I could amuse Grace and Helen for hours with my stories. I was placed as a maid in a tony home in Pacific Heights, only I hadn’t been taught that using Ajax wasn’t the best way to polish silver. A family on Russian Hill engaged me as a mother’s helper, but the children didn’t particularly ken to me, and I sure as hell didn’t care for them. The father liked me, though, and we had fun until his wife found out. But honestly, why did she have to make such a big stink about a hug and a bump in a laundry room? I signed on as an elevator operator at a department store on Union Square-a highlight in what had been a sorry string of jobs-where I used different accents to entertain the shoppers. “Second floor, gentlemen’s suits and other bespoke wear,” growled like a Japanese samurai. “Fifth floor, ladies’ lingerie,” sung as a girl from the islands. “Mezzanine, notions, books, and candy,” recited as one of the Mexican girls from my elementary school in Los Angeles. Customers said I was a hoot; management gave me the bounce. On to cafés in North Beach, Cow Hollow, and the Tenderloin. I knew less about being a waitress than about cleaning a house, unpacking boxes in storage rooms, or selling flowers. It took me a while to catch the brain waves and understand that when someone asked for a bride and groom on a life raft he wanted two eggs and toast, or that a bride and groom on the rocks meant scrambled eggs. Once someone asked for a “rare” waffle. I brought him a plate of batter with a pat of butter on top. Quick as a wink, I was out on my can. “Sorry, slim, but you just aren’t working out.” Rain off a duck’s back, I always say.
“Remember when that customer asked for fried watermelon?” Grace cued me. “He was teasing you, but you went to the kitchen and asked the short-order cook to make it!”
Grace and Helen loved that story for some reason. Fried watermelon. Ha! Ha! Yes, the joke sure was on me. “Fired again!” the three of us sang out in harmony. I laughed as hard as they did. The blues were not in my repertoire.
I didn’t want to put the bite on my roommate and ask her for money, but when I couldn’t chip in my share of the rent, Grace voluntarily made up the extra amount. “That’s what friends do for each other,” she said, which was pretty funny given how bent out of shape she’d gotten when Helen offered to give her a dress to wear between shows at the Forbidden City. I didn’t see the big deal about taking Grace’s money or wearing Helen’s castoffs. A girl needs a place to sleep and something snazzy to wear, after all.
ON THE WEEKEND, I visited Aunt Haru and Uncle Junji in Alameda. They filled me with soba and natto-sticky fermented soybeans-slivers of toro, and cups of matcha. They asked me questions:
“Have you heard from your mother and father?”
“Are you eating enough?”
“Won’t you come back and stay with us? We can give you a job in the grocery.”
They were the nicest people. They had a small shop not far from the Alameda naval air station. Their customers were lookers, as you might imagine, so working there wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. But I didn’t want to spend my life drinking beer and necking with servicemen-I’d already done a fair amount of that in Hawaii-and even earlier when we lived on Terminal Island not far from the naval reserve, so I turned down Aunt Haru’s offer, bowing deeply and repeatedly as my mother would have wanted me to do to show proper respect and humility.
“Doumo arigatou gozaimasu, Auntie,” I said, using the most polite form of Japanese. “You honor me with your kindness. I’m forever grateful.”
My aunt and uncle-as I hoped they would-sent me home with a basket filled with fresh fruits, vegetables, and a five-pound sack of rice, which was a start toward repaying Grace.
And I thought coming here would be a breeze.
I hadn’t won any apple-pie prizes or ribbons like Grace had, but even as a little girl I could attract a crowd. That first day at the auditions for the Forbidden City, I told Grace and Helen that I’d always been a dancer, but it was more like I was born to be famous. People saw something in me. They were attracted to me. They came to me like bees to a flower or moths to a flame. I’m not exaggerating. I didn’t have a lot of talent, but I had plenty of ba-zing.
Way back, when we still lived in Los Angeles, a dancer from the Orpheum Theater came across the street to visit our family’s curio shop. She wanted to buy a black lacquer box decorated with flying cranes, but she didn’t have enough money, so my mother said, “If you give my girl dance lessons, I’ll give you the box.” People told my mother that our family had gone to the dogs. Mom, who was about as traditional and strict a woman as you could find on either side of the Pacific, shot them down.
“It’s better to be a lone wolf with talent than a monkey dancing for an organ-grinder,” she said. “Better to be independent than bow to the Occidental.”
But I had to be a proper Japanese girl too. She showed me how to mince when I walked so I’d look delicate and smile behind pressed fingers so I’d look more alluring. She taught me to speak in a high voice, making sure no air-no life-came out of my throat. She instructed me to begin each sentence as though everything were my fault: sumimasenga-I’m sorry but, or osoremasuga-I fear offending you but.
Naturally, I attended my mother’s Japanese-language classes. Japanese was of no interest to me, whether at home or in school, and I wished I had a nickel for every time she criticized my use of prepositions. (My pop always said her voice was as beautiful as cherry blossoms floating through the air on a perfect spring morning. On this one thing I couldn’t argue. Her voice was beautiful… for a nag.) My mother drilled me on honorifics and declensions. I learned the difference between what a woman could say and what a man could say. Shizukani-quiet-could politely come from a woman’s mouth. But a man could be more forcefuclass="underline" Damare! Shut up! I listened when people spoke the common name for a wife-ka-nai-which literally meant house inside. A husband was called the shu-jin-person in charge. But I wanted to be in charge of my own life.
My mother started each class by having her students sing the Japanese national anthem before a portrait of Emperor Hirohito, spiffy in his uniform, sitting astride his white horse, Shirayuki. (This probably wasn’t much different than Helen going to Chinese-language school and singing the Republic of China’s anthem to a photo of Dr. Sun Yatsen.) Mom taught class like we were in Japan, stressing single-minded loyalty to our superiors: parents, teachers, anyone older, and, of course, the emperor. The greatest virtues, she told us, were sincerity, loyalty, and obedience. (This couldn’t have been all that off the mark from what Helen had learned through her sayings.) My mother educated us about Japan and China’s first altercation, back in 663, and taught us that Japan had retaliated with a long chain of invasions that continued to today. (Helen had probably learned the yin-yang version, in which the Japanese were always the villains.) What I’m saying is, we all follow traditions that we believe are right and just, but there are two sides to every story. Still, when I called last year’s rape of Nanking a war crime, my mother slapped me and said, “That didn’t happen! People made that up!” And then she called me an ungrateful daughter, as though that were more evil than raping and killing thousands of innocent women in China.
“I’m not ungrateful or unpatriotic,” I fought back. “I love America, and I believe in peace.”
“The emperor believes in peace too,” Mom said. “He cries for the other countries in Asia that have been crushed beneath the boot of Western imperialism. The Japanese will help our less fortunate brothers and sisters in Manchuria, China, and Korea. This is a time of Friendship, Cooperation, and Co-prosperity.”