There is nothing more to say, and nothing much has been said. Quantities of talk are measured carefully, like rice and tea, so we revert to our mother culture in such times of impasse. With your full pink-beige lips, you immerse yourself in sucking up countable buckwheat noodles and exactly one measure of scorching green tea. At the same time, I spread butter thoroughly on toasted homemade bread and silently sip endless cups of espresso with my thin, pale red.
When we can no longer communicate, we busily occupy our lips in contrasting ways, modes which are alien to each of us—sucking is frowned upon in Christian countries, so instead, we silently receive the body and the blood of Christ, our lips are thin so sensitive to high temperatures, somehow better designed for ice and cold winds. Hard and crisp foods are usually avoided in Japan, soft creamy and jellied textures are delighted in; dry foods and vegetable/fruit skins are believed to be impossible to digest and awkward to pick up with hashi– chopsticks. Therefore, these lips are supremely suited to sucking and humidity.
It is winter, so you retire to your tatami kingdom, comforted by the smell of dried-reed flooring and its springiness, kneeling at a low table in front of the butsudan laden with offerings for bringing good fortune in the New Year. You glue your eyes to News and Discussion programmes on a wide, slim TV screen with the sound turned down as low as possible. The latticed shoji screens close out the detail of the thin segment of the sky above the apartments opposite but not the light. Meanwhile, I stay suspended on a tall summer stool at the kitchen island of Swedish design next door, in a long room surrounded by windows within view of the balcony filled with yellow winter pansies and cardinal phlox. I must never lose eye-contact with that same sliver of sky.
I can hear you sucking your sormen–fine buckwheat noodles–behind the closed double sliding doors, but you are unable to hear my butter-spreading and crunching, the gooseberry jam pot lid clicking shut, the growling of the espresso machine as it forces hot water through coffee grounds.
With darkness, the low sun dropped like a coin from a pocket behind the conifer-clad hills, you invite me to your ritual bath time—“o furo hairimasu?”-Do you want to enter the bathtub? The craving for hot steam and moisture never ceases, even in foreign places where such things are difficult to find. Your lack of body fat and addiction to scrubbing yourself, sluicing away all impurities in Sacred Way of the Gods (kami-sama) style, compel you to bathe every evening for long periods. I hear the swish of the homemade noren as they part, the metallic closing of the tub-room door, the clanking of the low pink plastic stool you sit on and the splash of the water scoop you take water from the bath with to douse yourself. Once the sluicing and scrubbing have subsided, you will lower your immaculate body into the sacred water and become still.
Earlier in the day, with my layers of body fat and impurities lingering, I showered, standing in a tiny space at the side of the small but deep tub. It is usually filled to the top and keenly covered with three lids that fit together to maintain the temperature of the water. I have to move into the corner as much as possible to avoid shower water accumulating on the tub covers because this soaking water, devoid of any soap or body debris, will be re-heated to use several times more and eventually fed into the washing machine. I scrub briefly, rinse thoroughly, and leave. I rarely use the tub because it is too small to fold my long legs.
But different cultures and languages, and our mother’s models of living efficiently in daily life for our respective physical types and environment, and what we naturally gravitate to if there is a choice have nothing to do with this impasse. What we eat, how we clean ourselves, and what we like to cast our eyes on from our dwelling place is a diversity which creates interest and intrigue, not domination and control. Our lips, quantities of body fat, and preferences to stand or sit when we wash are no grounds for separatism. Indeed, our willingness to express our appreciation of and compassion for each other counts most. Expressing, demonstrating, and clearly expressing our feelings, outwardly displaying like rare birds or fish, matters most. Showing our depth of understanding and acceptance first of ourselves and then of each other, precisely as we are in the environment we have chosen to position ourselves in or remain in, is what being human is.
Can we ensure that we know ourselves sincerely now, here, inside our grand diversity? If we do, without blaming the infinite differences between us, we can bring our virtue into full view. The international harmony we long for between us can never be more than a flambé or an accident unless we first know and accept ourselves. Then virtue can shine out, synchronizing and tuning our lip shapes and voices to create true resonance.
Notes:
In Japan, most people live in small apartments, sleeping on futon on the floor often as a whole family which they fold away in cupboards to make space during the day and storing their possessions in tall built-in cupboards fitted out with sets of plastic drawers to classify and collect items of a kind. Rooms are wonderfully adaptable to cold and hot weather, to staying private and going public, to light and dark, thanks to light sliding doors which run in wooden tracks without metal fittings or springs with a distinctive hushed sound. Instead of curtains at the windows, they often have sliding latticed shoji which are like movable windows backed with paper, to be taken away entirely to let in daylight if necessary.
The entrance to bathrooms areas and kitchens are often adorned with noren, 2 jaunty short curtains on a simple wooden stick held up by hooks, and when we enter we must part the curtains and announce “Konichiwa,”– Good Day. The entrance hall or genkan is also important with its rows of well-positioned shoes, various-sized shoe horns, and extensive cupboards to house the wide range of footwear.
Butsudan is the Buddhist home altar built as a free-standing tall cupboard, filled with ancestral death plaques and photographs, ritual instruments and offerings.
Kami-sama are the spirits or phenomena worshipped in the religion of Shinto—the national religion of Japan. They are elements in nature, animals, creationary forces in the universe, as well as spirits of the revered deceased.