Rebecca Copeland's Blog, page 7

Writing Across Cultures: A Review of Karen Hill Anton’s A Thousand Graces

Award-winning author Karen Hill Anton is an extraordinary person. Originally from New York City, she moved to the countryside of Shizuoka, Japan in the mid-1970s with her husband William, also a New Yorker. They have lived there ever since, raising four lovely children, who have themselves gone on to light up the world.

I first became familiar with Karen’s work in the mid-1980s when I lived in Tokyo. She wrote a popular column for the Japan Times called “Crossing Cultures,” which I read at every opportunity. In her column she covered the expected topics of cross-cultural difference in unexpected ways, laced with humor and self-reflection. She also wrote in celebration of Japanese rural life, dispelling stereotypes and acknowledging the strength, warmth, and ingenuity of the women she encountered there.

Recently Karen has been publishing in other formats, and the results have been stunning. Her memoir, The View from Breast Pocket Mountain, chronicling her journey from New York to Shizuoka, has won multiple awards, among them the Grand Prize of the 2022 Memoir Prize for Books, the 2021 B.R.A.G Medallion, and the 2020 SPR Book Awards Gold Prize. I have yet to read her memoir, and I look forward to doing so.

More recently Karen published her first novel, A Thousand Graces, which I read and review below.

In an interview with SWET (Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators), Karen notes that she started writing this novel in the 1990s but lost interest and stowed the unfinished draft away. Coming upon it years later, she was drawn into the story and to the characters she had created. She wanted to let them grow and felt badly for “abandoning” them.

Encouraged by other writers, such as playwright and translator Roger Pulvers, she finished her novel.

I am so glad she did!

Please see my full review below, originally published by Writers in Kyoto.

 

Karen Hill Anton’s Moving Portrait of Love and Loss in 1970s Japan There were exactly eleven houses on this road that had no name. Everyone called it Uchida Road because most of the people who lived there bore the name Uchida. There was a connection, an invisible chain that linked the houses because they were shinseki, relatives. The link began long ago and was forever complicated by marriage, birth, and death, and in one case, adoption. Now, in 1969, it had all become vague, but still there was connection.

 

So begins Karen Hill Anton’s elegantly subdued debut novel, A Thousand Graces, a story th

at charts the lives of a diverse cast of characters held in place by expectations and rules that are so commonplace they have no name.

On the brink of immense social change in 1970s Japan, this is a story of entanglement, of the invisible bonds tying the characters inextricably to the past, to family, to class division and gender disparity, to unspoken dreams and thwarted desires. Although set in a fictional tea-producing enclave somewhere on the island of Honshu, Japan, the story is one that strikes a universal chord. It will resonate with any group of people facing a sea change in social order who remain unaware of what awaits. They only sense the presence of something more, something beyond their ken.

Chie, whose name means “a thousand graces,” is at the heart of this novel. Mrs. Uchida, Chie’s mother, had wanted to name her daughter Yuri, or Lily, after her favorite flower. But Chie’s grandfather asserted his privilege to bestow her name, and “a thousand graces” she became.

This slight anecdote, presented early in the novel, encapsulates so much of the tension that the story navigates: the rights of the patriarch, the importance of legacy, the grip of tradition, the usurpation of the female voice, and the bitter irony that a girl whose name suggests limitless blessings encounters nothing but limits.

In her late teens when the novel starts, we follow Chie as she leaves her close-knit farming community to attend a junior college in the fictional town of Takaizu, itself hardly a bustling metropolis. Strikingly beautiful, yet unassuming and quiet, Chie is a young woman with places to go. Her mother has encouraged Chie’s studies, refusing to allow her to work in the family tea fields, determined that with her two-year degree and fair skin, Chie will be able to marry above her class.

Chie is a fierce reader and eager to learn but momentarily disconcerted when she meets her new college professor, the charismatic and darkly handsome New Yorker Carl Rosen. Eager to escape the emptiness of a broken marriage and start anew, Carl has relocated to this small city on the edge of the tea fields. Here he teaches courses devoted to women writers like Eudora Welty, Toni Morrison, and Doris Lessing and expects his students to write papers in English about their feelings and articulate their opinions, a task Chie struggles to meet. Resolved to broaden the horizons of his female students, Carl wants the sheltered women in his classes to aspire to something more than marriage. And, Chie does.

Carl is sponsored at the college by Toshinaga Sakai, professor of Japanese literature and program director. Toshi, as Carl calls his friend, has lived in the United States and prides himself on being open-minded and far more of a supportive family man than his own father had ever been. For example, he indulges his wife, Yoshiko, in her interests, encouraging her to pursue tastes as varied as cha-no-yu and jazz, the latter indulgence she enjoys with Carl.

Here we have the essential cast of characters, four intelligent individuals, thoughtful and sensitive, but frequently painfully blind to the larger implications of their actions. It is these implications, then, that form the forward momentum of the novel. In ways unbeknownst to them, their lives become intimately, and in some cases, tragically entwined. Although as readers we are able to anticipate the direction of the narrative, Anton is such a skilled storyteller, that our anticipation never gets in the way. In other words, we know what will happen because it has to. But we want to read how it will happen for the sheer delight of savoring Anton’s luminously poetic prose.

A Thousand Graces is set during the early half of the decade of the 1970s, a tumultuous time the world over but particularly, in Japan. The 1970s saw dramatic economic growth in Japan alongside staggering oil shocks, political scandals, deadly protests, terrorist plots, a literary suicide, and the “return” of Okinawa, but of all of these, the event with the most lasting repercussions—and certainly most significance to this story—is the women’s movement.

Nurtured on postwar political gains (such as the right to vote), greater access to higher education, and the proliferation of time-saving household appliances (the “three sacred treasures” of a washing machine, refrigerator, and television), women began to aspire to life trajectories that exceeded the role of housewife.

First Japanese Women elected to House of Representatives, 1946. Wikimedia Commons.

Second-wave feminism emerged in Japan in the 1960s and was fully entrenched by the 1970s with magazine debates on female sexuality, lectures on equality in the labor force, and the rise of vocal women writers.

At least academically speaking.

It would take more time for these attitudes to filter into the everyday lives of ordinary people, people like Chie and Yoshiko and the men who encircle them. Both of these female characters are deeply unhappy within the limited frames of their lives. They want more but either they do not know what they want and how to get it, or they are too afraid of the explosive reactions should they act on their desires. Fundamentally, neither Chie nor Yoshiko has role models other than their own mothers or the chimeras they find in films, books, and music. They do not know how to want what they want.

The tragedy at the heart of A Thousand Graces is that the men who love these women, who feel responsible for them, and who believe they are protecting them, are the ones who ruin whatever chance at happiness the women (and even they themselves) may have had. The men, for all their ostensible sensitivities, are too devoted to their own happiness, their own reputations to recognize the damage they have wrought, particularly so for Chie. A truly gifted young woman, she nevertheless lacks the experience or the vocabulary (in either Japanese or English) to advocate on her own behalf. The men positioned as her guardians and mentors—her father, her teacher, her advisor—fail her at every turn.

