Chapter 28: CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Reads: 360
Comments: 1

PART V

FUMIE

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"Well David, you've been with us seven weeks now. Are are you still enjoying it?"

"More and more all the time." We were having our usual Tuesday afternoon get-together. "I'm getting used to teaching forty students at a time using my adapted direct method. And getting to enjoy it even more than teaching at my direct method school in Osaka. The students are just so young and fresh and lively -- the girls I mean, obviously. But believe it or not, I'm actually beginning to enjoy teaching the boys. Though it's like trying to teach two totally different classes at the same time."

"And from your attendance books, I can see your attendance is almost perfect now, including the boys. It gives me the impression that your students are enjoying your classes, too."

"I'm getting to feeling that way myself, from the girls naturally, but now even the boys. But Fumie, at our first meeting you said you would tell me about why you went to college in the U.S. when we had enough time. Well, I think we've got a lot of time today. Where did you go? Harvard? Yale? And what airline did you fly over on? I'd really like to know."

Fumie laughed. "Please, one question at a time! No, I didn't go to Harvard or Yale. And I didn't fly on any airline. There were very few 707s flying back then. I went to a small community college in Los Angeles instead. And on the whole, I'm glad I did."

"Why? And why didn't you fly?"

She laughed again."One question at a time, remember?"

"Um, OK. If you didn't fly over, how did you go?"

"By ship.”

“By ship? But that must have cost you much more than a plane."

"Not if you go by cargo ship."

"Cargo ship? But . . . "

Fumie held up her hand. "It was a rather small cargo ship, so the captain would take on five or six passengers like me for a price not much more than the cost of our food. And I didn't pay anything."

"Why not?"

"Because I agreed to clean all the living quarters including the mess hall of the ship instead." Then she frowned. “But that turned out to be a very big mistake."

"It did? How?"

I somehow sensed that Fumie had dropped the facade of President to faculty member between us. Now we were talking together as equal adults.

"Because of the storms we hit on the way. Two of them. The first one wasn't so bad according to the ship's seamen. But for us 'landlubbers,' as they loved to call us passengers, it was pure torture. We kept throwing up the whole time. And there were only three heads to share between the six of us. The seamen kept laughing and sharing their own favorite remedies for seasickness with us -- which if anything made our seasickness even worse."

"Did you have to clean all that mess up afterwards?"

She nodded. "Starboard to port, port to starboard, and then starboard to port all over again. I thought I should get paid for doing such a nasty job. But the captain insisted it was all part of the agreement for my free passage. But that was nothing compared to the pure hell of that second storm."

"What could possibly be worse than that first one?"

"A hurricane as the American crew called it. A typhoon to us Japanese. The first storm that hit us was merely a gale. But when that hurricane or typhoon or whatever hit us, even the seamen were throwing up all over the ship.”

“Did you have to clean up after it.”

She nodded. “But only after the hurricane had passed. During it, I was too busy lying in my hammock I had instead of a bed and rushing to the deck's railing to throw up because I couldn't even make it to one of the heads. I was that seasick. Even the captain kept throwing up.”

“My God! So who was left to steer the ship?”

“The captain . . . well, sort of anyway. He had to man the helm even while he was throwing up all over the bridge at the same time. After all, the captain must take complete responsibility for the ship's, crew's and passengers' welfare, no matter what. Miraculously, he somehow managed to get us through.”

“And you had to clean all that mess up afterward?”

She nodded again. “The nastiest job I've ever done in my whole life before or since. This time the captain did pay me for 'a job well done' he said. But I think the real reason was he felt guilty for sailing us into that typhoon in the first place -- even though there were few satellites of any kind back then, let alone weather satellites. But he could comminicate by radio with other ships in the area. We were supposed to sail from Yokohama to Los Angeles in the standard twelve days. It took us twenty two and completely torpedoed the ship's timetable for onward ports-of-call from Los Angeles. Oh, was I happy when the lighter boat came to where the captain had moored our ship and picked up us passengers, the crew and the cargo. When I got off the lighter and onto the quay, I wanted to kiss it even though I was still wobbling all over the place because I hadn't gotten my land legs back yet."

"Ha, you certainly seem to have picked up a lot of sailor talk during that voyage!"

"Enough to make even your ears burn. That's what happens when you spend all your time talking nothing but sailor talk with the captain and seamen 24 hours a day for twenty two whole days. When I finally got off the ship in Los Angeles, I practically had to learn standard English all over again at that community college."

"You said you were glad you went to a community college instead of Harvard or Yale. I'd really like to know about that, too."

Fumie looked at her watch. "That's a long story in itself. And I'm afraid we've run out of time for it today. But I'll tell you about it at our next meeting."

"I'm already looking forward to it!"

Submitted: September 09, 2023

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s

Like
Shelfit

Chapters

T
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64

Add Your Comments:

Sign in to write a comment

Comments

B Douglas Slack

Sounds as if Fumie had a tough time of it. When I was on board the Oxford (spy ship) off Vietnam, we went through a typhoon. We were bucking seas of around 35-40 feet, rolling on beams end about 20-25 degrees, and making bets on who could stand up the longest.

Bill

Tue, October 3rd, 2023 3:33pm

Author
Reply

Gald to hear you hear you had no comments about my 'sailor talk.' Your ship sounds like it was better balanced and prepared for very rough seas than Fumie's cargo ship.

Ken

Tue, October 3rd, 2023 2:23pm