The Shotoku Teahouse

By Keiko Mumford and Richard Mumford

A true story of two young people of different races and cultures who meet in Japan, fall in love and, despite the hatred of four years of brutal warfare between their nations, marry. The opposition of Keikos samurai family, Dicks Methodist parents, and the Navy bureaucracy is nearly overwhelming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 31, 2001
• ISBN: 9781465321565

Keiko Mumford

Dick and Keiko (Yano) Mumford were raised 10,000 miles apart—Dick in a small town in Delaware, Keiko in southern Japan where she endured the suffering of wartime Japan. In 1956 they fell in love and married. As an interracial couple they moved to America and Keiko struggled to adjust to a new culture.

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Copyright © 2000 by Richard and Keiko Mumford.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

1.SHOTOKU

2. ORIGINS

3. OUR FLEETING MOMENT

4. YOUNGER BROTHER OR NEIGHBOR?

5. THE EXOTIC YANKEE ORIENT

6. GROWING Up

7. DISTURBED WATERS

8. FAMILY

9. SHIPBOARD

10. PEARL HARBOR, DECEMBER 7, 1941: VICTORY AND INFAMY

11. SADA LISTENS

12. OUR HOME FRONTS

13. KARMA?

14. DESPERATION

15. OMIAI AND WILLIE’S WISDOM

16. VOICE OF THE CRANE

17. TYPHOONS: A STORM AND A SAILOR

18. CHURCH AND TEA

19. KAMI AND CONFUSION

20. LOUD THUNDER AND A SOFT FLUTE

21. INTIMATE STEPS

22. A CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT

23. A SAMURAI Yields

24. IT WAS THE WAR, YOU KNOW . . .

25. ADVICE

26. TORPEDOED

27. BATTLESTATIONS

28. THE KAMI RESPOND AGAIN

29. JAPANESE INN

30. WAITING AND EXPLAINING

31. A JOURNEY OF TEN THOUSAND MILES

32. MEETING AT FENWICK

33. DEATH ENTERS

34. TRANSITIONS

35. A DAY AMONG AMERICANS

36. DEATH AND A FINAL CHOICE

37. SADA’S SPIRIT

38. HOME?

Dedicated to our four children who have enduredthe problems and learned the

joys of our interracial marriage. The story can also serve as a confirmation of the

happiness, the deep respect, and the wondrous, humorous variety that can emerge

from the joining of two people from different races and cultures.

INTRODUCTION

IT WAS SAID that Prince Shotoku could carry on a conversation with ten people on ten different subjects all at the same time. This greatest Japanese statesman and hero, legend holds, was born in a stable in 574 A.D., according to the western calendar, and sometimes called himself Umayada no Miko, Prince of the Horse Shed. At least this was the story told by monks who had visited the T’ang dynasty in China and heard from the Nestorian Christians about the great leader called Jesus Christ who was born in a manger.

Prince Shotoku was best known as Shotoku Taishi or Prince of Sagely Virtue. The name seems appropriate. Prince Shotoku began both a Renaissance and a Reformation in seventh century Japan. He was Japan’s Saint Patrick (introducing and spreading Buddhism among Shintoists), its George Washington (presiding over and helping to write a seventeen article constitution and centralizing Japan’s government), a Renaissance-style patron of the arts, especially architecture, and an historian, compiling lengthy historical chronicles of early Japan.

In a diplomatic role he sent envoys of scholar monks to China and instructed them to learn, copy, and bring back knowledge from the world’s greatest civilization. Boldly, in an impulse of national pride, he upset the Chinese emperor by beginning his correspondence as an equal, From the ruler of the Land of the Rising Sun to the Emperor of the Land of the Setting Sun. When he died in 622 A.D., this man who had accomplished so much in the world, announced from his deathbed, The world is empty and false; Buddha alone is real.

Probably neither the owner, nor anyone who served hot green tea at the Shotoku teahouse knew much about the life of Prince Shotoku Taishi. But Dick, a young man from America came into Keiko’s life at this teahouse almost 1,400 years after the Prince’s birth, and surprisingly taught her, a Japanese, about this prince who struggled to embrace another culture and meld it with his own. This bold American soon joined with her to weave together two cultures and two lives. This is the story of that blending.

Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will. Jawaharlal Nehru

Dick and Keiko Mumford May 1999

1.SHOTOKU

The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer; but rather what they miss.

Thomas Carlyle

August, 1956

VERY CHEAP, YOU buy, yes, make someone happy, the Japanese V shopkeeper, dressed incongruently in a cowboy hat, black boots, and a Japanese yukata jacket, asked me as I bargained with him in one of the many small cluttered souvenir shops along sailor’s street." I intended to send this red and black flower designed jewelry box with its mirror, four tiny drawers, and soft satin interior to my seventy year old grandmother in Delaware.

How about 5,000 yen? I asked, hoping that he would reduce his 8,000 yen price (at 360 yen to the dollar) which he insisted was so low he would lose money.

Two, I sell you two for 14,000 yen, he pleaded as I turned to walk away. He pulled out each drawer opened the lid so I could hear the music box, and busily polished the square mirrors with a satin cloth. Since I did not have two live grandmothers, I continued to walk out of the shop.

Then across the street, near the traffic light, I saw her walking along the narrow rough cement block sidewalk. She stepped at a brisk, purposeful pace, as did most Japanese. She wore a white blouse and dark blue skirt. A light blue bandana covered most of her jet black hair.

Keiko, Keiko, I yelled motioning with both hands for her to cross the street to the small shop. She paused, waved, and continued walking towards a narrow alley between two stores.

Keiko, I need your help. Dozo, kimasu (come)!

She paused again, then hesitatingly began to cross the street. A small blue taxi whipped around the corner, blowing its horn, its tiny right turn flipper located just under the mirror stretched out and blinking. It almost hit a parked three-wheeled bicycle truck.

Watch out! I shrieked and starting running toward her. Keiko alert and, no doubt used to these kamikaze taxis, stepped back behind the thin cement electric pole. The Japanese are never aggressive, unless they are driving a car or selling merchandise to American sailors, I thought as I pointed my finger at the taxi driver now speeding by me.

You were in our supply office this morning, but I forget your name. You’re from the carrier in the harbor, the Oriskany. Is your name Deek? Keiko asked with a smile that filled her face and opened wide eyes that glowed with interest.

Close. Dick,’ they call me, it rhymes with stick and pick, Richard really, but that’s much harder for you to say."

Keiko talked to the storekeeper in Japanese and lowered the price of the jewelry box to 6,200 yen, about seventeen American dollars. The shopkeeper wrapped it carefully, placed it inside a soft cardboard box, and tied it securely, ready for shipment home. I planned to use the cheap military postal rates at the base.

Thank you, Keiko. Let me treat you to a drink or a snack, maybe a slice of cake with tea, I requested as we bent under the cloth noren and left the shop.

I shouldn’t. I’m going to the tailor shop to pick up some cloth. Then I’ll take the bus home for dinner. I mustn’t keep my family waiting.

You could spare twenty minutes for a sailor who will soon return to sea for a long cruise home, couldn’t you? After all, I may fall overboard or be shot by a North Korean MIG and you wouldn’t want to turn down a man facing dangers like that, would you? I insisted, smiling.

Keiko stared at me, then looked up and down the street as if checking that the coast was clear.

Okay. There’s a teahouse down near the next alley. They have sweetcakes and delicious tea, the first young pickings of leaves. It’s called the Shotoku teahouse.

An old man wearing wooden geta shoes clip-clopped past two boys who played cards on a block of smooth cement covering the street drain. One boy placed a thick playing card on the smooth surface. The other boy, dressed in a black school uniform, a style dating back to the nineteenth century Prussian influence on education, slapped his thick card on top of the other card, and lifted it quickly intending to flip the card into the air and over on its face. Success gave him the card and another turn. Failure meant his card would lay on the bottom for his friend to flip. It reminded me of my days shooting marbles on a dirt driveway back in Delaware.

Inside the Shotoku teahouse, Keiko selected a table in the back corner. We used the oshiboro, hot wet towels, to clean our hands. I rubbed mine across my face. Keiko frowned but did not object.

Keiko cut the multi-colored square cake, called wagashi, with a tiny bamboo knife as a bow-tied waiter served the tea delicately and with perfect form. The sweet cake complemented the somewhat bitter taste of green tea. We both watched the tea leaves sink to the bottom of our cups knowing that a tiny stem floating vertically meant good luck.