Likewise, the women in her life remand her to the path of the past.

A Thousand Graces is a tragic story but the heartbreak is mitigated by the sheer beauty of Karen Hill Anton’s prose. Hers is not a showy style over encumbered by long expositions on “Japanese traditions” and such. Rather with a light and shimmering touch, she paints a compelling portrait of life in 1970s Japan, of the countryside, the family gatherings, the twin longings for past and future, and the seasonal beauty of the moment. Hers is a magical world of a distant time in an imagined place that will linger with the reader long after the last page.

The post Writing Across Cultures: A Review of Karen Hill Anton’s A Thousand Graces appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

To Weave a Perfect Day: From Brocade Gardens to Spools of Thread

Sometimes it’s the unexpected detours that provide the greatest pleasure.

Last week, I spent the afternoon with PhD student, Ran Wei who has been spending the year in Osaka on a Japan Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. We had planned to meet at Kyoto’s Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, tour the garden, and then enjoy a long and luxurious meal discussing her dissertation on Japanese prose fiction set in the city of Osaka.

I checked on the garden schedule, she searched for good restaurants in the Kitano Tenmangu area and made a reservation. We arranged to meet at the shrine entrance at 10:30, walk around the garden, and then head to the restaurant by 1:00.

Kitano Tenmangu Shrine June 23, 2023. Credit: Ran Wei

Ran and I met right on schedule and enjoyed working our way through the shrine to the garden. We stopped to rub the noses of the bronze oxen statues and to pay our respects to Tenjin-sama, the God of Learning, his spirit resting augustly in the shrine depths. We both were looking for some divine intervention, Ran for her dissertation, me for my second novel.

This is the season to celebrate the summer maple leaves, ao momiji. We purchased our tickets and entered the garden expectantly.

With every turn we walked deeper and deeper into a tunnel of green—of many greens: emerald, cyan, fern, moss, malachite, hunter, and Kelly. The maple leaves, glistening with the morning dew, were splendid, but they were not alone in their lush glory. Standing in small clumps here and there, tall stalks of bamboo rivaled the maples for attention, the newest shoots were a rich Persian green, nearly teal. A vermillion bridge and ornamental balustrade stood in stark contrast to the greens making both colors all the more vibrant. The graveled pathways were surprisingly unkempt, with vines and brambles stretching out to snatch at passersby, who were few—a small blessing in the normally crowded Kyoto. We agreed that the tangled atmosphere of the garden only enhanced its charm.

Vermillion Balustrade and Green. Credit: Rebecca Copeland

After we had bathed in the eddies of green for what felt an extraordinary amount of time, we emerged to discover we still had nearly two hours before our lunch reservations.

We decided to stroll to my lodgings in the middle of the Nishijin area, famous for its production of exquisite brocades. Occasionally when I walk through the streets on this or that errand, I’ll hear the sounds of weaving, the click, clack of the looms, the soft thud of the shuttle.

“What’s this?” Ran asked, pointing to a sign on an old machiya row house we were passing. It read in English:

Soushitsuzure-en
Textile Studio

Studio Sign. Credit: Rebecca Copeland

Off to the side another sign announced “kengaku,” which means “observation” but literally reads “look and learn.”

“Let’s try?” Ran suggested.

We followed a long, covered walkway that opened into a sunny courtyard. We were not sure what to expect. We noticed another “kengaku” sign and followed it to what looked like the door to the studio.

We rang the bell and within minutes a young woman opened the door. When we asked if we might kengaku, she pulled two pairs of slippers from the shelf to her left and placed them on the floor before us.

We stepped out of our shoes and entered a very cluttered space full of seven or more looms, walls of thread, and lots of papers with illustrations stacked upon almost every flat surface.

“Irrasshai.”

A thin bespectacled elderly man with kind eyes, emerged from one of the looms to greet us. The young woman disappeared. The man introduced himself as Mr. Hirano.

For the next hour Mr. Hirano told us about the weaving process. He showed us a short video narrated in English that explained each step. Mr. Hirano stopped the video regularly to explain the processes himself, in Japanese, elaborating, and allowing us to ask questions.

We watched the way the weaver prepares the loom, first selecting the thread, twisting two different colors of threads together to make elaborate hues, spinning the thread onto spools, different spools for different colors. It can take weeks just to load the thread, depending on the pattern to be woven.

Mr. Hirano, we learned, was born into a weaving family.

“I’ve been weaving for 70 years,” he told us.

Later, we learned he was 78, we imagined him as an eight-year-old boy twisting threads onto spools.

“It takes at least 40 years before you’re really a full-fledged weaver.”

Ran turned to me and quipped with a smile, “I guess writing a dissertation isn’t as bad as I thought!”

When the video ended, Mr. Hirano spread a beautiful museum brochure before us and pointed to the photograph of an elegant Buddhist figure. We thought it was a painting until he revealed it was Nishijin brocade. He had led a team of six weavers, all over the age of 50 in the project. It took them over three years to complete the weaving which unfurled at over three by six feet. The piece is now in a museum in Shiga Prefecture.

“We keep these covered, you know,” Mr. Hirano explained as he led us to a wall of spooled and bundled threads. He turned on the overhead light, allowing us to appreciate the amazing array of hues.

“Excessive light can fade the dyes.”

Next, Mr. Hirano showed us the piece he was currently working on and the way the weaving is done “backwards,” that is to say, the front of the piece is face down as the weaver works the loom. They need to carry a mirror to check the underside of the loom.

Tall but limber, Ran crouched down under the loom to photograph the underside, then held her camera out for me to see.

So much of the craft is done by instinct and inspiration.

“Tsuzure-ori,” he explained, “is the oldest of the Nishijin weaves. Weavers use their bodies in harmony with the loom—their feet to move the heddle, their hands to set the loom and pull the shuttle, and especially their fingernails to slide the threads tightly in place. Nowadays so much of this weaving is done by machine, so this studio was founded to help preserve the old techniques.”

In addition to the young woman who greeted us at the door—who retired to a corner of the studio to work on a computer, perhaps keeping the accounts—there was only one other person in the studio, a woman working quietly at her loom in the other corner.

“We cater to local artists and to people who weave as a hobby.”

Aside from the large museum piece, most of the other items Mr. Hirano showed us were small.

“Hardly anyone orders obi sashes and kimono anymore,” Mr. Hirano explained. These had been the mainstay of the Nishijin industry. A few businesses still produce the sumptuous robes used on the Noh stage, but smaller operations like Mr. Hirano’s have had to become more industrious to stay in business.

Not that Mr. Hirano was much in business anymore. His interests now were mainly in preserving the art form.

For a small fee, visitors could make their own accessory: a lampshade, a coaster, or a small item like a keyring.

We decided not to. Our restaurant awaited us.

But we did purchase a small piece of jewelry each, to commemorate our visit, and took a few photos with Mr. Hirano.

Mr. Hirano, Rebecca Copeland, Ran Wei

We thanked Mr. Hirano, slipped into our shoes, and off we went to our lunch reservations.

