kazoku / family
sunday, rainy sunday. it's such a respite from the nearly unbearable humidity like when i got here (hottest summer EVER, in case you missed that report). today was devoted to buying a few gifts, mostly tiny things that will fit into my already overstuffed backpack. i resisted the temptation to blow a bunch of 100-yen coins in the plastic bubble dispensers – a la bubblegum machines – that contained cute but junky junk, like keychains featuring goth cartoony bears with fangs and blood dripping from their mouths, or anpanman figures (anpanman is an azuki bean-filled bun man who saves hungry people by letting them eat his head). so i think i ended up with a balanced batch of practical and impulse buys that don't take up too much space.
at three i had a date with my uncle, my mom's youngest brother who i hadn't seen since fifteen, sixteen years ago on my last visit. i hadn't had a lot of time to socialize while i've been here, but it would be a shame and bad planning if i didn't see any relatives while here. my other two uncles, and my aunt, all came to SB to visit my mom within the last year or so, and i got to spend quality time with all of them: very open, bright, lovely people i'm lucky to call my relatives. so because uncle snail (a childhood mispronunciation of his name) was the only one i hadn't seen, and because he lives in tokyo, i called him and we arranged to meet in front of a big department store in ginza.
i wasn't sure who would be with him, since i'd only called a few days ago and didn't really know whether his three kids would be around. but i got to the fancy department store early and pressed into the crush of people swarming around the brightly-lit food hall in the basement, looking for some kind of sweet to give to the family. department store food halls are amazing: packed with counters lined with boxes of treats impeccably wrapped in printed paper, appealing displays of european-style fluffy cakes studded with fruit, japanese sweets like blocks of yokan (a hard gelatin-like dessert based on azuki beans, i think, and marbled in different colors and flavors: tea green, pale purple, dark chocolately brown), anpan (remember anpanman? see first paragraph) with their outer pastry molded with stamped flower designs. it's wonderful just to roam around staring at these gorgeous edibles. plus, there are samples, and i made sure to pick up a thimble-shaped piece of incredible chocolate rolled in cocoa, a little bite of anpan.
in the end i decided on some mochi-like pieces of art. in a box of six, each one was mochi filled with azuki bean paste (called anko) and shaped and colored differently. one was a fat orange persimmon with a green leaf on top, and another one was a purple flower shape with petals folded around one another. if someone gave those to me, i probably would never eat them – just put them on display somewhere until they got moldy. hope they don't do that.
so by the time i got my box wrapped up, i was right on time and went out to the entrance. no uncle. there was a tall, lanky, sort of scary-looking kid standing in the corner but our eyes met and he didn't really look like he was waiting for anyone. having seen another entrance when i'd arrived, i wandered over there with my umbrella bumping into everyone else's crowding the rainy sidewalk, and no one was over there, either. i figured the first entrance, on the corner, was a better bet and went back. standing next to the lanky kid was my oldest uncle, the photographer who once backed up to get a good shot of something and fell down the edge of a cliff and lost the ends of two fingers as a result. he's gray-haired, jolly, and the oldest sibling so he usually takes charge of family gatherings and such. i broke into a big smile and went over to give him a hug. i hadn't expected him to be there – but, as it turns out, uncle snail had called everyone, and fifteen people showed up (including one woman who i've no idea who she was): all my mother's siblings, and several of my cousins.
the lanky kid he was standing next to was the baby of the family, the littlest (um, youngest) of all the cousins, who now towers over us at 6'2" or so. last time i saw him he was three or four. then a whole bunch of people showed up and i started crying, which everyone ignored or pretended not to notice, because this is very embarrassing for everybody. they just kept talking to me like tears weren't pouring down my face, and so i tried to hold it together and eventually we all went off to have some coffee, and then went to dinner at a gorgeous traditional restaurant where each party gets their own room with shoji doors and a sunken floor covered with tatami. they ordered a ton of food: sushi, sashimi, oden (soup with winter vegetables and tofu), daikon salad, soba, and weird stuff like soft chicken bones on a stick. bones.
it was wonderful and amazing and somehow we all managed to communicate pretty well. i must sound like an idiot, but they complimented me all night on how well i speak japanese. i know this is patently untrue; for example, when the older uncles visited SF last year on their california-in-a-week tour, i was driving them around on their one day in the bay area. we did the lombard street crawl, we visited the berkeley campus, we went to the marin headlands to snap photos of the golden gate bridge. at some point we headed for the richmond bridge and the oldest uncle pointed at san quentin, asking, what's that? i didn't know the word for 'prison,' so i said it was 'where the bad people go.' they didn't even crack a smile, but said, oh yes, the prison (in japanese) and then gave me a few alternative terms for it – all of which i've already forgotten. like i said, wonderful and amazing people i'm lucky enough to be related to, and they took turns snapping pictures, trying to stuff me to bursting with delicious food, telling stories and asking if i remembered this time at the matsuri (summer festival), or that time when we lit fireworks in the yard.
at the end of the evening, my aunt and cousin had to catch a bus back to their hometown near mt fuji, a couple of hours away, and the other families had to start their own journeys home. we took some last photos on the street, laughed with each other, and then said our goodbyes. small gifts were put in my hands. i got walked to the ginza station by the lanky baby cousin and his gorgeous older sister who i will always remember as a chubby-cheeked little girl. we said our goodbyes, i bumped into a tiled column as i backed away trying not to cry again, and then i stood on the train rides back home still surprised at having seen everyone.
one more day left of research and then i'll fly back to SF the day after.
