Sasebo: Day 1

My family was never the type to do family reunions. We never met for a big road trip or went to Disneyland together or wore matching t-shirts. My dad's sisters and their families have always been pretty far flung living in Arizona, Ohio and Massachusetts (the Barrett family actually bounced around a lot and has lived abroad). So mostly, my childhood holidays were the biggest family get-togethers and usually involved seeing my mom's parents one year for Christmas and driving out to Ohio to see my dad's parents the next year. Thanksgiving always meant spending time with my mom's parents and her sister's family. But since our  holiday traditions are so regular, there's not much of a big deal to it. We spend that time together because we're family and that's what families do.
 
Plus, my mom usually makes her eggnog and people from the farthest darkest corners of the world will crawl on hands and knees to get some of that.

But this year, it was my mission to help orchestrate a different kind of reunion. This year, my mother came to Japan for the first time and with my dad's expertise of the area, the three of us finally went to Sasebo, Nagasaki to see where my grandmother, Masuda Haruko,was born.

I didn't grow up knowing my grandmother. She wasn't alive when I was born, so for the first 10 years or so of my life, a part of my identity was pretty alien to me. It wasn't until about fourth grade when a class project required we ask our mothers what their names are. I, like everyone else at that age, just assumed everyone's parents were named "Mom" and "Dad." Maybe it was a generational thing, like everyone naming their kids "Cindy" or "Brad."

But that wasn't the time when I learned I was part Japanese. In second grade, my mother came to my class to teach us about Japan for the day. Our teacher, Ms. Fehr, was teaching us about different continents and countries and would make elaborate multi-day lessons about one culture or another. I think Antarctica was thrown in there, too. For that, she actually brought in a small footbridge like you'd see in a garden and had us all cross it, pretending we were disembarking a ship. Yeah, she was pretty cool.

But on "Japan Day," my mom came to class wearing one of her mother's kimono. Let me explain something really quick: Japan's not a thing when you're 7. So this was a very strange experience for everyone. My mom wore geta, and talked about Japanese clothes. She even brought in some food I can only assume she found at the Asian grocery in deepest most remote Wilmington. And then she had me stand up and she dressed both me and Ms. Fehr in kimono. Then, she put on a scratchy old record that belonged to the first Haruko and taught us a Japanese dance. Haruko, when she lived in Indiana, would perform dances like that for public gatherings. Just imagine what the people of Indiana in the 1950s would have thought. I like to think it was probably what my classmates were feeling: interest, confusion and sheer entertainments value.

I got a kick out of it, at least.

But then my little second grade brain disregarded the whole experience until fourth grade when the name, "Haruko" resurfaced. Still, it didn't quite compute: your roots aren't a big deal at that age. It wasn't until early high school when I started actually thinking about my heritage. And it wasn't until now when I was actually able and ready to do something with that knowledge.

So this summer, while my parents were in Japan, we made the trip south to see where Haruko was born, where she lived, and where she met my grandfather.

My grandpa has told the story of how he met Haruko and lived with her for a summer while he was stationed in Sasebo many times. He's written parts of the story for a family history he wrote a few years ago, and he's told me bits and pieces. Everyone in our family have small snippets of his accounts depending on whom he thinks needs to hear what.

I usually get the PG version. But while the details are scattered, the stories are the same.

Dad and I sat down and mapped out where grandpa told us he used to go to meet Haruko at the Navy PX and the road he took to see her at her rented rooms outside of town.

Mom, Dad and I spent our first day in Sasebo walking around the Navy base area trying to find someone to talk to. Our mission was simple:

A. Find someone
B. Ask said someone about Sasebo in the late to post war period
C. Get details about the Masuda family, such as where the house may have been before it was destroyed by the bombings

Sasebo's an easy walk-around sort of town. And like I said, Dad's been here. He took some time after a business trip to Japan four years ago and explored Sasebo, trying to match some old pictures my grandpa took of himself and Haruko to the current areas. Finding those places again with Mom and me this time was also included on our list of to-dos.

We walked to the Nimitz Park in eastern Sasebo. Fun fact, Albuquerque is Sasebo's sister city. We had to walk across the Albuquerque Bridge to get into the park. Yes, we took a left at Albuquerque.

But after walking through the park, we found a lot of friendly looking barbed wire and fences, so we tried going towards the actual Naval Activities Base down the road. Less barbed wire, more uniforms. One such uniform at the main gate told us we couldn't get inside without a pass or someone living who was currently active in the Navy. Sorry, Mom.

So no record seeking from the Navy. Well, we looked at the map and saw there was a Japanese naval defense museum nearby, so we went off in that direction. The museum is pretty elaborate. In a building that looks like just a very nice house, there are about 4 floors with different information about the history of the Japanese navy. Most of it is in Japanese with very concise English translations, but you get the idea from the wealth of video, photographs and artifacts.