‘You ‘re a fleet sailor, a swabby’ who goes to sea and carries more prestige than land-based sailors. I was reluctant to talk to you on the street because Japanese girls who are seen with American sailors lose their reputations. By the way, how did you know my name?

‘You ‘re head of the accounting department, I believe, at the ship’s store office. I saw you when I placed our ship’s orders for Japanese merchandise to sell to sailors while at sea. You looked at me for several seconds when I entered the building. Gus, the office manager, gave me your name. He said you had an interesting background, something about Manchuria and the Nagasaki atomic bomb."

The waiter filled our short water glasses and our bright blue teacups again. The clear, distinct plinking of Koto music emanated from two polished speakers in opposite corners of the room. Attractive odors from the noodle shop next door combined with the music, the pungent taste of green tea, and the sounds of Japanese conversation, to pull me into a dreamy world of novel and refreshing sensations that contrasted sharply with both the shipboard procedures and the daily routine at my home in a small town in Delaware.

Tell me about yourself, Dick, Keiko requested in a sincere tone of voice. I reflected for a moment, because I never really had to describe myself before.

Actually, I’ve had three different chapters in my life so far. How many are we allowed? Shakespeare spoke of the seven stages of man.

I don’t know, maybe five or seven, certainly not four or nine, they’re unlucky numbers. In Japanese four (shi) is pronounced the same as our word for death and nine the same as pain. But tell me about all your lives.

Not very exciting, really. I grew up in a town of 500 people and had many of the adventures and a variety of experiences that come with rural living. I climbed tall trees, skated on ponds, swam in the Atlantic, and hunted wild rabbits and squirrels with a .22 caliber rifle. After I got my license, I raced my 1937 Chevrolet along dark, narrow beach roads at night and drove Dad’s wide-tire 1931 Model A Ford across the empty sand dunes between Ocean City, Maryland, and Fenwick Island, Delaware, bouncing and sliding, making my own road through the sand, then steering along the wet beach close to the waves spinning the wheels in the sand and splashing salt water high in the air. I fished along the surf, raked for clams in the Indian River and caught hard crabs off the pier at my grandfather’s creek. When I got too hot or when giant mosquitoes started to bite, I jumped in the creek and swam around among the crabs, eels, minnows, and perch.

‘ Sounds fascinating, you enjoyed a lot of different experiences in such a few years," Keiko commented.

‘ I also wasted a lot of time reading comic books and playing ball games with the three or four boys of my age in the town. Very few children were born in the depression and war years, so we could seldom get even three against three for basketball or baseball. Only eighteen of us graduated from high school in 1950.

A persistent piano teacher convinced me to apply to the University of Pennsylvania in 1950. They accepted me and I began the second phase of my life. At Penn I had to struggle to catch up with young men who had attended excellent public schools or prep schools. My small rural high school in Delaware was not even accredited by the state. But soon I buried myself in learning-reading, attending lectures, and talking with other serious students. I majored in history because I wanted to discover everything that had ever happened, not only in the United States and Europe, but also in the rest of the world, including Japan. I read Shakespeare, Rousseau, Emerson, Marcus Aurelius, Plato, and even the plays of Chikamatsu and the novel The Tale ofGenji. I soaked up the lectures and seminars of Loren Eisley in anthropology, Lewis Mumford’s thoughts on cities, A.B. Harbeson on Shakespeare (A.B. because those were the only two grades he gave), and Hilary Conroy’s fascinating lectures on Japan. But, I must be boring you with all this. It’s selfish talking about myself."

The music switched from subdued Koto twangs to Tuxedo Junction, typical of Japan’s inclination to combine East and West in this decade of the 1950’s. The teahouse even had a small coffee urn in the corner and offered donuts along with the traditional Japanese sweetcakes.

No, not at all. I’m anxious to hear about chapter three of your life, Keiko said, looking expectantly at my face.

That’s still going on now. The Navy brought me into a different world, some would say the real world, especially at the level of an enlisted man, a seaman recruit in boot camp. I washed pots and pans until they were spotless and prepared eggs and pancake mix at five o’clock in the morning in a huge mess hall kitchen. I scrubbed floors, carried out garbage, marched on a hot macadam grinder and took severe tongue lashings from arbitrary and unreasonable drill instructors for marching out of line or having a crease in my bed covering. Aboard ship I interacted with a motley group of rough characters, some one step away from jail, alcoholics, a very pleasant and considerate homosexual chief petty officer, former members of Brooklyn street gangs who would rather fight than enjoy a movie, and sailors from the old navy who strained hard to assert their authority, based on years of service, and to be as demanding and obnoxious toward young seamen as they could.

