Hopalong Hapa

     Most of you are too young to remember a television show (in black and white) called Hopalong Cassidy.  Heck, I don't even remember much of it, but it must have somehow impressed me as a young child because my mom spent a bit or her savings to have a studio picture taken of me (back in those days, stores such as Sears and Penney's all had small "portrait" studios where for some relatively inexpensive sum you could have your picture taken in a proper setting...on film, no less!)  This was all in the days before higher-end stores arrived such as Nordstrom or Macys, stores which would later send those everyday stores out of business (Sears would always send out a phone-book sized catalog each year, a godsend for us 10-year old boys just starting to feel hormonal urges and ogling at the models posing in grandmotherly bras and Bridget Jones panties; in rural parts of the country, those catalogs landed in the outhouse and became several months worth of toilet paper, or so I read -- oddly enough, one product a remember in those catalogues was a cigarette roller, complete with paper and filters so you could "roll you own" and save money).  Now where was I?  Oh yes, Hopalong...

      All of the above was leading to my hapa heritage.  In Hawaii, hapa tends to mean "half," so a hapa-haole (pronounced how-lee) means that you are half-white, or half-Caucasian, or at least that is what it always meant as I grew up.  And perhaps because of its colonial Captain Cook history, hapa only referred to being half-Caucasian.  If you were half-Korean and half-Filipino, you were never called hapa-anything, just half-whatever mix.  And hapa-haole was usually used to describe just yourself.  In the end, most people just absorbed the "melting pot" moniker of Hawaii and told people that they were Heinz 57, a mix of everything.  And that was indeed my case on the "hapa" side as relatives kept adding something else to my blood father's heritage: Dutch German or Cherokee, or as that ancestry result wrote, Neanderthal.  Since my parents divorced when she was pregnant with me, and my mother moved back to Hawaii (where I would be born), I never knew my birth father, only meeting him for a few minutes twice in my life.  And while both my mother and grandmother were born in Hawaii, their own ancestry was Japanese (the sad part about the bombing of Japan was that the country kept extensive ancestry records in Hiroshima, but all on paper, so nearly all of it was destroyed by fire after the bombing).  Anyway, my grandmother once told me that my great, great grandfather (or maybe even further back) was allegedly a samurai, although a town or peasant samurai (there were many levels of samurai, but I'll come back to that later).  And here's how all of that long intro came about...

      At a friend's dinner recently, the conversation somehow turned to a daughter finding that a Japanese wartime sword taken by her father during WW II, would likely be discarded as his mental facilities declined with age.  So she moved it out of his storage and promised her young nephew that he could have it when he was an adult (he was still a youngster at the time).  And there the sword had set, until now (he is cirrently an elite soldier and apparently has little memory of what she promised, so it will indeed be a surprise).  That led to another story at the dinner table when our host told of finding his own Japanese sword, something he had found while digging through a pile of discarded stuff left by some people moving (this was in the days when you just left whatever you didn't want to take, at least in the more rural areas).  He and his young siblings --"pickers" they called themselves-- went through the abandoned junk pile and found the sword, one which their dad told them that as soon as he could, he would find the people and return the sword to them, which he did.  Now this is where I came in, the talk now turning to samurai and the quality of the discovered swords, not likely those of samurai but elite weapons nonetheless for the war soldiers that carried them.  To be good in combat meant many things, but to be a samurai was an entirely new level.  If you were relating this to professional sports, even if you weren't good enough to be in the top ten (which would be reserved for those samurai protecting the shogun), or the next level down (there were six levels of samurai), you were an elite martial artist with the sword even if you were a samurai at the bottom (according to the book, Samurai, the "farmer" samurai --the alleged level of my great, great grandfather-- was level 4).  

 

      The samurai was a profession, hired to police and defend the land of feudal lords, wrote author Rod Johnson: For Japan's ancient warriors and early samurai, the main weapon was the bow and arrow.  Swords were simply considered to be just another extra weapon alongside several others.  But before long, the sword became the main weapon of the samurai (even those who forged the swords became revered).  The samurai sword (katana) was carried blade up for faster killing of an opponent, with a few samurai carrying a second smaller sword, the pair of swords creating the daisho.  Not all samurai were allowed to carry the second sword because wearing it warranted another level of skill and status.  There were even female samurai, although their "swords" were apparently of a different sort, longer and more of a sharp blade attached to the end of a long stick, one as long as 6 feet in length.  Some samurai also wore body "armor" in battle, while other samurai were recognizable just by their simple appearance with a sword.  By the end of the 16th century however, the law dictated that only samurai could carry a sword.  

