by Kyoko Mori
I don’t trust love or romance because my mother married for love, only to discover that my father did not return her love in the same way. When he started having affairs a few years into their marriage, my mother must have regretted not having married the nice family friend her parents had wanted her to marry. In the end, my mother died for love even though her dying took seventeen years instead of one dramatic moment. But if I hadn’t experienced this family tragedy, or if I hadn’t grown up in Japan, I still would not have imagined a straight and smooth path in romance. It isn’t easy for a woman my age, in America, to take love and marriage for granted. Most of my women friends in the Midwest have—or had—the marriage of two cars, and many are divorced. “I don’t want to depend on some guy to make me happy,” my friend Deb says. “I’d rather go out with a bunch of friends than be on a date with a guy who’s opening doors for me and trying to help me put on my coat and hovering over me.”
Even my friend Diane, who is married and happy, says that marriage is difficult because it comes with so much cultural and personal baggage. Our women friends—American, educated, and feminist—have a hard time making traditional gestures of love to their husbands or boyfriends. We hesitate to cook a nice dinner, dress in a traditionally “attractive” way, or wash our partner’s clothes because these are the things women do in relationships where they are inferior to men. Most of us lived with other women before our marriages and were perfectly willing to cook a special dinner for our roommates; if our roommates left clothes in the washer, we didn’t think twice about sorting them out to dry before washing our own clothes. We didn’t show the same consideration to our husbands. When they left clothes in the washer, we moved them into the laundry basket, so we could load ours. “You left some clothes in the washer,” we pointed out politely but coldly.
My friends and I are exceptions. The majority of American women take on the bulk of the household and child-care duties. But that made it worse for us. Every time Diane, our friends, and I saw how much other women put up with, we felt even less willing to be “nice” to our husbands. Maybe it was unfair of us to blame our husbands for other people’s sexism, but that’s what we did. Seeing other women make so many sacrifices, we vowed to ourselves that we would make none.
Once I started going to Japan every couple of years, I had even more “baggage” about marriage. I was appalled when my Japanese friends said that their husbands were so “understanding” because they didn’t demand dinner the moment they returned from work. “He is so patient,” my friends said. “When I’ve been very busy all day” (taking care of the kids or nursing his sick father or working part time) “my husband offers to go eat at a corner restaurant so I can just get the kids fed and make something easy for myself. He lets me not have to worry about him.” I felt furious when I heard these comments. I couldn’t believe that the best the men could do was to excuse their wives from taking care of them. Why can’t these men make a caring gesture themselves, I wondered. Most Japanese cities have delis and pizza parlors. It wouldn’t be difficult at all for any man to offer to go and get food for his whole family when his wife is busy or tired. I was angry that my friends’ husbands never performed any simple acts of kindness, and I was irritated with my friends for expecting so little. If, a week later at home, I found a shirt Chuck had left in the washer, I took it out and set it on top of the dryer without even smoothing it out. I wasn’t going to take care of his dirty laundry.
Sometimes, when I think of marriages, bodies, or sexuality, I get a hopeless feeling. Everybody is confused, it seems; there is no happy medium for women in dealing with these issues. We hate our bodies or we politely deny the body’s sexuality. We resign ourselves to too much compromise or rebel against any compromise. Knowing two cultures only makes me more angry rather than giving me helpful insights.
I was comforted, then, to spend a week at a craft school last summer with a dozen other women from Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana. We were taking a weeklong class about using beads to make jewelry and to embellish garments. The school was on an island in northeastern Wisconsin: it consisted of three barns converted into studio spaces and a dorm. We sewed and strung beads all day and then slept in a big room that had twelve bunk beds. Most of the women were in their forties, fifties, or sixties—all but two were married and had children. For all of us, “beading” was a hobby, not a way to make money; we were reasonably comfortable but not wealthy—we worked as high school or college teachers, psychologists, social workers, nurses, or homemakers. We had never met one another before, but by the end of the week, after sitting at the long tables beading together, going out to eat at night at a local restaurant, and sharing the small living space, we had gotten to know one another pretty well.
Almost every night the married women called their husbands and children to make sure they were all right. A few of them said that before leaving home they had spent a couple of days baking pies and casseroles, then labeling and freezing them because their husbands and children didn’t know how to cook. One woman had a mother-in-law with a resort cottage on the island. Her husband and son were coming up to spend two days in the cottage while she was taking the class. The day before they arrived, the woman said, “I’m worried what the two of them will be wearing tomorrow. My husband doesn’t know how to match the right shirt with the right pair of pants. He would wear plaids and stripes together, and my son’s not much better.” Every day at home she cooked everyone’s meal and told everyone which shirt matched which pants.
These episodes about inept husbands and dependent children didn’t make me feel angry, as they usually did. The women in my class had overcome their concerns or guilty feelings and given themselves a whole week to do something useless and enjoyable. Even as hobbies go, beadwork—unlike weaving rugs or knitting sweaters—is impractical, not at all beneficial to husbands and children. What we made—bead-embroidered jackets, earrings, and woven necklaces—could be worn only by ourselves and other women. My classmates were doing something purely for themselves. If they had to spend a few days beforehand baking casseroles so they could get away, that was fine by them.
