Category: Nature and Life

Day 7 of 30-Day Writing Challenge

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

The latest movie I watched has become my favorite.

David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

In the beginning of this movie, Sir David Attenborough says this documentary is his witness statement.  A witness statement of a crime that we human beings have committed.

In case you don’t know about him, here is an excerpt from his page on Wikipedia:

“Sir David Frederick Attenborough (/ˈætənbərə/; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series forming the Life collection, a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth.

On his broadcasting and passion for nature, NPR stated he “roamed the globe and shared his discoveries and enthusiasms with his patented semi-whisper way of narrating”. He is widely considered a national treasure in the UK, although he himself does not like the term.

Wikipedia

I have to confess that it is only recent, maybe within a year or so since I learned about his work and career. 

My attempt to write about Japanese traditional culture led me more and more interested in its sustainable lifestyle. The lifestyle my ancestors used to have for centuries before the wave of Industrial Revolution swept Japan.  Words such as “nature” or “living in harmony” became keywords I would more often type together with “Japan” or “Japanese traditional culture.”

Ever evolving AI technology must have figured out that I should be connected to Sir Attenborough’s work.  Short movies or snippets of his BBC Natural History documentaries started popping up on my computer screen.  For this encounter I have to thank AI.

The only TV at home is usually occupied by my husband.  My husband ‘s favorite program has less than 0.5% in common with mine, so whenever he watches TV I put on my earphones and place my eyes on my laptop.  Only when my husband is away, out of boredom and a little sense of freedom I pick up the TV remote and push the mic button and say “Netflix.” 

On such a night when I was browsing the documentary section, this movie came up. I clicked play and started watching it.

From the beginning till about a couple of minutes before the ending, the story made me almost cry, filled with despair.  But at the age of 94, Sir Attenborough must have made this movie because he still has hope that we human beings can change the course.  The last scene when crowd of people somewhere in Japan enjoying Hanami (viewing of cherry blossoms) had me. 

His final message in this movie was that we human beings are not apart from but are a part of nature.  If he depicts his message with this scene, it’s worth my continuing to write about it.  To remind us to live in harmony with nature.   And there are so many examples in Japan’s traditional culture that we can make use of in our current lifestyle. 

Day 6 of 30-Day Writing Challenge

Photo by Santi Vedrí on Unsplash

I consider myself a very independent person.  I owe it to my mother.

“Mom, does a chicken fly?” Looking at her back I asked her. I was sitting at the chabudai (low dining table) doing my homework assignment.  Our kitchen and our dining/ living room was so tiny that my mother could hear me easily while cooking dinner. 

The question was the only one I struggled to answer in my homework assignment.  I was in the first grade. 

“Of course it does!” was her answer.   So I filled the paper with “Yes” onto my homework sheet.

The next day I submitted my sheet.  When I received it back from my teacher, it had a big red “X” on that answer.  “X” meant the answer was wrong.  All the other answers had familiar red circles, meaning my answers were correct.

“My mother lied to me!  I will never ask my mother to help me my homework!”

Ever since then, I had never asked my mother for her help to do my homework.  My father seldom came home before my bedtime.  Naturally I made a habit of doing my homework all by myself.  If I made a mistake, I made it.  I could swallow that bitter fact.  But I couldn’t bear the humiliation of getting a big X for the answer I didn’t even answer. 

My mother and I still laugh at each other remembering that insident.  My mother praises me for not having depended upon her for my study ever since.  That made her life a lot easier.  She had so many other things to do including taking care of my father’s several employees who were living near our apartment.

Years later, at a class reunion of my high school, one of my classmates told me that he was still teaching math to his high school son.    Out of love?  Out of his own pride?  For whatever the reason may be, it was beyond my comprehension.   Till today I still thank my mother for giving me a wrong answer at such an early age. 

Day 5 of 30-Day Writing Challenge

Photo Credit: U.S. Army

My father was 7 years old when World War II ended. 

His parents were farmers living in a village just outskirts of Tokushima City in Shikoku Island, Japan.  Unlike some hundreds of thousands of Japanese homes in 66 cities bombed by allies, their family home on the farmland was not burned down.