That’s enough about me. I’ve moved from conversations with a kindly, blind newspaper man who always had time to stop and talk to a young naive boy in Frankford, to taking notes from a brilliant lecturer in Shakespeare at Penn whose classroom was filled, not only with those who had enrolled in his course, but double that number of unenrolled students who stopped by in the afternoon just to hear him play several characters in scenes from Julius Caesar, to sharing space with a shipmate on the carrier who claims to have killed several men when he was associated, as a teenager, with mob bosses in Philadelphia.

What will be chapter four?

I have no idea. The study of history prepared me for nothing . . . and for everything. I know a lot and have learned how to think analytically, with evidence, but I have no special skill or training that will appeal to an employer. My father has built a thriving poultry business, but I have no interest in joining him in the company. We have a saying in English, play it by ear’. I guess I’m doing that now.

I carefully packed Mixture 79 tobacco into my corn cob pipe, struck one of the thin wooden Japanese matches, and sucked in several draws through the brown-stained stem. The waiter, probably not used to an American sailor dressed in whites, smoking a pipe, drinking green tea, and talking seriously to a well-dressed Japanese lady, stared at us from his official position near a small table holding several teapots. A young boy, sitting with two middle-aged ladies, pointed toward me, touched one lady’s arm, and said gaijin, foreigner. I looked directly at him for several seconds. He clutched the lady’s arm at first and looked frightened. Then I smiled. He returned the smile and let go of the lady’s arm.

* * * *

I knew who it was when I first turned the corner and began walking toward the tailor shop. I could tell by the side of his head, his profile, the dark eyebrows, the long thin arms and dainty hands, hands of a pianist or artist, I thought when I saw him earlier. He had entered the ship’s store office that morning and walked around the large room that had served as a Japanese army headquarters during the war. He had stared at me for a long time. I tried to look elsewhere, but my eyes kept moving back to him even as he talked to the supply officer about merchandise for the attack carrier, Oriskany, now anchored in the middle of Sasebo harbor.

Keiko, Keiko, he yelled my name again, this time loud enough to be heard down the whole block. I ignored his first call, but then the second loud sound of Keiko forced me to walk over to the souvenir shop. I bargained for Dick with the shopkeeper, actually a friend of my father’s who used to live near our village. We agreed on a price that gave him a reasonable profit yet satisfied Dick. Dick insisted that I have tea with him. Reluctantly, I directed him to the Shotoku teahouse nearby. I rushed inside so as not to be seen by my friends at the tailor shop.

His first question impressed me in several ways. He asked, Is this teahouse named after the seventh century nobleman who brought important elements of the Chinese tradition into Japanese culture-written language, the Buddhist religion, art forms, and a method of central government?

‘Yes, but how did you know about Shotoku Taishi?"

I studied Japanese history at the university. But let’s talk about you. I’d like to know something about your adventurous early life. Gus, at the office, said you had an exciting background. Tell me about your experiences.

His request was very impolite and inappropriate, after all, we had not even been formally introduced and this question called for personal information. However, I looked into his large brown eyes, so innocent and honest, and decided to share a bit about my early days.

I spent my early life in Manchuria, China, where my father, a Japanese army officer, was stationed. We were to be part of the mass immigration of Japanese to this underpopulated province of our East Asian Empire.

Suddenly Dick pulled a pen from his pocket and began to write in a small brown notebook.

Are you interviewing me? Have I done something wrong? Are you with navy intelligence? I asked.

Dick laughed, a hearty laugh that I had never heard from a man, a full face laugh that could be heard throughout the teahouse. The waiter stopped cleaning ashtrays and stared at us.

No, not at all. I like to write. And I take notes, so I don’t forget what I see and hear. Someday I may write something about Japan. If this disturbs you, I’ll stop.

"That’s okay, as long as I don’t see my life story in the Stars and Stripes newspaper."

No one will see these notes except me-and you, if you ever care to.

