Sara Backer's Blog, page 14

Norton Island Residency

I am so honored--and lucky--to have been awarded a Norton Island Residency this coming July! Norton Island is a 150-acre wilderness preserve north of Bar Harbor, Maine. What a beautiful place and opportunity to focus only on my novel in progress.

Welcome, AAUW Book Club!

Please feel free to use this post to comment on our chat and ask any questions. Thank you for choosing American Fuji for your April selection.

Tsuki o miru

That's Japanese for "looking at the moon" and a five-syllable start of many a haiku. I watched last night's supermoon and saw in the craters the image of a rabbit pounding rice with a traditional Japanese mortar that looks a lot like an American butter churn. While Westerners struggle to see the face of a man in the moon, for thousands of years, Japanese have seen the mochi-making rabbit. Once you see the rabbit, you can't go back to seeing the man. I hope--in this year of the rabbit--last night's image on the moon brought some measure of comfort to everyone in Japan.

Blog Lapse & Diversion

My lapse of blogging since the year began is due to a pernicious eye inflammation that limits my computer and reading time. While I don't expect to post on my former twice a week schedule for awhile, I did want to let my loyal readers know where they can read a story of mine online.

Perhaps this mother/daughter story set in the California desert will be a welcome distraction from our concern about Japan.
Creosote Women by Sara Backer

March Earthquake

I am so worried about Japan. I remember middle-of-the-night earthquake drills when I lived in Shizuoka. I would hear loud, garbled Japanese over loudspeakers, and hear my neighbors move around and leave their apartments. I had no idea what to do, so just got dressed and stayed in my apartment hoping for the best. I also visited northern Japan, so when I watch the news, I am seeing places I have walked. I was in Sendai for the Tanabata festival, walking block after block of streets below beautiful hand-made circular banners . . .

And now, the Fukushima power plants have exploded. I barely know what this will mean for Japan and the world.

The Japanese would say shikata-ga nai (it can't be helped). All I can do is go on living my life while my thoughts keep straying to my friends in peril and the country I came to regard as my second home.

The First Dream of 2011

The first dream of the new year--which you would have on new year's eve--is called hatsuyume in Japan and is thought to predict how things will go for you in the coming year. The three luckiest dreams to have are about (1) Mt. Fuji, (2) a hawk, and (3) eggplant. I've never dreamed about any of these on new year's eve, but maybe this year I will be lucky. Here's wishing good health and lots of fun to everyone in 2011!

Day One

American Fuji on listed for sale on Google's eBookstore which opened today.

Honorable Hand Washing

O-tearai is the Japanese word for toilet. A fellow gaijin much like Lester Hollingsworth in American Fuji informed me that it derived from the English word "toilet" with the honorific prefix O to add respect. I didn't think he was right because English words are written in katakana, the syllabic alphabet invented for foreign words. Also, every culture has toilets! They would not need to borrow a word from another language for that.

I followed the Japanese syllabic meaning, instead. Te means hand (think of karate "from hand") and arai means to wash. So, really, it's not Honorable Toilet, but Honorable Hand Washing. This makes more sense, as water clean enough to wash hands is something to honor.

The floating lint collector I placed in my old-fashioned washing machine showed a picture of a blue raccoon. The brand name was araiguma. Kuma means bear, so raccoon translates into "washing bear" due to its habit of washing the food it eats.

Happy Equinox!

The equinoxes are national holidays in Asia, including Japan. Wouldn't it be nice if we had a holiday in honor of the changing seasons, or anything related to the planet we inhabit? (Sure, we have Earth Day, but it's not a day off from work.)

Vespa Mandarina Japonica

I first saw this two-inch long hornet on the front balcony of my apartment in Shizuoka. It was flying at me head on, and I went right back inside and shut the door. I couldn't stay inside forever, though, so I learned to negotiate territory with this terrifying insect. I wasted a lot of time failing to get a photograph of this guy. (My thanks to the Korean animal pictures archive and uncredited photographer.) When I wrote American Fuji, I believed it was a bee and didn't have easy internet...