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“I
try to run my house like military system.”
My
future father-in-law, Takeshi Sakamoto, a retired Infantry General, looked
me square in the eye. He was referring to the command he just issued to
his family. In two gruff, Japanese syllables, he ordered them to leave my
apartment and prepare for my wedding ceremony. I was marrying his
daughter. I barely knew the man. I deepened my voice and stood up
straight. “Does
it work?” He
paused, “No. Ha Ha Ha.”
His
bellowing laugh was infectious, and soon we were both grinning. I’d
passed my first test.
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The
ceremony at city hall, and the parties that followed went by in a euphoric
blur. I was now a member of the Sakamoto
clan. That, however, was on my
home turf. The real challenge lay ahead. Noriko and I were going to Japan
for two weeks to meet the rest of the family.
I
have
traveled before, many times. My previous
travel was about giving the world
another opportunity to impress me. Me, the adventurer, me the philanderer,
and me the vagabond. My travel, and my life for that matter, could be
summed up in three short words: Me, Me, and Me. This trip was different. I
was going to all the way to Japan to meet my wife’s family. It was about
her, and it was about them. It was about making a good impression, being a
good sport and being a devoted husband — three things I’d never really
planned on doing when I grew up, and from the beginning I knew I was out
of my depth.
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 On
the flight over, I reviewed the Japanese words I’d learned in the year I
had to prepare: a few parts of the male and female anatomy and a couple of
things to eat. I looked at my wife sleeping beside me and then I focused
on the in-flight film, For the Love of the Game. This isn’t a
movie
review, so I won’t go into how much I hated that film. I will say that
it was the first time a movie on a plane actually made the flight seem
longer. At 14 hours in the air, that’s quite a feat.
We
landed at Narita International Airport, near Tokyo, and waited for
Noriko’s mother, Kyoko, to pick us up. As we waited, I gazed at two
young travelers with bulging backpacks, dirty boots and an air of
practiced indifference. I longed for my past days of travel. One of the
travelers spoke, “It’s so great to be out of the rat-race. Travel is
so spiritual, you know.” His companion nodded, “The bars in Tokyo
remind me of Athens.” I remembered why I quit the road and got a
nine-to-five.
Noriko’s
mother appeared in front of me. I
stood and bowed to my new
mother-in-law. The bowing thing has always
seemed weird to me. I tried to shake hands and hug, but that clearly
didn’t go over too well. The formality was too much. I tried to be the
gregarious American and help everyone lighten up. As I had before, I fell
into the cliché of the obnoxious American. The Japanese are OK with
handshakes, but hugging, no way. They cringe. Public displays of
affection, I have learned, are so far beyond the pale of acceptable
behavior that the Japanese had to invent a word out of English just to
describe it. It’s called skinship, and it’s a big no-no.
They’re not uptight,
they’re different. Public skinship is about as acceptable in
Japan as eating fermented soybeans (natto) for breakfast in
Michigan.
Noriko,
her mother and I rode through Tokyo and out to the suburbs. As we walked
from train to train, I couldn’t help but notice how clean everything
was. Public bathrooms that smelled fresh in every station, floors free of
litter, and even the bums wore suits. New suits, not like the second-hand
Salvation Army clothes our homeless wear. Of course, the Japanese are a
bit behind when it comes to American-style capitalism, so it may be awhile
until their downtrodden are as trodden down as ours are.
The
cleanliness was amazing. That and the quiet. The subways came and went
with barely a whisper. The apocalyptic squeal and clatter that the
New
York subway is known for seemed almost exaggerated in my mind. Surely, New
York isn’t that large and dirty. It was only until I read an article in The
New York Times that I understood why the streets of the Big Apple are
covered in trash and feces. Apparently, the Japanese are suffering from a
compromised immune system because their cities are too clean. They are
losing all their natural resistance to infections.
You
have got to hand it to Giuliani, always thinking ahead. Here I thought New
York smelled like Calcutta because we had a problem. Oh no, we’re just
getting an edge over the Japanese. Why, by the time the
bubonic plague
breaks out in midtown, we’ll be conquering the world again. Our robust
immune systems will lead us onward and upward. Only the English will bar
our way from complete victory.
Next page: Arriving
in Japan
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