In 1941 my family and I moved back to Japan from Manchuria. My father held a military police position here in Sasebo. He often worked out of the building that the ship’s store office now uses. I went to school during the war, that is until my school was bombed by American B-29s. I survived the terrible bombing of Sasebo and, near the end of the war, helped refugees escaping the atomic explosion at nearby Nagasaki. After the war, I attended college for a while but had to withdraw and work to help send my brother through the university. In 1950 I was able to get a job at the American naval base. As the Chinese would say, vI learned to taste bitterness,’ most of my life.

The waiter poured more hot green tea into our cups. Dick removed the lid from his cup, placed it to the right of the cup, held his left hand under the cup, and laid the fingers of his right hand on the side of this handle less blue and white container. He sipped the tea making some noise. I was impressed by his awareness of the Japanese method of drinking tea as well as his knowledge of Japanese history and the few Japanese words of politeness that he used to talk to me and to the waiter. This was no ordinary sailor even though he wore the Navy white uniform included that silly round white hat and walked with the sailor’s gait-legs wide apart, moving side to side as if on a rolling ship along with his head bent down in a stoop from continually going through ship’s hatches that are only five feet high.

Look, we’re in luck, Dick said with a gleam in his eyes. A stalk in my tea is floating in a vertical position.

"Yes, we call that chabashira ga tatsu. It’s a very lucky omen," I responded.

I consider it my lucky day already. I accidentally met you and enjoyed a brief talk over tea. I must stay aboard ship tomorrow, but let’s meet here for tea on Wednesday. We weigh anchors on Thursday to begin our voyage across the Pacific. Give me a little more of your time.

I did not intend to meet him today, nor on Wednesday, nor any day in the future. My family was already beginning to talk to the parents of a medical student about the prospects of my marriage to him. Anyway, I should never be seen with a sailor, especially alone with one in a teahouse.

No, I think not. You go back to the States. I’ll return to my village of Hiu. I did enjoy talking with you, really I did.

"Two out of three-jan ken pon, stone, scissors, paper. If I win, we go to the base club for dinner and dancing on Wednesday at 5:30. If you win, we say goodbye forever."

* * * *

At the bus stop I held the Kokeshi doll, absent of arms and legs, and twisted its tiny head and face in my fingers. Dick bought it for me at the doll shop near the tea house before we said goodbye. Dick had lost our little game so I would not see him again. A brief time together amounts to nothing, I said to myself. He’s just another sailor passing through, more evidence to support Buddha’s teaching of impermanence. I wished him good luck and said goodbye. His ship sails on Thursday. End of story.

* * * *

Why am I sitting here in the Shotoku tea house listening to the plucking of Koto strings and drinking green tea? We agreed not to meet again. It’s past 5:30 and some shipmates are waiting for me to join them at the Rose Marie bar for our departure party. I should go. Forget her. Go to the party, stagger back to the ship that will get underway for the wide deep Pacific at 0800 tomorrow.

This freedom is awesome, I said to myself. No coercion of family or friends, no community social pressure, no reputation to uphold, no people with advice, guarding my happiness. I alone decide what I want to do. Yet, here I am, sitting in the Shotoku teahouse in Sasebo, Japan, without any good reason and for no purpose, doing nothing. My Methodist trained grandmother frowned on idleness. Be diligent, redeem the time, she admonished me as I read comic books and swayed in the cloth hammock tied between two maple trees back in Delaware. Now, here I sat, idle, doodling on the small triangular-shaped napkin, humming to the strains of As Time Goes By in the background.

Hi, Deek-san, why are you here? You should preparing for your voyage back to the States.

I did not ask her why she was here in Shotoku. I stood, pulled out a chair, and motioned to a waiter for another cup of tea.

2. ORIGINS

The unreflective life is Not worth living.

Socrates

The uneventful life is not worth reflecting upon.

Buddha

Keiko, 1935, Korea

IT WAS COLD, bitter cold. The coldness permeated through clothing and skin to my inner organs. It was a relentless cold; frosty, bleak and shivery. The air hung as if frozen. Frostbite threatened. The white snow covering the ground balanced the white sky above. My first memories are of coldness, of a red chapped face, of bulky, padded cotton clothing, of painfully chilled ears and nose, of boots made heavy by wet snow, and of Korean workmen brushing snow off the roof to prevent its collapse. Raw, bitter, and biting blew the piercing winds. Nature, power beyond my control, seemed overwhelming.

