Morikami Sukeji, who came to America as a member of the Yamato Colony in South Florida and remained there alone until the end of his life after the colony was disbanded, continued to write letters to his sister-in-law and her family, who had lost her husband (Sukeji's younger brother) after the war. He worried about his nephews and nieces as if they were his own children, and as an uncle-long-legs, he helped with their school fees and gave them advice, and exchanged letters with them directly. In particular, he spoke to his youngest niece, as Uncle George, about his own grave, etc.
* * * * *
June 1957
"Cats don't meow in America either."
Thank you for your letter, Aki-chan. I thought I would never get a reply because I was being too nasty. Your handwriting is quite good and you write fluently. Young people today are good at writing. They say that a person's handwriting reveals their character and destiny. I once had my handwriting read. It was 30 years ago, but strangely enough, it was almost always correct.
My cat gave birth to kittens, and they are so cute. I love them too. I used to have a lot of them, and at one point I had more than 10. When I went out to the fields, they all followed me around. If they found a rabbit, they would chase it. When I came home, they heard the sound of my cat's cat and came out to the gate to greet me even though it was pouring rain outside, as if to say, "Welcome home."
My eyes started to get hot, and I instinctively picked him up and rubbed his cheek against mine. I wanted to feed him all the meat and fish I had bought. Cats are very clean, and are not as rude as dogs. First, they carefully dig a hole, do their business, then fill it up and level the ground. They are also very rude when it comes to eating. They don't gobble like dogs.
No matter how delicious something is, he always leaves a little bit on his plate. He is well aware of the manners of the samurai of old, and on rainy days, he never rushes into the house with muddy feet. He carefully wipes his feet before entering. He painstakingly licks the whole body. As his tongue cannot reach the head, he reaches over his ears and washes his face last.
In America, cats don't say "nyan" and dogs bark "wan." It's neither Japanese nor English. Cats say "nyan" and dogs say "wan." I wish humans were like that too. There's no need to open your mouth or twist your tongue to learn a foreign language.
When a foreign student with a title like "graduated from some university's English department" comes here from Japan, he can't even run errands for a child. Conversation is forbidden, and difficult words are forbidden, and normal letters can be written just as they are spoken.
Uncle
August 1958
It took me two years to understand English.
"After arriving in Florida, Sukeji realized how poor his language skills were, so he enrolled in a local elementary school and studied alongside the elementary school students. I offer this advice based on my experience."
Thank you for your letter, Aki-chan. I was not feeling well so I didn't feel like writing and I was late in replying. I'm sorry. I'm fine now so please don't worry.
I'm writing a long letter. Your grades at school were very good. However, studying too hard to get marks is a bad idea. Well, you put too much emphasis on the subjects you're weakest at. What about English? Learning a foreign language is quite difficult. It took me two years to understand what people were saying.
Although I started with ABC, I still can't speak English every day, read English, and write English sentences, even though it's been more than 50 years since then. I'm not smart, so I'm not making much progress. Whatever you learn, you shouldn't just aim for the immediate future.
Today's young people must prepare for the near future, five or ten years from now. Chemistry and English. The appearance of female chemists is no longer just a dream. If they could talk freely with foreigners and type on a typewriter, I think it would be a great help to the current high school and university graduates in Japan who are struggling to find employment.
I heard that you will be going to Miyazu (Suketsugu's hometown) to visit the graves during the Bon Festival. Please pray for the repose of the souls of my father (Suketsugu's younger brother) and my parents. My father was a truly fine man.
Maybe it's because of the heat, but I've lost my appetite lately. Everything I eat tastes bad. Last Sunday, I tried making sushi rolls. It was a complete failure. Aki-chan, can you cook? I'm really bad at cooking and I don't like it. But I can cook well. I'm determined to be better than anyone.
I sent you Comic Newspaper and Life Magazine twice. If you like, I'll send them every week. If you want English magazines, please don't hesitate to ask. I wrote you a long letter because I had a lot of things I wanted to say to you and talk to you about.
