Genji Tanaka

I’m sure he must have regretted it – that moment when he casually raised his hand to host a stranger and unwittingly allowed a large, well-meaning but untrained mutt into his home. He had just recently retired as CEO of the country’s second-largest company. You don’t get that high in Japan without social graces as smooth as thirty-year-old single malt, and Genji had the most exquisite manners of any man I’ve ever met. I only saw him falter once – when he was talking about using a naruko– a matchmacker – to find a husband for his daughter. I asked – jokingly – if he could find me a husband too. He went white as a sheet, as though I’d just told him I had a secret that I could only reveal to him on the Jerry Springer show. I guess marrying off a 35-year-old career-minded Caucasian woman in Japan must be extremely difficult, or horrendously expensive, or both.

But mostly, Genji loved to laugh. He’d just throw his head back and dissolve in peals of mirth. It was utterly infectious, completely unselfconscious, and in a delightful way, just the tiniest bit unJapanese.

Genji’s English was nearly perfect. He had once spent five years living in Brazil, and still spoke excellent Portuguese. We spent hours over the dinner table, discussing the banking crisis in Brazil and the plight of the coca farmers in Peru. More than anything, we talked about Japan. He helped me to unravel the great ball of Japanese culture that on my own I would have plucked and tugged into a Gordian knot.

And then there was judo. I could explain how patiently he taught me the nuances of o-soto-gare, or how precise and powerful were his foot sweeps… But instead I’ll just say this - I met a lot of judo instructors in my life – some good, some bad – but nowhere in the world did I ever train under someone as excellent as Genji.

There are many words for "friend" in Japanese, but almost all of them imply some kind of hierarchy – "senior school friend", "junior coworker friend", and so on. The only equal relationship recognized within the language is "childhood friend", which by definition means someone within two years of your age and of the same sex. I knew how far Genji had to stretch to bridge the gap between us – far beyond the differences in our ages, our social status, and our genders. He, an immensely successful man, well-connected, socially brilliant, wealthy, and steeped in old-school values. I was career-driven, outspoken, poor, and alone – in so many ways beneath him, according to the hierarchy in which he had been raised.
And yet, he never hesitated to introduce me to his friends and coworkers. He valued my opinion. He always, always treated me with respect.

And that, more than a place to stay, or judo lessons, or even an explanation of the nuances of Japanese etiquette, was the greatest gift of all.

Books&Films || LifeInJapan || AgainstAllOdds

PhotoJourneys || AboutKarin || Home