I was playing outside with some children who had joined me in the game of Kendama. We attempted to flip a wooden ball that was attached to a string into the half-cup at the top of a short wooden cylinder. We jumped with excitement as we competed to achieve the greatest number of catches out of ten attempts. I had discovered these children in the street and it seemed natural to play with them. They were good playmates even though we had difficulty communicating.

Keiko-chan, come in at once! I reluctantly left the game, anticipating what my mother would say. I knew that the other children were Korean. I was Japanese. We were the elder brothers and they were the younger brothers. We were separate. They were gaijin, outsiders. This was the official policy of Japanese-Korean relations.

In reality we, the Japanese, controlled Korea or, to put it bluntly, we were conquerors. I was not allowed to play with children of another race and an inferior culture. I was Japanese, different, and superior. But I felt no different. My mother told me years later that I spoke perfect Korean when I was young. I must have played with Korean children often and I remember talking with our servant in Korean. My personality, even at this early age led me to interact easily with other people. My parents were not proud of my fluency in Korean because, after all, Koreans were supposed to learn the Japanese language and culture, even to adopt Japanese names.

I was born in this conqueror’s ghetto in a valley among snow-covered mountains, the daughter of a Japanese major assigned to the military police in northern Korea. One brother preceded me and a sister and brother followed.

When I was seven, our family moved across the Korean border into Manchuria. There my father, Toshiichi Yano, served as an officer in the Kwangtung army, the Japanese army that occupied Manchuria and later, Northern China. As a child, I never questioned why we were there or what my father did, or, of course, what right we had to be there. My brother and I studied in Japanese schools with Japanese teachers since we were occupiers, not immigrants to China. I sat for long hours in a cold schoolroom wrapped in layers of cotton cloth. All my life in these early years centered on learning. Mother, our education mom would see that everything was quiet, that we were warm enough, and that we had hot tea, as my brother and I would practice writing our Japanese Kanji characters (ideographs or symbol-words).

Ironically, the Chinese students in another section of the small city were writing the same characters for their Chinese language study. It was their written characters, but it was our occupation. Despite our segregation from the Chinese, I acquired some fluency in Chinese, from our Chinese maid or from Chinese playmates, children of Chinese workers in our compound. I also enjoyed the delicious dried and sugared watermelon seeds, a gift from our maid, which I ate as an after-school snack. My training was formal and structured in the classroom, but my learning about people came from playing in the streets with Chinese children.

Warmth and security clothed my early years. Nearly all Japanese children receive this sense of safety and protection as a birthright. It was expressed in food—plenty of rice and vegetables—warm clothing and secure shelter. This security was couched even more firmly in the smothering care of okasan, mother. Her continual presence and closeness became the ultimate assurance that life is circumscribed with omnipresent care. We Japanese call this amae, unconditioned love.

Poverty encircled our living area, but it was Chinese poverty, not Japanese. We did not have abundance or luxuries but we did have the uninterrupted enjoyment of life’s necessities. I think I learned very early that these necessities—tasty, basic foods, a warm comfortable house, and loose, smooth clothing are as satisfying as luxuries. In the Zen tradition, these simple necessities deserve attention, that is, one must gradually become aware of their attractiveness, sensitive to the physical pleasure and the psychological fulfillment they provide. The solid wall resisting a chilling wind, the steaming bowl of plain white rice, the thick cotton undershirt, loose but warm falling along the contours of the shoulders, the sound of hot green tea splashing in a clay cup, these are simple things that provide deep satisfaction, if we only wake up to the pleasure and contentment they provide.

Our maid Qualin had a very flat round face. Her high cheek bones pulled the skin tightly from her oval chin. Many of her teeth were missing and curved wrinkles were had begun to reshape her weathered face. She was less than five feet tall with short arms and legs. Her hair was streaked with gray and encircled a radiant smile that could suddenly turn into a challenging frown. Although she was only a servant, I believe we all feared her anger. She taught me Chinese phrases and within a year, I was speaking enough Chinese that I could help my mother negotiate with Chinese vegetable merchants. Qualin often shared Chinese sayings and riddles all of which she attributed to Confucius. She had a favorite story which she often repeated to show that common sense was sometimes superior to great learning. She moved both her arms and rolled her eyes as she related the tale.

