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Three perspectives from Japan, Brazil and the United States
The following description appears in "Brazil Maru."
"Ichiro Terada proudly told us recently that his grandson passed the entrance exam to enter a university's agricultural department. He rejoiced as if it were his own achievement, saying, "The Japanese are originally a people who live with the earth. When you move to virgin lands of primeval forest, you take responsibility for the earth. You have to do your best to care for it through agriculture." At the same time, Terada also spoke of his mixed feelings about his granddaughter. She graduated with honors from the architecture department, but was unable to find stable employment in Brazil, and she became one of the more than 150,000 Japanese Brazilians who have traveled to Japan in recent years to work as low-class laborers." (Translated by Takuo Asano)
"Brazil-Maru"
The final part of the book refers to Japanese-Brazilians who come to Japan to work, and Yamashita's Circle K Cycles focuses on this aspect. Five years after the publication of Brazil Maru, from March 1997, she lived with her family in Seto City, Aichi Prefecture for six months. Her experiences there were published in real time on a website called cafecreole, and compiled into a book in 2001. Seto City, where she lived, had many Circle K convenience stores, and when she went to her friends' houses, she would turn right or left at each Circle K, hence the title.
In this book, Yamashita candidly reports on the lives of Japanese Brazilians who have come to Japan to work and the problems they face. Written chronologically from March to August, the book is a mix of essays and stories, and is packed with photographs and illustrations. The book is long and slanted, like a sketchbook.
Living in Japan, one must follow a variety of rules: don't make noise, don't keep pets, take out the trash on a certain day, pay union dues, pass around the notice board, do communal cleaning, and so on. Yamashita explains the Japanese rules, Brazilian rules, and American rules, and preaches about cultural diversity. In her case, a major feature is that in addition to the two perspectives of Japan and America, she also includes Brazil, and the fact that she looks at things from these three perspectives makes her work so fascinating.
Confirming my connection to my grandparents
"Circle K Cycles"
In the preface to Circle K ga Meguru, Yamashita includes the sentence "purely Japanese." She first came to Japan as an international student at the age of 20, ostensibly to study Japanese culture, but in reality she spent most of her time traveling to Gifu and Nagano to find her roots. Her paternal grandfather was born in Komura, near Nakatsugawa in Gifu Prefecture, and her maternal grandparents were from Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture. Japanese people would occasionally ask her about her ancestry. When she talked about her grandparents in Gifu and Nagano, the unanimous response was, "Then you are purely Japanese." Such comments from Japanese people hurt and infuriated her. Having lived in America, where many people fight against racism, she had believed that racial purity was worthless. However, at the same time, she had a strong desire to be accepted and to belong.
Even while she was in Brazil, the question of what it means to be pure Japanese had always been on her mind. One day, a first-generation immigrant to Brazil asked her about her roots. When she told him about Gifu and Nagano, he listened to her with a look of surprise on his face, saying that pure-blooded Japanese people could change so much in just three generations.
In this essay, Yamashita mentions that her images of Japan are the late dancer Kazuo Ohno, the Mazda RX7, and Pizzicato Five vocalist Maki Nomiya. In "Urashima Tamatebako Museum" (included in "The Promised Land/America"), she writes, "One of my favorite books about Japan is a collection of stories told by the oldest people in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki Prefecture, transcribed and compiled by a doctor named Junichi Saga. The English translation was published in 1987 and is titled "Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Japan in a Small Town" (the Japanese version is "Portrait of a Country Town"). The Japan Saga portrays in this book is from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, and Yamashita speculates that it is probably the same Japan her grandparents knew. She probably feels connected to her grandparents' memories of Japan.
While examining her past, she confirms where she stands today. She is probably constantly repeating this action as she travels between America, Brazil, and Japan. For her, the question of what it means to be purely Japanese is a symbolic question that allows her to confirm herself. Her latest book, "I Hotel," published this year and running to over 600 pages, can also be said to have been born out of this questioning.
*This article is a reprint of the 13th installment of the column series "From the Perspectives of Two Countries" in Renso Publishing 's online magazine "Kaze," which features information about new books, such as articles linking new books to current issues and daily topics, as well as monthly bestsellers and review columns of new books.
© 2010 Association Press and Tatsuya Sudo