Over a delicious meal of seasonal vegetables and fish we reflected on what we had learned—Mr. Hirano’s patience, his focus and diligence. Good lessons for both of us as we face down our various writing projects.

Author and Ran Wei enjoying lunch at Sakurai-ya, June 23, 2023. 

Our impromptu kengaku was the high point of our very wonderful Kitano Tenmangu adventure. Tenjin-sama clearly heard our prayers.

The post To Weave a Perfect Day: From Brocade Gardens to Spools of Thread appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

Being Lost and Found in Kyoto

Getting lost is one method of finding your way.

The outcome is usually positive, but the process is not always pleasant.

Case in point:

I got lost on my first run this summer in Kyoto. Badly lost. So lost I don’t even know how I got so lost. But there I was on Horikawa-dori with no idea how to get back to where I started.

The run began in an orderly way. I left my lodgings by Rokken-machi around 6 am and headed towards the sprawling shrine complex of Kitano Tenmangu, then over to the smaller Hirano

Shrine, and up a narrow road parallel to the broad Nishi-oji Boulevard

I had walked the route the morning before.Searching for a good running path that morning, I went out for about a mile and turned back when I came to a T-intersection. Somewhere along the way I took a different road on my return and ended up walking through Kamishichiken, the oldest of the five remaining geisha districts in Kyoto. It’s also the most subdued and strolling along the narrow streets in the morning quiet was a mistake I was glad I’d made.

I thought about repeating that mistake on my way back this time as well. But I never got the chance.

I ran as far as the T-intersection where I had turned back on my morning walk the day before.

I felt strong. If I went further, I could increase my mileage. To my left I saw the road leading to Kinkakuji, the iconic “golden” temple.

I headed up the hill in that direction. It’s rare to see the road so free of tourists. I was the only one there—huffing and puffing in the humid air—except for a pair of elderly men chatting at the crest of the hill. We exchanged greetings as I crossed the road at the light and turned to head back.

And now it was all downhill.

What a great run this was!

It had been a while since I’d felt so energetic. Finally, the jetlag was over! While in Tokyo I had gone out for a few runs. But I’d have to walk every 1000 steps or so while I regained my stamina. Here I felt I could run forever.

I passed the Sarasa Café.

Wait a minute. The café was not on my route. I would have noticed it before. The Sarasa is in an old bathhouse repurposed in 2000 as a restaurant and studio. The interior still retains the old bath tiles. I visited the café in 2019 and have already worked it into my next Ruth novel.

The Sarasa Café Credit: Author’s photograph

Okay, so I’ve taken a bit of a detour, but I’m running parallel to the street I want to be on. Let’s keep going and I’ll correct when I get to the bottom of the hill.

(Clearly, I did not want to backtrack. Never backtrack. Besides, backtracking meant going uphill.)

I saw a broad avenue ahead of me.

That must be Imadegawa, the busy street that runs past Kitano Tenmangu. I’ll take a left there and I’ll be back on course.

Wrong.

I took a left and ran a block. Kitano Tenmangu should have been there. It was not.

Maybe a little further? Maybe the other way? Where are the street signs!

There are never any street signs when you need them here.

Horikawa-dori.

Horikawa? What am I doing here? The bus I took yesterday traversed Horikawa. I know it’s a major thoroughfare in Kyoto, but where is it in relation to my bus stop—Senbon-Imadegawa?

I tried to construct a map in my head. Kyoto is relatively grid-like and arrayed with avenues running east-west and north-south. I know the eastern side of the map quite well and would have trouble getting lost there. But this area is different. Nothing was familiar.

I scanned the bus stops as I jogged past them, looking for a familiar number or destination.

I started walking, trying to pay attention.

There were signs to places I knew, Imamiya Shrine, for example. I had stopped by there in 2019, too. But I couldn’t say where it was on a map—except that is was not where I wanted to be.

Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t know.

I felt like I was walking through the surrealist short story “Rain at Rokudo Crossroads,” by Saegusa Kazuko (1929-2003). In the story a man in Kyoto is heading home on a rainy night when suddenly a woman joins him under his umbrella. They walk along together, and he loses all sense of time and place:

Flustered, the man tried to remember the route he’d taken since he first encountered the woman. He had been on his way home when it had started raining. His house was at Karasuma Kuramaguchi. Now he was altogether in the wrong place. Furthermore, the distance between his house and where he was now could not be covered on foot. He remembered making a U-turn away from his house, and since then everything had grown strange. The rain must have altered the appearance of the town. There was no other explanation. But no matter how long he walked, he had the sensation that an endless black concrete wall loomed up on both sides of the street (trans. Yukiko Tanaka).

In the story, the map of Kyoto that the man carries in his mind has warped and grown oddly unfamiliar. Recognizable places appear in unrecognizable areas. The man enters a wormhole of sorts and journeys into a tangle of repressed memories until finally he is released at dawn.

Would I have to wait until the dawn to find my bearings?

Sure, I wasn’t trapped in an M.C. Escher-like story world, but even so here I was on Horikawa-dori with no phone and no money, walking and walking and having no luck finding a familiar landmark.

It was hopeless.

I started to look for someone who could help me find my way.

It was early, not yet 7:00 am. There weren’t many people out. And those who were out were not very approachable. There was a man in leather getting on his motorbike, a group of high school girls running, an old man who seemed hungover. And then I saw a couple, a man about my age with a young woman. I approached them and asked if they might point me in the direction of Kitano Tenmangu.

The man looked stunned.

“It’s pretty far from here.”

“That’s okay, I have already walked from the shrine and have lost my bearings. I need to get back.”

He pulled out his phone and opened a map.

“Or Senbon-Imadegawa would be fine, too.” I gave the name of the bus stop nearest my lodgings.
He showed me his phone, pointing to where we were on the miniscule map and then gestured in the direction I needed to go. His phone screen was small it was difficult to see. But at least the direction he pointed to was clear enough.

He didn’t think so, though.

He and the woman went out of their way to walk me up the hill to a relatively wide avenue.

“Take this road all the way to the top of that hill. It’s going to bend to the left. Follow the road. Eventually, you’ll get to Imadegawa and then you go right to Kitano Tenmangu.”

It was as if he’d pointed me to the Holy Land. I was elated.

I thanked him and went on my way. Soon, I discovered that the wide road I was on was Senbon-dori.

Perfect.

I knew where I was. Or, I knew how to get to where I would know where I was.

And soon I was home.

Earlier I had thought I’d go a block further to increase my morning run to 5000 steps. I ended up adding an additional 10,000. But now I knew the way back.

The post Being Lost and Found in Kyoto appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

Jet Lag and Time Travel

One of the worst aspects of international travel is jet lag and where it leads—the upending of schedules, the loss of moorings, the sense of walking under water. Some people are able to transition seamlessly from one time zone to another. I get discombobulated just falling back into Daylight Savings Time. I don’t know how politicians and diplomats are able to do it, and on a regular basis. I suppose if I HAD to attend a world-changing meeting the minute my airplane hit the tarmac I could. But I’m too attached to my sleep to even dream of it.