...or will i?
at three i had a date with my uncle, my mom's youngest brother who i hadn't seen since fifteen, sixteen years ago on my last visit. i hadn't had a lot of time to socialize while i've been here, but it would be a shame and bad planning if i didn't see any relatives while here. my other two uncles, and my aunt, all came to SB to visit my mom within the last year or so, and i got to spend quality time with all of them: very open, bright, lovely people i'm lucky to call my relatives. so because uncle snail (a childhood mispronunciation of his name) was the only one i hadn't seen, and because he lives in tokyo, i called him and we arranged to meet in front of a big department store in ginza.
i wasn't sure who would be with him, since i'd only called a few days ago and didn't really know whether his three kids would be around. but i got to the fancy department store early and pressed into the crush of people swarming around the brightly-lit food hall in the basement, looking for some kind of sweet to give to the family. department store food halls are amazing: packed with counters lined with boxes of treats impeccably wrapped in printed paper, appealing displays of european-style fluffy cakes studded with fruit, japanese sweets like blocks of yokan (a hard gelatin-like dessert based on azuki beans, i think, and marbled in different colors and flavors: tea green, pale purple, dark chocolately brown), anpan (remember anpanman? see first paragraph) with their outer pastry molded with stamped flower designs. it's wonderful just to roam around staring at these gorgeous edibles. plus, there are samples, and i made sure to pick up a thimble-shaped piece of incredible chocolate rolled in cocoa, a little bite of anpan.
in the end i decided on some mochi-like pieces of art. in a box of six, each one was mochi filled with azuki bean paste (called anko) and shaped and colored differently. one was a fat orange persimmon with a green leaf on top, and another one was a purple flower shape with petals folded around one another. if someone gave those to me, i probably would never eat them – just put them on display somewhere until they got moldy. hope they don't do that.
so by the time i got my box wrapped up, i was right on time and went out to the entrance. no uncle. there was a tall, lanky, sort of scary-looking kid standing in the corner but our eyes met and he didn't really look like he was waiting for anyone. having seen another entrance when i'd arrived, i wandered over there with my umbrella bumping into everyone else's crowding the rainy sidewalk, and no one was over there, either. i figured the first entrance, on the corner, was a better bet and went back. standing next to the lanky kid was my oldest uncle, the photographer who once backed up to get a good shot of something and fell down the edge of a cliff and lost the ends of two fingers as a result. he's gray-haired, jolly, and the oldest sibling so he usually takes charge of family gatherings and such. i broke into a big smile and went over to give him a hug. i hadn't expected him to be there – but, as it turns out, uncle snail had called everyone, and fifteen people showed up (including one woman who i've no idea who she was): all my mother's siblings, and several of my cousins.
the lanky kid he was standing next to was the baby of the family, the littlest (um, youngest) of all the cousins, who now towers over us at 6'2" or so. last time i saw him he was three or four. then a whole bunch of people showed up and i started crying, which everyone ignored or pretended not to notice, because this is very embarrassing for everybody. they just kept talking to me like tears weren't pouring down my face, and so i tried to hold it together and eventually we all went off to have some coffee, and then went to dinner at a gorgeous traditional restaurant where each party gets their own room with shoji doors and a sunken floor covered with tatami. they ordered a ton of food: sushi, sashimi, oden (soup with winter vegetables and tofu), daikon salad, soba, and weird stuff like soft chicken bones on a stick. bones.
it was wonderful and amazing and somehow we all managed to communicate pretty well. i must sound like an idiot, but they complimented me all night on how well i speak japanese. i know this is patently untrue; for example, when the older uncles visited SF last year on their california-in-a-week tour, i was driving them around on their one day in the bay area. we did the lombard street crawl, we visited the berkeley campus, we went to the marin headlands to snap photos of the golden gate bridge. at some point we headed for the richmond bridge and the oldest uncle pointed at san quentin, asking, what's that? i didn't know the word for 'prison,' so i said it was 'where the bad people go.' they didn't even crack a smile, but said, oh yes, the prison (in japanese) and then gave me a few alternative terms for it – all of which i've already forgotten. like i said, wonderful and amazing people i'm lucky enough to be related to, and they took turns snapping pictures, trying to stuff me to bursting with delicious food, telling stories and asking if i remembered this time at the matsuri (summer festival), or that time when we lit fireworks in the yard.
at the end of the evening, my aunt and cousin had to catch a bus back to their hometown near mt fuji, a couple of hours away, and the other families had to start their own journeys home. we took some last photos on the street, laughed with each other, and then said our goodbyes. small gifts were put in my hands. i got walked to the ginza station by the lanky baby cousin and his gorgeous older sister who i will always remember as a chubby-cheeked little girl. we said our goodbyes, i bumped into a tiled column as i backed away trying not to cry again, and then i stood on the train rides back home still surprised at having seen everyone.
one more day left of research and then i'll fly back to SF the day after.
...or will i?
posted by a wandering eye at 11:41 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home