Koden

 

In Japan, if you attend a funeral, in most cases, you need to bring koden, condolence money. They will give you back a present.

One day I attended a funeral. They gave me back a nice present. The bag that covered the present was especially good. In most cases, this bag is made of paper or plastic, but the bag was made of cloth. The color was chic. I liked it. I couldn’t throw it away.

Another day, I was invited to a birthday party of a friend of mine. I bought a present. I needed a bag to cover the present. I came up with an idea. I had the nice, chic cloth bag. As long as I didn’t say that it was from a funeral, I thought it would be a very nice bag to cover the present with.

I gave the present to my friend with the nice bag. My friend liked my present, but he also found a small pocket inside the bag. In the pocket, there was a packet of salt. That was concrete evidence that the bag was from a funeral.

In old Japanese tradition, after attending a funeral, you have to purify yourself with salt. They had given me salt. At that time, I couldn’t find the small pocket and the salt.

I told the truth. All my friends in the party laughed about that. I was humiliated.

 

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Picture by Uni Hirano

The Doctor Who Spoke in the Kansai Dialect

 

 A few years ago, I was in the hospital. I was hovering between life and death due to an illness. Before I recovered full consciousness, I experienced many things; I can’t tell if they were real or dreams.

 One of the experiences was that I was treated by a doctor who spoke the Kansai dialect. I was in the ICU. A team of doctors treated me. I remember clearly that there was a doctor who spoke the Kansai dialect on the team.

 While I was unconscious, they put a feeding tube in my nose. After I woke up, I started eating. But at first, I couldn’t eat much. I left most of my meal on my plate. My condition got better day by day. One day, finally, I finished my entire meal. I reported to the doctor. The doctor praised me in very strong Kansai dialect. That was the last time I saw him.

 After I was discharged, I went to the hospital once a month. One of the team doctors tested me. One day, I asked him about the doctor who spoke in the Kansai dialect. I wanted to say hello to him because I remembered he was especially nice to me. But the doctor couldn’t understand whom I was talking about. He said there was no doctor on the team who spoke in the Kansai dialect.

 I was surprised. The doctor did not exist? He was a dream? He might be a ghost.

 I had been in Kansai for six years. It might be possible to think that an excellent Kansai doctor’s ghost came to the crisis of my life and saved me.

 Dear friends in Kansai! Please help me if I am ever again in crisis in the future!

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Picture by tama

Junk mail

 

 I used to receive a lot of junk mail. It was really annoying.

 My cell phone rang every ten minutes. Most of the messages were junk emails. I thought about changing my email address. But I was not sure that I could let all my acquaintances know. If I forgot to tell someone, it would be rude.

 The most annoying thing about junk mail was that it stopped coming during the holidays. I assumed they had stopped sending me junk mail, but I was wrong. They started again on weekdays. People who send junk mails are probably scumbags. These scumbags rested and enjoyed the holidays? They assumed this was a real job? Ridiculous!

 As a result, I changed my email address. As I had feared, I forgot to tell a person whom I really care for. She scolded me, “Did you change your email account without telling me?”

 Junk mail is my enemy.

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Deny with Eyes

 

I heard this story from my mother. It was before she had Alzheimer’s disease. One day she went Komaki City, which is located near our hometown. She took a taxi.

Then the taxi driver said to her, “Excuse me, but aren’t you the daughter of Vice Principal Kawai?”

He was right. My grandfather worked as a vice principal at a high school in Komaki. It was a few decades ago. Why could he remember my grandfather?

During World War II, the driver was a high school student in Komaki. He thought about taking part in the kamikaze special attack, which was a Japanese suicide mission. A pilot brought tons of gunpowder in a plane and threw himself toward an enemy. It is ridiculous, but some Japanese pilots believed they were heroes at that time.

The driver talked about his idea to Vice Principal Kawai. My grandfather couldn’t say anything because he had his position. He couldn’t say anything against the government. So he denied the student’s idea with his eyes.

As a result, the student refused to take part in the mission. He became a taxi driver after the war. I believe that taking passengers by taxi and living is better than taking gunpowder and death.

Vice Principal Kawai died during the war because of an illness. So I have never met him.

Still, I am proud of you, Grandpa!

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Picture by Shintako