Japan! How Did I End Up Here!?

Believe it or not, I never ever thought about coming to Japan. I was so into my thing. Japan never, really, crossed my mind. I did have some Japanese friends at University high school in West Los Angeles. Other than that Japan was just another story in a book or on television. I got divorce from my first wife. She got mixed up with these women at her job. They filled her head with some jealous lies. Well, they could have been true about their men, but no about me. My wife had a good life, even though she was doing her thing. Everyone that said she was cute. That is another story. It got to the point where we had to say good-bye. We have two beautiful children. One is an honor student. The other is a mom, but she was an honor student, too. She let her looks and popularity take priority over her education. I love her. I went to Hawaii. This was a reason.

On my way home, I became an victim of an attempted car jacking or they were going to shoot me. I got away. I called my mom. “Hey, blah, blah, blah, happened today. Should I buy a gun?” “No! You never had one before. Why get one now!?” She said. “Come to Hawaii.”

I was on my way the next week. I still called and visited my children. The mom? Well, we are still good friends! Can you believe that? We had no reason to divorce. I paid, up to date, about $132,000 in child support, to date. That is about twice what I was court-ordered to pay. I got off the plane in Hawaii. It was hot! I waited outside for my youngest brother to pick me up. It took him two hours. He could have given me the directions to the house. I could have taken a bus.

I hated Hawaiil. I loved the people, but not the attitudes. Hawaii is a racist place. I obstained from sex for nine months. From the moment I got off the plane, I knew that I had made a mistake or did I? My only goal was to get back to Los Angeles and finish college. It was my brothers fault. They told me about Waikiki. I never knew anything about it. Well, I did see it on television, but it was no place that I wanted to go to, so I thought. “Japanese girls!? That is why you should go there.” They said. That was the first time I ever took their advice. I went there.

One day I was standing at a signal in Waikiki. I met a Japanese girl. We talked. For some reason, we went to the mall in Honolulu. I forgot the name of it. She stopped in front of a brand name store. She turned with her back towards me. She backed into me. Then, she took my hands and started caressing her breasts with my hands. Yes, I was in total shock! I was hooked. We were suppose to meet. I could not get off of work. How did the management know? I went to her hotel. No answer. The next day I went to the airport. I found her! Can you believe that? I apologized. We traded mailing addresses. We communicated about three times. That was it.

The whole experience left a good impression on me. I started learning Japanese!

I was sitting on a bench. There was an Asian family sitting next to me. “Excuse me. How do you pronounce this?” The father looked at me and said, “We are Korean.” We talked until the bus came. They got on it and went on their way. I learned about the Japanese-Korean relations history after I got here. Now, I can imaging what that man could have been thinking when I asked him to pronounced a Japanese word for me, “Dumb ass!”

As the bus passed by me, clearing up the view in front of me, there she was. My second wife, Suzuko. I started to run across the street like everyone does, but being Black in Hawaii that is not a good thing. I went to the corner like a good citizen or a person who did not want to get beaten in public by those racist no life cops for j-walking. I sat next to her. She was sitting outside of a coin laundry shop. It was on the same street that Chili’s is on in Waikiki. I sat next to her and asked, “How do you say this?” The problem in question was “tsu”. Guess what? It is the same sound as “ts” plus the long sound of “u”. She put her had on my shoulder and told the pronunciation. I can’t lie. It happened in reverse order. From that day on for the next seven plus years we were together.

After getting married, we got off that prison, Hawaii, two years later. I love the people there, but it is entirely too racist. Hawaii is beautiful. The plane ride was long and I got bored. We arrived, to the welcome of her ex-husband, at Nagoya International Airport. The date was September 5th, 1995. Thus, began “My Life In Japan”.