I used to fight jet lag. I’d try to force myself to stay awake when my body was screaming for sleep. Alternatively, I’d will myself to stay in bed in the wee hours of the night, even though I was wide awake—and starving! At some point in my travels, perhaps in my forties, I just gave into my body’s demands. If I was sleepy, I crawled into bed, no matter that it was still daylight. If I awoke at 2:00 am, I got up and busied myself wherever I was—reading, straightening, writing. If I were hungry in the middle of the night, I’d rummage in the cabinets or my suitcase for something to eat.

Once I stopped trying to control jet lag, I actually began to enjoy it.

The filmy uncertainty of drifting between worlds can be magical. It offers about the only opportunity I will ever have (I assume) to be in two places at once. While my physical body is certainly in Tokyo, my experiential body floats somewhere else, meandering through the clouds over the Pacific Ocean in no hurry to reunite with my physical self. I fall asleep in Tokyo, but at some point I slip back to St. Louis and I’m there in my house on Trinity Avenue awaiting the morning birds, imagining the green of my garden, planning my day. Until, that is, consciousness overtakes me, and I open my eyes to the darkness of a Tokyo night and the sounds of traffic below my window.

I don’t just travel geographically in my discombobulated state, I also travel temporally. That’s the magic of jet lag. It opens portals in your memory where you drift into moments you have already lived. I think jet lag loosens the tethers on your consciousness and allows free falling.

I remember the first time I encountered jet lag.

I was seven, and my family had just traveled to Benares, India. We had flown from our home in Wake Forest, NC, to England, then to Germany, eventually to Israel, and finally to India. By the time we made it to India, my experiential body was still hovering somewhere over the Dead Sea. I was too little to understand why I was in such a topsy-turvy world. It did not help that the first thing I saw, as we rode by car from our temporary guesthouse to our permanent residence, was men on bicycles wearing what appeared to be white pajamas. So, I thought, people in India go about their day in pajamas. How wonderful. I was ready to put mine on as soon as we reached our house, but Mother would not allow it.

We arrived before our furniture. There was nothing in the wide-flung bungalow, with its thick clay walls, but a few rattan chairs. I grabbed a rubbery blow-up pillow, found myself a place on the floor, and sprawled out, enjoying the cool of the cement tile against my hot skin. My eyes grew heavy.

“Don’t let her sleep,” Mother told my sister, Beth.

Apparently, I had kept everyone awake the night before—desperate to entice someone to play with me. I was wide-awake. Mother thought if she could keep me active during the day, I’d sleep at night.

Beth pulled out her copy of Jane Eyre and began to read aloud. I don’t think she started at the beginning. I think she had been reading it on the trip and just picked up where she left off. None of it made sense to me, the words were English but not English. As I listened, only some of it seeped into my sleep-fogged brain.

Red room, red room.

Crimson carpet, scarlet cloth.

My eyes grew heavy.

A bed with massive pillars of mahogany.

Curtains of deep red damask.

Must stay awake. Must not sleep.

Piled-up mattresses and white pillows.

Red room, red room.

My eyes closed and I sunk into velvety soft bedding. All was red.

“Becky, don’t sleep!” Beth said.

I held my eyes open with my fingers.

Moonlight and gravesides

Cold stone walls.

The story made me shiver. The chill bumps on my skin felt good, like the cold cement floors. I heard just beyond my sister’s voice the whoosh, whoosh of the overhead fan moving the sluggish air. A thick red velvet curtain slowly descended over my face, submerging me in a pool of crimson sleep. I dove in deeper, unable to surface even when I heard Beth call my name, even when she snapped the book shut and nudged my shoulder. I found myself swimming through a tunnel of red into a slumber so thick I was unable to surface.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

I hear the click, click, click of a blinker. A motorcycle roars beneath my window and screeches to a halt. Click, click, click. And then the engine starts up again. Probably a newspaper delivery. The room is dark. I am lying on a hard surface. Wait, there weren’t newspaper deliveries in India.

I’m in Tokyo.

I check my watch. It’s 1:49 in the morning. June 1, 2023.

I sit up. My head swims. Somewhere, lost in time, a little girl holds her eyes open listening to Jane Eyre.

The post Jet Lag and Time Travel appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

My World-Traveling Doll

I had a doll who traveled the world.

Some of her travels she did with me. Some she did on her own.

She was a brave little doll.

And, very persistent.

Twice she turned up under the tree on Christmas morning, waiting for me.

I guess “under the tree” is a bit of a mischaracterization. My parents set aside a chair for each of their five children and placed the important presents out on the chairs. Chatty Baby appeared twice on my chair. Once on December 25, 1962 when I was six and again a year later in 1963.

The first time I found her on my chair, it was a dream come true. The second time took me completely by surprise.

My best friend, Linda, had a Chatty Cathy doll. All the girls in school wanted one. Chatty Cathy was an invention by the Mattel toy company, marketed from 1959-1965, and desired by many a young girl.

Chatty Cathy was practically an instant best friend. She talked!

Well, she didn’t actually talk. If you pulled a string at the base of her neck, she emitted one of eleven pre-programmed sentences like: “I love you,” or, “take me with you.” The sentences didn’t come out her mouth, of course, which never moved, but rather rumbled up from a voice box tucked away in her chest and discreetly concealed by a pretty little frock.

Chatty Cathy was nearly two feet tall with bright blue eyes that blinked open and closed, an upswept bob of blond hair, and a saucy little nose sprinkled with freckles.

I wanted one so badly. It’s all I ever talked about. Whenever I visited Linda’s house I asked to pull her doll’s chatty ring so I could listen to what she had to say. Linda was reluctant to let me hold her, though, preferring to let Chatty Cathy sit on her knee and stare at me, while she murmured sweet nothings about cookies and walks.

When I saw Chatty Baby waiting for me on my chair Christmas morning, I was smitten. Sure, she was smaller than Chatty Cathy. After all, she was still just a baby. But, she was perfect with her pixie cut of brown hair and her bright red pinafore. She was Chatty Cathy’s little sister. A little sister just like me.

She also talked when you pulled her chatty string. Her voice rumbled up from her chest with phrases like “Cookie all gone” and “Doggie bow-wow.” Chatty Baby hadn’t gone to school yet. She still had a lot to learn. And, I was eager to show her the world. Literally, as it turned out.
In 1963, when my parents announced they were taking us to India, Chatty Baby was up for the journey. On the way to our destination, we toured the United Kingdom, Germany, Greece, and Israel. Chatty Baby was always by my side. It wasn’t until we were safely tucked into our Pan Am flight to New Delhi that I discovered Chatty Baby was not with me.

I don’t remember if I cried. I must have. I probably pitched a fit.

Whatever I did though, nothing would bring Chatty Baby back.

And then, on Christmas morning 1963, there she was on the rattan-webbed chair my parents had set aside for me. How did she find her way?

For a second I really DID believe there was a Santa Claus.

But then my mother told me my aunt and uncle in Israel had found her in their home after we had left and had packed her in a box to mail to us once we settled in India.

