On Being Mistaken for the Other Japanese-American Writer in Town: Not the Rant You’re Expecting
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 t ...
On Pride, Identity, and Watching the Women’s World Cup
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 ...
Zigzagging My Way Through Life
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 morni ...
Orientalism Alive and Well: David Mitchell’s “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet”
I 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 ...
Family Lore and the Great Kanto Earthquake
Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake 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 ...
Spring Rain
lime green raincoat 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 bet ...
Consuming Disaster
Aerial view of Minato after earthquake & tsunami. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Ethan Johnson. Since the Sendai earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, many of us have been riveted to our televisions or computer screens, watching ...
Hibernation
reorganized shelves 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. ...
What We Read in 2010
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 ...
My Pushcart nominations
This 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 ...