Two boys were arguing, so they decided to consult the great scholar Confucius. Confucius asked the source of disagreement. One boy began, When is the sun closer to the earth? I say it is in the morning because the sun is very large as it appears over the horizon and becomes very small as it reaches the top of the sky. It is well known that the same object looks bigger when it is close but smaller when it is far away.

But I disagree, said the other boy, because when the sun rises in the morning it is cool, but when it gets overhead it is warm. Therefore, it must be closer at noon, since it is warmer at noon.

Confucius though for awhile, then shook his head from side to side and commented, It is a great mystery. He did not know how to answer. Nor did Qualin. Nor did I. But the message was clear—those learned people who profess to know are often as puzzled and uncertain as everyone else. Qualin made certain that we, who studied constantly, understood this anecdote.

Qualin was the comic relief in a rigid, disciplined household. She was the fun, the excitement that countered the structured routine of school, eat, study, and sleep of my Japanese family. She added humor, unpredictability, the subtle challenge to the ordinary. She was magic and I needed this magic.

My religion was not theological, or catechetical, but involved the carrying out of accepted traditions. We kept a small Buddhist shrine against one wall in the room. I helped my mother carry fresh fruit and rice to this prayer shelf. Also, I would carry letters received from grandmother back in Japan to the shelf so that our ancestors could read the letters. This was confusing since I did not know where the ancestors could be, wondered if they could see me, and was actually afraid that I might actually meet one of these ghosts. Even a family ancestor can be frightening to a young girl.

I went with my parents to a Buddhist temple that was used by the Japanese and carried out the ceremonies of prayer that we hoped would bring happiness to the family. No priest spoke of sin, morality or proper behavior. I wanted to please my family and my nation, not the gods, yet I did not want the gods to be angry or bring bad luck. The motivation for socially-acceptable behavior was the smile on my mother’s face and the satisfaction that I was an integral part of a group that held similar values. Most of all, I did not want to be excluded from that group of friends, my fellow Japanese, or to see a frown of disappointment on my mother’s face. The gods might be somewhere out there but they were not important, unless they threatened my family with bad luck.

At school I learned that the gods of Shintoism were unique protectors of Japan. Our history had been guided by divine spirits and divine Emperors. All our history contained a vast storehouse of examples which encouraged loyalty, honor, courage, and discipline. The attention to duty and obedience, ordained by the gods of Shinto, were virtues above all others. Not only did these Japanese gods serve as a source of inspiration to us, but they protected our nation and supported national policy. No elaborate theology, formal creed, or logical evidence emerged to support or explain these religious practices. It was taught by practice and we were to accept the customs and attitudes as they unfolded in our daily lives.

Despite growing up in an alien land surrounded by people of another culture who were obviously hostile and resentful, my childhood was secure. I was Japanese and the Japanese were a unique, singular race, unequaled in ability and intelligence, with a calling to uplift mankind and to spread their divinely-ordained techniques of social relations and cultural achievement to backward peoples. Certainly this point of view was racist and ethnocentric, but it gave us energy, motivation and purpose. It encouraged us to plan, to work, to organize, and to achieve. This structure of goals and technique directed the daily mundane activities of life. Religious practices, security, purpose, and being Japanese gave life meaning.

Dick, 1936, Frankford, Delaware

Along the Atlantic coast, the days were cool but not bitterly cold. The moderating influence of nearby ocean breezes softened the effect of repeated cold fronts charging out of the west. Waves splashed relentlessly on the sandy beach while sea gulls hovered above the waves, echoing each other with sharp, whiny calls and gliding gently down to scoop up a fish dinner. Cool salty breezes invigorated lungs with freshness and energy. The sand inclined up the beach to the dunes which were covered with long curving slivers of green grass that somehow thrived among the billions of loose granular particles of yellowish-brown sand. Only a few cottages, each raised up on a dozen or so dark brown creosote piles, interrupted the miles of sand dunes. The waves monotonously repeated their curl into the air and their crash among the passive stones, shells, and sand before flowing uphill to a spot where gravity prevailed and turned the thin layer of water back toward the sea. The sound of crashing waves, could be heard up and down the beach and far inland. I was born near the ocean. It forms a stage for my memories, dominates my images, and in some mystical way continually draws me back to its splash, its roar, and its undulating blue surface.

