed to become the most important topic at hand in Ofunato for both adults and children in one single weekend is beyond me. I’m delighted, though.
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