     A few more tidbits about my early days (stay with me, because this does lead somewhere), I remember my grandmother taking me to see samurai movies at the one Japanese theater downtown.  It was all in Japanese, which I couldn't understand, and with no subtitles (that I can remember).  But as a 5-year old, I loved it.  The swordplay, the gruff-sounding language, the different hairstyles and clothing.  And when the movie ended and the credits rolled, I remember asking my grandmother what all those symbols meant, which is when she told me that Japanese writing came in three levels, and that movie credits used the most difficult form, which was difficult even for her to read (both she and my aunt were fluent in Japanese, although I rarely heard them use it).  Even in rural Hawaii where I grew up (dirt roads, no gravel or pavement), most 1st & 2nd-grade students went to Japanese school after regular school ended, an opportunity I missed to my regret.  Decades later, I finished James Clavell's Shogun (the first television series with Richard Chamberlain and Tishiro Mifune was far better than the expensive remake, in my opinion) and memorized the phrase, "do you have an interpreter?" (Tsūyaku shite itadakemasu ka?) which I eagerly spoke to my aunt and grandmother.  They shot back a puzzled look.  I repeated the phrase, slower this time, but still got the puzzled look.  What are you trying to say, they asked me, and when I explained, they corrected my pronunciation (tsūyaku, the "can, or do you" part in Japanese, requires pronouncing the "t" they told me -- just saying "sūyaku" makes no sense).  My delayed attempt to learn Japanese ended at that moment.

      All of this belated history (for me, and at an older age), made me sort of identify with the words of the late, world-renown conductor, Seiji Ozawa: There is a Buddhist term, deai, that is difficult to translate but perhaps best defined as "encounter."  The meaning is more precisely a combination of chance and destiny, of fate with a purpose.  I suppose this is my way of summing up how I feel on this question, "Why are we here?"  In my own life, where I am often an Easterner in the West or a Westerner in the East, my own feelings reflect a kind of duality of traditions.  I think that there is a line that begins before our life here, intersects it and continues after we exist.  Chance certainly plays a part in our lives, but it is chance with a purpose.  But here's the odd part, when I went solo to Japan in my late-20s, I rounded a corner of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto and as vivid as any déjà vu sighting, there I was, mounted on a horse in full Japanese armor, a warrior or soldier or something, but of samurai times, ancient as any unknown time and yet feeling as if I belonged, that somehow that was me at some point (I've never had that feeling before or since, that of a past life feeling so real).