My father was the fourth oldest of the eight children in the family.  The eldest brother was five years older than him, the youngest was soon to be born. His father was not drafted. I don’t know the statistics, but his family might have been one of the lucky minorities back then.

My father told me the following story only once.

“Soon after the war was over, a group of American soldiers came stationed in our village.  It became my chore to visit their camp once in a while. 

My chore was to get their human waste from their outhouse.  We would later use it as fertilizer in our farm.

Their waste was so fertile that I used to wonder what they were eating.”

One of the overly used video footages on TV in Japan depicting right after the war, was a scene of bunch of Japanese children running after the GI’s Geep, shouting “give me chocolates.”  The GIs on the Geep would throw out candies, and the children would frantically chase the small packages and pick them up fallen on the street.    

I never asked my father if he ever chased GIs for chocolates like that video footage.

Somehow I want to believe that his pride would never have allowed him to put that chocolate in his mouth.

Day 4 of 30 Day Writing Challenge

Photo by Ibrahim Uzun on Unsplash

Istanbul!

For someone like me who grew up in an island nation, entering another country, seeing another culture and hearing another language would occur only after long hours of flight or voyage.  The concept of a national border that can be crossed by walking was simply foreign. 

No wonder my biggest fascination after moving to Seattle was to visit Vancouver, BC.  Not so much as to see the city, although it is a beautiful place, but to drive across the national border to enter a different country was the primary attraction to me.  I wanted to examine myself how I would feel the exact moment when crossing the border. 

Even after having crossed the US/Canadian boarder many times and having visited several countries in Europe in one trip, this fascination hasn’t faded in me.

And the biggest fascination I have yet to experience… Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul… The same place that has changed its name in the course of its long history.  The city where the two major civilization, the West and the East, have always collided. 

How narrow is Bosporus Strait?  What does it feel like when entering from one civilization to the other?  How had the people always perceived the people living on the other side? 

Until I get lost meandering in this city, my fascination continues. 

Day 2 of 30 Day Writing Challenge

Photo by Bruce Tang on Unsplash

What makes me happy?  Lately I’m finding happiness in writing.  I look forward to the time in the morning when I sit in front of a computer and start typing.  What else? Eating my favorite cake?  Touching the petal of a beautiful flower? Smelling its sweet fragrance?

What happens if my computer is not in front of me?  My favorite cake not on the plate? No more flowers blooming?  Does it mean I can’t feel happiness anymore?

Not quite.  If I sit still and close my eyes, I can recall the soft color of the cake, the crunchiness of the first bite, that sensation of the cream melting in my mouth.  They are all memories stored somewhere, and by recalling these memories I have the same sweet experience that makes me feel happy.  Not a physical piece of cake, but the memory I associate with the experience when I ate the cake, makes me happy. 

My room is chilly now so I’m running a space heater.  The noise it generates is big.  Can this noise make me feel irritated? Possible.  But once I close my eyes, recalling my memory about the favorite cake, my vivid sweet experience fills my mind.  I almost forget that the noise the space heater is generating. 

A piece of cake and a space heater are both something that exist around me.  Oh, and my husband!  They all generate something that cause my sensations (see, hear, touch, smell and taste.)  I store in my memory those sensations together with my sweet experience, or with nasty experience.  The voice of my husband when he yells at me definitely gives me nasty experience, but his voice when he says thank you or he loves me gives me sweet experience. 

Remember, it’s not the cake, but the memory I associate with is what it counts.  And I am capable of selecting which memory to recall in order to make myself happy.  Not the noise of a space heater, not the voice of my husband yelling at me.  I am in charge of making myself happy or not. 

So what makes me happy?  Myself.  Nothing else.  I’m not at the mercy of something else to make me happy.   Isn’t it quite liberating?

Day 1 of 30 Day Writing Challenge

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Describe my personality… What is my personality?  Before answering this question, I ask: what is personality?

Personality comes from person. 

Origin of Person
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English persone, from Latin persōna “role” (in life, a play, or a tale) (Late Latin: “member of the Trinity”), originally “actor’s mask,” from Etruscan phersu (from Greek prósōpa “face, mask”) + -na a suffix

dictionary.com

A mask… It takes me back to my junior high days almost half a century ago. 

