Tuesday May 21, 1991
Emiko Ishimoto takes me, with her daughters Yoshika and Miho whom I tutor, to a classical concert in Oita-shi. I look around the hall and see that I am the only foreigner. The audience is made up mostly of friends, family members, and students of the members of the orchestra. But it is difficult to feel foreign bathed in the music of Mozart, Litzt, and Rachmoninoff.
We join the rush to exit the theater. I turn my heel in the muddy and potholed field that is used as a parking lot.
Emiko, who finds it difficult to drive and speak English at the same time, stalls the car just as the light turns green. She repeatedly tries to restart the engine. I'm about to remark on the patience of the drivers stuck behind us and contrast them to Americans, by saying, "In America, they would have been blasting their horns in a second" when someone does. Emiko hunches over her steering wheel, thrust forward in the same intense posture she use to speak English, a posture that makes her conversation somewhat startling.
She took me to eat at a restaurant near Sun Valley. We had a kind of rice soup served in bowls with a Mexican-style design. I imagine it would be perfect in the winter, but after eating we were all sweating.
Posted by M Sinclair Stevens
May 21, 1991
Share Your Thoughts
It is difficult to feel foreign bathed in the music of Mozart, Litzt, and Rachmoninoff.