- 16
- May
In a couple of days it will be 14 years since papa passed away and in honor of him, I would like to share this most extraordinary story of one man’s unusual transformation from completely despising me to accepting me as one of the family.
“Papa” is the name I used when addressing the finest, nicest man I have ever met in Japan. He was my father-in law and we were the closest of friends. However, it did not start out that way.
When I first met my wife, I was about to graduate college and she was a junior at another school. Since we lived about a 15 minute walk from each other we would sometimes visit each other for coffee or tea and to listen to music or just talk. Her mother was most welcoming to me when I visited her house and did not seem to mind that her only daughter/child was dating a foreigner. In fact she kind of took a fancy to me and my intuition told me that she was quite ok with me. Her father was usually working when I visited and I would always leave the house before he returned around five in the evening as her mother and she did not know how her father would react to their only child dating a foreigner. In fact they figured he would not take it well and they were right.
We managed to keep it a secret from Papa for several weeks until one day he happened to arrive home unexpectedly early and saw us walking together up the street while he was driving down it. The next day, I was informed by my girlfriend that her father had forbidden them to ever allow me in the house again and that she was to stop seeing me.
My girlfriend, being a twenty year old college student and quite the rebel at the time, refused to allow this to happen and continued seeing me against the wishes of her father. Her mother, on the other hand, was still ok with it and would run interference for us when the need arose like when we were out dating, on a trip, or when I would call. However, I just knew her father had to know we were still seeing each other.
This went on for a few months until he just gave in and stopped refusing his daughter from seeing me. However, he still did not want me anywhere near or in his house. When I asked my girlfriend why, she would say that her father did not want to see her get “hurt” by a foreigner who will only leave Japan and that he had heard too many stories where the woman always gets hurt in the long run when dating or marrying a foreigner. Besides, being seven years her senior, he felt I was too old for her. Needless to say we eventually fell in love and made plans on getting married even if her father would never agree to it.
Before we even became serious with each other, I informed my girlfriend that I would be leaving Japan in December (some nine months after we met), when my student visa expired to return to the US with my degree and start a career in business. I asked her to come to the US after she graduated the following April and we would get married. She agreed and although her father would be totally against it, she would do it anyway as she said they couldn’t stop her.
I returned home to my parents’ house outside of New York City in December 1981 and proceeded looking for a job right after the holidays. Things did not work out in the USA for me as I had hoped and planned. A full blown recession was underway, interest rates were hovering at around 18% and, although I was told I had great qualifications, no one was hiring at the moment and I was really bummed out. I finally found a job at the Bank of Tokyo on Wall Street that paid a measly $14,000/yr. After taxes I cleared about $200/week! Hell, that wasn’t even enough to rent a small apartment and have something left over. Besides, I made more money in Japan as a part-time teacher!
My fiancée arrived in May. She told me that her parents took her to the airport and bid their only child a tearful farewell. Even today I cannot believe that her father allowed her to go or, as often happens, disown her or something like that.
Wanting to kick start our life she wanted to help out and within a month or so found employment with a Japanese restaurant in the city and, try as we may, we still couldn’t scrape up enough money to afford our own decent place, buy some furniture, pay our rent and still have something left over to save. Besides, we both disliked living in New York and longed for Japan again. We decided that this wasn’t going to work out and, after much discussion and debate we settled on not getting married and on returning to Japan where we planned to eventually open up our own English school. Besides, we both knew we could make far more money in Japan than we were making in New York at the moment.
She departed in December and I followed some four months later after I applied to a language school, secured sponsorship through a friend and finally got my Cultural Visa for “Japanese Language Study”. (What’s funny here is that I had to sign a statement at the embassy promising that I would NOT be going there to teach English!) Besides, I didn’t need the school anyway as I was already quite fluent in Japanese having lived there for 9 years, but it was the fastest and easiest way for me get back to Japan and live legally.
After only 16 months in the US and my dreams shattered, I returned to Japan where I quickly found an apartment in my old neighborhood near my fiancée and an English teaching job paying much more than I was making in New York. To follow through with my visa though, I attended the language school for about two years. Being back in Japan again I felt much more comfortable and “at home”.
