Sutra

 

              In a common Japanese funeral, a monk chant is a sutra. These sutras are difficult to understand for ordinary Japanese people. I couldn’t understand why people were doing this. In these important moments, why do we have to listen to sutras when no one understands their meaning?

              In 2007, my grandmother who had lived with me passed away. My mother was the only child. She was the chief mourner, but she was already experiencing an onset of Alzheimer’s disease. I needed to play the role of the actual chief mourner.

              That was my first time to be a chief mourner. Everything was new to me. Furthermore, two of my relatives had trouble. It was possible that they would fight during the funeral. Their problems were so serious. If they started a fight during the funeral, it would lead to the humiliation of my grandmother. She had lived a great life and deserved a solemn funeral.

              I prepared for the funeral as the chief mourner. I also talked to both of my relatives. I asked them not to fight during the funeral. On the day of the funeral, these relatives always glared at each other. I was literally standing between them. I glared back at each of them. I was screaming in my mind, “If you start a fight now, I will never forgive you!”

              Then the monk started the sutra. I finally reached this moment. I believed the two relatives were not outraged as to who would start a fight during the sutra. I was released in this moment. During the sutra, I didn’t need to do anything. I didn’t need to think about anything. Then teardrops fell from my eyes. That was the first time I cried my eyes out after my grandmother had passed away.

              Primarily, a funeral is supposed to be a moment for sadness. I had no idea what the monk was saying, but I believe a funeral requires a moment like this. Sometimes a funeral could be a battlefield. I think monks don’t like this idea, but I think a sutra could be a nice interval.

Picture by Romi Harashi

Heroes Die

 

One day, when I was a kid, I was watching TV. My mother was cooking our dinner. A news program was on, and the announcer reported the news of someone’s death. I had no idea who the person was, but my mother screamed, “What?” Then she quit cooking and stared at the TV for a while. That was the first time I saw her so upset.

Now I am older. The heroes whom I admired when I was a kid are dying, one after another. Sometimes I hear the unexpected news of the death of one of my heroes, and I also stare at TV.

I can’t remember the name of the person whose death shocked my mother. But she must have considered him or her a great person.

Longevity is wonderful. But, if I lived a long life, I would have to receive a lot of news about death. I don’t want to die early, but I don’t want to receive a lot of news about death.

Picture by Shintako

The Medical Records

 

One of my relatives runs an ophthalmology clinic downtown. And it so happens I used to take care of three old persons: my great aunt, my father and my mother. Old people always have medical problems, so I would take them to various kinds of hospital. Almost every week, I would be at some hospital. When they had eye problems, I would take them to the hospital our relative ran. It was a win-win situation. The hospital could profit, and I could show that I was a good caregiver.

The doctor was my relative, and the nurses and clerks treated me very well. I was a frequent visitor there for about ten years. We became very familiar with each other and engaged in small talk every time.

One day, I wanted to buy new glasses. I decided to ask for a prescription for them at the hospital. When I was in the waiting room, the clerk came to me. She looked upset.

“Now, we are looking for your medical records… but we can’t find them.”

Then my relative, the doctor, joined us. They started to argue: “Have we lost the medical records?”

“How could we do that?”

“Losing medical records could be a serious problem.”

They were upset for a while. Then we solved the mystery. They never had my medical records in the first place. I had visited the hospital many times as a caregiver. I had never visited it as a patient. I didn’t even have a hospital ID card. The clerk had assumed that they had my medical records because I was familiar.

After that, I met my relative in my capacity as a patient for the first time.

Picture by Aroaroui

Ghostbuster

 My grandfather passed away because of illness when my mother was still a child. My mother was on first grade. She had no sibling. Maybe she felt lonely in those days. When she fell asleep in her bed, she started to feel like someone was on her quilt. She thought it could be her dead father. But that meant it was a ghost. She got scared.

 One day, she told my grandmother about it. My grandmother said, “Next time, when you feel that, you should wake me up and tell me. If it is your father, I have many things to say.” She would tell him things like “How could you die like that? You left me and a little child. You are so irresponsible. Now what? You have come to my daughter and frightened her? How dare you do that?”

 After that day, my mother had never felt someone invisible on her quilt.

 I guess my grandfather was really afraid of my grandmother.

Picture by ICIM

Hourly pay of $30

 

 When I was a student, I had a part-time job renovating a shopping mall. The daily wage was about $80.

 One day, a trouble occurred. Somebody used a special tape on the floor, which was supposed to be taped with masking tape. The special tape was difficult to remove. We had to use iron tools to peel it off. I don’t know who made the mistake, but the person must be a hard worker. The special tape was used in a huge area. We had to peel it till next morning. All the workers tried removing the tape. In the evening, my shift would end. But the manager asked me to do overtime work. He said, “I will pay you $15 per hour.”

 Actually, I was already tired from staying up the night before to do my university project. I wanted to go home and sleep. But the hourly pay of $15 was very attractive, so I worked overtime.

 Midnight came. I was exhausted. I decided to go home. But the manager said, “Please stay here till the next morning. I will pay you $20 . . . no . . . $30 per hour!”

 I had never experienced being paid $30 per hour. It was a very attractive offer, but I refused because I was so sleepy. Yes, I flatly refused.

 I walked to the parking area. I needed my motorcycle to get home. I rode my motorcycle and tried to get out of the parking area. Then I found out the exit of the parking area was locked with a chain because it was already midnight. I couldn’t drive out.