     Okay, I could keep going on about Zatoichi, the blind swordsman TV shows and the remakes (the Chinese version gives a good idea of these types of films); then learning to play Sukiyaki, perhaps the easiest piano piece since Chopsticks because you played it using only the black keys, sweeping the nation on the charts while dissolving the item from restaurant menus; and then to my thoroughly enjoying waking up at 5 with my brother for our paper routes when I was 11 (who lets a child of 11 go out in the dark on a bike these days, head to a spot to pick up and fold newspapers, and then to deliver them all by bicycle before anyone wakes up?...but that was rather typical back in the day), all this after my mom remarried and we moved to southern California.  But enough!  Who cares?  Boring!  But here's the thing.  At this point you know more about my early childhood than 99% of my family and friends (and since that same percentage does not read my blog, that will likely remain the case until I perish and am little more than dried and chopped liver).  Which brings up the question of this long opening...why?  Why do so many of us never reveal what our early life was like?  Do we feel that nobody --not even close family-- would be interested?  Or that this is all something they already know, or should know?  Or do we just feel that our early life just wasn't all that important, or interesting.  Or was embarrassing?  Why do so many of us feel that our life, as meaningful as it was to us, has little to no meaning to others?   Ask yourself, how much do you know of your parents' teenage years, or their years in their 20s?  Who were their first loves, their ambitions, their memories of their own parents or grandparents?   And how much did they know about their early lives?  What about your friends, especially your close ones?  Perhaps more importantly, how many people know about your early life, other than a tidbit or two?  Harlan Coben, author of nearly 40 books and close to 20 television series, reflected on his belief that fiction is memoir, and memoir is fiction, in his book,  A Memoir of Writing (quite a fun read, actually).  His childhood memories of scary "legends" --a Mafioso who lived in an ivy-covered mansion patrolled by armed guards and which housed a crematorium in the back, and a highly restricted Nike missile center next door, also with armed guards and high security-- both turned out to be true.  Here's how he described it today: ... you can still visit the former Nike missile base in Livingston.  It's called Riker Hill Art Park now.  The army barracks have been converted into studios for local artists.  The skeletal remains of old radar towers still stand as though on guard duty.  You can walk across the cracked concrete remnants of launch pads or risk climbing the rusted ruins of watchtowers.  You can still feel the ghosts.  Oh, and if you do visit, perhaps you'll be adventurous enough to trek into the thicket behind the barracks.  Be careful of those high-security fences covered now in vines and ivy.  But get close to the newer chain-link fence.  Peer through it, if you can.  You might have to squint.  But that's the former estate of Richie "the Boot" Boiardo.  Right.  Next.  Door...You can't make that up.  You can't even put it in a novel because nobody would believe it.  They say truth is stranger than fiction.  No question about it.  Fiction has to follow rules.  Reality does not.  Are you getting into the writer's mindset a bit more now?  When you walk down any street in suburbia, remember that behind every door, inside every house, there is a story -- and you don't have a clue what it is.  Every family is their own entity, their own island, their own country.  Focus on the mundane three-bedroom Colonial for a moment.  That's the facade.  Inside is the reality.  None of us are what we appear.

      At yet another dinner, the hostess suddenly told us of her early days, of running out of money after heading to Corsica and of hitchhiking home.  Of heading off to Greece with a friend, working for a bit then heading back only to find she had gotten on the wrong bus and was somewhere in the country and again out of money.  Of reading about a job in Paris only to find that it was a misprint, the agency telling her that nothing was available, but having a couple call as she waited and being told that this couple needed her immediately and that she would have to live with them opposite the Champs-Élysées until they were ready to leave in a few weeks (which is where she learned to speak French).  As Harlen Coban wrote above, "you can't make this up."  It was the first time for my wife and I --and her sister-- to hear that story of her youthful adventures.  Another friend told me of her college days doing a college stint at a rugged institute for female inmates for "field work", all of this around the time of Charles Manson's arrest (many females in his cult were incarcerated as well).  As she told me: ...all the counselors there had unlisted phone numbers and addresses even in the day when you couldn't snoop and find out everything online.  Repeat offenders.  Out then back in.  There were some bad ass women in that Chino prison, I'll tell you that...Should have changed majors.  At this point, I should add that I've known both of these people for 35 plus years, and yet never knew any of this background.  But as I told another friend, it adds to them as a person, allowing others to see a side that somehow makes them more human, that they've gone through some wild times as well, whatever and wherever they were.  

     Jump now to a woman several blocks away from me, her out trimming her vines and me walking my dog in his wheelie cart.  She notices my ball cap which says Cusco, and asks about it.  Turns out that she was/is from Peru but has lived here for 20 years.  What followed was over 15 minutes of hearing about her country (where many of her relatives still live), how lively it was in her youth with the noise (and how quiet it was "up here", even though she lives on a busy corner), and how peaceful and safe it feels here, even if she --as a naturalized US citizen-- carries a copy of her passport in her car for fear of being stopped by ICE because of her skin color.  Hers was what I have felt was/is missing in these times, a need to talk, to discover and to find out about the people around us.  I think there's no better way to explore, wrote Peter Santenello: and you don't need a lot of money or a set itinerary.  You don't even need a whole lot of time.  Epic road trips are great, but so is a weekend somewhere unfamiliar, a road you've never taken, or a town you've driven past but never pulled over to explore.  An adventure might even be waiting for you on the other side of your own city: on streets you've never walked, inside random places you've never ducked into, with a person you would have never come across in your normal routine.  Exploration doesn't have to be dramatic.  All it requires is curiosity, a bit of creativity, and a willingness to tune in to what's around you.  When you do --when you show down just enough to give a place your full attention-- things start to happen.  Conversations open up and strangers share their world...And then you walk away knowing something you didn't before, carrying a thought or a feeling that you bring with you on your way home, something that maybe lets you see your own life from a different perspective. 