We put off our plans on marrying and continued seeing each other with she living at her home. Despite her father’s continued disapproval I was still not allowed to visit her house. What a loser he must’ve thought I was as I couldn’t even make it in the US. However, one thing led to another, things fell into place and we had our own English School in a less than two years. The kicker was that I had to be married in order for me to officially register the business in my name and we both knew her father would never approve of us marrying or even agree to it for that matter.
My wife came up with the idea that she would secure her koseike shohon (Family Register) and we would get married in a civil ceremony. When I questioned her about the fact that I would be entered on her family register and what would her father think of it, she said not to worry as no one would know unless they asked to see the register. Since she didn’t have any siblings she said it would be no problem and, if her father found out and still disapproved afterwards, so what, it was already done. What guts she had to go against her family like that. This was a rare woman indeed!
We got married, opened up our school and her family was never the wiser. She never told them and they never found out! She would stay with me and help run the school on weekdays as she told her parents, and would return to stay with them on weekends. For almost three years we were married and they never discovered it. Things were going well, the school was growing, we were making money and then I really screwed up!
One day I awoke to four detectives standing over my bed with a search warrant and I was busted for an illegal substance (0.0125 grams of hashish). We were both arrested even though my wife was completely innocent and never used the stuff. She spent a week in jail and I spent two weeks. No phone calls were allowed by either of us and her parents became extremely worried and checked with the local police when she didn’t come home and no one answered the phone. They then knew what had happened. Still, they did not know we were officially married. My wife was eventually exonerated and no charges were pressed. As for myself, I was charged, received a suspended sentence, and allowed to stay in the country and continue my business. My name was never in the papers though, and none of the students or their parents ever came to know what happened.
When my wife was released and she returned home, her father questioned her about whether she really loved me or not and whether she wanted to stay with a man like me after what I put her through. She told him that she did. To her shock, and mine also when she told me, she said that her father said to her, “If you really love this man after all this then marry him and let’s have a ceremony.” It was only then that I was allowed to visit her house some 6 years after first meeting her and being banned!
About a week later I nervously returned with my wife to her house and didn’t know what to expect. I half expected to receive a scolding and some kind of warning from her father, but it never happened. I apologized to her father in the traditional Japanese manner by getting on my knees and apologizing to him with my head touching the tatami for the pain I caused his daughter and him and his wife. He said that I shouldn’t worry about it and that it was already done. I still couldn’t believe this was happening. He asked that I stay the night, insisted that I take a bath with his daughter and allowed us to sleep together in the same room! Needless to say I was in shock that day and night. The beer flowed freely and we really got along quite well although I was still a little suspicious. I mean, how can a man change so quickly, and why?
The following day I asked him for his daughters hand in marriage. He agreed and said that we were not to worry as he would be paying for everything! All we had to do was plan it. Not one word was ever mentioned then or afterwards about my run-in with the law and the beer and food flowed freely again and a good time was had by all.
What a weekend! An apology for getting his only child arrested and then asking for his daughter hand! What a son-in-law I would make!
From that day forward, even though he spoke no English, Papa and I became the best of friends. He seemed to be genuinely impresssed with my Japanese ability and my knowledge of Japans customs, culture and food and was surprised that I lived in Japan for so long and even returned when things didn’t work out in the US. I explained to him that I felt Japan was my home and that I felt more comfortable there than in the US.
After that day I visited often and we would drink together while watching baseball or sumo. Sometimes we would go out and sing karaoke and we always had a great time. I actually looked forward to the weekends when we would visit and stay.
The marriage occurred about six months later and it was really a wonderful affair held at a hotel in Yokohama with about 100 guests. There was the traditional Japanese ceremony with both of us in kimono along with the western one with a white wedding dress for my wife and a sharp tux for me. The best part was when my wife danced with her father and I with her mother. It was truly a day to remember and it was the first time I ever saw Papa cry. He was really happy.
Things continued well for us and the business, and then the Japanese economy started to swell. Land prices went through the roof and we soon came to the realization that we would never be able to afford our own place as a five room “mansion” (condo) that cost about $80,000 just three years previously, was now going for almost three times as much. It got so ridiculous that, after some discussion, we made plans to sell the school and return to the US. At least there we would be able to afford our own place and, since the economy was doing well, we should at least be able to find decent employment this time.
