My husband and me in Kyoto (Jan. 1988)

On Being Mistaken for the Other Japanese-American Writer in Town: Not the Rant You’re Expecting

by with 13 Comments IdentityJapanTeachingWriting
The other day I ran into an acquaintance in town. We don’t know each other well and hadn’t seen each other in several months, so I reminded her of my name. “Yes, of course!” she said. “Didn’t your book just come out?” I laughed. “No, not yet.” And then it clicked. “You’re thinking of Brenda Nakamoto,” I said. “Oh, you’re right!” she said. We both laughed, then shared a few pleasantries before going our separate ways. I know people who would have been offended by this encounter. There goes another white person thinking all Asians look alike and are interchangeable, etc. ...

On Pride, Identity, and Watching the Women’s World Cup

by with 3 Comments FeminismIdentityJapanSports
My friends are often surprised to learn that I love watching sports on television. I can’t blame them. I’m pretty aggressively nonathletic. My idea of exercise is biking to the Farmer’s Market. My notion of a competitive good time is kicking your butt in Scrabble. But I do love watching sports, and not just the conventionally “girly” stuff like figure skating and gymnastics, although I enjoy those too. I love the World Series. I love the Olympics, winter and summer. I love the World Cup. This summer I’ve squandered hours of what was supposed to be prime a.m. writing time watching the FIFA Women’s World Cup with my family. ...

Zigzagging My Way Through Life

by with 14 Comments Uncategorized
This weekend I was astonished to learn that I’ve been operating my entire life under a fundamental misunderstanding of a very basic mathematical concept. Here’s what happened: My family and I are biking to the Davis Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning when my younger son (age 12) objects to our route. Rather than going due east on our street and then taking a right turn to head due south to our destination, I’m taking us on a series of rights and lefts—zigzagging, in other words. “This takes longer than just going straight out and making one turn,” he says. “I don’t know that it’s any faster,” I concede, “but it’s certainly shorter.” “What?” he says. “No, mom. It’s the same distance.” ...
David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

Orientalism Alive and Well: David Mitchell’s “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet”

by with 36 Comments Book ReviewCannibalismJapanReading
David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de ZoetI couldn't wait to read The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. The novel is about nearly everything I enjoy reading and writing about: Japan. The late 18th century. The early 19th century. Sailing ships. Encounters between East and West. It even includes a few references to my own pet subject, the La Pérouse expedition. Well, now I’ve read it, and I’m so sorry to say this because it makes me look like the girl at the party who sits in the corner and scowls at all the people having fun, but I have some serious gripes with this book. ...
Great Kanto Earthquake

Family Lore and the Great Kanto Earthquake

by with 24 Comments DisasterGeneralJapan
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="308"]Great Kanto Earthquake Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake[/caption] A version of the short essay that follows was originally published at my friend Marc Brush's wonderful but now defunct online lit mag Wandering Army. I have some mixed feelings about reviving the piece barely a month after the devastating March 11 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. But I keep seeing references to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, and only a few of these references make mention of the story that I'm going to tell here. ...

Spring Rain

by with One Comment GardeningGeneralRainWriting
[caption id="attachment_477" align="alignleft" width="300"] lime green raincoat[/caption] It’s another stormy morning in northern California. A friend calls at 8:30. Weather is the only thing we’re ever at odds about. She loves the Central Valley’s hot, dry summers. I do not. I like the rainy season, the rainier the better. “Reality check,” she says. “Do you still prefer this to a week of 100-degree weather?” “Oh, yes,” I say. I tell her about our sunroom, which has been leaking for two years. “But other than that, I love it.” “I just don’t get it,” she says, but she still loves me. That’s true friendship, right there. ...
minato-after-tohoku-earthquake

