The center of comfort

Sometimes there are moments that you know you shouldn’t pass up. One weekend this past summer was one of them.

A while back a good friend of mine, Blain, told Maia and I about one of his students. “She’s an 80 year old Doctor.” He said. Of course, I thought, she’s probably really 60, but has been working forever, so she looks 80…

When you meet Naka for the first time, you are taken aback… she is a little lady, but not hunched over (As many are in this area who are like that, people who have picked rice for an entire lifetime. They are hunched over, permanently locked in a 90 degree angle. There is a name for these women, they are called “Kuruma Ebi Baba” “Jumbo Shrimp Grandmas” owing to their appearance.) Naka is adorable and small with dark brown hair and round wire glasses, but she stands straight with only a slight hint at osteoporosis. You can tell by the way she walks that she is, indeed, 80 (84 to be exact).
Of course, when I first started talking to my friend about her, he corrected me immediately, she was indeed a doctor, she was indeed 80 (84 to be… well, you know the rest), and she was also his student, learning English.

She was also holding an open invitation for him and two of his friends to come with him and Naka to a cabin she has in the mountains near Nagano (Where the 1998 Winter Olympics were held), and he was thinking that Maia and I should come along.

So we accepted her invitation… Because some things you should never pass up.

Naka was born in the 13th year of the Japanese Taisho Era (1924) in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Her father was a doctor, and was very fond of everything American. Naka’s parents were Christian, and she attended a Christian Junior High where she had an American English Team Teacher (And a Japanese English teacher), and her principal was an American.

Early on Naka wanted to be an English teacher, but it was late in the 1930’s, and her father persuaded her against the idea as he could see war with America on the horizon. So Naka changed her plan to become a Medical Doctor.

She entered Tokyo Women’s Medical College in 1940 to study pathology. During the latter part of the war, though, while she was performing a dissection, her school was firebombed by American B-29 bombers. Shortly thereafter she discovered that there was very little money in Pathology and changed to Internal Medicine. Her husband, also graduating at the same time, he chose to go into the Navy, and was assigned to a ship.

The Yamato.

But, as luck would have it, he fell ill just before he shipped out, and he was replaced at the last minute.

After the war, Naka and her husband had 2 children a son and a daughter, the daughter got married, moved to England and then finally settled in Atlanta, where her eldest son (Naka’s grandson) just graduated from high school (Naka went to his graduation this past May).

Her son moved to New Jersey and married an American. His eldest son (Naka’s other grandson) is moving into the Dorms this past summer.

Naka bought our tickets to and from Maia’sTown, and would not accept us paying her back (In fact, it became a real struggle to convince her to let us pay for anything. Ultimately we had to resort to being sneaky just to buy her dinner.) So at 6 on Saturday, Blain picked us up at Maia’sHouse, we drove to the big station, and got on board the Normal trains to Shinjuku.

We took a Tokkyu (Long range) Train out of Shinjuku station in Tokyo rather early on an already uncomfortably warm August Saturday. It was the first time I had ever been on a Tokkyu, and so I was enjoying it. It’s not quite as amazing as the Shinkansen (Bullet Train), but it was still interesting. There is some difficulty getting a Shinkansen through the mountains. The bullet trains need a lot of very straight tracks, so there is no Shinkansen available to Nagano.

The trail to Nagano follows the Futsuu (Normal) Chuo track lines, but being on a separate track most of the time means that it doesn’t stop as all the stations. It also follows an amazing highway (Also called the Chuo highway) which spends a lot of the time being suspended above the valleys below.

“We don’t want to take the highway,” Naka says, “It’s Obon (The festival for remembering the family) and the traffic on the highway will be bad the entire way.” Blain adds that he also thought about driving, but not during Obon. “It’s like trying to get into a department store during Christmas…”, Blain is from Western Canada.

Naka herself sounds just like Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid. I never really realized how perfectly Pat Moriyata did a Japanese-English accent. Naka’s English is very much like that, “Driving bad, Train better. It’s Obon, ne? Chuo Highway traffic bad all ways.” No matter what, her English is extremely serviceable and we never once had any problem understanding her. She has spent most of her life in periodic contact with Americans and English, so though she still drops parts of the language, she is very comfortable talking in it, which makes all the difference in the world.