The passage had been hard on Chatty Baby. During the voyage her little legs broke and she lost her chatty ring. Her voice box rattled around silent inside her. Mother very cleverly wound white adhesive tape around Chatty Baby’s hips and legs, fashioning a permanent diaper that managed to lock her legs into place. From then on out, Chatty Baby was always standing at attention.

It was wonderful to have her back with me.

I used to have photographs of the two of us but I lost those in the flood of July 2022. I still have one grainy picture of my brother, Luke, and me in the rickshaw on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day 1963 in Benares, India with Luke, Munawar, and Chatty Baby. Author’s photo.

Munawar, the teenage driver our parents employed, poses in the saddle. Chatty Baby is perched on my lap. The photo is so over exposed, she is nearly a ghost.

As the years wore on, she grew more and more ghost like.

Back in the States, I soon stopped playing with dolls.

Or, at least I didn’t play with them as lovingly as I had. When I turned ten, I gave Chatty Baby a crooked haircut. By twelve, I had pierced her ears, to match my own.

When my family moved from the big ramshackle Wake Forest house to the cramped split-level one in Oak Park, Chatty Baby found her way into a box along with my teddy bear Teddy and the doll-shaped pillow my Grandmother Lessie made me.

I was interested in other things. Soon my room was festooned with candles, a dumb-cane plant, Janis Joplin albums, and the neon-colored “Endless Summer” poster.

When I left home to attend college, the box of toys traveled to the attic.

Years later Mother and Daddy decided to sell the split-level and move into a condo. By then I was married and on my way to Japan to join my husband, who had recently taken a job in Tokyo. I offered to help Mother and Daddy pack.

“Don’t you want to keep your Chatty Baby?” Mother asked, eyeing the pile of things I had set by the trash.

“No.”

“Oh, Becky, really? She traveled the world with you?”

“Mother, remember what you said, we need to be diligent in throwing things away. Your new place is small. Besides, I’m nomadic at the moment. I can’t have things following me around.”

I had become ruthless in my quest to divest myself of unnecessary belongings. I would take only what I could carry.

Mother picked Chatty Baby up and for a moment I thought she was going to rescue her. I almost wished she would.

She sighed and set her back down on the trash pile.

That’s the last I saw of Chatty Baby—her bright red pinafore faded to pink, her brown hair standing out in all directions, one eye without eyelashes permanently closed, her half-opened lips forever silent.

Later that year I happened upon the Kiyomizu Kannon-dō Temple in Ueno Park just as they were preparing a ningyō kuyō or a memorial service for unwanted dolls. Rows upon rows of dolls—some decorative, others toys—sat alongside stuffed animals just outside the temple building. Reluctant to blithely toss them into the trash, their former owners brought them to the temple after the dolls were no longer wanted. There they would be ceremonially burned, their spirits released into the atmosphere to merge with all the dreams and delights they had once inspired. As I looked out over the faces of the many dolls, I thought of Chatty Baby.

Tokyo, Ningyo kuyo, the unwanted doll memorial celebration, March 18, 1987, photo by Marie-Sophie Mejan

I wish I’d given Chatty Baby a ningyō kuyō. I wanted to thank her for all the joy she provided.
Well, Chatty Baby, wherever you are, thank you. You were a brave little doll.

 

For a beautiful discussion of Ningyō kuyō, see “The Afterlives of Dolls: On the Productive Death of Terminal Commodities,” by Fabio Gygi.

For more general discussions of Ningyō kuyō check out these sites:

https://www.itsyozine.com/posts/ningy...

And click this link for more on Mattel’s Chatty Baby

The post My World-Traveling Doll appeared first on Rebecca Copeland.

Learning to Learn How to Behave Nicely, Like a Good Tourist

What etiquette should new visitors to Japan be aware of that makes us better tourists?

The interviewer’s question was a good one. As I tried to craft my answer, I realized I’d been pushed to adapt to many different locales throughout my life, even within the U.S. I admired the interviewer’s desire to travel respectfully. For me, trying to read the social cues and behave accordingly is what is most important. It’s not always comfortable, though.

Let’s start with learning to behave in the South of my childhood.

Because my family traveled a lot when I was young, our parents constantly reminded us to mind our manners. And, not just when traveling abroad. We frequently visited relatives in West Virginia or had Sunday dinner in the homes of churchgoers in other towns and cities when we accompanied our father on his preaching trips.

Observing good Southern manners was sometimes just as mysterious as figuring out what to do in other countries. For example, never take the last piece of fried chicken, even when it’s offered. Eat everything on your plate, even if it turns your stomach. Don’t brag on yourself. Don’t push yourself forward. Always say yes ma’am, and no elbows on the table.

And that’s just for starters. There are also the unspoken codes that everyone knows but never tells you.

New York, I was to find when I moved there for graduate school, had its own unspoken codes. I tried to read the signals and behave accordingly.

Instead of smiling at everyone as I walked to the subway, I had to learn to set my face in a stony expression. Don’t meander, charge straight ahead.

Once, after I’d just arrived, and tried to register for classes at Columbia University, my boyfriend (and future husband), Dennis, caught me waiting at the end of a long line.

“What line is this?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I was told to come over here to register.”

“So you’re just standing in line and you have no idea?”

“I’ll find out when I get to the front,” I pleaded with him with my eyes not to make a scene. I didn’t mind waiting on line forever, if it meant I could go unnoticed. (And I’d already discovered that you stand “on” line and not “in” line. I was learning.)

Here I had just arrived. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Not anymore than I already had. I felt so self-conscious, as if my “Southern-ness” was obvious for all to see. When I looked around me, no one else was talking to anyone or even looking at anyone. These people were the true masters of the stony expression, and I was taking notes.

But, Dennis would have none of it. He asked the person in front of us who shrugged and said it was for finances or something. Then he walked boldly to the window at the head of the line, stepping right in front of the person who was standing there, and leaned in to ask a question. I bet he didn’t use any “I’m so sorry to trouble you” type lines either. He just butted right in!

He returned to me rolling his eyes and pulled me over to another window.

“This is the line you want.”

Dennis was from Pennsylvania. He had relatives in Brooklyn. He spoke New York.

I had to learn to push myself forward, to speak out of turn, to brag, and to ask for what hadn’t been offered. I needed a whole new set of rules.

And New York wasn’t the end of my adaptive mode. Pennsylvania had its own rules.

Specifically, I also had to learn to kiss random relatives.

It was the most uncomfortable of all lessons. Still, another culture it was, and I had learned that adapting was what a good traveler did. So, I puckered up.

Dennis’ family kissed hello and goodbye. All of them. All the time.

Not an air kiss, an actual smooch.

Each time I visited Dennis’ family, I walked a gauntlet of kissing: mother, father, sister, brother, sister-in-law, aunt, uncle, cousins, and so on. Only the littlest of children were spared.

I’m not opposed to all that kissing. It just wasn’t something I was used to, as my family was more apt to hug than kiss. I had to learn to get the movement just right or it was awkward. Swoop in, touch the elbow, peck the cheek, pull back.

Once my timing was off and I gave Dennis’ mother a lip-to-lip smack. She hadn’t expected it and didn’t seem pleased.

