
Married for six months, my father went to war. He did not return for four more. My mother was a “Rosie the riveter” building cargo planes at a defense plant that after the war became O’Hare Field. The only details I have of his four year hiatus came late in his life, when the 50th anniversary of the WWII brought a few reminisces from the quiet veteran.
As a kid, my father and I watched every WWII documentary, that is when wrestling was not on. We were especially fond of Victory at Sea. It had a stirring sound track, and impressive black and white footage of large battleships crashing through larger waves, many going to their final battles.
The documentaries moved the time line on and as the war in Europe concluded, depictions of the Far East began. Images of the peaceful Pacific Ocean were intermixed with fierce island fighting. The inevitable images of kamikazes flying through streams of bullets filled our TV screen. Then suddenly all would become quiet, as a lone plane appeared high amongst the clouds over Japan, signaling the end of the blood bath that was WW II.
Usually steeped in the past, in 2005 while preparing for my first trip to Japan I started to read modern Japanese history. The more I read the more heartsick I became as I realized conventional bombing, long before the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroyed many of Japan’s larger cities. To think of the lives lost and the culture destroyed on both sides is sobering.
In my travel to Japan and also to Italy I have driven into concrete filled towns, the result of quick post-war construction to replace the devastation of the bombing. Italy and Japan sport an odd conglomeration of buildings due to the destruction during the war. We really do not have an equivalent to this in America.
The hastily constructed buildings of sixty years ago put a human face on to what had been for me images on a screen and words on paper. It is hard not to think of the lost history and of the history that was never made by the soldiers, sailors and airmen who fell under juggernaut of the world war.
My wife has devoted many years to the genealogy of her family: one side Scotch-Irish with a little Heugonaut thrown in, the other Russian-Polish Jews. The former traceable for many generations, the latter disappearing into the pogroms of a world bent on the destruction of every Jewish inhabitant. Again, I think of the lives and culture lost. We will never know who was venerated and what was treasured. It was all annihilated.
Is it naïve, even foolish to treasure objects when millions of souls have been lost? In Chanoyu, the Tea Ceremony, one of the four tenets is respect. It is respect not only for people, but also respect for the objects they produce. We venerate and treasure these objects, not I think for their own self worth, but for the memory of the people that make, name, enjoy and ultimately pass them on.
Tea objects are made of fragile materials, made even frailer by the passage of time. Each has a history that makes them special. It is people’s relationship with these objects that make them note worthy; like finding a few notes of Mozart’s or a sketch of Leonardo da Vinci’s hidden away for centuries. The dogu, as we collectively call them, is a link to the past and a guide to the future.
The tea world is not a stagnate one, conservative as it may seem to the out side world. Gengensai, the eleventh Grand Master of Urasenke, designed a seated chanoyu, ryurei, in response to the growing Western influence during the Meiji period in the late 19th century. This century, the 16th generation Grand Tea Master designed three small side tables that fit together as the famed Russian dolls that cradle multiple dolls into one. The design encourages us, who do not have access to traditional tea surroundings, to actually do tea and not to relegate it to antique status; some thing hid away only to be admired from a distance.
These developments are in response to an evolving world that we hope will be peaceful enough to allow us to continue to respect, treasure and venerate the people and the culture of a another land. I like to think of my twenty-year involvement with Tea as a bridge to another culture. I know I will never fully understand Japan, but the effort allows me to better understand my own up bringing as an Italian-American living in the great city of Chicago.
How is this so. I would be the last to know, but an appreciation of another culture, with all the inherent difficulties helps me focus on my culture. It helps me treasure what I have and what I have lost. This interesting journey, started many years ago as a disenchanted teenager, has come full circle.
It would be nice to think that all these words, over several years of commentaries have helped both Japanese and Americans reflect on their cultures, and strive for better understanding and cooperation in concrete ways. At some point words need to jump off the page into one’s heart and on to the street. I cannot think of a better way to venerate and treasure all that have gone before us.