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 The
Miyazakis
And yet… as often as I tried to destroy myself, some mysterious
stranger would appear to gently guide me back onto the path. The first
was a man called Tsuyoshi Miyazaki. A 69-year-old
judo champion who had spent the last 42 years in the USA, he was still
more comfortable reading and speaking Japanese than English, despite having
married an American and raised a family here. His wife had only been to
Japan once – for a week – and never really learned the language,
but she seemed to
understand the country better than most Japanese. She served his breakfast
eggs the way he liked them – raw – and although she knew the
answers to all my questions, always asked his opinion first. I didn’t
realize how thoroughly their love had managed to span two such disparate
cultures until I saw them get an email in Japanese that was written using
the English alphabet. He had trouble reading it. She couldn’t understand
the words. She read it to him and he gravely translated it for her, line
by line.
I first met Miyazaki-san at my judo academy. I would find him working
out against the cement wall in the back on Monday nights. He’d walk
in with the stiff gate of an older man, but on the mat he had the flexibility
of a bamboo shoot, the stability of an oak tree, and a truly terrifying
foot sweep that cut like a samurai sword. When he heard that I was going
to Japan, he contacted his judo alumni network in Tokyo and my second
savior stepped forward. A man named Genji Tanaka, a sixth-degree judo
black belt who offered to put me up in the empty granny suite of his suburban
home for a pittance, to introduce me to the culture, and to become my
judo sensei. |
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