The last free summer concert at Solitude

     This seems to be a time when people want a sense of community, or perhaps need a sense of community.  Over the summer we saw this over and over, not by attending high-priced concerts but by going to those held in backyards or even at outdoor spots throughout the city.  Attendance was small and simple, sometimes only 30 people, sometimes over a hundred; but each was a bring your own chairs/drinks/food thing, and people seemed happy to get out, to sit together and enjoy some music, to start conversations (our habit is to bring beer for the bands, often appreciated but banned at larger, ticketed events).  People were happy to let their troubles and worries drop, even if only for a few hours.  At one backyard event, the "admission" was a $20 donation, split between the performers and a fund that provides instruments and music lessons for children unable to afford them.  Most other events, such as those at the Solitude ski resort, were free.  Community.  Helping others.  Learning about others...and perhaps even others learning about yourself.     

Photo: Abraham Menashe

      As my wife has said many times, people want connection.  A wave of the hand, a smile, a stopping to listen, a sharing and an opening up.  Without community and connection, we are little more than lost souls, taking what we've learned or experienced or laughed at to our graves.  So many people want to share, want to tell their story, want to do more than vent, but to embrace.  Young or old, rich or poor, rich heritage or one unknown ...we were all young at one point, all both reliving our times and realizing that they are gone.  Yet as they say, gone but not forgotten.  I can't bring my brother or my parents back, all of whom I shared what seemed a lifetime and yet now I see how little I knew of them.  Their hopes, their dreams realized or sacrificed, their own parental upbringing, their struggles and rewards, their outlooks at the end.  Happy, disappointed, content?  There's still time for each of us, still time to tell others or to listen to them.  All in all, it was Annie Lennox who may have summed it up best by saying, why ask why: This is the book I never read. These are the words I never said.  This is the path I'll never tread.  These are the dreams I'll dream instead.  This is the joy that's seldom spread.  These are the tears, the tears we shed.  This is the fear. this is the dread.  These are the contents of my head.  And these are the years that we have spent, and this is what they represent.  And this is how I feel.  Do you know how I feel? 'cause i don't think you know how I feel.  I don't think you know what I feel.  I don't think you know what I feel.  You don't know what I feel...

     Long ago, sexual abuse counselor and suicide prevention volunteer, Sally Casper, wrote in The Meaning of Life, a book that compiled thoughts and photos of what life meant to different people, this back in the day there existed a larger-sized magazine that was simply called Life (which sponsored the book): For years I have listened to people during a critical stage of despair, a stage where they've felt life no longer had a meaning and they've been tempted to just end it all.  At that point in someone's life, there's no point in trying to hand over some package and say, "Here, believe this" or "Think this, " or "Do that" and hope that it'll offer some kind of salvation.  Nobody else's package really matters at that instant.  And because I don't have a package to sell, what I've offered has been my own companionship in those moments when someone is trying to tolerate no meaning or to tolerate life not seeming to be worth the trouble or to tolerate the sense, as I did at an early age, that "Life isn't for me and it's going to stretch on a long time and I might be doing myself and everybody a big favor by ending it right now."  Sometimes the most valuable thing you can offer is not an answer but your presence, your being there to share the feeling of loneliness, your being there while someone goes on breathing in and out, whether it matters or not.  Usually, given enough time, there'll be something that'll click, that'll help that person get out of that frame of mind and move on to something else since that frame of mind never lasts.  Maybe it'll be something quite simple: being needed by someone or finding some small pleasure that'll help that person feel he can go on.  Having shared in these moments of loneliness, I come to a sort of conclusion that the answer, if there is one, is tied up with human compassion.  That's it.  We are here to be there for someone else.