Chapter 29: CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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[AUTHOR'S NOTE: For some crazy reason unknown to even the vast majority of the Japanese, the academic year in Japan starts on April 1 and ends on March 31 -- kw]

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"Fumie, I hate tell this, but Brad didn't teach his class today. His students all started leaving his classroom about nine thirty. Not knowing what else to do, I guess."

Fumie nodded. "I know. He called in sick around ten o'clock, not giving me a chance to warn his students in time. But I really gave him a blistering tongue-lashing that if he calls in sick again, he's fired right then and there! And his monthly payments for each of the classes he's teaching will stop immediately, too!"

"But who will teach his classes if you do? I can't because I'm already teaching classes at the same time he is."

"I'm hoping I put enough of the fear of God in him that he'll continue teaching until the end of the semester. I've already told him I won't be needing him starting the new academic year at the beginning of April. He got really angry about that. And kept cursing you for it all being your fault."

"My fault? For how he screws up my classes?"

She nodded again. "I found it quite a lame excuse, too. But I don't think he can find a new teaching job in the meantime. If worst comes to worst, I'll teach his classes myself."

"I'm sure you can teach them a hell of a lot better than Brad, even if you aren't a native speaker."

"Probably. But his students will come up to me after class and speak to me in Japanese, not English. That's what I really want to avoid, if at all possible."

"But Fumie, you promised me at our meeting today you'd tell me about going to community college in Los Angeles and glad you did. I've been waiting a whole week to hear about that."

Fumie leaned back in her chair, remembering. "Well, when I arrived in Los Angeles, I had very little money. I certainly couldn't have afforded the tuition for one of those elite universities in the East you mentioned."

"Well, couldn't you at least get a scholarship?"

She shook her head. "Out of the question. Remember, back then there was still quite a bit of prejudice against us Japanese because of the war. And although my grades in my high school were good, they certainly were not spectacular. But even if I somehow could have afforded to enter one of them, I wouldn't have wanted to. There're really for the sons of very well-to-do families and their sister women's colleges like Radcliffe and Vassar were for the daughters of those rich families. My family -- which wasn't very rich to begin with -- had been completely wiped out, first during the war by your fire bombings which burned down our whole house and killed many people in our neighborhood or left them badly burned like my mother and father and even me, though my scars are not very large, fortunately. Then after the war came the deflation of the yen against the dollar from three and a half yen to the dollar to three hundred sixty yen to the dollar. So much for all my parents' savings they had worked so hard for. So I don't think I would have been happy at any one of those schools."

"And so you went to a community college instead?"

She nodded. "As I said before, when I arrived in Los Angeles, I had almost no money. I found a very cheap, but very small and dilapidated studio apartment in one of the poorer areas where there was a community college nearby. Although I hadn't been an L.A. resident long enough to qualify for free admission to it, there was a provision that if a person coming from a state that didn't charge extra tuition for residents of California to enter their community colleges, California wouldn't either. Ha, since Japan had no community colleges to charge extra tuition for, the community college reciprocated and let me enter free. And even if that provision hadn't applied to me, I would have qualified for students coming from poor families, which by then mine definitely were."

"But even if you had had enough money, you said you wouldn't have gone to one of the elite universities anyway. I still don't understand why you were glad you went to a community college."

"The students there are the main reason. Community colleges take most of their students from the surrounding community, which as I said was rather poor. So were most of the students. While some of the students were White, many more were Latinos or Asians or Blacks. The only Blacks I had known up until then were in the American occupation forces that controlled Japan right after the war. We kids were terrified of them whenever any approached. But they always just smiled big and gave us chocolates. To the best of my knowledge, I had never met any Latinos before. So yes, I really think I got to meet a lot more 'average' Americans than I ever would have if I had somehow gone to one of those elite colleges in the East."

"Hmm. But you said you didn't have any money when you got to Los Angeles. So what did you live on?"

She laughed. "That's the really ironic part! The one skill I had that nobody else there had was my native Japanese. The president of the college gave me a part time job teaching a noncredit Japanese course. There weren't any teachers or courses of Japanese back then. After all, who wanted to learn the language of the country that had bombed Pearl Harbor?"

"Well, who did?"

"Would you believe, Japanese Nisei? Or more precisely Sansei, Yonsei, or Gosei since their families had immigrated to the U.S around the turn of the century. Some of them had fathers who had fought in the 442nd Regiment, the Nisei Regiment. The most decorated unit in the whole American army during the war and the most in American history. And here I was, their enemy, teaching their children! I even adopted their motto of 'Go for broke' for myself because it fit my situation back then so perfectly. And that's also how I met Michael."

I smiled. "Need I even bother to ask who Michael is? I've got a good feeling you're going to tell me anyway."

She smiled. "You're right about that. Well, how can I say it? Let's start with the fact that he was the only White student in my class. And he was the only one who was truly interested in learning Japanese."

"That seems strange. Weren't the Nisei students even more interested?"

Fumie shook her head. "No, they were only there because their parents made them study Japanese. Before they entered college, they had to go to 'Gakko,' which they hated."

"What's 'Gakko?'"

"An after hours Japanese class taught at their Buddhist Temples -- which their parents also forced them to go to as well. They hardly learned any Japanese at all and spent most of their time gibbering away with their friends in English because they were all in the same boat. When I asked them how many of their parents spoke Japanese with each other at home, none of them raised their hand. When I asked how many of their parents spoke English to each other, they all raised their hands. Mike was different. His father had been killed fighting us Japanese at Iwo Jima."

"But you'd think that would make him hate the Japanese even more."

"Remember, not all American soldiers hated us. After the war, more than forty thousand of them came home with Japanese war brides, even though they had lost a lot of their buddies, like Mike's father, fighting us. And the children of some of them, like Mike, became really interested in us as a result."

"So what happened between you and Mike?"

She smiled. "I think you can imagine."

I smiled, too. "I guess I can if I really try. But the how is the story I really want to hear about."

Fumie looked at her watch. "I'm afraid we're out of time for this meeting again. But I'll tell you about it at our next meeting."

"Again, I can't wait!"

"John, I'm really getting interested in Fumie's life. And she seems perfectly happy to tell me about it!"

"Sounds interesting to me, too. Want to tell me about it?"

"It'll take some time, believe me."

John looked at his watch. "Well, we've got at least an hour before you have to catch your train back to Kyoto. What say to a couple more rounds of beer while you're telling me?"

"Fine with me!"

Submitted: September 12, 2023

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s

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B Douglas Slack

This seems like another chapter that finishes oddly. Were John and David sitting around in a bar while David related this story, or is there more to it right at the end?

Bill

Thu, October 12th, 2023 1:40am

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Dave has told John at their usual bar what he knows so far about Fumie and Mike. They're both now anxiously waiting for what happens after that -- which Fumie won't tell Dave until the following Tuesday. That's what the next chapter will be about.

Ken

Wed, October 11th, 2023 7:10pm

Kenneth Wright

Bill and others,
What happened between Fumie and Mike will follow in the next FEW chapters. -- kw

Thu, October 12th, 2023 7:58am