The Japanese Student

 He named their first daughter 'Aryana' after a cheerleader he used to date in highschool. "Oh, she was gorgeous", he told her, his face ecstatic as the memory of those days effortlessly etched themselves on his youthful limbs . Hayami looked at him, confused, "What is gorgeous?" She asked in her hesitant English. "Oh," he laughed almost cruelly, "I forgot you speak very rudimentary English. Oops, I mean basic...simple. Yes, you hardly know any English". He paused. "Gorgeous means very very pretty". He elongated the verys deliberately, savoring each one. Then, looking at her hurt face, he hurried to add, "You shouldn't feel bad. After all, I married you, brought you here to America, availed you of a Green Card...Now, you too can live the American dream".

Now, it was the right moment to fling a sarcastic 'thanks'  at Brian's austerely handsome marine face. But no, that was not part of Hayami's culture. Quietly she took his hand and let it rest against her cheek.

In brief, this used to be the story of my Japanese student Hayami when I first met her. I used to teach her English as a second language. At 26, mothering little Aryana, she was a stay-at-home mom in a strange land, whose language and people she still needed to understand. She and Brian had met in Okinawa, while he was stationed there at the U.S. base. She was the chief attendant at the McDonald's counter in the food court of the local mall, the place he frequented the most...(surprise, surprise!) 

Hayami wore beautiful dresses, delicate and elegant both in fabric and design, which complemented her petite frame. I once commented on how lovely her wardrobe was and on how near impossible it was to find something like it in the malls in America. She flushed and said, "Brian hates them...they are too un-American".

It was from her I learnt about the festival of Ohagani, simply translated into English, it means, 'viewing'. Observed during the spring, when cherry blossoms are in bloom, it revolves around families with their picnic baskets, venturing out to spend time under the flowering trees and breathing in the eternal beauty of those few transient moments. 

Hayami possessed a soft purring corner for cats. Unfortunately, the apartment building she lived in did not allow pets. But, this of course did not deter her from getting a built-to-scale resin cat whom she fondly called Mitsy after her own feline friend back in Okinawa. Mitsy looked so lifelike that every time I came, I felt tempted to bend down and pet it as she lay lazily by the front door next to the potted bamboo plant. My Japanese student also flaunted a healthy collection of Maneki Neko's statues, the luck-inviting figurine of a red and white cat with its right paw raised. "Whenever I visit Tokyo", she once confided, "I  make it a point to pay homage to Maneki Neko at Gotokuji Cat temple".  A cat temple? Really? But then, if India can have a  rat temple,  why can't the land of the rising sun flaunt a cat temple? Thankfully,  the twain shall never meet. However, if they did, imagine the massacre!

During the course of two years that I tutored her in English, I saw Hayami metamorphose before my very eyes, as she got hooked to pro wrestling, baseball and black coffee. From jet-black haired woman who wore elegant dresses, she was to become a jeans and T-shirt gal with purple and green highlights in her hair and dark lipstick, cuddling up to her marine husband and asking, "Am I gorgeous or what?"