Chapter 34: CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

"OK, Fumie, now will you tell me the story of why you came back to Japan?"

"Yes, Dave, I will. And I hope it won't take as much time as last time."

"Don't worry about that, Fumie. Take as long as you want. I've really become interested in hearing your story. So what did you do after you lost Mike?"

"Well, as I told you last time, I couldn't live in that empty house anymore, nor live in the country that I still blame for killing Mike."

"Could you still afford the rent to keep living in that house? I'll bet you didn't come back to Japan immediately, no matter how much you hated America by then."

She nodded. "Yes, to both your questions. I could still afford to keep living in that house that I now hated. Because in addition to the rather good salary I was getting from my college, I was surprised to start receiving a rather generous monthly stipend for Mike's Purple Heart that I'm still receiving now -- in U.S. dollars. Particularly living here in Japan where the dollar goes so much further. As for why I stayed for a while longer in the U.S., my college had just started it's second semester and I couldn't just up and quit on the president who had been so kind to me. But I did tell him right away that I would be leaving at the end of that academic year. And told him why."

"So how did he react?"

"He said he was going to miss me, but he understood. 'At least you can say Mike died fighting for his country,' 'But it's not my country -- not anymore!' 'I can understand that, too, Fumie, Again, I'm really going to miss you.'"

"So when the school year ended, I'll bet you hopped on the first cargo ship back to Japan . So you could get your jollies for another twenty or so more days of tossing your cookies sailing through all those really fun hurricanes again, right?"

And we both laughed.

"So Fumie tell me, what did you actually do?"

"Well, when my school year ended, the lease on our house expired at just about the same time and I didn't renew it. I was already all packed up and ready to come back to Japan. I took a jet from Los Angles to Tokyo's Haneda Airport and allowed myself the luxury of flying first class."

"First class? Wow! How could you afford it?"

"Don't forget during my years with Mike, with our two incomes we could build up quite a nice little nest egg in U.S dollars. I'm glad I chose first class because the seat reclined so much farther than economy. So I could sleep almost the whole twelve hours or so to Haneda -- I was so emotionally worn out by Mike's death and living in that empty house without him. When I got to Haneda, I immediately took a local train to Tokyo Station and got on a Shinkansen bullet train --that I'd never ridden on before -- to Kyoto. Again 'first class' back then. But now called the 'green class' for some reason. With the dollar still being at three hundred and sixty yen, it seemed incredibly cheap."

"Kyoto? But I thought you said you came from Osaka."

"That's where I was born and brought up, yes. But remember my falling out with my parents? I certainly didn't want to live with them anymore. And Osaka had been so badly damaged by the fire bombings during the war that I knew I wouldn't be able to find a nice apartment there, even though it was in the process of rebuilding. Kyoto, on the other hand, was spared your bombings because of its historical significance -- but even more so, I think, because there were no real targets of any military value in it."

"Hmm. I live in Kyoto, too, and commuted to Osaka before I got hired by you. But the rents here are much higher than those in Osaka for the same type of apartment."

"And they were even higher then because so many more people wanted to live here just after the war."

"Why so?"

"Well as I told you, almost all of the major cities in Japan had been bombed so badly, there were almost no apartments that hadn't been destroyed left to rent. Many people had to live in tents or lean-to shacks. Except for Kyoto. There were plenty of undamaged apartments here. And everyone wanted to live in one. So the landlords could charge whatever they wanted. In Japanese yen. But I had plenty of U.S. dollars. And though the housing shortage was nowhere near as bad by the time I came back to Japan, the yen was still pegged at three hundred sixty yen to the dollar. Even after the 'Nixon shock' when he floated the dollar against all other currencies, the yen only appreciated to about three hundred and fifteen yen to the dollar. And stayed at about that rate for quite a long time."

"Yeah, maybe. But you're paying me in yen, not dollars. The exchange rate doesn't make any difference to me. One yen equals just one yen here. I really envy you your dollars. So what did you do with all that money in dollars?"

"I found a rather nice set of tatami mat rooms in a typical Kyoto style machiya -- a narrow house facing the street, but going back for quite a distance from that street with even a small garden in the middle. The kitchen and bathroom were shared. But the two other women also living there were quite friendly and we became like sisters to each other."

"So how did you wind up buying this school? And why a school and not some other kind of business?"

"First, to answer to you second question, I had really come to enjoy teaching Japanese at that college in L.A. So much so, I wanted to continue teaching."

"Teaching Japanese? In Japan?"

She chuckled. "Well no, I couldn't very well teach students how to speak their own native language, now could I? But I could teach them how to speak English instead. And there was quite a demand for it. From women, that is. As for men, it was something extremely unmasculine that only us lowly women studied."

