2006

Temptations    
It is tempting to lament the state of the world. Whether to the left or right, or ahead, wherever you look, depressing futures loom in store: kids bullying their pals and parents tormenting their kids, both sometimes resulting even in deaths; income disparities widening; disproportionate demographics rendering social security sour (Are longevity and  a self-selected small-family lifestyle a curse?); our social democracy life-ropes now tattered, indicted as injustice-, corruption- and inefficiency-infested; rightist eunichs steadily rebuilding a war-ready and capital-favoring country; our pauperized across-the-strait neighbor nuclear-threatening our national security; our wealthy across-the-ocean neighbor again quagmired, this time a bit farther to the west in Asia. The list barely ends but far down the road.

     But the trick is to not succumb to those temptations.   

Dwarfed 
   
Popping in from under the glaring late August sun, Hideaki could hardly see once inside Thais and Alan's living room, in their residence in Sacramento.

There on the sofa he vaguely saw someone seated, relaxed and staring out emptily into somber space. His eyes finally adjusting to the mid-day darkness, Hide finally recognized a mysterious figure, and noticed this was one occasion he needed to say hello to someone he sees for the first time. Urged by his polite instinct, he tentatively offered his hand, saying, "Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Hideaki. How are you?" The one he greeted was polite enough to answer and offer his hand, saying, "Mine’s George. And I'm curious, thank you. And you?" "Well," Hide stammered a bit, but managed to come up with his next words in time, "I'm cu-curious too, th-thank you."
     That was the beginning. That afternoon, Masami enjoyed her reunion with Thais and Alan, updating them and herself on what had happened to her family and to Thais's after they had last met; Seika played with Tyler, jumped into the house's backyard swimming pool, so deep he says afterward he nearly drowned; Hide joined the fun of the talk but, above all, he cherishes his new friendship with Curious George. 
    The next day, they hit the highway and set out on a tour of Sequoia, Yosemite and Death Valley National Parks. It was a four-family tour on a big wagon, guided by a Japanese-speaking Mormon Louis. 
　　　Sequoia, with its big and old trees like Generals Sherman and Grant, bewitched the whole families.

Hiking among the humongous old trees, they felt as if they had become dwarfs (just like Pluto, by the way, who was downgraded to a dwarf in the same summer, but that's another story. Does anyone know what happened after that? Is the rumor true that he was accepted as the eighth member by the Seven Dwarfs?).  

Yosemite, with its granite rock mountains, giant falls and serene lakes, was again fascinating. Hide hit his left shin on a rock and suffered a bit of bruise.

Death Valley was scorching hot. Devil's Golf Course and Badwater Basin made them feel as if they had wandered into Star Wars.

Their travel came to a peaceful end in Las Vegas. There they dined and wined with Chrissy and Chiang. They were now in the process of readying for their wedding next spring. Good Luck!

Studies and Plays Till He Drops   
Seika, as much a game-freak as ever, studies a lot also. He goes to his elementary school Monday through Friday with very few if any absences, of course. He also goes to juku cram school in an adjacent city four days a week: on Monday and Wednesday nights and Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings. What with homework from school and preparation for juku, he goes to bed well after eleven. Every several weeks, he takes mock exams. His grandparents Yoshifumi  and Kiyoko worry about his drill-and-kill lifestyle.       
       He also enjoys himself. On Thursdays, his school is out early. He comes home with his pals and plays games with them. He also uses the spare time watching DVDs featuring old-time mystery and hero stories. Having finished all the episodes of Ultra Q, a Japanese version of Twilight Zone, he is now consuming UltraMan series at the pace of four episodes a week.  He is transcending a forty-year-long space of time and now shares quite a lot of TV-show knowledge with his dad's generation. YouTube is another of his favorite pastime activities. It was Hideaki that got the tip on it first, but after he told him about it, Seika got addicted. Hide loves reuniting with his adolescence female idols there; Seika loves watching UltraMan, dad's childhood hero from Galaxy M73, vanquishing monsters.  

Dynamo    
     Masami is as energetic as ever. Her year began with the Back Street Boys’ Tokyo Dome concert. Hide and Seika went to Tokyo with her. The whole family went to the Nihonbashi financial district to show Seika the Bank of Japan, with its Currency Museum, Mitsukoshi, the oldest and most prestigious department store in Japan (visitors often get struck dumb at the beauty and grandeur of its much renowned wooden female deity Kissho Tennyo, and so did the family), and the Tokyo Stock Exchange. They also went to Tokyo’s tallest Metropolitan Government building. From its observation deck, they could see smog-smeared swarms of small buildings like so many scattered mah-jongg tiles close at hand and snow-capped Mt. Fuji far away. Then they parted. While she raved among the fifty thousand-strong audience brimming the stadium, Hideaki showed Seika around the now-famous otaku-emporium Akihabara. Seika got his dad to buy two new pieces of game software at an eleven-story (two basement levels included) castle outlet Yodobashi Electronics.
        She worked part-time at a Takara Standard bathroom and kitchen fixture showroom but quit it at the end of September. Is she idling away at home now? A big Noooo! She went to a Tokyo prep seminar every Wednesday for her challenge at the Interior Coordinator Stage 2 exam; attended weekly art lumiere lessons in an adjacent town; and went to Tokyo theaters to see her favorite actors.

       At the beginning of October, Masami had Lisa and David over. The pity was that Hideaki had work and could not talk with them. They came here at Japanese businessmen’s invitation and did the sights. On their way back to Narita Airport, they dropped by. 

       Her year closes with another Dome concert. In late November, she went all the way to Tokyo Dome again in central Tokyo to see and listen to Billy "Stranger" & "Honesty" Joel. The ballpark concert that would prove to allow her time travel back to her youth in the early eighties began at seven in the evening and forced her to come home a bit before midnight. Did dad and kid have a lonely night without mom? Another big no! Thanks to her absence, Hide, who usually goes to bed while Seika is enjoying taking a bath with mom, had quality time with his son: a long-missed opportunity to read Seika a book in bed, after a long absence.  

 
  

 Their summer tour included Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay. Once a jailhouse compound for most heinous and violent criminals, the mid-bay small clump of land is now remodeled into a tourist attraction, though most of the confinement facilities are kept intact. The family walked through the corridors, peered through the iron grids into the cells, and sometimes glanced up at the "gallery" from which they say guns were aiming just in case. Dark and cold cells, the hard cots and flimsy sinks, and not much fun, Hide imagined. How did the vicious inmates like Al Capone, Robert "Birdman" Stroud, or George "Machine Gun" Kelly, looking at the flowering Frisco just across a strip of water, feel about being trapped in such a place? Just no better than the ailing Chrysanthemum Princess back home.