Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane) Quotes in Obasan
“What a beauty,” the RCMP officer said in 1941 when he saw it. He shouted as he sliced back through the wake, “What a beauty! What a beauty!”
That was the last Uncle saw of the boat. And shortly thereafter, Uncle too was taken away, wearing shirt, jacker, and dungarees. He had no provisions, nor did he have any idea where the gunboats were herding him and the other Japanese fishermen in the impounded fishing fleet.
The memories were drowned in a whirlpool of protective silence. Everywhere I could hear the adults whispering, “Kodomo no tame. For the sake of the children…” Calmness was maintained.
The house in which we live is in Marpole, a comfortable residential district of Vancouver. It is more splendid than any house I have lived in since. It does not bear remembering. None of this bears remembering.
“You have to remember,” Aunt Emily said. “You are your history. If you cut any of it off you're an amputee. Don't deny the past. Remember everything. If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. […]”
All right, Aunt Emily, all right! The house then––the house, if I must remember it today, was large and beautiful.
“Why can’t we go home, Stephen?”
“Because. That’s why,” Stephen says crossly, and tells me no more. His eyes are like Father’s, searching.
The orders, given to Uncle and Father in 1945, reach me via Aunt Emily's package in 1972, twenty-seven years later.
The delivery service is slow these days. Understanding is even slower. I still do not see the Canadian face of the author of those words.
The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.
We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? […] Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?
This body of grief is not fit for human habitation. Let there be flesh. The song of mourning is not a lifelong song.
Father, Mother, my relatives, my ancestors, we have come to the forest tonight, to the place where the colors all meet––red and yellow and blue. We have turned and returned to your arms as you turn to earth and form the forest floor.
Tonight we picked berries with the help of your sighted hands. […] See how our stained fingers have read the seasons, and how our serving hands serve you still.
My loved ones, rest in your world of stone. Around you flows the underground stream.
Father (Tadashi/Mark Nakane) Quotes in Obasan
“What a beauty,” the RCMP officer said in 1941 when he saw it. He shouted as he sliced back through the wake, “What a beauty! What a beauty!”
That was the last Uncle saw of the boat. And shortly thereafter, Uncle too was taken away, wearing shirt, jacker, and dungarees. He had no provisions, nor did he have any idea where the gunboats were herding him and the other Japanese fishermen in the impounded fishing fleet.
The memories were drowned in a whirlpool of protective silence. Everywhere I could hear the adults whispering, “Kodomo no tame. For the sake of the children…” Calmness was maintained.
The house in which we live is in Marpole, a comfortable residential district of Vancouver. It is more splendid than any house I have lived in since. It does not bear remembering. None of this bears remembering.
“You have to remember,” Aunt Emily said. “You are your history. If you cut any of it off you're an amputee. Don't deny the past. Remember everything. If you’re bitter, be bitter. Cry it out! Scream! Denial is gangrene. […]”
All right, Aunt Emily, all right! The house then––the house, if I must remember it today, was large and beautiful.
“Why can’t we go home, Stephen?”
“Because. That’s why,” Stephen says crossly, and tells me no more. His eyes are like Father’s, searching.
The orders, given to Uncle and Father in 1945, reach me via Aunt Emily's package in 1972, twenty-seven years later.
The delivery service is slow these days. Understanding is even slower. I still do not see the Canadian face of the author of those words.
The crowd stands aside, waving steadily, bowing, touching arms here and there, and then they are out of view and I’m clambering up the train steps again as I did three years ago.
We sit in two seats facing each other once more, exactly like the last time. Where is Father? […] Where are we going? Will it be to a city? Remember my doll? Remember Vancouver? The escalators? Electric lights? Streetcars? Will we go home again ever?
This body of grief is not fit for human habitation. Let there be flesh. The song of mourning is not a lifelong song.
Father, Mother, my relatives, my ancestors, we have come to the forest tonight, to the place where the colors all meet––red and yellow and blue. We have turned and returned to your arms as you turn to earth and form the forest floor.
Tonight we picked berries with the help of your sighted hands. […] See how our stained fingers have read the seasons, and how our serving hands serve you still.
My loved ones, rest in your world of stone. Around you flows the underground stream.
