Heartbreak

 

“Your wife doesn’t beat your kids, does she?”

“No, she beats me.”

“Well, my wife, she goes after the kids. And my instincts say protect at any cost. My instincts take over. Not my logic. Not my reason. That primal drive that goes from zero-to-sixty in less than a heart-beat when I see the blazing dilations of anger directed at my children accompanied by a full set of gnarly adult teeth bared in a snarl below that set of  wide open sockets of irreconcilable maternal rage. ” 

(Breathe)

“What happened?”

“Had I been trained to control my anger in a reflexively aggressive manner, you would be reading about it in the paper." 

"Don't go there. Man, you don't want to go there. Not worth it."

"I know. The bright side is, thanks to the table between us, I missed. And now I am paying the price. Just, I don’t know how much it is going to cost until the physical account is tallied. The minimum price is bound to include a few sessions with the dojo approved ding-repair guru.  The body-therapist is good. He’s got experience and should be able to give me his opinion. A lot better than running off to hospital to endure having a number of unnecessary and costly diagnostics performed on my dairy air.”

“You must feel ashamed of yourself?”

“A bit of that, for sure. I let myself down. Funny thing is, I’m still hoping she gets the message that there’s a difference between disciplining the kid and attacking him.  Especially considering the fact that all her rage, all that hellish energy she was directing at her child was triggered by her own actions. She knocked over  her own glass in anger. And then she became something else.  Blame it on that wicked temper of hers. Maybe she was furious that I let her know I was not going to help her clean up her mess. Unfortunately, the torrent from the river of fire in her mind was directed toward her kid. And I attempted to step in front of that. She triggered my primal ignition switch.”

“I guess the fact that my wife beats me is something to be happy about. There really is a bright side to everything.”

 A or B?

 Which is it? Take your pick...

“And this?”

“Daughter is the youngest. The bright light.  And she sees all. This is how she expresses it. She doesn’t have the vocabulary, but she’s able to connect the visuals.  Only two cards from which to choose. Pretty simple. "A" or "B". But it has to be a choice. And it takes two. That is the divide between wife and I. She lives in a world tormented by an undeveloped, shadow child-side that appears to be taking over. Alcohol doesn't help.”

“My mother-in-law says she first saw the rage when she was three. Daughter who sees all, she’s not too far from that age. Hasn’t even started school.”

“And your daughter, she can see this?”  

“Guess she gets that from my side. The contrast on the photo has been turned up to that you can see what the "B" side looks like. All frowns. She made extra effort to point out the fact that there's a crack down the middle of the heart. Her gift can be a curse.” 

"She drew a few more of these on other pieces of paper as her way of coping. She's handing them out. One for Grandma. One for Grandpa. This is how she is coping. There is no easy way. And I'm not going to ignore the mess. Not going to buy my head in the sand while son gets ripped to shreds by maternal demons."

These are the cards...

 

Interview: Fr gm nt d E ch nge

Part III

W: As far as your experience goes, could you tell us a little bit more about your relations with people at work? It is fascinating, your... you've got a degree in linguistics, you're interested in the language, you obviously have done a lot of studying and you have this, I think it is an incredible language ability... How are your relations with the people who you work with, in your office? And, because you have studied that language so much in linguistics, how do you feel that has been beneficial for your work? 

FT: I is beneficial in my work as I have said before, going to elementary schools. I am sent to elementary schools, me in particular as opposed to other ALTs because I can speak Japanese so I have seen a side of the Japanese education system, i.e. the elementary system, which maybe a lot of the ALTs haven't seen. I mean most ALTs do do occasional elementary school visits, but I'll give you an example... probably the most interesting example for me and it is connected to, perhaps, one of my misconceptions of Japan and perhaps of many westerners' misconceptions of Japan. And that was about two months ago. 

I was approached by an elementary school in ******** called ******** Elementary which I have been to a couple of times before and got on quite well with the headmaster and the vice-principal. I was asked to go to a social studies class as which the teacher would be teaching the students about the Second World War. And they wanted me there to answer any questions the students may have plus to talk a bit about why Britain because I happen to be British, why Britain declared war or how Britain and Japan came to declare war on each other, how Britain got involved in the war with Japan in the Second World War. 

Which for me was interesting because I had the misconception that the war was not taught in Japan. 

And, in fact, I have learned now that this was the case until up to a couple of years from now, ti was in the textbooks, but is was at the end of the textbooks and it was often left out by certain teachers who sort of ran out of time by the end of the term. 

But now it is definitely taught and that class consisted of the teacher talking about the Nanjing Massacre, the invasion and occupation of Korea, and the invasion and occupation of Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, and in pretty gruesome terms and no uncertain terms in telling the kids about how, you know, the Japanese troops have massacred women and children in Nanjing and all of the stuff the we learned in history class but we believe the Japanese don't learn, which was for me, extremely interesting. 

And I would not have that experience if I hadn't been able to speak Japanese. And having been able to take part actively in that class. And that was probably, for me, an example of one of the most beneficial things my Japanese has had for me since I have been here.  
 

*****************************

That's it for this interview. I am not a journalist. I just had some questions and happened to meet another person who agreed to talk. The interview was well before recent popular controversy. 

I have read the late Chang's book and was kind of shocked in a way that I can't really explain when learning of her untimely death. Route 17 is the way some people take to get to work on a daily basis. It has a reputation for being an unforgiving drive. It's also the way some people go when they want to take some time out to see some of nature's beauty. 

So, when talking about change and what people go through, I have a hell-of-a-lot of respect for those who somehow manage to get through it. And there is anger. Anger toward those wasted opportunities for redemption. Often times, it's hard to tell just what's going on.