Everybody in class was to fill a page for our graduation book.  Some wrote a fantasy short story, some drew a beautiful flower, some wrote a poem.  I wrote an essay about a mask.  A mask I was wearing every day, but nobody knew about.

I was wearing a different mask each day to fit in other people around me.  A mask with a kind look, a cheerful look, sometimes a serious look.  But nobody would know how I really look like.  I would always hide what is true me, until one day I could no longer take off the mask.  No matter how hard I try to take it off, what shows up is another mask, not real me.  None of my classmates has ever seen the real me and I can’t even recognize the real me myself.

Funny why in the world I wrote such a gloomy essay at the age of 14. 

The fourteen-year-old me already knew that I existed separately from my personality.  The fourteen-year-old me was afraid the real me would be conquered by these masks called personality.  Where would the real me go? 

I’m happy to state that the fear in my young days is now behind me.  No mask can be stuck on me anymore.  Sometimes I wear cheerful one, sometimes I wear gloomy one.  Sometimes I ditch an old one and try out new.  The rigid one with high-morality has worn out.  A brand-new observant one is sprouting out, together with a diligent one that looks forward to sitting for an hour to write every morning.  I never have thought I would wear such a mask.

What is it that has freed me from the fear of being conquered by my masks?  My life.  My possibility – the unlimited possibility.

Here is my description of my personality.  It’s merely my mask, which can be changed at my own discretion.  How is that?

Can you guess what this plant is?  Yes, cabbage.  What a big deal, you may say.  This small plant, however, made me realize a simple truth that I had ignored for so long.

After using up all the leaves, I soaked the core of the cabbage in water instead of throwing it away in the compost bin.  A couple of days later, little bright green leaves came out of the top of the core, and some white roots came out of the bottom.  Intrigued, I took it outside and planted the core in the back yard.

The picture shows you how the cabbage core looks like three years later.  It doesn’t look like it will generate the same kind of cabbage ball as I purchased at the grocery store, but new leaves are coming.  Last spring some beautiful yellow flowers came out, and I used them for my ikebana.  More than anything, it is still alive.  Its life is thriving!

I plucked one leaf and took a bite.  It’s soft, very tasty!  If I keep on plucking some of these leaves rather than cutting off the whole head, will this cabbage continue to grow leaves and feed me year after year?

To me who grew up in a big city, vegetables were to be obtained in exchange of money.  I did see tomatoes and cucumbers growing in my grand parents’ farm, but they were laid out neatly in the boxes to be carried away to the market for resale.    Conceptually, vegetables were no different for me from any product manufactured in a factory, like soap, for example.  Once consumed, they were gone.

This cabbage core, thriving after three years from almost being thrown away, has caused me to question the life that I have taken for granted.  Such a convenient, but somewhat artificial life.

Last year I started implementing Cal Newport’s Time-Block Planner method. Every morning I open my favorite notebook, draw two vertical lines to create three columns, fill the first column from 6am to 11pm, and fill the second with what I plan to do: write, read, have lunch with a friend, trade options, go for an errand, etc. If I divert from the original plan, by web surfing aimlessly, for example, I make corrections in the third column.

At the end of the year I looked back. By flipping the pages, I realized something was missing in my notebook.

I planned what to do, where to go, whom to meet. But I never planned how to be. Isn’t my state of being as important as my actions? If it’s important, why didn’t I include it in my daily planning? Is it because I don’t believe I can plan how to be, like when to be angry and when to be happy? If so, what is the ground for my belief? Why not plan how to be?

That morning I added another column in my notebook to plan how to be today, using words like happy, joyful, and playful. Words like angry, sad, or hateful are not included because they are diversions. Just as binge-watching shitty TV shows or web surfing aimlessly are diversions from my original plan. When I diverge (and it happens more often than it should,) I will try to resume my original plan.

I can choose not to web surf aimlessly but to read a book. Similarly, can I choose not to be angry but be joyful? If not joyful, at least calm? I check every once in a while to see if I’m spending my time doing what I originally planned or not. Similarly, shouldn’t I check if I’m in the state of being that I planned or not?

This is an experiment. An experiment worth carrying forward this year. Just like I plan to improve my writing, I plan to be happy!