An Old Lady in the Park
© John K. Taber 2000
The sun broke through the clouds Labor Day after days of rain. And since it was the last day of a long weekend, the last free day before school, the last day of the annual fair, and a beautiful day, the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver was crowded. Folks there call it the PNE, which sounds like “P n’ E”. Sometime early in the century an exhibition was held on the grounds. Today, it is a park, and the fair is like a state fair in the US.
Around lunch time the tables around the food stands were full, except for one occupied by an older oriental woman whose age was hard to tell.
“Could we join you?”
“Yes, of course” she smiled, and shifted to make plenty of room for us.
We sat down to eat. She was talkative and when my wife asked where she was from, she replied that she was born in Canada. Her parents were from Japan. Before she finished high school she returned to Japan to visit her family’s relatives. Then the War broke out preventing her return to Canada.
She got a job teaching English to schoolgirls, which she liked very much.
Eventually, her relatives informed her that it was time for her to marry. “But I don’t want to marry” she protested. Her relatives patiently explained that she must marry, and that they would arrange a good match. The groom turned out to be a soldier in the Imperial Army. They were carefully introduced to each other, and appeared to like each other.
I asked “How did it turn out?”
“The marriage? Oh, very good. He always said that marrying him saved my life.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “My godmother was Italian, and in those days, Italians arranged marriages. One day she came home from work, and there in the living room was a strange older woman whom she had never seen before with a young man. He looked awkward and uncomfortable as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. The strange woman made over my godmother, ‘Oh, how pretty you are. What a nice girl you are.’” Then she disappeared into the office with my godmother’s father and closed the door, leaving my godmother and the young man baffled with each other.
We always thought it was a business deal. The woman emerged finally, gathered her son and left. The father asked my godmother if she liked the young man. As she explained to my mother years later “Comare, what could I say?, I never saw him before but I had to say something nice to be polite.”
I told the Japanese lady it was a bad marriage, twenty years of misery for both of them before they finally divorced.
“Oh,” she said “I am so sorry to hear the marriage didn’t work.” She meant it. We agreed it turned out bad because the motive was business not the welfare of the young people with both families looking out for their youngster’s interests. I thought of dynastic marriages for the sake of political interests, for reasons of state, that must have been nothing but misery. Like Catherine the Great’s marriage to the idiot, Tsar Paul. Supposedly, she conspired in his murder.
It occurred to me to ask where she was in Japan.
“Hiroshima” she said. She pronounced it hi-RO-shi-ma, not hi-ro-SHI-ma like we do.
It was our turn to look concerned.
“Oh, no,” she said. “My husband was posted to Manchuria. He always said marrying him saved my life” she repeated. She had gone with him.
But “her girls” as she called her students, were different. Before her marriage she led her girls downtown weekly for some sort of civil defense duty. “Hiroshima” she explained “was all wood and paper. It was how the homes were constructed.” If Hiroshima was bombed, it would burn in a fire storm. Everybody was thinking conventional bombing, and how to protect against it. She didn’t say, but I gathered her girls must have perished in the bombing.
“My wife was bombed too” I said.
She looked surprised. “Oh, where were you from?”
“Germany.”
“It must be the politicians who cause these things” she said trying to account for things she could not understand.
We had finished eating and it was time to go on.
“Arigato” I said, “thank you” instead of “goodbye.” The old lady beamed.
“Duo itashe-mash’te” (you are welcome) she replied. And we left.
The sun was in full splendor, the temperature was comfortable, and it was a fine day at the fair.
The sun broke through the clouds Labor Day after days of rain. And since it was the last day of a long weekend, the last free day before school, the last day of the annual fair, and a beautiful day, the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver was crowded. Folks there call it the PNE, which sounds like “P n’ E”. Sometime early in the century an exhibition was held on the grounds. Today, it is a park, and the fair is like a state fair in the US.
Around lunch time the tables around the food stands were full, except for one occupied by an older oriental woman whose age was hard to tell.
“Could we join you?”
“Yes, of course” she smiled, and shifted to make plenty of room for us.
We sat down to eat. She was talkative and when my wife asked where she was from, she replied that she was born in Canada. Her parents were from Japan. Before she finished high school she returned to Japan to visit her family’s relatives. Then the War broke out preventing her return to Canada.
She got a job teaching English to schoolgirls, which she liked very much.
Eventually, her relatives informed her that it was time for her to marry. “But I don’t want to marry” she protested. Her relatives patiently explained that she must marry, and that they would arrange a good match. The groom turned out to be a soldier in the Imperial Army. They were carefully introduced to each other, and appeared to like each other.
I asked “How did it turn out?”
“The marriage? Oh, very good. He always said that marrying him saved my life.”
“That’s interesting,” I said. “My godmother was Italian, and in those days, Italians arranged marriages. One day she came home from work, and there in the living room was a strange older woman whom she had never seen before with a young man. He looked awkward and uncomfortable as if he didn’t know what to do with himself. The strange woman made over my godmother, ‘Oh, how pretty you are. What a nice girl you are.’” Then she disappeared into the office with my godmother’s father and closed the door, leaving my godmother and the young man baffled with each other.
We always thought it was a business deal. The woman emerged finally, gathered her son and left. The father asked my godmother if she liked the young man. As she explained to my mother years later “Comare, what could I say?, I never saw him before but I had to say something nice to be polite.”
I told the Japanese lady it was a bad marriage, twenty years of misery for both of them before they finally divorced.
“Oh,” she said “I am so sorry to hear the marriage didn’t work.” She meant it. We agreed it turned out bad because the motive was business not the welfare of the young people with both families looking out for their youngster’s interests. I thought of dynastic marriages for the sake of political interests, for reasons of state, that must have been nothing but misery. Like Catherine the Great’s marriage to the idiot, Tsar Paul. Supposedly, she conspired in his murder.
It occurred to me to ask where she was in Japan.
“Hiroshima” she said. She pronounced it hi-RO-shi-ma, not hi-ro-SHI-ma like we do.
It was our turn to look concerned.
“Oh, no,” she said. “My husband was posted to Manchuria. He always said marrying him saved my life” she repeated. She had gone with him.
But “her girls” as she called her students, were different. Before her marriage she led her girls downtown weekly for some sort of civil defense duty. “Hiroshima” she explained “was all wood and paper. It was how the homes were constructed.” If Hiroshima was bombed, it would burn in a fire storm. Everybody was thinking conventional bombing, and how to protect against it. She didn’t say, but I gathered her girls must have perished in the bombing.
“My wife was bombed too” I said.
She looked surprised. “Oh, where were you from?”
“Germany.”
“It must be the politicians who cause these things” she said trying to account for things she could not understand.
We had finished eating and it was time to go on.
“Arigato” I said, “thank you” instead of “goodbye.” The old lady beamed.
“Duo itashe-mash’te” (you are welcome) she replied. And we left.
The sun was in full splendor, the temperature was comfortable, and it was a fine day at the fair.
posted by John | 12:23 PM
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