When I was around five or six years old in Germany,
my mother would take a rest on the couch and I picked out her white hairs. She showed me how to put my index finger in the “hizeda”–in the ashtray–where my father’s Camel cigarette ashes where and rub the ash on my finger to take the “slippery oil” away to pull out the hairs without my fingers slipping.
She felt around on top of her head for the white hair. I reach down into her long, black hair like a horses tail, find white hairs, and pull them out. While doing this, I asked for a story. “Which one?” she always asked. “The Cave Story, my favorite!” I’d say. I always asked for my favorite story….
‘We were in the cave nine days,
I already roll my mother up in a blanket – she not quite dead yet. She was hit in forehead, on side, big hole. Later on, I left her under a tree, we had to run, cannot carry her. After war I go back in jeep with GI potato canister for her bones.
I find tree, easy to recanize which ones her bones because hole in forehead and she only have two her own teeth left on top in front on each side, motioning to her eye teeth or canines. The rest all gold before but somebody take away. After war, people no have anything they take what they can to survive. I put her bones in canister, take them to the family’s cave.
I oldest one at home, eleven keeds. I middle one, seventeen years old. I take care of my younger brothers and sisters. At night I use bamboo poles, carry two buckets, I run get water, bring back. I run through shooting, bullets go through my legs. See, that’s how I get scars around my knees, and my side.
When bombs go off; I happy – blow up potatoes. I run go get food, bring back. My brothers and sisters so hungry. Everybody hungry. My hand shot up, hanging down like this: (and gestures where her right thumb and forefinger, half a hand used to be hanging down). I no feel – that time – we so scared – have no time pay tention to hurt.
Later, she used that hand as a beauty lesson: After war there were many hurt people, American doctors no have time, cut off quick. They say cut off to here (touching her right elbow). One hakujin (white) doctor like my face, he take time. He take time only take off hanging down part, only take “hambun te” (half hand). It’su important you take care you looks.’
“Then what happened?” I’d say, feeling successful pulling out white hairs. They were easy to see in all that shinny blackness. “Then on the ninth day, the noise came closer and closer, and one Japanese soldier came inside. He said “Americans are coming, we must suicide before they get us”.
We think Americans very bad. The Japanese soldier had a hand grenade. We lay down, make circle, he sits in middle. I hold one brother one sister hand, close eyes. I hear the grenade go off, open eye. First I think I’m dead now, then I hold head up, see my body. I think I am worse than dead because I thought I have only half body but it’s the soldiers trunk on top me.
What happen is grenade have a pin, he pull pin but his body bend over grenade, and he only one blow up. I thought I lost legs but his body on top me blow out his legs. The noise from grenade brought American soldiers. They come inside. They point many things, many weapons at us. Guns, machine guns, bayonets, even they take pictures.
We scared, very scared. We don’t know what to do. We never see hakujin before. They point us with bayonets and point us to put hand up, go outside. We go outside. We never see Americans before. They stand all around us, point at us with weapons, camera, they take picture. We thought they kill us because Japanese soldiers say they kill us.
They hand me canteen, they show me: drink. I tell my brothers and sisters, ‘This must be poison. If something happu to me, don’t drink. The mizu -the water- tastu good, clean. I no have misu like this long time. I wait for poison, nothing happu, I no die.
I give to my brothers and sisters, they thirsty. They happy to drink. Then soldier give me something very dark, very brown, they show me: eat. I say to brothers and sisters, ‘This must be the poison, if something happen to me, you no eat.’ I teach them how be strong. I put in mouth, I eat, tastu very sweet, very sticky sweet. Nothing happen, I give to keeds.”
When I grew older, I decided I didn’t want to hear these stories any more because I thought they really were all just endless made in Japan fairy tales for endless made in Japan children. I wanted to play farther away from my brothers and sisters. But one day, “Uncle Wally” (Walter Cronkite) told the same story.
In 1964 when we returned from Japan, and stayed for two weeks in Menlo Park California, we were outside playing a game of seven-up, bouncing a ball against the house when we heard our mother scream. We ran inside. She was watching Walter Cronkite’s 2Oth Century, a Sunday TV program.
She had watched herself come out of the cave…drink the water … eat the dark sticky sweet stuff… Turning to my mother, I asked, “Gee Ma, did they really make Hershey bars back then?”
Sunday, April 3,1999: At 6:30 am, I started watching the History Channel and an announcement was made that the upcoming program was about WWII, Japan. Five minutes into the episode, I decided to record, and toward the end of the film, was a description of the war on Okinawa.
I saw a woman tell a story that reminded me of my favorite story (The Cave Story) my mother told me as a child in Germany. In between the woman’s story, was a film of people coming out of a shelter. One figure coming from the left foreground moving to the right, was clearly a focus of the camera.
That one person looked like my mother, had several children with her, and had an injured right hand. I showed the tape to Lee, my husband. He played it in slow motion, then in pause mode so we could get a good look at the hand because in regular motion, the hand spun around like a pinwheel in a blur.
I considered calling my mother who is visiting my sister Linda in Finley, Ohio but I didn’t want to risk upsetting her.
This story reminds me that we all come from different experiences with different stories and centers of reference. On the Multicentric Journey, we’re going to move to a sensory based model of identity for processing perceptual layers, social context and the changing human identities of today. You will encounter reality from a new perspective. You will receive perceptual exercises by going through the layers and building a human database of information. This perceptual practice becomes a steady state for going into a realm where you’re not overlooking any information and you see the interdependence that was hidden, because you are seeing ecologically. These stories are to take you, us, everyone out of the box, to where we see ecologically/interdependently.
Wow! Chiyuki, I am deeply moved by this story that I have heard you tell so many times, but now like the first time ever, and the video that you told me about. Incredible! Imagine the timing that you were watching and your mother was watching at those very times! Synchronicity to the max! I am so grateful that I have begun to experience on a daily basis now what you were so patiently teaching me. It is also in perfect sync with what I am learning from Thich Nhat Hanh every day. I am so glad you are sharing this story online now – it’s like they took down the walls of our classroom!
Comment by David J. Biviano — December 2, 2009 @ 5:38 pm
I remember when you told this story to my mother. We were all riding in a car together. It was the first time she met you. I remember I had shared with you that I thought my mother had some bigotry because I remembered some of her “jokes” were racist. And so you said to her…something like, Lou, Holly has told me that you like to tell jokes that are racist, so why don’t you just tell me some now and we’ll get that out of the way..or something like that. Mom was so impressed with your honesty, I think she loved you right away. When you told her this story she started crying. And from then on, as she lay in her bed, an invalid, while you and I were going to school together, she always wanted to know what you and I were up to, (and we were certainly UP TO a lot). So I would sit by her bed and tell her the stories of our days together and she grew and grew…didn’t we all?
Comment by Holly — January 17, 2010 @ 9:16 pm