Uncle
August 22, 1958
(Self-proclaimed Uncle George)
Aki-chan, your letter arrived the day before yesterday. Thank you for visiting my grave. Living near the sea like me makes me miss the mountains. When I was still in school, I could easily swim about two miles. I can't do that anymore. I hurt my back and my legs aren't very strong, so I hardly ever go into the sea these days. It's a pain if I get a cramp. I thought Obon in Japan was next month, but it's already long since passed.
When I think of O-bon, I think of dango (rice dumplings) and tokoroten (a type of rice cake). In the western part of this country, where there are many temples, people wear kimonos (traditional Japanese clothes) to hold O-bon festivals. There is only a little time left for summer vacation here, and school will start again next month.
I go to the fields every morning and evening when it is cool. It is seven miles from my house one way, which is three and a half ri in Japan, and takes several hours round trip (by car). The fields are currently 10 acres, which is about four hectares in Japan. There has been a lack of rain this summer, so I dug a well in the center of the field. With a two-inch diameter pipe, 130 inches deep, and a five-horsepower pump, about 10,000 gallons of clean water can be pumped up per hour. I would like to build a house and live there, but the neighbors are far away, so I will live in town this winter. Living alone would be dangerous.
I want to send you my own photo, but unfortunately I don't have any. I'm not camera-shy, but no one has asked me to take any, so I haven't taken any for the last 30 years. I've lost a lot of weight after an illness, and even my front teeth have fallen out. I'm not a very handsome guy, and I look like a sneezing Chin.
By the time this letter arrives, school in Japan will have already started.
Uncle George
September 13, 1958
"Never neglect your studies"
Akiko-chan, because it's raining this afternoon, I can't go to the fields, so I've decided to write you a letter that I've neglected for a long time. Nothing has changed, except that the days are a little shorter and the nights are a little cooler. I'm so busy preparing for the fall harvest that I work from early in the morning until after 7pm, so when I get home I'm so tired that I don't feel like doing anything. Tomorrow is Sunday, but I have to work.
The obligatory long letter contains my honest thoughts about your near future.
The reward, a foul tempen pen, was fortunately a ballpoint pen for students, the latest model that can even write on oiled paper. It may already be available in Japan, but I have not yet seen any advertisements for it in Japanese magazines.
Well, no matter what the circumstances are, no matter how hard it is, you must not neglect school. You must at least graduate from high school. It depends on your achievements and efforts. At that point, you can ask me for advice, pretending that I am fortunate to be alive.
Florida has already had six typhoons, but they all moved elsewhere because of the continental high pressure system. There are still two months left in the storm season, so we don't know when the next one will come. We can't let our guard down.
Kyoto must have become much cooler. Autumn is here in name only, and there are no autumn leaves in Florida, where the heat of summer lingers. My upper teeth have fallen out for three years in a row. I had a dream that all of them had fallen out, and now I can't eat anything hard. I have no choice but to grind any kind of tenderloin meat. Fortunately, there is an abundance of fish, which is a great help, but it is more expensive than meat. I can't eat my favorite pickles at all.
The only Japanese things I could eat were miso and dried seaweed. I tried eating pure Japanese rice, but it was just a little sticky and tasted worse than local rice. For a long time, I had wanted to go to Japan and eat all the things I like, but that has now become just a dream.
This is not an unusual story. However, many people die or get injured, or become victims of automobile accidents. Most of the causes are due to carelessness. There are a few Japanese-made cars, but there are not even one in this area yet. Please do not neglect school. Whether you have an education or not will determine your future.
Uncle
September 1958
"The grave of Morikami Suketsugu is engraved in Japanese characters."
Thank you for your letter, Aki-chan. Today is the last day of September. It's not autumn in name, but it's still quite hot during the day. I'm so busy that I'm tired and my body hurts even at night. Growing vegetables in the heat is quite hard work.