“My grandkids can speak Japanese, but they can’t write in it.” She says, “So they send me emails and letters in English. Most of the time they think Japanese is Mendokusai (Troublesome, a bother), so they’d rather speak in English… it’s their first language, after all. So I talk a lot to them in English.”

We get off the train in a little town near Nagano and get a rental car. Blain is driving and Naka sits in the front seat. The car has a Navi, a computer with GPS to tell you exactly where you are. The fellow at the rental place programmed the Navi for our first location, a little Soba (Buckwheat noodles) shop in the mountains, and set us on our way.

“You are leaving the Train station,” The Navi says in a kind, young woman’s voice, “In 20 meters, turn right.” It’s amazing the sound of her voice. It doesn’t sound choppy or computerized in any way. On the screen, a little arrow indicates the car, and a color map is traveling along underneath the arrow, following our every move. “At the next intersection, turn right.” The Navi tells us.

I totally want one of these.

On the way, we cross prefecture boundaries, the Navi then tells us “Welcome to Nagano Prefecture!” along with a cute picture of a penguin waving a flag… I’m not sure why Nagano is represented by a penguin… We then climb the mountain to Naka’s cabin.

Naka takes us to a little soba restaurant in the mountains… As soon as we get out of the car it is like being home again. The air is crisp and clean, and the heat is still there, but not as pressing. My lungs, which have been rather cranky since I landed here a year and a half ago, finally thank me for giving them this one reprieve. No, it’s not the wonderful altitude of Denver, but it makes me feel so much better.

The Soba place is wonderfully tasty, and we discover that this is a Soba University… where people from all over the country come to get a “Degree” if you will, in Soba making. This may sound silly to us Americans, but it is extremely prestigious if you are a master (Trained in school, no less) of a traditional art. You are respected as much (or more) than if you had a Bachelors degree in science. Anyway, the Soba is fresh and well made, and there is a water-run grinding wheel next to us, it’s wonderful.

Next we went to the store to pick up supplies (Naka hasn’t been to her cabin in a couple of months) as well as food for dinner, breakfast and lunch. Like lunch, Naka paid for this. It was like fighting with my dad, I swear… She would not let us pay for anything. We got sneakier as time went on, trying to pull a fast one on her. But she was stubborn.

We went to this cute bakery and bought some bread for breakfast (French Toast), and some pastries (It smelled so good). And then we were off.

It’s interesting our preconceptions. When someone says “Cabin” to me, I see a cute place made of logs with moose heads on the wall of the two room place. It’s like going on that retreat to Mt. Evans in my 6th grade year. There is power, and running water, but you sleep on a bunk-bed. When you say “Cabin” to Maia, there is no running water, or power, and you live like they have for hundreds of years in America…

Naka’s cabin wasn’t. More accurately, it was a house. Bigger than any house I’ve been in here in Japan. To call it a cabin is an insult to houses everywhere. The only wood in the place was the wood paneling on the walls (She is from that era, after all). But the place has power, running water (The toilet has a bidet… and the seat is heated), a huge bath (For soaking). Dishwasher, washer and dryer, cable TV, carpeted bedrooms… It is 10 times better than my apartment. This isn’t a cabin… by anyone’s thought process.

“When my husband and I moved to Tokyo, houses were so expensive, we soon discovered that we could pay the same amount of money for our little tiny house in Tokyo and buy this place… so we made this place our real “House” and the one in Tokyo was our small house.” They had this cabin built for them in the mid 70’s, and have been upgrading it slowly over the years. “Since my husband died, I’ve been a little scared to come up here by myself, I’m not as young as I used to be.” She adds with a grin, “So I invite people to come with me.”

Naka treats us like her grandkids, loving and warm. It really is like being at Nana’s house again… It’s so relaxing and comfortable.

The three of us decide to take a walk in the mountains while Naka takes a nap. We toodle about the mountainside taking pictures (Blain and I) and painting (Maia).

When we come back, we all sit around the table and chat.

Blain cooks dinner for us that night, a very lovely combination of chicken cooked wonderfully (In the oven… I haven’t seen a real oven in over a year and a half!), with a salad (Which Naka made), and fresh corn on the cob. Naka also brought some Cold Sake, which was sweet and very different from the Sake’s I’ve tried before (Which always kinda taste like just the aftertaste of brandy to me).