* * * *

Children played tag in the yard beside our white frame house. A call came from the house.

Dick, come inside this minute.

I could guess what the next words would be.

Don’t play with those kids. They aren’t supposed to be in our yard.

I had been told this before, but the black children from across the tracks played games just like everyone else. While both my mind and my emotions questioned why I had to leave, my mouth remained silent. Blacks were different, inferior, another type of people, acceptable in their place but their place did not include the privilege of playing games with white children. They could wash and iron clothes, clean houses, and trim hedges, but playing games presumed a sense of equality. So games with colored children were taboo. They are all right in their place captured the essential ethic in this two hundred year old rural community.

My birth in an upstairs bedroom of a two-story clapboard house on Green Street moved the population of Frankford from 741 to 742. The month was July, the year 1932, the low point of the depression. A family doctor assisted by a black mid-wife supervised the delivery. The preacher at the Frankford Methodist Episcopal Church sprinkled my head with baptismal waters one month later. Christianity came mystically, automatically, doctrinally without my awareness.

To have a child in the depression years was a leap of faith for my parents. Money and jobs were scarce and it seemed everyone was poor (although we looked with wonderment as we passed the home of one Frankford resident who was a millionaire). There was no welfare system, no food stamps, no special programs for housing, fuel, or medical care. The local charitable organizations, including the church, had expended their insufficient resources. How to afford doctors, clothing, milk, and medicine for a third person when survival for two was precarious? Pessimism, cynicism, and hopelessness consumed our small agrarian community and made it difficult even to conjure up dreams of prosperity. The town barber, a specialist on economic principles, did not predict an upswing in the business cycle. His bleak outlook corresponded with that of the local bank directors. But the Mumfords had produced a son in this small Eastern Shore town, had accepted the challenge, assumed the risk. After an almost fatal bout with pneumonia in my first year, I began to acquire the cultural mores of this small town agricultural setting. I also began to speak with the peculiar accent and pronunciation of the lower Delmarva peninsula—a cross between southern talk and northern talk, with a few elements of Elizabethan English. The socially-acceptable habits of white middle class behavior molded my impulses and taken for granted often replaced thinking. Socially-acceptable pressures stifled any curiosity that might have resulted in individualism and contentiousness.

Homogeneity prevailed in Frankford. No contrasting culture offered an alternative manner of living except the colored folks who lived within sight, just over the railroad tracks. But in a sense, they had been conquered and infected with a variant of our dominant culture. To the white community, the blacks were inferior, ostracized, a separate group. They were my boy or my girl, our younger brothers who functioned mostly as laborers and servants. They lived in even worse poverty than the depression-bound white community. Their houses admitted the winds of winter through large cracks stuffed with rags and paper and their wood fires glowed dimly. Medical care hardly existed for them. Any feeling of satisfaction that these people had it worse than us would certainly be obscene. But the thought certainly entered the minds of whites and probably served to blunt some of their anger at a system that had impoverished even able-bodied men anxious to work.

In their separate yards, dark skinned children played tag, hide and seek, and blind man’s bluff. They shot marbles and ran races with barrel hoops just as we did. In their separate schools they added, subtracted, sang folk songs, pledged allegiance, and repeated the Lord’s Prayer. They read the same Bible. They wrote with the same alphabet using the same words. In separate churches they repeated the Apostle’s Creed on Sunday morning, sprinkled drops of holy water on the recently-born, and sang Just As I Am with as much fervor as the worshipers in the white church. However, their poverty was deeper, their situation more precarious because their hopelessness lay not just in the current economic depression but in the normal routine, in good times or bad, of discrimination, unequal treatment, repression, and hopelessness. Perhaps the white community was unaware, at least in any deep moral sense. Or, did not want to become aware.

Audrey, the black girl who helped (not served) our family, washed every Monday, ironed every Tuesday, and cleaned every Thursday with a regularity that equaled the arrival and departure of the evening freight train that carried cases of canned tomatoes or sliced peaches north to city markets. The procedures for each of Audrey’s activities—the number of times clothes were squeezed through the ringer, the exact folding of dress shirts, and the type of dust cloth used on the dining room furniture—were formal, strict, and carried out as seriously as the Methodist church ritual of hymn, scripture, litany, prayer, anthem,