"So, why did you buy this school?"

She laughed. "That's where my dollars come in! As I told you the owner before me had bankrupted it by aiming it at boys instead of girls. And I told him I could pay cash outright. In yen, that is. He was so desperate for cash by then, I was able to haggle him down to a price that still left me with plenty of dollars to pay the salaries of the many new teachers I had to hire. Again in yen, of course. And still had plenty of dollars left over."

I hesitated for a moment. "Hmm . . . maybe this is too personal, Fumie. But didn't you want to remarry and have children like you and Mike were planning on doing? I mean, I'm sure you were still young enough then. But if you don't want to answer that, I'll understand."

"It's all right, Dave. I didn't want to marry anyone after Mike. I knew no one could ever take his place. Particularly not a Japanese man. Most of them have exactly the same opinion about a women's roll as a wife that my parents do. And many Japanese men in my age group still introduce their wive as their gusai -- which means 'stupid wife!'

"My God! They're that bad?"

Fumie nodded. "As for children . . . well, my students here have become like my own daughters to me. In their very brief stay with me, it gives me great satisfaction to watch them grow and mature. They're still girls when they enter, but more like young women when they leave. And when they leave us, they're ready to start their new lives as adults. Some of them even keep in touch with me by letter."

"'Daughters' only? What about the boy students here? Have they become like sons to you?"

She pursed her lips in thought. "Well . . . let's just say they've become more like nephews-in-law to me. Mike did have a brother -- whom neither us especially liked -- with two sons."

And again, we both burst out laughing.

[AUTHOR'S WARNING: Don't think your dollars can go anywhere near as far now as they did for Fumie when this story takes place. The yen was pegged at 80 yen to the dollar for several years recently. And now people in Japan are worried about the yen having depreciated to only 150 to the dollar. Add to that the oil shocks of the 70s that caused the incredible inflation of the 80s and you'll find your dollars -- or euros or pounds or whatever -- can still make you seem like paupers here by comparison! -- kw]

Submitted: November 09, 2023

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

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B Douglas Slack

I've always wanted to go back to Misawa, but probably won't ever get there. Loved the country and the people. When I first got there, Yen was 350:dollar. Just as I left, it was 180:dollar. Bought all my stereo/quad gear while I was there. Still using it right now, 60 years later.

Fumie certainly managed her money well enough in the States. Even with the good exchange rate, it couldn't have been cheap to buy all she did. Kyoto wasn't harmed much during the war, but if we had invaded, that's where we would have done it, according to various pundits.

Bill

Tue, November 21st, 2023 4:57pm

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You must have been in Japan in the 80s when the yen suddenly shot up to 150 to the dollar, allowing my wife and I to travel to foreign countries where we could use those much higher valued yen, instead of travelling around Japan where the yen was still only 1 yen. Fumie returned to Japan in the mid 60s when not only was the dollar at 360 yen, but long before the oil shocks of the 70s and the explosive inflation they caused. She was also able to haggle the price of the school down to much lower than the original price and hire teachers using her dollars as is stated in the text and STILL have plenty of dollars left. (Emphasis now added to the text for the second use of the phrase.)
You and I know the Shinkansen is a bullet train. But what about people who have never been to Japan? And pity the gaijin just off the plane trying to buy a ticket for the bullet train when all the signs read "Shinkansen" only!
I don't know who your 'pundits' about the war are, but we couldn't have invaded Kyoto first as it is not on any sea. My pundits say we were planning to invade Kyushu first because it had many beaches where an amphibious invasion would have been far more practical. Unfortunately, that's exactly where the Japanese Army brass had decided the landing would take place, too, and prepared for it. It would have been another D Day had the Japanese not surrendered before such a landing was necessary.

Ken

Tue, November 21st, 2023 6:17pm

B Douglas Slack

I don't know where my brain was. I meant to type Kyushu but said Kyoto instead.

I was in Misawa from Nov '69 to Sept '72. About a year before I left was when then Yen began floating. Caught a lot of landlords, who had been dealing in Dollars only rentals, by surprise. All of a sudden, their rentals stopped being profitable.

Wed, November 22nd, 2023 2:14pm

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Do you have your dates mixed up? The Nixon Shock happened in 1971, yes. But the dollar only dropped to about 315 yen for the first few years after that. The dollar didn't drop below 200 until almost 1980 and only stayed there for a brief time before fluctuating between 200 and 250 until 1985 when it suddenly slid to150 yen. It COULDN'T have been only 180 when you left Misawa, if that was in 1972!

Wed, November 22nd, 2023 6:09pm