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29 January , 2002
HOW
JAPANESE AM I?
I've often written about how Japanese I am. But the fact of the matter is, I am not Japanese - I am Japanese American.
| Every once in a while, however, I'm reminded how little I know, and how small-minded my assumptions can be. |
Because I was born in Japan a US military brat and lived there as a child; because I can speak more Japanese than some Japanese Americans, have a great accent and can pronounce Japanese names correctly; because I've visited Japan and felt somewhat at home; because I'm a snob about Japanese food; because I deeply love Japanese culture and am immersed in its recent history; because I'm as much a Japanophile as any non-Japanese who is fascinated by the country and its people, I've often felt somehow superior to people who aren't as familiar with things Japonaise.
Every once in a while, however, I'm reminded how little I know, and how small-minded my assumptions can be. Whenever I write something about how things are in Japan, for instance, someone will comment that what I wrote is not accurate.
Last week, one reader, Dave Aldwinckle (who is deserving of a separate column about his experiences as a foreigner living and working in Japan), forwarded an older column of mine in which I ranted and raved about all the lousy sushi that is available these days in the US, and how tea manufacturers have co-opted green tea and is bastardizing it with yucky trendy flavors. Aldwinckle is a professor at a university in Sapporo, and has his own Web site with loyal - and vocal - readers.
Within hours, he had received many responses to my column, with some agreeing with my thoughts on lousy sushi but others chiding me for fuzzy thinking.
One comment I've been mulling over is one that I've thought about before: That I am being racist when I assume that only Japanese can be truly Japanese. This line of thought comes out most often when I write about authenticity in Japanese food. Although my intellect tells me anyone can cook ethnic food "correctly" I have a prejudice against non-Japanese making Japanese food, and the prejudice was plain when I wrote about non-Japanese making sushi. Does that mean that the sushi wasn't bad? Nope. Does it mean the chef's nationality had something to do with it? Nope - just the chef's poor training and lack of knowledge. Dave Aldwinckle's readers, many of whom live in Japan, pointed out they've had plenty of lousy sushi there. One also noted that trendy flavored green tea is also available in Japan.
One reader said I was being like many Japanese - quick to judge what's "authentic" and to feel the need to "educate" people about how things really are in Japan. This tendency feeds Japan's general sense of racial superiority and cultural isolation - the idea that only Japanese do Japanese things well.
Unfortunately, Japanese have been told for centuries that as a country, a people, a race, they are unique and special. This is not uncommon with any prideful ethnic group or nation that fosters patriotism, but such logic helped fuel Japan's military aggression in the 20th century, and its echoes still smolder beneath the country's peaceful relationships with its neighbors today. I'm afraid I buy into the thought when I write about sushi being made by non-Japanese.
My thinking can be fuzzy in other ways. For instance, I have double standards to my snobiness. I don't question the cultural correctness of bizarre variants of Japanese cuisine like spam musubi, even as I rail against the "non-authentic" use of avocado in California rolls. The fact is, most Japanese culture is either borrowed, stolen or adapted from somewhere else, most often China or Korea, and in the post-war years, from the US itself. And Japanese American culture is once more removed from the source, and adapted to suit new generations' tastes and needs. And as another reader pointed out, avocado is now a common ingredient in sushi in Japan.
All of which is to say that culture by definition is not pure, but a muddy and ever-evolving work in progress. The ever-increasing addition of mangled English words to the Japanese vocabulary might be irksome and mystifying to older Japanese, but it's just the language keeping up with the times.
I know some JAs who are not very Japanese at all, and I know others who are much more Japanese than I am. So, where does that leave me? It leaves me contemplating the first rule of writers: Write what I know.
And what I know is my own experience, as a kid growing up in Japan, and as a person of Japanese heritage living in the United States of America. What I know is a lot about Japan but not everything by a long shot, and what I know personally of Japan is made up of fragments of memories dating back to the early 1960s, and of two trips to Japan in the 1990s. What I know is how much I'd love to go back to Japan at any opportunity, to get to know it better.
What do I know about being Japanese American? I am one, yet because of my family history, I don't share the one historical fact that looms over so many Japanese Americans, even generations removed from the event: Internment. I'm a student of Japanese American culture and history as much as I'm a student of Japanese culture and history. I know about Internment but not from an emotional level. My parents and grandparents weren't scarred by the experience, although they lived through their own unique wartime experiences in Japan. Still, as a Japanese American I look at the world through a filter of American values and experiences, which have been enriched by my Japanese heritage - and, in my case, my few years spent living in Japan. Hopefully, my columns will remain true to what knowledge I have, and reflect my earnest hope to learn more about who I am, and what it means to be both Japanese and American.
When it comes to my level of "Japaneseness," I probably fit in about 6.0 on a scale of 1 to 10. And I'm OK with that.