The woman whose husband and son visited for two days said after they left, “I’m kind of relieved that they’re gone. When they were around, I had a hard time concentrating on class because I felt like I should spend more time with them.” I loved her admitting that to me, nearly a stranger. What I experienced that week would never happen in Japan. My Japanese friends would not feel entitled to leave their families for a week to pursue a hobby. I felt sad for them, but I was happy to have an opportunity I would never have had if I hadn’t left home.
One night in the middle of that week, I woke up around three and sat up in my bunk bed by the window. I could hear the other eleven women snoring in their beds. Nobody was snoring very loudly. As I told them the next morning, it wasn’t a snoring solo but a chorus, everyone doing her part and blending into the general noise. I wasn’t bothered by it at all. I lay back down and was happy to close my eyes and go back to sleep. I was sure that I, too, would be snoring soon. I was comforted by the presence of these sleeping women—their bodies, their minds, their soft snoring. We were learning something together.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SYMBOLS
My cousin Kazumi once told me that the big difference between Dutch-style flower arrangement and the traditional Japanese ikebana is in the use of colors.
“When I took my first class from a Dutch teacher in Osaka,” she said, “I had to learn about colors. There were ten people in my class—all of us had studied ikebana. Our teacher spent the first two weeks on color theory. He taught the class like an art class, and my classmates and I were slow to catch on. We had never been taught about the color wheel or the complementary colors.”
“Colors aren’t important in ikebana?” I asked.
“Not really,” Kazumi replied. “Both in ikebana and in everyday arrangements, Japanese people always use the same colors. You’ll notice if yo
u go to any flower shop in town. Every bouquet has yellow, pink, and white. That’s the most popular color combination in Japan. My Dutch teacher hated those colors together. Any time one of us made an arrangement with them, he groaned and asked us to take it apart and start over.”
Ever since we’ve had this conversation, I automatically scan the displays of ready-made bouquets at Japanese flower shops. Kazumi was right. Almost every arrangement consists of yellow, pink, and white: yellow mums, pink carnations, white daisies; yellow lilies, pink roses, white tulips; yellow roses, pink gerbera, white lilies of the valley. The combinations are endless but the colors remain the same. Bouquets at upscale flower shops sometimes have a fourth color added as a variation, but if they do, it’s always a pale blue—a few delphiniums or bachelor’s buttons.
Kazumi didn’t know how this yellow-pink-white color tradition started or why it has endured. The three colors, she and I agree, don’t look very good together. I don’t think we are unfairly applying Western aesthetic principles to Japanese flowers. There is something universal about color theory, about the way the human eye responds to light and shade. No matter what culture we come from, our eyes are drawn to the high contrast of complementary colors or the soothing gradations of similar colors. There are color combinations—usually from non-Western cultures—that defy the traditional understanding of the color wheel: the bright pink and the leaf green of Hmong embroidery or the turquoise blue and the dark orange of Native American jewelry. But these colors come from natural surroundings: every bright pink flower has green leaves and stems; out in the canyon country, the blue sky and the rust-orange rock face is the most noticeable color juxtaposition. The yellow-pink-white combination is seldom seen together in nature. In Japan as well as in most temperate climates, the pink and purple wildflowers of early spring are over long before the yellow flowers, like sunflowers, black-eyed Susans, and milkweed, bloom in midsummer.
The only way I can understand the yellow-pink-white palette is to interpret it as a code. A Japanese bouquet is a symbol composed of all the right meanings: yellow signifies “cheerful and bright,” pink is for “pretty,” white is an auspicious color of harmony, and the green leaves indicate “prosperity.” Pale blue connotes subtle good taste or refinement, so it’s added to expensive bouquets. Together, the flowers have all the right meanings, and nothing is added that does not contribute to the overall symbolic representation of “beauty” and “auspicious wishes.”
Everyday life in Japan is full of visual and auditory symbols that a person can understand only by decoding the message, symbol by symbol, in the way I have come to understand the colors of the flowers. When I lived in Japan as a child and a teenager, I had no clue about how to understand the traditional culture of my own country. Japanese literature, music, and art baffled me because I did not yet know that the Japanese concept of beauty—in art or in everyday life—relies on a strict adherence to an impersonal code of symbols: a beautiful object must be harmonious and smooth, having all the right symbolic elements and containing no surprises. My “Americanized” education prepared me to approach art as a personal expression—to notice the small but genuine surprises that reveal distinct individual styles and voices. Trying to view Japanese art, which offered no surprises or revelations, I did not know what I was supposed to be looking for.
