Alien Rice; A Novel. (7 page)

After a brief self-introduction on the threshold of the house, Alice left the seasonal gift with Mrs. Sasaki, a shy and retiring person with whom Alice was not likely to have much to do in the future. As a matter of fact, Saburo had instructed Alice not to stay too long with Mrs. Sasaki but to take leave soon after she delivered the gift in the entrance hall. Japanese protocol demanded that. Hence the visit was brief and perfunctory in the extreme. Alice thought that a delivery boy from the department store could have done the job just as well.

One day the hot-water boiler and pipes in the Tozai compound broke down. The caretaker said that they could be repaired within a day or two. A week had passed but still there was no hot water for the bath. The maid boiled enough hot water in the kitchen for the baby to bathe but Alice had had no bath for days on end.

So she decided to go to a public bathhouse one afternoon when it was not too crowded. She had spotted one establishment in the immediate neighborhood and another one several blocks away. She was naturally curious to know what was inside and how people bathed, and had questioned Saburo about it.

"What is a Japanese bathhouse like? If so many people share the same bathtub the water must be terribly dirty."

"No, there is nothing wrong with a communal bath. The tub is always brimming with hot water, which is fed constantly from the boiler. Besides there are numerous hot-and cold-water taps along the walls of the bath room so that you can help yourself to as much water as you like. You don't even have to step into the tub. Instead you can wash yourself with warm tap water, like taking a shower bath," Saburo assured Alice.

Alice took a huge bath towel and a soapbox with her when she walked bravely into the nearby bathhouse. As she went in she saw a woman sitting on an elevated counter, collecting money from the prospective bathers. Oddly enough, she was in charge of the men's department as well for, although there was a wooden partition wall between the two sections, the female gatekeeper was seated in such a position as to be able not only to collect fees from male clients coming from the separate entrance but also to command a full and unrestricted view of the men undressing.

The woman on the counter was astonished when Alice made a courageous entry into the bathhouse.

"No, no, shoe no!" she screamed.

Alice did not realize that she had to take off her foot-wear before she stepped into the house. Awkwardly she went out and, as instructed, took off her shoes outside and stepped onto the bathhouse floor again.

At that moment there was a great commotion throughout the women's section. The gatekeeper looked at Alice, as if to say that the place was not meant for European women. Everyone in the dressing room stared at Alice with consternation. In the face of the curious gaze of all around her, Alice was tempted to beat a hurried retreat. But it was too late. She had already paid the fee and was expected to take a bath. She watched what others did and followed suit. She stripped herself, and put her dress and underwear in a wicker basket provided to each individual by the bathhouse.

None of the Japanese women had such a large bath towel as Alice's; instead they all carried with them a small cotton towel, slightly larger than a handkerchief, and took it into the bath room. Alice had to leave her towel in the basket.

In the meantime, all the other female bathers, young and old, proceeded toward the bathing area, nonchalantly holding their tiny towels in such a way as to hide the embarrassing parts, their bodies slightly bent forward, as though to make themselves less noticeable, while Alice, and she alone, had nothing to hide her parts with. Everyone was now staring at her, from head to feet, intently and with great interest. Some were admiring her towering snow-white body, easily twice the size of the other women's, while some others were secretly studying the specific part of Alice's body from a biological point of view. Alice had never felt more embarrassed in all her life.

As she walked into the bath room proper, which was partitioned off from the dressing room by glass windows, she saw a huge rectangular wooden tub in which at least ten persons were immersing their bodies, while about a dozen women were outside the tub, scrubbing their bodies or washing their hair. Their attention was now centered on Alice. Alice was defenseless. She had nothing in her hand, except a soap box. She was completely nude, while her fellow bathers still had their hand towels to conceal their vital parts and to use as sponges when scrubbing their bodies.

It was not fair, Alice thought. Again she was being stared at, scrutinized, almost dissected, while others were not submitting themselves to any detailed examination of their bodies by anyone. She decided on that very afternoon never to visit a Japanese bathhouse again.

One morning Toshio, the baby, had a high fever. During the night he cried intermittently, although he usually slept soundly. Alice took his temperature and found it to be 104 degrees. She woke Saburo and told him to send for a doctor as soon as morning came.

Doctors nowadays were hard to come by, especially in the neighborhood where the Tanakas lived, as it was a newly developed area. Saburo would have been lucky if he had gotten hold of one, and then it would have been necessary for him to fetch the doctor in a car.

Saburo, however, said that he had an urgent company matter to attend to that morning and suggested to Alice that the maidservant, as soon as she reported to work, should be sent to fetch the doctor. Alice was furious.

"What's the matter with you? Toshio is only four months old and has not developed resistance. If he developed complications-he has a high fever. Can't you yourself go and fetch the doctor?'