One of the most amazing artifacts was in the uniform room. Haruko's father was a civil engineer for the Japanese Navy. As we were looking at the uniforms, we spotted one and called Mom over. She got very excited when she saw the cocked hat with black feathers along the top.

"She used to talk about the feathers on his hat!" she said. I did a quick sketch since pictures weren't allowed. It was a dark blue suit with a waistcoat and long tail. It had 9 brass buttons and gold embroidery on the sleeves and trim. The sword and scabbard were gold and black enamel and the tassel and epaulets were gold as well. The uniform was from 1886, so a little dated, but I can't imagine it having changed too much over 20 years or so.

But again, I don't know much about military fashion.

After walking through the museum, we didn't really learn anything about Haruko or see anything that would have told us about Officer Masuda. But we did find a little library. We decided to ask the man downstairs. I explained we were there to research family history and asked if he could tell us where we could learn about families or a census. He took us upstairs to the library and tried looking through a few books. Names, properties, maps, he found a couple books and pulled them out.

I explained that Haruko worked in a PX first. He showed us maps and old photographs of the US Navy Base in 1945: it was the same base that was just outside in Nimitz Park. He pointed out on the map where the hospital was, where there had been a cinema and a bowling alley and where the men had lived and even where the PX may have been.

Then, I told him Haruko used to work in radio transmissions and he explained a part of the story none of us had known. On the photographs, he showed us a port, roughly horseshoe shaped, with two long, angled prongs sticking out into the bay. On the longer one, Jyajima, he said there was a radio station for receiving transmissions. Across the bay on a hill were radio towers. These were the towers that received the signal from the battle of Midway. The towers are there today.

He took us downstairs to the gift shop and showed us another book with more pictures, showing the damage from the bombing, but also what life was like while the Americans were stationed! Looking through the book, we found landmarks like the Tamaya department store and an old Catholic church. Grandpa had mentioned these too! In the end, I bought the book.

We walked back outside with the man. He pointed across the road to the Navy base and showed us the same old hospital. He pointed out where the bowling alley would have been: roughly where the firestation is now. He suggested we try going to the library for family records. Then, we said goodbye and he bowed as we walked away.

Unfortunately, the library was closed. But the day was young and we decided we'd go and see where Haruko rented a room from a woman. Grandpa had described it well to my dad: he walked up a tree-lined hill.

Under the trestle

 At one point, he turned off the main road and walked up a set of stairs and under a train trestle. Once on the other side of the tracks, he stepped onto the tracks and had to walk through one of a series of tunnels to get to another road.

My grandfather walked these tracks. We ran them like scared rabbits.

Up the road, we turned right and climbed a set of stairs. At the top, there was a large brown house that looked like the one in the picture of Haruko sitting on the porch. A few things were off, like the position of the porch and the length of one wall, but we thought it could be the same building with a few recent changes.

Continuing up the stairs, we found the cemetery. In the original photograph, Haruko stands to the side of two grave markers in an open area in front of a few trees. Today, the cemetery is much larger and much more crowded. We walked through the labyrinth looking and the newly gold-leafed and the old lichen-covered. Dad came to Japan in the spring four years ago. In the summer, it's much different. An old man who was visiting a grave looked at our picture and shook his head saying "A lot has changed. Everything is different."

Signs of time passing

Eventually, Dad called us over to a large open area. There was no grass, just cement everywhere. There was a low wall with a small gap and two voids where gravemarkers should be. But Dad knew this was the place. Here was the little gate he had to open. Here were stumps where the trees were. It was the spot. We don't know why they would move the stones, but it was here. I got Mom to stand at the corner where Haruko stood and took the picture.

Right as we were walking down the hill and crossing the tracks, Mom stopped to talk to a man in his garden. She showed him the pictures and I asked about the house. At first he looked at them and said we were in the wrong place, it was surely a different hill.

But then he looked at the graves, then looked at the house again and paused. Then, he asked us to follow him. We went back up the hill and this time took an earlier turn. He pointed at the picture. Faded and faint in the poor exposure, were some stairs up the stone wall. We were now standing at those stairs. We walked up them, as he said, "Ton...ton...ton..." counting the steps and matching them to the picture.

On top of the wall was a cleared area that was being used as a community garden. He explained the house in the picture used to be here, but the woman died and the house was taken down. So our suspicions were right: the other house, the one further back, wasn't the right one. But here was a man, old enough to know, showing us where the real house actually was.

I asked Mom how it felt to be visiting all these places, to see and stand where Haruko once did.

"Ghostly," she said. "It's like every time we try to catch up to her, she fades again." It's like chasing a shadow around a maze for her.