Over at Chanpon.org, Mizuko Ito has shared a story of her family’s encounter with American occupation forces in the aftermath of World War II.
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Shoes And Skirt At A Sunday BBQ
Four Generations On Fuji-san
My grandmother, Isabel Alexander Gerhard, was born in 1910 at the foot of Mt. Fuji, in Gotemba. The photo above (larger version) shows her on the mountain when she was six years old — likely in late August, just after her sixth birthday. She is the one in the background, fourth from the right. The rest of the party includes my great-grandmother, great-grandfather, a great-aunt, my grandmother’s older brother, Bob, and her sisters, Frankie and Mary.
In my grandmother’s memoirs, she quotes the story of the climb as written by her mother:
During the summer of 1916 we all climbed Fuji. Sister Bessie went with us. As we plodded on, we often stopped to rest, and many Japanese climbers offered to carry little six-year-old Isabel, but she refused all help. The night was spent at the eighth station, where Bob got mountain-sick, and Frankie, although tied up in a cotton bag, was nearly eaten up by fleas. Wrapped up in our bedding we went outside to see a wonderful sunrise which tinted the fleecy clouds all the colors of the rainbow. Here and there through rifts in the clouds we had glimpses of the blue lakes around the base of the mountain. It was bitterly cold, but we were protected somewhat from the wind by wrapping pieces of matting around us. Here and there were vents in the side of the mountain from which issued hot air, where we could warm our hands.
On the way down, the children enjoyed running and sliding in the scoria. Isabel and I were all in by the time we reached the third station, so we hired a horse, Isabel riding in front of me. The path was so steep that we kept slipping forward on to the horse’s neck, so we finally decided that it took more energy to keep on the horse than to walk. It was a tired crowd who arrived at the house in Ninooka the evening of the second day.
This, of course, was in the days before a road was built to the Fifth Station, which effectively cut the climb in half for most climbers. My grandmother, from her memoirs:
I’m not sure how many times I climbed Fuji. Maybe something like six and two halves. The Japanese have a saying, “If you don’t climb Fuji, you are a fool. If you climb more than once, you’re a fool.” So I guess I’m hopeless. The climbing season is strictly July and August. But Paul (PVG) climbed it with two friends on December 31, 1935. Bob Alexander climbed in the winter, and in April 1981, Bob and Sharon climbed from Station Five to the top using crampons and ice axes. We are unhappy with the road built up to the Fifth Station. It opens the climb up to too many people and litterbugs. There used to be so many pilgrims dressed in white with their Fuji poles. When Paul, Marilyn and I climbed in 1967, we didn’t see one single pilgrim on the mountain.
Paul (PVG) is my grandfather, Paul V. Gerhard. Marilyn is one of my three aunts who were born in Tokyo before the family moved from Japan to the United States in 1941.
The photo below is of my grandfather on Fuji. The caption on the back of the photo, in my grandmother’s handwriting, reads: “Paul V. Gerhard on the summit of Fuji San Jan. 1, 1934.” That date seems to conflict with the 1935 climb she mentioned in her memoirs — I imagine it’s the same climb and the date on either the photo or in the memoirs is wrong.
As my grandmother mentioned, my parents — Bob and Sharon — climbed Fuji in April 1981 during a family visit to Japan with my grandparents. The photo below is of them at the summit — no sunrise for them. During their climb, my two sisters and I stayed at a hut near the Fifth Station. I was 13 at the time.
I made the summit of Fuji last September, but the weather at the top was so miserably cold, windy and wet that I didn’t take a summit photo. This shot is on the way down, after dropping below the clouds that encircled the top of the mountain. I wrote about the climb last September.
I’d like to climb Fuji again, just for the chance of seeing the sunrise and the view from the summit. But next time, I think I’d better start from the bottom rather than from the Fifth Station. After all, if my grandmother could do it at age six…
Tricky Dick Gets No Respect In Iraq
The other day on NPR’s Morning Edition, Anne Garrels reported from Baghdad that looters had been stripping bare the mansions of Iraq’s former leadership. She mentioned that at Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz’s mansion, everything was gone except for a few books, one of which was by Richard Nixon.
Apparently, All Look Same To Me
I scored three correct answers out of a possible 18 in the All Look Same test, where you try to identify people in a series of photos as Chinese, Japanese or Korean.
Contrary to the title of the test, none of the subjects look the same.
Loud, Loud, Loud
I can’t wait for the local elections to be over. The political sound trucks are out all day, broadcasting speeches by politicians or, even worse, just driving around downtown repeating the candidates’ names over and over and over and over. The voices from the loudspeakers are at full volume, and bounce from building to building in the downtown area. I have to keep my window closed at work because the noise from the loudspeakers with the window open makes it too difficult for my students to hear.