"Well, I've got to be at Haneda airport by ten this morning to see my department's director off. He is going to London and other cities for ten days. I've got to be at the airport."

"Nonsense! you are going all the way to Haneda just to see the director off?"

"Alice, everybody in our department will be there. If I do not go I shall make myself conspicuous by my absence and my chance of promotion will suffer. Besides, the director is expecting me to give him a typed synopsis of the conference proceedings which we had last evening in the office. He wants to take it with him on his trip. It's an important document."

"If the report is that important, why didn't you prepare it and give it to the director last night? You said you were with trade ministry officials last night at Akasaka."

Alice now remembered how often Saburo went to Heathrow. She had often doubted the necessity for such
trips. Saburo was now enacting the same thing here in Tokyo, only on a much bigger scale and among a wider circle of friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

Soon after Saburo left for the airport, however, the doctor did show up. After examining the baby he declared that the boy had an ordinary cold and assured Alice that the high temperature should go down within a day or two. The doctor left some medicine with Alice. His nonchalance and optimism contrasted with Alice's frenzied anxiety, for she was nervous and tended to take an unduly alarmed view of a given situation in these early days of her sojourn in a strange land.

Alice had come to know a Eurasian woman by the name of Hertz at the Union Club. Her husband, a Swiss, had been in the real-estate business in Yokohama and had made a fortune. In fact, he owned Hertz House on the Bund, by far the most luxurious apartment house in Japan, where many affluent foreign business magnates resided. It was said that most of the choice property in the central district of Yokohama was in the hands of Mr. Hertz.

According to Mrs. Hertz, her husband thought that the easiest way to riches in Japan was to exploit the peculiar mentality of the Japanese people toward the Westerners. The Japanese were diffident, and admired and respected Occidentals so much that for men like Hertz it was not difficult to make a fortune if only they had the will and determination to do it.

Mrs. Hertz told Alice of an American lawyer from Philadelphia, of dubious background, who during the Occupation made a friend of an unsuspecting Japanese, and in the end made the Japanese part with a 500-
tsubo
^*
piece of land for a song. On that ground the American built two fine villas, from which he was now deriving a total rent of 3,000 dollars a month.

In Kobe, Mrs. Hertz continued, there was a man who came from Shanghai after the war, who was also in the real-estate business and now was one of the wealthiest foreigners in the Far East.

"The Japanese lack in a spirit of pioneering and enterprise. They are certainly an ingenious people, patient and hardworking. But they do just what they are told to do or else imitate what somebody else does. After my husband built Hertz House, many Japanese real-estate people came to get the building plan and other information. When we declined, they sent a spy to steal the plan from us."

Alice listened to Mrs. Hertz with genuine interest. She had, while in London, already noticed that the Japanese suffered from an inferiority complex toward the British people. As to their alleged lack of initiative, she could not but agree with Mrs. Hertz. If what her husband was doing at Tozai was any criterion, there could be no room for individual initiative, which was suppressed in favor of mutual consultation, joint decision and group action.

*
one
tsubo
= 35.58
square feet.

CHAPTER
  7

Since Alice's arrival in Japan, quite a few of Tozai's staff members had asked Saburo to allow his wife to teach them English conversation. Once Saburo told his wife that the General Affairs section of the company planned to start English conversation classes for the staff in the Head Office, and that they had discreetly inquired of Saburo if his wife was available as an instructor. At that time Alice was still expecting her baby and was physically not able to accept the offer.

Now that the baby was settled into a routine, Alice decided to devote herself to the teaching of English. Since the American Occupation everyone in Japan was eager to learn English and foreign teachers were in great demand. Alice had heard that many Germans and other Europeans whose mother tongue was not English pretended to be American-it was not difficult to deceive the good-natured Japanese-and taught English for fabulous fees. In fact the Japanese, since the defeat in the war, tended to think that all Caucasians were American, and Alice herself had often been taken for an American.

Alice remembered how generous the Tozai London branch office had been when she taught English to its Japanese personnel during off-duty hours and how the pupils had appreciated her service. So she decided to ask her husband to approach the General Affairs section and tell them that she was now at their disposal.

The company had already engaged a foreigner, an American missionary of many years' residence in Japan, for the staff English class but said that since the company wanted to expand the classes Mrs. Tanaka could start teaching in a newly created intermediate class next month. The fee for her twice-weekly class was to be 50,000 yen a month, a sum close to Saburo's entire monthly salary.

In Yokohama Alice had met a Japanese woman who spoke good English and who was also teaching English to Japanese students at a small place near the central railway station. Alice became friendly with this lady, whose name was Enami.

Mrs. Enami, a vivacious woman, sometimes came to Alice's apartment for afternoon tea. She said one day to Alice, "By the way, Mrs. Tanaka, I wonder if you feel like teaching at my institute. I've an American instructor at present but he has no heart in his work. He often stays away from the class without giving us previous notice and is always demanding more pay. I want to finish with him, if you can take his place."