It was not easy breaking the news to Papa that I would again be taking his only child away from him, but he understood that it was what we both wanted and agreed to it. Inside his heart though I knew it must have hurt him in some way as not only was his daughter leaving him, but his best friend also.
Papa wanted to help with a place in Japan, but we would not hear of it. It was just too expensive. This we wanted to do on our own. We left within a year and we departed the country to a tearful goodbye from her parents with a promise from me that we would visit at least once a year.
We settled in Tennessee and through a friend who was living there that we both knew in Japan, both of us quickly found great employment with the same Japanese company and, within 2 years built our own house. We were doing quite well and we visited Japan once a year, as promised. I visited more often as I had to take business trips to Japan an additional once or twice a year and I always made it a point to visit with the in-laws for at least a few days. Papa and I always had a blast as usual and my wife told me that her father really looked forward to seeing me and enjoyed my company.
We wanted her parents to visit us in the US and they had planned on it when tragedy struck. Papa had come down with lung cancer a year or so before we were married and a lung was removed. He continued living a normal life until it was discovered that he had incurable brain cancer. An operation removed some of the cancer, but it left him partially paralyzed on his right side and he was informed that it was terminal and that there was nothing more to be done for him.
Papa took it well and continued to live life as normally as he could. Even though he was forced to retire because of his condition, his company took great care of him by continuing to pay him. Like his daughter, he was a fighter and continued to have a great outlook on life while still enjoying his smokes and alcohol while never giving up or feeling sorry for himself. As he used to say, “If I’m going to die, I may as well enjoy myself!” Still, like always, we had a great time together during our visits and I so much looked forward to them.
During one of our visits, when we were alone, he mentioned that he was not going to be here forever and that when the time came would I look after his wife. I promised him that should that occur he needn’t worry as I would make it my goal to ensure that his wife, as well as his daughter, was well taken care of. And I intended to keep that promise. It was the least I could do for this fine man who made such a transformation and treated me so well.
After about 2 years, Papa took a turn for the worse and was admitted to the hospital. My wife took a leave of absence to be with her father and he slowly deteriorated. I got a call from her one night that things were not good and that Papa was asking for me. I made plans to go in two weeks, but two days before I left, I got a phone call from my wife saying that Papa had passed away. I was so sad. She said that right up till the end Papa was asking for me and was looking forward to my arrival. I really felt bad in that I should’ve left immediately and that I couldn’t be with him. However, it really warmed and touched me at how much he wanted to see me.
In the end I felt as if I had lost my own father as he truly treated me like a son and I really felt the love both he and his wife have for me and the way they welcomed me into their family. Me, a gaijin; a foreigner who married his only child and took her away – twice! Me, the person he refused to allow into his home until I caused his daughter to spend time in jail. It’s strange how things in life work out. Just when you think one door is slammed in your face and things seem impossible, life throws you another twist and opens another door. For reasons that cannot be explained, people can and do change.
After 21 years of visiting the same home, I truly feel as if Papa’s house is my own and I know he would not want to have it any other way as I am so comfortable there. And when I visit, the first thing I always do, even before unpacking my bags, is to go to the tokonoma, the small alcove where the family shrine is kept with Papa’s picture, get on my knees, light a candle and some incense, ring the bell to let him know I am there, light up one of his favorite cigarettes, clap my hands and tell him that I am “home” and to thank him for welcoming me as one of the family and that he needn’t worry as I will continue looking out for his family and will keep my promise by returning to Japan permanently to make sure his wife is well taken care of and will not be alone in her later years.
If Papa knew after the official ceremony that we were previously married for three years, he never let on and neither did his wife to this day. They had to know or someone in their family had to know. That kind of thing you cannot keep secret for long, especially in a small town up north. But Papa never let on and neither has Mama to this day. What fantastic in-laws they have turned out to be and I feel honored to have been blessed with their love and acceptance of me over the years.
Papa, you are a great man and words cannot do justice for the way you changed and came to befriend me and accept me into your family, warts and all. I will never forget it and I just hope I have not disappointed you. Kanpai!
Copyright © 2008 Sushicam. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@sushicam.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana
From Live in Japan Source