Consuming Disaster

by with 5 Comments DisasterGeneral
[caption id="attachment_4422" align="alignleft" width="400"]minato-after-tohoku-earthquake Aerial view of Minato after earthquake & tsunami. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ethan Johnson.[/caption] Since the Sendai earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, many of us have been riveted to our televisions or computer screens, watching in horror as the death toll mounts, the nuclear threat refuses to subside, and more and more images and video of the tsunami and its aftermath are broadcast around the world. It's horrible to see, but I find it impossible to look away. I first learned about the earthquake minutes after it occurred, from a friend on Facebook, and stayed up half the night watching the live coverage on TV. Since then I've spent an inordinate amount of time online, checking for anything new -- photos, video, updates about the power plant in Fukushima, stories about miraculous rescues (few) and heartbreak (many). I'm really having to force myself to pay attention to my "real" life. ...

Hibernation

by with 7 Comments GeneralWriting
[caption id="attachment_374" align="aligncenter" width="300"] reorganized shelves[/caption] Two weekends ago, my spouse and I went to a dinner party in Berkeley. When we got there, I realized I hadn’t been out of Davis since the last time we’d been at the same friends’ house for their annual holiday party in mid-December. Two months I’d spent never leaving Davis, California. What was wrong with me? I’ve lived in cities where one might spend months at a stretch without leaving its borders and never run out of interesting things to do. Tokyo. San Francisco. Davis is not one of these places, although for a town of its size, it does surprisingly well. But I wasn’t sampling the delights of my current hometown. I spent nearly every minute of those two months at home. I spent nearly every minute of those two months indoors. This is northern California. The weather’s mild. One doesn’t have to be house-bound through January and February. So what was I doing? ...

What We Read in 2010

by with One Comment Reading
In 2010, for the first time in my life, I kept a list of all the books I read during the year. My husband Dan did too. We kept our lists in a small blank book we called "The Book of Books." Today I sat down to type up our lists, and I was struck by a few things: First, no wonder our house and garden are such a mess. Clearly we spend all of our spare time reading. Second, I'm impressed by the length and diversity of my husband's reading list, especially as he's a more-than-full-time working stiff. I'm especially impressed by how much contemporary fiction he reads. More than I do. A lot more. Honestly, if it weren't for my book club, I wouldn't have read much contemporary fiction at all this year. Finally, I started reading poetry collections for the first time this year, and I wish I'd started earlier -- like 20 years earlier. I'll never live long enough now to have read enough poetry. Our lists, in the order completed (ss=short stories; nf=non-fiction; p=poetry; g=graphic novel; unmarked=novels or plays). I could not resist the impulse to annotate a bit: ...
pushcart-2011

My Pushcart nominations

by with 3 Comments PublishingReadingWriting
pushcart-2011This morning I walked to the mailbox and posted my Pushcart Prize nominations. This is the best thing about being a past Pushcart winner. Well, maybe the second-best thing. The best thing, for me, is appearing right above William Carlos Williams in the index at the back of each Pushcart volume since I made my lucky appearance in the anthology a few years ago. One of these days an Oscar or Samantha Williams is going to come between me and William Carlos, and I'm going to be very sad for a few minutes. But for as long as I or the Pushcart lasts, I get to be a contributing editor. I love everything about this, starting with the amazing fact that I am invited to send in nominations right along with seasoned editors and famous authors. I love reading something wonderful in a lit journal and feeling like I can do something about it, something more than just posting about it on Facebook. I love nominating poems and essays as well as my genre, short stories. And I love having to mail in the list—an old-fashioned letter, addressed to a real person (Bill Henderson, the man who's kept this going for 35 years), folded into a real envelope, and affixed with a real stamp. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't manage to bring some stress to this delightful activity. For most of the year, I read very happily, noting any writing that amazes me on a "Pushcart nominations" list I keep on my desktop. But as the December 15 deadline draws closer, I grow anxious. At least half a dozen journals are piled up on my coffee table unfinished or even unopened. What wonderful pieces are going to lose out on getting nominated because I didn't spend more time reading? Not that I really need more entries on my nominations list: I already have more than the ten I'm allowed. Who will I cut from the list? ...