My mother’s golf pro called to tell her he was going home to Canada for two weeks. A server at a restaurant heavily frequented by expatriates told me foreigners were showing up with their suitcases and having one last meal before flying out. Some foreign companies and embassies were advising their staff members to leave. I suppose all of this isn’t surprising with three explosions at a nuclear power plant and predictions of major aftershocks. In fact, as I began to write this, my CD rack started to rattle and the ceiling lamp began to sway. Another temblor.
But my family just canceled an opportunity to get away from our country. Several months ago, my parents arranged for my son and me, along with my brother’s family, which lives in New York, to join them at a friend’s beach house in the Philippines. How lovely it would have been to relax in that oasis, not to mention take a break from the anxiety-raising tremors and fear of radiation exposure.
Such reveries were far from my parents’ mind, however. “I don’t know about the Philippines,” said my mother the night after the earthquake struck, on March 11. Huh? Having spent close to half of my life overseas, I didn’t immediately get the connection between the devastation up north and our holiday plans.
Over the next few days, my mother frequently used the word fukinshin, which roughly translates as “indiscreet” or “inappropriate.” It would not be right for me to wear fancy clothes, like, for example, the kimono I had planned to put on to attend my son’s elementary-school graduation ceremony. We shouldn’t rejoice, and certainly shouldn’t display joy, when others were suffering so much.