Trying to avoid the same mistake, the next time I turned my head too far in offering my cheek and gave her a mouthful of hair instead. Not a happy moment either.

All this made me appreciate even more the Japanese greeting of a no-contact bow. Not that it doesn’t have its own rules, of course—you have to know when to bow deeply and how long to hold the bow.

I got so accustomed to bowing in Japan, I even bowed when making phone calls!

Of course, there are lots of tips for being a better tourist in Japan. Mostly, the same rule applies when traveling anywhere. Watch what others do and follow suit. No matter how careful you are, you’re going to make a mistake. It’s inevitable. Be humble. Mistakes are almost always mitigated by a respectful attitude.

Oh, and in Japan don’t kiss anyone in public. But feel free to ask where the right line is.

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Edited Out, Part Five: Going to the Dogs

What do kimonos and dogs have in common?

Not much.

Unless you’re reading The Kimono Tattoo.

Midway through the novel, protagonist Ruth discovers that the Tosa dog has an intricate and unfortunate connection to the mystery she is trying to solve, namely, what happened to her younger brother, Matthew.

Maybe because I shared my home and life with a sweet rescue dog named Wilson, over the nine years I worked on the novel, dogs began to figure in the work. The appearance of dogs was not particularly sanguine, I’m afraid. The animals played a key role in the work, but the role they played pulled the narrative into some very dark alleyways. I found myself dealing with dogfighting.

I don’t know how I ended up there. I wanted to send my character Ruth away from Kyoto. I ended up dispatching her to the island of Shikoku, to a region formerly known as Tosa.

The minute I thought of Tosa, I was put in mind of the iconic Tosa dog.

I have a small wooden Tosa dog, a trinket I acquired after a trip to the region many years ago. The dog, now sadly a bit faded from his years standing sentry on my newel post, is a handsome, rugged fellow decked out in a sumo wrestler’s apron or kesho-mawashi.

Why a sumo wrestler? The breed comes from a line of fighting dogs. And so, when I sent Ruth to Tosa, she had to learn more about the famous dog and their horrible fighting world. And that meant, I did too.

Most of what I learned and incorporated into the novel, ended up on the cutting room floor. As with other “edited out” sections I’ve presented in this blog, the detail, though perhaps fascinating to some, impedes the narrative flow.

Here are some of the scraps. (Believe it or not, there were more!) We begin with Ruth learning about the development of the breed:

The Tosa breed, I was soon to learn, was started in the late nineteenth century. The originator of the breed took the indigenous Shikoku-ken—a smart, compact little hunting dog known for its loyalty—and bred it to mastiffs, Great Danes, bulldogs, and Saint Bernards. The aim was to produce a bigger, meaner dog for fighting. Fortunately, the heyday of the Tosa breed had passed, and the dogs were banned in most European countries because of their perceived viciousness.

The more Ruth (and I) learned about the massive bullmastiff, the more fascinated I became by this particular working dog. In the section below, Ruth’s research grows incredibly detailed. But isn’t the wrinkle-quotient of the face fascinating? Well, I thought so.

[W]hile I surfed from page to page, I did manage to pick up more information about the breed. For example, bullmastiffs were largely silent. They didn’t sound out an alarm when a thief approached. And they were bred to be a preferred brindle which along with the black muzzle and dark eyes offered a natural camouflage when tracking intruders at night. I especially enjoyed learning that breeders paid attention to the wrinkle-ability of the dog’s brow. Back in the old days gamekeepers would patrol in silence, keeping a sharp eye on their dogs. A wrinkled brow alerted the keeper that trouble was afoot. If the brow thus maintained a constant furrow, the dog was of no use to the keeper and would not be retained for that purpose. I wondered what happened to the poor pups that suffered excessive wrinkling.

This editing of the novel happened sometime after I lost my companion, Wilson. Needless to say, losing him was much harder than losing the details about muzzles and brows.

 

Winter Wilson

Wilson in the fall

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Takeaway: Gripping Literary Thriller

Indie authors have to hustle to get their books reviewed. Just before my publisher released The Kimono Tattoo, she and I scrambled to find journals willing to carry a review. I was disappointed time and again when journals turned us down.

It’s discouraging really.

My local paper, the journals I had pinned my hopes on in Japan, one by one they declined.

And then, when I’d given up all hope, David Cozy came out with his upbeat review in the Kyoto Journal, the one journal I had longed for above all others.

Now, two years later I’m thrilled to find another encouraging review of The Kimono Tattoo in Booklife. I love that the (anonymous) reviewer was able to acknowledge the “literary” aspect of the novel and look past the fact that it doesn’t conform exactly to the mystery genre.

“Copeland handles the milieu with sensitivity and an eye for the killer detail, and an infectious sense of cultural discovery, even as the suspense tightens.”

Thank you! I know it takes time and effort to read a book closely and write a cogent review. Much appreciated.

 

Booklife Review, Editor’s Pick: The Kimono TattooRebecca Copeland

Kyoto comes to vivid life in this polished, thoughtful thriller, the debut novel from Copeland, a critic and editor who has translated several works of Japanese literature into English. That experience informs the mysteries of The Kimono Tattoo, which finds delicious suspense and surprise in the streets and garment manufacturers of Kyoto, and in the pages of a new work by Shōtarō Tani, an esteemed writer who, years after vanishing, wants narrator Ruth Bennett to translate his unpublished, unfinished, and narratively unstable latest novel. Presumably autobiographical, that manuscript, for Ruth, becomes “a dark door.” She’s jolted by a scene in that work of a heavily tattooed woman apparently murdered—a woman named for the author Shōtarō’s real-life sister, Satoko, a designer and businesswoman who had once revolutionize the kimono industry but now has long been absent from public life.

Even more jolting: news announcements of the discovery of a real-life corpse, possibly Satoko. Ruth grew up in Kyoto, and soon she sets herself to making sense of this mystery, especially attempting to unravel possible messages in tattoos described in the text. That demands research and investigation that will send Ruth into the worlds of skin art, kimonos, and even the yakuza. Copeland excels at capturing the intuitive work of ferreting out urgent secrets, presenting detective work and translation as fascinatingly related skills: Ruth must probe the curious facts until she reveals truths that a killer prefers to keep hidden.

The investigation comes with a cost: a threat to innocents Ruth cares about. The novel’s literate and humane, leaning on the “literary” in “literary thriller.” It’s also gripping, with deftly plotted twists of bursts of deadly action in both the narrative present and in the fiction-within-the-fiction that, increasingly, seems like it might not be fiction at all. Copeland handles the milieu with sensitivity and an eye for the killer detail, and an infectious sense of cultural discovery, even as the suspense tightens.

Takeaway: Gripping literary thriller about translation and possible murder in Kyoto.
Comparable Titles: Suki Kim’s The Interpreter, Amy Tasukada’s The Yakuza Path series.
Production grades:

Cover: A
Design and typography: AEditing: A
Marketing copy: A

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Curried Memories

Yesterday was a day for curry rice. By “curry rice,” of course, I mean “karee raisu,” the delicious Japanese concoction made from curry bullion paste. The paste blends with the ingredients of your choice to create a thick aromatic stew at once sweet and savory.

