No spin. No embellishing. This is a story without preservatives. Made with all natural ingredients, it comes straight from the front lines of disaster-stricken Rikuzentakata.
Teiichi Sato is a man who looks like he chops down trees in his spare time. Barrel-chested, salt-and-pepper hair flying in all directions, he's quick to tear up and quick to recover. He's one of the victims-turned-survivors from the tsunami that wiped away the City of Rikuzentakata, his store and home included.
Mr. Sato will be the first to admit his mind did not belong to him for a month after the tsunami took away everything he owned. "I wasn't myself. I didn't know what to do. My mind? It was white. Like that screen on television, black and white static. I had nothing." Today, he is the proud owner of his seed store selling literally seeds and seedlings. How anyone can stay in business selling only seeds, competing with the giant box-stores selling the same seeds for less--this is a mystery to me. I don't ask questions. His income, he tells me is "Less than what most people make around here" but this doesn't seem to bother him. Personifying stubbornness, a fierce will to live, and commitment to survival, the hostility he showed to his customers two summers ago when he was working through this PTSD is all but a memory.
"I wanted to get this story out from inside me. That I rebuilt this store, if you can call it that....that I rebuilt it from scraps of debris that I found all over town. That I rebuilt my store to show that even someone normal like me can start over. That even someone like me who lost everything can still live. I wanted to get this story out but it was too painful to write it in Japanese."
I nod as I listen.
"So I wrote it in English. And then Chinese." Here he drops the bomb. "But I don't speak, read, or write English or Chinese." He laughs. "So, I looked up words in the dictionary one after the other, and then started putting together not knowing at all whether my English was correct. Then I heard of an English teacher who was holding classes here in town once a month and I asked for help. He and I worked through my manuscript, polishing it so it was presentable. And then I published it. It's not high prose, but it's readable." He says this as if it's no big deal at all to write a book in two languages he doesn't understand. He did the same thing with the Chinese document. "Dictionaries are really helpful," he says, nonchalantly. "Get a native speaker to check your work, and" he claps his hands together, "just like that, you've gotten out what was pent up inside. That's really all I did."
That is most definitely not all he did. It never occurred to me here is where I would found the one person I know in my life who wrote a book about a terrible and painful experience in two languages he neither comprehended nor ever used. The result is a short book revealing grief and hope in ways only he can retell and capture. I won't spoil it for you. Don't buy it if you're not interested. If you are, however, here is a true, first-hand account of a victim who turned himself into a survivor out of sheer will. Read and weep as many have.
Please contact me at amya@city.rikuzentakata.iwate.jp if you are interested in purchasing a copy. Each book costs 1500 yen. You will need to pay via bank transfer. I will provide you with details.
It's worth it. Take my word for it.
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