We chat some more, talking about various things, and then Blain and I decide to try to take pictures of the stars.

You see, taking pictures of stars is actually very, very difficult. The shutter on the camera needs to remain open for a very long time (about 2 minutes), and the camera must be perfectly still during that entire time.

Both Blain and I had brought tripods and remotes for our cameras. (2 minutes is longer than any setting our cameras have, so you have to set it for “Bulb” and time it, while holding the button on the remote down). Naka and Maia both come out with us in the street and hold flashlights while we set up the cameras… Patiently Naka waits while we take the pictures. I keep marveling over this, because it’s so incredibly geeky to want to take star pictures (The haze near Tokyo prevents me from doing this down here). And Blain and I were perfectly content to do this by ourselves. I was (As I always am) Grateful to have Maia out there, but she knows me… Naka doesn’t really know or understand what is going on… Nevertheless both Naka and Maia stood there, patiently waiting.

Then we went back inside, chatted some more, and went to bed. In a wonderful silence.

Once your grandmothers pass on or go into a retirement home, you sort of resign yourself to never being in that comfortable place ever again. I was blessed with one more night in “Nana’s” house. Staying in the warm comfort of a grandmother’s house. Its interesting that even though these two women are from completely different backgrounds, different histories, and even different sides of the same war… there homes still feel the same.

The next morning, the Cicada’s began singing (On the other side of the glass doors… These Cicadas don’t know I’m American, yet), and we awoke to a wonderfully sunny mountainside morning.

We made French toast and had fresh fruit. An amazingly wonderful breakfast.

And then we headed out to the farm.

Near Naka’s Cabin is a little farm… it is, as with so many other things, a University. And some of the university’s incoming funds are brought in by selling the wares of the farm itself. We stroll about, looking at all the things available to us, and wandering the farm. It is a tourist area, so there are tons of families and kids milling about, petting the goats, and enjoying picnics on the grass.

But now it was time for us to go home. The train back to Tokyo left at 3.

We went back, closed up the Cabin, and packed our belongings. It was time to head home.

“Before you go,” Naka says, “Please write something in this journal,” She puts a spiral notebook on the table. In it she has been writing since sometime in 2002, but there are also other entries, from the other people that have stayed in the cabin over the years. The three of us write our respective entries in the book and in the end, so does Naka.

On the road to the station, we chat a little more but we are all pretty tired now. Blain wants to go to a Turkish restaurant in Shinjuku, and as we stop one last time at a 7 eleven to get snacks, Blain lays out a plan.

“When we get to the restaurant, I’m going to pretend to go to the bathroom and pay the bill instead.” We have had to really work hard, Naka is really stubborn. We all agree to this plan and we head back to the station.

We say goodbye to the little town near Nagano and get back on the train to Shinjuku.

It’s not a bad ride, heading home, but it’s after dark when we arrive in the flashy, bright borough of Tokyo.

The Turkish restaurant is really nice. The food is excellent, and Maia tries Turkish coffee for the first time (And loves it… you are in trouble Dad!). We have a great meal and then Blain excuses himself to go to the restroom.

Naka looks at Maia and I and leans over the table and says, “Please let me pay for a little of the bill… You’re still on my vacation… until you get back to MaiaTown…”

You just can’t pull a fast one on this lady. She is simply too classy.

She’s tired, though, and really doesn’t want to take the trains back to MaiaTown (She also lives there). So she decides to get us all in a Taxi.

A taxi? We are all rather alarmed, Tokyo taxis are famous for their high prices…

She is adamant. So we take a taxi all the way home. (The equivalent of taking a Taxi from Houston Intercontinental to Conroe or from DIA to North Boulder… about 70 km). The taxi ride takes 2 hours, because even at 10 o’clock at night, Tokyo traffic is stopped.

When Maia and I got out of the taxi, the tab was 25,000 yen… about $250US. She didn’t even blink.

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“I’m going to have to retire soon,” Naka said, as the cool mountain night air settled in that Saturday night, “Technology is changing too fast for me. I try to keep up, but my brain doesn’t take in knowledge as well as it used to.” She smiles, “I think I’ll have to retire in 5 years or so.”

Right… she’ll be 90 then.

“I’ll spend some time with my kids and grandkids in America. I want to go on a road trip.”

Yes, I assure her, that is definitely an opportunity you can’t pass up.

---Me