I’ve had a long history with curry rice.

So, let’s back up.

My first experience with curry was in India when I was a small girl. I lived in Benares (now Varanasi) for a year while my father conducted research at Benares Hindu University.

That year I was exposed to all kinds of curries—or what we called curries—creamy stews richly seasoned with cumin, coriander, turmeric, cinnamon, peppercorns, cardamom, mustard seeds, and nutmeg. The tastes exploded joyfully in my inexperienced palate. Even a whiff of these dishes now sends me back to that magical childhood moment.

Almost as memorable as the flavors was the exciting opportunity to eat with my hands. (Well, technically, “hand,” though I was too clumsy and culturally unaware to know I was only supposed to use my right hand!) I still remember sitting cross-legged on the mud-packed floor of an acquaintance’s house tearing pieces of chapati bread with the tips of my fingers, dipping it in the dishes, and carrying the delicious mixture to my mouth.

Japanese curry is different. It is eaten with cutlery, more often a spoon than a fork, and while seated at a table.

Although available in almost any diner in Japan, along with spaghetti and omuraisu (a concoction of rice wrapped in an omelet and doused with a ribbon of ketchup), curry is not indigenous to Japan.

It was initially brought in by British sailors who used “curry powder” to flavor their stews as they sailed about colonizing. It was then popularized in the early 20th century by the Nakamura-ya bakery. (The owners were friends with a renegade Indian freedom fighter who shared his culinary secrets in exchange for lodgings.)

Now the thick golden sauce, accompanying rice and noodles alike, is de rigueur on camping trips, appears regularly in school cafeterias, and appeals to most as an inexpensive comfort food.

It was certainly a comfort food to me. My mother often made curry rice when I lived with her in Fukuoka in 1976. Once you buy the bullion brick, it’s simple to fix. Just sauté whatever ingredients you have and stir the bullion bits in to boiling water until it dissolves and voila! You have a mouth-watering meal.

Mother had her own way with curry, perhaps inspired by the festive silver platters arrayed with tiny dishes she sampled in India. She dressed the main dish with smaller sides of shredded coconut, chopped pineapple, raisins, cashews, often sliced bananas.

After pouring a few spoonfuls of curry over sticky white rice, you could then garnish your dish with any of the condiments you desired. Coconuts and raisins added sweetness, cashews lent salt. Mixing all together created a magnificent taste tableau.

Curry night was always special, and Mother often made it on the weekend, the fragrance of the curry wafting through the house hours before and lingering hours after the meal, continually tempting my appetite.

Years later in 1984, when I conducted research at the Library of Modern Japanese Literature in Tokyo, I found my appetite similarly seduced.

The library maintained a small café where lunch was offered from noon until two o’clock. The café proprietress always served curry rice. She had other offerings, such as a “mixed sandwich”—thinly sliced cucumbers, eggs, and pink lunch meat on crust-free white bread spread with a modest layer of mayonnaise—and assorted drinks.

Credit: Tamaike Goro, 20 September 2008, Wikimedia Commons

I would order the sandwich on occasion, just to be different. But usually I had the curry rice.

Nearly every day.

As soon as I reached the library in the morning, I could smell the lunchtime preparations. Sitting in the reading room trying to concentrate on my research, I would grow more and more distracted by the smell. Is it lunchtime yet? I’d check my watch every few minutes. Maybe now?

Occasionally I would grow exasperated by my demanding appetite. “How can you be hungry already?” I would whine. I tried to stall the growling in my stomach by launching ultimatums. “Finish three more pages, first, and then you can go.”

But the curry fragrance was persistent. Even when I knew I wasn’t hungry, I could not resist rushing to the café as soon as the noon bell struck.

The lunch special was only ¥300 (about $2.00) and that included a cup of tea or coffee. The proprietress was generous with her servings: a round white plate piled high with rice, several spoonfuls of curry stew on the side. She garnished the plate with bright red fukujinzuke pickles—a delectable mélange of pickled radish, cucumber, lotus root, and eggplant spiced with ginger and shiso. (The red was provided by food coloring).

The pickles, if properly apportioned, offered a crunchy sweet tang to each mouthful of curry. Occasionally she substituted the fukujinzuke with rakkyou-zuke or pickled shallots, which were tasty but not as much as the tart crunch of red-food-colored pickles.

I would carefully work my spoon across my plate so that I would have a similar amount of curry and rice with each mouthful. Inevitably, I ended up with more rice than curry though, which was always a bit of a letdown for my mouth. Even so, I never left so much as a grain of rice.

When I was finished, I placed my cutlery on my spic-and-span plate and carried it back to the counter, where I then paid. And back I went to my research.

I wish I could say I returned fully sated. Something about the curry always left me wanting more. To make matters worse, sitting in the reading room with my stomach nearly full of curry, and continuing to breathe in the aromatic odors from the café, I found it hard to stay awake.

It’s a wonder I managed to get any research done that year.

For some it may be a wonder that I still enjoy curry rice, after a year of eating it on a nearly daily basis. But, as with the tomato soup I ate regularly while living in the dormitory at Columbia University, I find comfort in the routine of the same beloved dish over and again.

I still enjoy curry rice today and make it much as my mother did.

Consider yesterday.

As I sat in my study working through the day’s tasks, I mentally checked the ingredients in my kitchen: potatoes, onions, cauliflower, carrots. I have what I need to make curry rice! Wait? Peas? I jogged to the freezer to confirm. Yes!

I could hardly concentrate on the work I was scheduled to do—grading papers, drafting letters, etc—so focused was I on preparing the curry.

I was reminded of those moments in the Library of Modern Japanese Literature, checking my watching and waiting, waiting for the café to open.

I couldn’t wait any longer. At three thirty in the afternoon I started my preparations.

I sautéed the potatoes, onions, and cauliflower first. The carrots came next, and then the bullion of curry paste. While it simmered in the water I added, I prepared a bowl of raita—with cucumber, cumin, and yogurt—and placed bright red fukujinzuke I had bought at the local Korean Grocery in one small bowl and peanuts in another, my nod to Mother’s practice.

Before serving I added the peas.

By 4:30 it was ready to eat. Too early for dinner?

Says who?

I poured myself a nice rosé and sat down to a feast of memories.

Copeland curry

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DC Palter on Silicon Valley, Unicorns, and Magic

How does the digital empire of Silicon Valley inspire fantasy fiction? What can it teach us about the culture driving this global force? Today’s post lets us in on the romance, suspense, and even magic tricks one novelist discovered exploring these issues.

I’m here with DC Palter to talk about his sensational debut cyber thriller To Kill a Unicorn. Silicon Valley, the setting of the novel, has been much in the news lately, as sadly the dreams of many of those with start-up aspirations have been crushed by the fall of the Silicon Valley Bank. DC’s novel similarly navigates a world of hopes, dreams, and treachery. In To Kill a Unicorn, there are no failed banks but there is greed aplenty, the kind of greed that devours all that stands in its way.

I posted a complete review of the novel here.