"I should be very happy to help you. I've taught English to the Japanese for the last four years and I think I can be of some assistance to you."

"Thank you, Mrs. Tanaka. I'm sure you will be a great asset to my institute. You know we must have a native English speaker or two at our institute, if only as an advertisement. Pupils simply would not come if I had all Japanese teaching staff. Our people tend to be impressed by foreign names. So I'm wondering if you have any objection to my borrowing your name-that is, to put your name on our signboard and call our school 'Mrs. Alice Tanaka's Anglo-Japanese English Institute,'" Mrs. Enami proposed.

"No, I don't mind it at all, if you could get more students that way."

Payment for the use of her name and for her lessons was to be 50,000 yen a month. The signboard worked wonders, far beyond Mrs. Enami's expectation. Pupils young and old, male and female, all flocked to the institute from every part of the city and surrounding areas. Promotion leaflets of the school also had an alluring title, which read :

"King's English to be taught by an English lady fresh from London."

Within a matter of six months the Anglo-Japanese Institute was doing a roaring business. The enrollment clerk had to turn down some of the applications for want of classroom space. Now Alice remembered what Mrs. Hertz had told her a year earlier:

"The surest way to riches in Japan is to exploit the peculiar mentality of the Japanese people toward the Westerners."

The institute put up signboards at many strategic points in the city and still more applications poured in.

At about that time, however, Mrs. Enami fell ill; she had to be hospitalised. Cancer was suspected. The Anglo-Japanese Institute faced a serious crisis.

One evening Alice asked Saburo, "Can you borrow money from the company? In London someone told me that Tozai could advance a sizable amount to a regular employee on a collateral of semi-annual bonuses. Is that regulation still in force?"

"It depends. What makes you think of getting an advance from Tozai? You are no longer with the company, Alice." Saburo was noncommittal.

"I'm thinking of buying the institute."

"Buying that conversation school? Whatever for?" Saburo was taken by surprise.

"Saburo, so far I've saved nearly a quarter of a million yen from my teaching both at Tozai and the Anglo-Japanese Institute. If I had a million yen I could perhaps buy the institute and become its owner and principal."

"Crazy idea, Alice. It's a risky venture. Besides, you've not been long enough in this country to know the ins and outs of business." Saburo was skeptical.

"I have not discussed the purchase yet with anyone. But Mrs. Enami once told me that she had been thinking of selling the institute and retiring. Now Mrs. Enami is ill in bed and might wish to dispose of the place."

"What is the basis for your figure of a million yen?"

"Well, I heard from a Japanese assistant at the institute quite casually about the approximate sale price only the other day."

Saburo was impressed by Alice's astuteness. He knew how frugal she was, coming as she did from a family that was not too well off, and being Scottish besides. But Saburo had never believed she was that enterprising.

"Saburo, to tell you the truth, I've not been too happy since I came to Japan. Not because we are hard up or anything. As a matter of fact I'm now earning enough to live fairly comfortably even on my own. But it is you and your life which make me feel sad. Saburo, you are a slave of the company. You sacrifice everything—our own family life and all-for the sake of the company. But what do you get from the company in return? Maybe one day you might be promoted to be London manager. I do look forward to that prospect. But you still will be an employee and have to depend on the company for subsistence. You told me the other day that even Mr. Takahashi of London did not have a decent house of his own.

"From what I have seen of the company you will never get real independence so long as you have no private means. You will have to keep paying lip service to your superiors, echo your masters' voice and enslave yourself day and night in order to stay in the employ of the company. You cannot express your own opinion on any matter for fear that you may fall into disgrace with your chief. This miserable state of affairs makes me really sorry for you." Alice was being very eloquent. She continued:

"Do you remember that Japanese curio dealer in Harrogate? He was truly a man of courage and conviction. I admired him. Since I arrived in Japan I have unfortunately not come across any Japanese of his calibre and integrity. I don't want you to be a subservient employee of Tozai for the rest of your life. Nor do I want our son Toshio to follow in your footsteps."

Saburo had never known Alice to be so persuasive.

"So you want to take over the Yokohama Institute and run it by yourself?" Saburo inquired.

"Of course. Can you find out if you could get an advance of, say, half a million from the company? I'll try to beat down the price, perhaps to 750,000 yen."

Saburo was perplexed and at a loss. Alice wanted the advance not so much for herself but for the sake of Saburo ; that he understood. But he could not very w ell tell the truth to the company. The next morning Saburo went immediately to see the chief of the finance section.