Now I know that I am supposed to notice the symbols and appreciate the meticulous care people have taken to present the right symbol at the right time. I understand why all my women friends in Japan dress in the same way and speak with the same voice. Every Japanese woman is expected to pay strict attention to detail, whether she is practicing tea ceremony or wrapping her friend’s birthday gift, so that the way she holds the teacup or the ribbon she chooses for the wrapping will be just the right thing—that is to say, the exact same thing everyone else would choose. Uniformity is the key to beauty and decorum. That’s why all Japanese stores, at closing every day, play “Auld Lang Syne” over their P.A. systems. The tune is a symbol of closing time; no other music can be played at that time. In Japanese restaurants, fruit salad is always served on a bed of bibb or Boston lettuce, on a clear glass plate.
These practices only make sense as symbols. No one is expected to eat the lettuce with the banana or the peach in the “beautifully” served fruit salad. The green lettuce symbolizes “refreshing,” as does the glass plate. The lettuce is different from the ubiquitous sprig of parsley used as a garnish at American restaurants. Though few people actually eat the parsley, it goes with dishes where they might. In Japan, parsley and nothing else (like mint, which might taste better with fruit) can decorate plates of fruit salads or “fruit sandwiches” —sandwiches with finely chopped fruit salad as a filling. Those sandwiches, too, can only be explained as symbols: sandwiches mean “light and refreshing meal,” so fruit salad is as good a filling as sliced cucumbers.
There are peculiar combinations of food in any culture. I don’t look forward to potluck dinners in the Midwest because I feel obligated to try strange foods like Jell-O salad. In Green Bay, you can’t go to a neighborhood picnic or a family-reunion potluck-in-the-park and not see a pan of lime Jell-O with shredded carrots, or orange Jell-O with finely chopped celery. There seems to be a strict sense of tradition about the combination: it is important to have the orange and the green together—the orange Jell-O never has carrots, and the lime Jell-O never has celery. I used to think that I didn’t like these Jell-O salads because they were weird American foods I hadn’t grown up with. Although my family ate mostly “Western” meals (toast and eggs for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, casseroles for dinner), we certainly did not have “traditional” specialties like Jell-O salads or Waldorf salad, another dish I try to avoid at picnics.
Maybe I don’t like these salads because they are American versions of the yellow-pink-white flowers: they are results of “tradition” overriding what would naturally appeal to the eye or the taste buds. “Tradition” is the only explanation for the combination of walnuts, raisins, celery, apples, and mayonnaise. The salad was originally served at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel at the turn of the century by the maitre d’ who also invented chicken Diane and veal Oscar. I am not sure why this particular salad, of all the hundreds of recipes that must have been served at the Waldorf-Astoria, has become the mainstay of Midwestern family get-togethers and banquets, but it has. The version served at my college has miniature marshmallows in it.
The difference between the American food tradition and the Japanese, though, is that most Americans don’t revere Jell-O and Waldorf salads as models of ultimate fine taste. A lot of my friends make fun of their Aunt Martha’s Jell-O salad, which they eat out of politeness; they don’t like walnuts or raisins in oatmeal cookies, much less in salads. American strange food combinations are old-fashioned recipes for my friends to laugh about or feel nostalgic about because they mean childhood, home, family, and holiday get-togethers. These dishes are personal or family symbols of tradition or good times for some people, but they are not part of the oppressive code of what is universally considered to be fine taste. In Japan, there is no such thing as a personal or family symbol: all symbols are universal, and adhering to them is how everyone tries to show good breeding. Lettuce is served with fruit salad in expensive restaurants, “Auld Lang Syne” is played at upscale department stores, and yellow-pink-white bouquets are tied with silk ribbons behind immaculately polished glass. I have no problem with bad taste that is homey. I am much less comfortable with the exaltation of bad taste into symbols of correct form that everyone must follow.
Although I did not fully understand the importance of everyday symbolism until I was an adult, I always noticed the way people in Japan fell into uncomfortable silence when they saw someone dressed in the wrong color. Even as children, we were taught that boys must never wear pink or red, and that we should not sit next to a man in a purple or yellow shirt on the train because he is probably a yakuza or a foreigner. There were rules about what colors
everyone should wear according to their age and gender, and people who did not obey these rules were sure to be up to no good.
When I came to America, I was relieved that the rules about colors were much more relaxed. Americans tend to dress their boy babies in powder blue and their girl babies in pale pink, but some people shun this practice as sexist. American business executives prefer navy blue and avoid colors that are regarded as frivolous, not fit for business attire: certain shades of pink, lavender, or red, colors traditionally associated with femininity. But the hockey coach at our college wears a pale pink cardigan now and then, and my friend Fred buys women’s singlets and shorts for running because he looks bad in the dark colors marketed for men. No one labels the hockey coach or Fred as suspicious characters or considers them to be eccentric. In Japan, to appear in the “wrong” color just once is to be branded as someone who doesn’t know or care what is right and proper.
The color rules are fairly easy for Japanese men. All they have to do is avoid reds and pinks as young boys and then settle into a wardrobe of navy, black, and white when they grow up to be businessmen. Women have more choices, but in Japan, having choices usually means having more ways to go wrong.