Today, I’d like to find out more about the author, DC Palter, his background, and his approaches to writing.

RC: Congratulations on the release of your novel To Kill a Unicorn. As I understand it, this is your first novel but not your first foray into the publishing world. Can you tell us more about your earlier book, Colloquial Kansai Japanese? It’s a very helpful guide to the dialect of western Japan, the “Kansai” region that includes Kyoto, Kobe, and Osaka.

DC Palter finds his books at Junkudo Bookstore, Japan

 

DC: Sure! Thanks for asking.

When I worked at a steel company in Kobe, I noticed the language I was hearing around me didn’t match what I was learning in textbooks. I started taking notes and eventually realized other English-speakers across Kansai co

uld benefit from a local language guidebook that would explain regional variations and dialects.

Besides, Kansai-ben—or Kansai dialect—is so much more expressive and fun than standard Japanese, so even language learners in Tokyo could benefit from a bit of Kansai-ben. Fortunately, Tuttle agreed and has kept the book in print forever.

RC: In To Kill a Unicorn, you shift from Japan to Silicon Valley. Does the setting of the novel follow your own life course?

DC: I used to write short stories about life in Japan, but after 25 years working in the crazy world of tech startups, it was natural for me to shift focus to the tech world. You’d think there’d be more novels about Silicon Valley, given how central tech companies like Google and Apple are to our lives, but nobody is writing about the world of Silicon Valley. Of course, that may change….

I wanted to write about tech startups, but I couldn’t leave Japan behind in my writing, just as I couldn’t leave it behind in my life. So the novel is about Japanese people in Silicon Valley.

RC: I like the way To Kill a Unicorn is a character-driven novel. Readers are given a very rich portrait of Ted Tatsu Hara, the protagonist. He comes off a bit tactless at first, but as we get to know him, we realize his crusty exterior covers a softer, more vulnerable heart. Ted is a fictional construction, of course, but is there a bit of DC Palter in the mix?

DC: Ted is borderline autistic. He’s completely clueless about dealing with a relationship. He’s far more comfortable with computers than people. That’s definitely me.

But there’s a reason nobody writes novels about engineers or scientists. They’re considered boring, right? Sitting at a computer typing in the middle of the night instead of interacting with other people doesn’t exactly make for riveting storytelling. So I had to find a way to get Ted out of his comfort zone of hacking and into the world where he’s uncomfortable, and just about the worst detective ever.

RC: Reader reviews for To Kill a Unicorn have been glowing. But with any novel, there’s always someone who isn’t pleased with something. [Believe me, I know!] Were you concerned about the response to creating a Japanese-American character, since you’re not?

DC: Although I’m not Japanese or Japanese-American, I’ve lived in Japan a long time, wrote a textbook on the Japanese language, speak Japanese at home, and am married to a Japanese woman who checks everything. I didn’t set out to write a Japanese main character, but that’s what came out of the voices in my head and out of my life.

If we say only Japanese people are allowed to write Japanese characters, the world is a poorer place for the limitations we set on ourselves. That said, the writer has to get the details right. The key for me is authenticity. Do you know what you’re writing about? Have you lived it yourself or done the research? If so, great, I don’t care who you are so long as the characters are authentic.

RC: I found Ted a thoroughly authentic character—down to his bunny slippers and his penchant for good Japanese saké! For me, the references to Silicon Valley were more “exotic” than any of the descriptions of Japanese culture. As a humanities professor in the Midwest, I found your presentation of startups, investors, and hackers pulling me into an entirely new world. I very much enjoyed the way you described the setting of San Jose where Ted lived. Can you tell us more about the setting?

DC: Silicon Valley is usually defined as the strip of land south of San Francisco from Palo Alto to San Jose, but I think of Silicon Valley more as a state of mind than a physical location. It’s a world of unlimited optimism where ambitious young people come up with innovative ideas and venture capitalists give them millions to build it. A few of them change the world and become billionaires while the rest start over with their next big idea. It’s an amazing time in history that’s unlikely to continue for much longer, so we should enjoy it while we can.

RC: Once, when you gave an online book talk that I attended, you were seated in a beautiful, sunny Japanese tearoom. To me, that seemed like the perfect place to find inspiration. Where DID you find the inspiration you needed for your novel?

DC: The chashitsu tea house I use for videos is my wife’s space where she teaches classes here in Los Angeles where we currently live. I write sitting on the floor in the bedroom. Inspiration comes from banging my head against the kotatsu table long enough until crazy ideas pop out like the snacks stuck in a vending machine.

RC: Well it seems all that head banging produced lots of snacks! Your novel is so richly textured with guest appearances from all kinds of moments from American popular culture, least of which is the title, To Kill a Unicorn with the obvious nod to Harper Lee’s famous novel.

DC: Thanks for noticing! I did want to use a modern version of the noir mystery as both a structure and a foil. The beginning of the story follows the script of the movie Chinatown, except the novel is its opposite – Japantown in San Jose, where everything is neat and clean, and everyone follows the rules. Ted is at home in Japantown where he grew up and his family has lived for generations. But outside the 3 blocks of Japantown is the rest of the world and Ted doesn’t know how to operate there.

RC: What does Ted want?

Author DC Palter in Japan. Credit: DC Palter, with permission.

DC: A lot of things. A girlfriend. Saké. His mother’s forgiveness for abandoning her when he went to college. But what he wants more than anything is to find meaning in life. He wants to matter beyond working a boring job. What he needs, though, is to grow up.

RC: I was fascinated by all the psuedo-science in the novel, such as the invention of teleporting, dispatching people out into the ether. I recall you explaining in another interview the trick of magic was not making something disappear, but making it re-appear. Can you elaborate on this with reference to your novel?

DC: Magic tricks consist of 2 parts: the turn where you make something shocking happen, i.e. make a 5-ton elephant disappear. That’s the easy part. The second half, called the prestige, is making it reappear. Nobody watches a magic show to see the magician make the scantily-clad woman disappear. We’re waiting to see where and how she reappears. That’s the part that matters.

So when I was reading Haruki Murakami’s The Elephant Vanishes about an elephant that disappears from the zoo, I thought, yeah, so what? (Which was kind of Murakami’s point.) Make the elephant reappear somewhere else, then you’ve really got something. And if you can figure out how to make the elephant reappear in the middle of Silicon Valley, you’ve just earned yourself a billion dollars.

RC: In addition to making a 5-ton elephant reappear in the middle of Silicon Valley, what has been the most difficult part for you in writing this novel?

DC: Silicon Valley changes so fast that I had to keep revising the language, the jokes, the memes even as I was writing and editing the novel. There’s a reason sane writers don’t write about current events.

RC: What would you do differently?

DC: If I had it to do over, I’d write a straightforward mystery about a fraudulent startup hiding secrets rather than a mashup of mystery, farce, sci-fi, and manga. But that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.

RC: Yes, your sense of fun certainly comes across in To Kill a Unicorn. What’s next for DC Palter?

DC: Dinner.

RC: Thank you, DC! I hope you have a great dinner.

DC Palter, To Kill a Unicorn (Pandamoon Publishing, 2023)

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