The amount of noise pollution in urban Japan is almost beyond description — you really have to experience it to appreciate the scope of the problem. Booming voices are everywhere, music comes from the strangest places, announcements and warnings are ubiquitous, shouts of welcome greet you at stores and restaurants, and giant television screens broadcast everything from news and commercials to music videos and travelogues.
A crosswalk in downtown Nagano has two separate visual clues alerting pedestrians when to walk, accompanied by a chime, a melody and a voice announcement — all playing simultaneously. This crosswalk is in front of the Nagano train station, where the top of the hour is marked by both an extraordinarily loud chime and a multimedia presentation on the jumbo screen. Try crossing the crosswalk at the top of the hour and you find yourself in an audio typhoon.
As much as I’ve grown fairly accustomed (though not happily) to all this aural clutter, I just can’t handle the political sound trucks. At least in America when you’re sick of the worst aspects of political campaigning you can just keep the television turned off. Here, you’d have to live on the top of a mountain, where only the faint, distant echo of a politician’s name would reach you.
Thinking About SARS
There is a natural fear that comes from proximity to disease. Rational thought becomes much more difficult in such circumstances, especially when the element of uncertainty or of the unknown is added.
That’s the case these days with SARS. And as Japan is just a short hop away from the apparent epicenter of the SARS outbreak, I can’t help but feeling a bit of anxiety about the spread of the virus.
Not that Japan is really any closer to China than any other country with an airport, tourists and business travelers. After all, Canada has had the highest SARS death toll after China and Hong Kong. And there are currently more than 150 suspected cases of SARS in the United States.
Here in Japan, the government reports that there are now 28 “probable” or “suspected” cases of SARS in this country. (UPDATE: The Japanese government is now saying that none of these 28 cases is considered to be SARS.)
One of my students returned from a trip to Southern China last week. I didn’t really think anything of it until after sitting through a lunch looking over her snapshots from the trip and realizing that the area she’d been in was in Southern China. Then, just two days ago, she mentioned that a friend from China had visited her family last weekend and that her husband was in China this week on business.
The family of another student has been planning to move to Toronto this June so her husband, a doctor, could work at a hospital there for a year. They’d planned to travel to Toronto last week for a quick visit, but had to cancel because of the SARS outbreak in that city. It turns out the hospital where her husband was to be working is connected to the facility that saw the first Toronto SARS deaths. One hospital is shut down, the other under restricted use. Her family’s plans to move to Toronto are now on hold.
I’d planned to travel to China in June, but that’s not going to happen now. Even a trip to Seoul is up in the air. At this point, any Asian travel plans will have to be made at the last minute, depending on the spread of the virus.
Suwa Mirror
Suwa is a small city — or a large town — nestled in the mountains of central Nagano Prefecture. It encircles Suwa Lake, upon which giant swans and turtles ferry passengers. This shot captures the mountains, lake and one of the giant swan boats in the mirrored surface of a lakeside sculpture.
A Simple Request
I was in the small town of Suwa on Sunday, and had lunch with friends at a cafe owned by an Iranian man. The coffee was good and the chicken curry with flat bread was excellent. We lingered over our coffees, visiting and occasionally chatting with the owner who of course asked where we were from because that’s just what you do here when you see other non-Japanese. Three of us are from America, one is Canadian. When it came time to leave, we each paid individually and I was the last to pay. As he said goodbye, the owner added — quietly and with a pleasant smile on his face — “Please kill Saddam Hussein.” It was so unexpected I wanted to double-check to see if I’d heard correctly. But it really wasn’t something I wanted to hear again, so I just smiled, waved and left. I’m still wondering if it’s what he actually said or something I imagined.
Zenkoji Go-kai-chyou Receiving Ceremony
Last Sunday saw the unofficial start of Nagano’s most important festival — the Zenkoji Go-kai-chyou. This festival is held only once every seven years at Zenkoji Temple, when a sacred statue of Buddha is revealed to the public. I’m still trying to put together background information on the festival and on Zenkoji, so I’m going to save that for a later post.
The event on Sunday was to celebrate the delivery of a wooden pillar from Matsushiro (a neighboring city) to Zenkoji. The pillar plays a central role in the Go-kai-chyou festival.
I’ve posted photos of the procession and the subsequent ceremony at Zenkoji, along with some videos and sound clips. The video clips will be up on the Photos & Flicks page for a limited time.
The photos are here.