 The chain was knee-high, and it was easy to stride over. My motorcycle was a Honda Super Cub. I assumed that if I tried my best, I could lift up my motorcycle and bring it over the chain. Actually, my motorcycle is easy to ride, but it is so heavy to lift and carry. I tried to lift it up many times. It was difficult to get out. It was midnight. Trains and buses were out of service. I couldn’t get home without my motorcycle. I already flatly refused the offer, so I couldn’t go back to the shopping mall. I couldn’t work $30 per hour. As a result, I did the hard work of lifting up the motorcycle unpaid instead of the easy job, which was just scratching the floor for $30 per hour.

 I tried to lift up the motorcycle for a few hours. Then a truck approached the parking area. It was a carry-in truck. It was already morning! The truck driver had the key for the chain. He opened it. What was I doing?

 Now I missed the hourly pay of $30. I also wasted my youth by staying up for two nights. It made me believe I could lift up a motorcycle. I can’t stay up for two nights now. Lifting a motorcycle? I can’t even think about it.

 Somehow, I want to borrow the youngness from “the young stupid me.”

Picture by tele52

In Alphabetical Order

 

              Once, I worked for a video game company as a scriptwriter. In the process for making a game, the director wanted to change voice actors. We had already recorded all the voices. Then he decided to find a new voice actor and have us rerecord just his voices. The director didn’t participate in the recording. When he listened to the recorded voices, he was surprised.

              “What the heck? He was the best actor at the audition. But his acting is not good. How can he become a bad actor like this?”

              I also listened to his voice acting. I used to be a stage actor. I also thought his acting was unnatural, but I didn’t feel he was a bad actor. It was not an issue of good or bad acting. I suspected he didn’t have enough information for acting out the scenes.

              I asked the director, “Let me see the script the voice actor worked on.”

              I read the script. Then I solved the mystery. The script got rid of the lines of the other voice actors. Only his lines had been printed out. Furthermore, the lines had been printed out in alphabetical order. The first line was “A!” The second line was “Aa!” Dear friends, most of you are theater people. Most of you can understand what kind of mistake the company did.

              The company had already recorded the other voice actors’ voices. So they had assumed the new actor needed a script with just his lines. It looked efficient. Furthermore, they had printed out the lines in alphabetical order. It was simply a mistake. I don’t know anyone who would write a script in Excel in the theater world, but some video game scriptwriters write their scripts in Excel because it is easy to process with other software. Excel has a function that arranges everything in alphabetical order. Someone who worked for our company had accidentally used that function.

              Actors are not machines that pronounce written letters. They deeply read the situations of the stories, their co-actors’ lines, and their relations. They synthesize this information and act out their reactions. Actors can’t read even the shortest lines without another actor’s lines. Actors “give” lines to other actors. Actors “accept” lines from other actors. This is fundamental knowledge about acting.

              The people who worked for the video game company didn’t have acting experience. They didn’t know this simple fundamental lesson. Even if they had already recorded the other actors’ voices, they should have printed out the other actors’ lines on his script, or they should have let him listen to the other voice actors’ voices. Arranging his lines in alphabetic order was just ridiculous. Actors are not psychics.

              The voice actor should have said, “This script doesn’t make any sense. I can’t act with such a script,” but I guess it was too difficult for him to say. Only a famous or experienced voice actor could say that. The young voice actor needed to try his best without the essential information for acting. Pathetic!

              Now I’ve left theater. I’ve always felt that most Japanese people don’t know about acting. Many people fall for the “Hey, it me!” scam in Japan. I believe the reason why must be the lack of fundamental knowledge about acting. People easily believe in cheap acting by frauds. People have to study acting as part of their compulsory education.

Picture by Nature

Big Justice and Small Justice

 

              The coming-of-age ceremony is popular in Japan. We have Coming-of-Age Day as a national holiday. The ceremony is usually held at a public hall in the celebrants’ hometown. It could be a kind of class reunion. Most of the attendants might not have seen one another after graduation from junior high school.

              When I was twenty, the ceremony committee invited me to give a speech at the ceremony. I didn’t know why they had chosen me. We didn’t have cellphones in those days. The committee called our home. I was absent. My mother answered the phone. She immediately refused the offer.

              This was my mother’s assertion: “My son is still just a student. Someone who already works as a member of society should give the speech. You must find someone else.”

              I was not interested in giving a speech. I didn’t mind that, but she should not have done that. Even if she had a good reason, she should not have refused an official offer for an adult family member. She should have kept the message and waited for me to get home. She could have given me the message and added her wonderful idea. She should have let me decide that as an adult.

              In our coming-of-age ceremony, one of my best friends, Mr. A, gave the speech instead of me. I loved that idea. I looked forward to his speech. He was better than me. He was also a student from a prestigious university. He was popular among us. He was a wonderful, witty fellow. I still remember his outstanding campaign speech for the student council when we were elementary students.

              This time, however, his speech was not attractive. He just kept mentioning traffic safety. I thought he was not enjoying his speech. What was happening? After the ceremony, I talked with Mr. A personally. He explained the reason. Some policemen had checked his draft for the speech, and they made some revisions. Finally, most of his speech became about traffic safety.

              I understand why the policemen did that. Our prefecture, Aichi, was the worst prefecture in Japan with regard to traffic accidents, with the highest number of people dying every year. The policemen needed to take care of tragic traffic accidents. They really wanted to tell young people about traffic safety, but no adult should be forced to revise a draft for their speech. Even if they have good reasons, it doesn’t mean they can do anything.

              I am older now. I always think our society should be like this and that people should do this, but I want to take care not to let big justice trample on small justice.

Picture by osame