Typhoons -- they're called Harikan in this country -- have come seven times already, but they've come close and missed. They can reach speeds of a hundred or fifty miles per hour, and of course the crops are destroyed.
The moon is beautiful tonight. The moon in Florida is big. Compared to the one in Japan, it is as big as the difference between a tray and a basin. When I was a child, I heard that a rabbit was pounding rice cakes. The moon may have been like the earth today in the distant past.
You are still in your teens. 70, 80 years, your future is long, long, long. There may be something like humans living on a certain planet. I want to live long enough to know about it.
The town of Delray has grown considerably. It is now one of the leading winter resorts in the United States, and thousands of houses have been built here in the past few years by people from other states. A university is being built five miles south of the original Yamato village. I think it will be completed by the time you finish high school.
As you may have read in the newspapers, there is a big fuss in the southern states of the United States about black and white students mixing together. It's a big problem, and I wonder how it will be resolved. This is a purely racial issue, and a headache for America.
The town is going to build a new cemetery in preparation for the town's development. I think I'll buy a section of it someday. I want to plant my favorite trees and shrubs while I'm still alive, and bring natural stones from the north like those found in Japan to use as grave markers. I'm not religious, so I don't have a posthumous name or anything.
However, the grave is engraved in Japanese characters with the words "Morikami Suketsugu's Grave." No one comes to visit on Memorial Day, but the town takes good care of it all year round.
I stop writing now and close my eyes. I sleep quietly under the gravestone, waking up to the sound of footsteps approaching. A young woman holding the hand of a cute girl of about three years old.
"This is my uncle's grave. He was a foul-mouthed man, and my mother had a forehead." "What's a forehead?"
I bought a pen, but I don't like it, so I ordered another one. I will send it to you as soon as it arrives. Please send me the name and address of your school, the school catalog, school rules, and a copy of all your report cards as soon as possible.
Uncle
November 6, 1958
<All expenses will be covered during your time at the school>
Thank you for your letter and report card, Aki-chan. Please don't worry about the tuition fees. I will take full responsibility for all expenses while I am in school. Please make a list of tuition fees and all other expenses for one year and send it to me as soon as possible.
I can't send you a whole year's worth of papers, but I will send them at set intervals. If I can't, I'll make arrangements with the bank to send them without fail, so you can continue your studies without worrying. I'll leave it up to you to decide what to do after graduation, but I would recommend continuing your studies. It's difficult to find a job with just a high school diploma, so don't be too pessimistic and think about it carefully.
They no longer send me Life magazine, I have stopped subscribing to it, the pictures and ads are hardly worth reading.
Uncle
December 19, 1958
<Suffering all night from a hernia>
Aki-chan, did you receive the letter I sent to Mr. Matsuda and to Okamura about three weeks ago? It is an important matter regarding the procurement of your school expenses (until you graduate from high school). I haven't received a reply from you, so I think it may not have arrived yet, so I am asking you.
It's just before Christmas here, so the city is extremely crowded, and it's suddenly gotten cold, and I'm cold-sensitive, so I'm shivering. Three nights ago, I suffered through the night with a herniated disc (a chronic condition). I didn't call the doctor because I had just been infected, and I didn't want to bother the people in my neighborhood, so I felt bad about bothering them. I suffered from it from around 10pm until the early hours of the morning.
Unlike normal stomach pain, this pain felt like something was tearing me apart, and I groaned as I endured it. At one point, I even thought that the wound would burst and I would die.
Today is a little better, but I still can't do anything. I was invited to dinner by a friend from Fort Lauderdale, where I lived until a year ago, for Christmas, but I don't think I can go. Living alone is fine when you're safe, but in these situations, I feel lonely.
It seems that Japanese cities have become Americanized and celebrate Christmas, but what about New Year's? Here, New Year's is just a name, and everyone, including farmers, works. This year was a bad one. So, what about next year?
Uncle
(Titles omitted)
© 2019 Ryusuke Kawai