"I hate to bother you with my personal question, Sir, but my wife has not been feeling well since she arrived in Japan. She is mentally depressed. She needs a change. I want to send her back to England for a while. Could I borrow half a million yen for her traveling expenses with my future bonus payment as a security?"

"Well, you may borrow money according to the company loan regulations. And in your case it cannot be helped for a compassionate reason. However, there is a ceiling to the amount of money. A quarter of a million is the most you can borrow on the basis of your present salary. I'm sorry but I cannot make an exception, even in your case. You must have a lot of trouble having a foreign wife, eh?"

The finance section chief sounded sarcastic.

When Saburo came home that night Alice inquired immediately, "Any luck, Saburo?"

"No, there is a limit to the amount of money I can borrow from the company. The finance chief says a quarter of a million is the maximum, calculated on the basis of my present pay."

"Well, that cannot be helped. I'm going to call on Mrs. Enami's husband the first thing tomorrow morning. At first I thought of seeing Mrs. Enami, but she is too ill to discuss such a sale. It might upset her, I'm afraid!"

The following day Alice and Mr. Enami discussed the matter. Mr. Enami's final price was a million yen. He said he could gladly have come down a bit had it not been for his wife's illness. Mr. Enami had to meet hospital expenses and other debts, he explained. Thereupon Alice offered to make a down payment of half a million, the other half million to be paid in five monthly installments. It was fair, and the agreement was made.

Now Alice was spending most of her time and energy for the Anglo-Japanese Institute. Saburo was to help her with registration of the property and checking legal documents. She repainted the signboard to announce that Mrs. Alice T. Burns of London was the principal. This carried more authority with the Japanese and impressed the passersby.

The slight alteration of her name from Alice Tanaka to Alice T. Burns was significant, for the Japanese preferred a real native English person as conversation teacher. "Mrs. Alice Tanaka" was likely to give the impression that she was a half-caste or something. Alice therefore decided to change her name accordingly.

She needed at least a half-dozen instructors besides herself, but employed American-born Japanese or Japanese nationals with a good knowledge of English to cut down expenses. The fact that Mrs. Burns, an English lady from London, personally was running the place was enough to impress the incoming pupils.

Japan has a population of about a hundred million on a few small islands. Alice was startled and shocked by this large figure when she first arrived in the country. Now she was using this numerical overflow to good account. Her institute charged an enrollment fee of 500 yen per person and demanded an advance payment of tuition fees for a six-month period. Many applicants paid the matriculation fee and waited until vacancies occurred. Others, when their curiosity and initial enthusiasm waned after a few lessons, stopped coming. The pupils who had been on a waiting list were quickly admitted as vacancies occurred.

As a result of this quick turnover, money literally kept pouring in, and within a year the institute bought an adjacent piece of land on which Alice built two additional classrooms. In the meantime the entrance fee was raised to 1, 000 yen.

Yet Alice was cautious and did not want to overstretch herself. As so often happened with restaurants in Japan, when an owner was doing a good business he purposely kept the place small, more often than not, only aiming at quick turnover. For, the minute the owner rebuilt or enlarged the place, the clientele dwindled. So long as the place was overcrowded, people presumed that the restaurant was good and vied with one another to get in. And by the same token customers tended to shun an empty and spacious restaurant, however good the food might be. Such was human psychology. And the Anglo-Japanese conversation school was following the same tactics and putting that commercial strategy into bold execution.

Watanabe, the Tanakas' next-door neighbor, though of the same age and rank in the company as Saburo, had married early and had a five-year-old son. The Watanabes had no other child, so they brought up their son with loving care and often with overindulgence.

Alice knew that the Watanabe boy had kept very much to himself lately, after he came home from kindergarten, and was seldom seen playing outside. She casually mentioned this fact to Saburo at dinner one evening.

"Is neighbor Watanabe's boy ill or something?"

"No, he is now preparing for entrance examinations to Chiyoda Primary School. It's very hard to get into Chiyoda. So Watanabe, Junior, is working day and night. His father hired a special tutor twice a week to coach his son."

"But isn't elementary education compulsory in Japan? Anyone living in the district can go to the school, can't he?" Alice asked.

"No, not to Chiyoda Elementary School. Because that school is well known for turning out the highest percentage of successful graduates to enter the First High School. And the First High is a prestigious school whose graduates usually enter Tokyo University or the University of Commerce, my alma mater, without much difficulty, since the instructors at the First High School are known to be experts at preparing their pupils to pass the entrance examination to these famous universities."

"But isn't it cruel for a small boy to submit himself to such stiff competition just because his parents want him to go to one of those famous schools?" Alice asked.

"Well, in order to get a good employment there is no other choice. Watanabe's son went to Yamate Kindergarten for the last two years and from there he has to go right up to a university, following the best possible course reserved for a chosen few. Our Toshio, too, in a few years' time, will have to start doing the same, I'm afraid."