The Man who Met Mikimoto

On August 8, 1945, Ron Glasberg had placed fourth in the half-hour morse code test out of the one-thousand soldiers in boot camp, allowing him to enroll in radio school. The next day America dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, shutting down all schools including the radio school Glasberg hoped he had attended.

"I felt really disappointed," he said.

Glasberg is an 85-year-old veteran who served in the navy in the South Pacific for fifteen months. He enlisted on New Year's Day in 1945 when he was seventeen and a half. He operated submarines and destroyers, as well as a forty-foot boat. He served in Japan for eight months toward the end of the war, stationed at the Yokosuka base.

I was able to talk to him through the phone this morning and it was rewarding. One fact Glasberg mentioned that was interesting was that around that time, money was not as significant.

"Back then cigarettes were more valuable than money," he said. "That's how I met Mikimoto, the man who put a grain of sand in an oyster to form a pearl. It was a ten millimeter black pearl, a size of a bead. And Mikimoto told me that he wanted two cartons of cigarettes. I didn't have any so I couldn't get it. 35 years later, I flew from Boston to Seattle to Narita to Taipei. At Narita I went to Mikimoto Pearls, asked to talk to the manager, and asked him how much it would be now to buy the pearls. And of course cigarettes didn't suffice."

I went on to ask him about how he communicated with friends and family.

"Letters," he said. "There was also no postal charge so we kept sending them. There was no phone, of course.

It was the first time I directly talked to a veteran, especially a world war two veteran, and it was a great experience. This is the reason I study journalism. It's not only because I like writing, but it's also to interact with people, and that's something I feel like I need more in my life. In my earlier years I didn't really talk much and have as many friends. Studying a field that requires interacting and interviewing allows me to open up and challenge myself to get out of my comfort level. It's something I know I can do, and something I should do. And it's not half bad. It not only opens me up, but also opens up the interviewee, the subject. And it's great to hear a person sharing their inner feelings you can't quite get all the time. Life is meaningless if you don't push yourself to greater levels.

All I can say is that college is becoming more and more fun. The camaraderie, the excitement, the energy. Exploring new places, doing new things, exchanging ideas amongst friends, sharing laughs, living the moment.

Compared to last year-- my first year at the university-- I've been having a blast.


But there's a feeling I always get where there's just so many things thrown at you at once that you don't know where to start.

"Dreams die with age so act now or never," my friend said. "I want to do something big... I want to be those people who become billionaires in their twenties."

"There's so much to that," I said.

"Hell yeah," he said. "But if anyone has the idea to engineer or make something, I'm totally down to help them. There just needs to be an idea. Once there's an idea count me freaking in."

"An idea for what, anything?"

"Anything," he said.

I had just learned that he was going to transfer out of this school and head towards a college in the city next year to strive towards his medical degree. I was surprised at first, but couldn't do anything but wish him good luck.

"But that's what I seek in the future," he said. "I have a lot to look ahead for. I mean in the past my friend and I had this idea going on about cushions when you're on the airplane. But we realized it doesn't work at all, logically."

"Hey mind if I ask you something?"

"Shoot," he said.

"In your opinion, do you think ideas are born spontaneously in a light-bulb flashing fashion or only after careful thought?" I asked, exuding my inner-journalistic self. "Because people seem to go both ways."

"Well I'll be damned. For me it's both. Depends on what I'm thinking. Depends on the mood. Depends on where I am. I can't say. It changes. You know? What do you think?"

"Same here. Ideas are based on thought. Without careful thought, ideas can't be processed."

"Why are we being so philosophical here," he laughed.

On Being Quiet

Even before the start of elementary I was an odd child that kept his mouth zipped. Maybe it was because I only spoke Japanese in the house back then, or that I did not interact with many people. But during elementary I had a personal rule of thumb of speaking a lot when I was with my classmates but not when I was in front of teachers and adults. Perhaps I was nervous. Perhaps I didn't want them to hear how I spoke, reasons unknown. I was an oddball, I know, I admit. I went to the hospital for putting rocks in my ear and urinated in my underwear dozens of times during the day at school. Usually at this age children would understand the common sense of urinating in toilets but in my case it was not. My teacher would always take care of it and I could not thank her enough.

During the time I was an artist. I drew the Manhattan skyline everyday first thing in the morning when I got to school. The Twin Towers always came first, then the Empire State, the CityCorp, AT and T, and the G.E. building. In fact it even got featured in the school yearbook. Another time, I folded everyday a bunch of plain, white paper in half and stapled them together to make a booklet. I'd then write "books" about the most random, peculiar subjects that even I could not understand today. I remember one was about the children-based animal and wildlife magazine Ranger Rick, and another about the miniature Japanese wind-up toy cars called Choro-Q. Teachers would always question and double-take on my books. And I was really detailed. I remember one of them hysterically laughed at the wit I had when writing the barcode on the back and on top of it, the difference of price in the U.S. and Canada. While others were joyfully spending time with their classmates and playing with toys and puzzles, I was drawing the Manhattan skyline, writing strange books and barcodes. 

My interaction with individuals from childhood was infrequent. Throughout my dozen years of schooling, report cards from teachers put X marks on " needs participation" and comments of the word "quiet". It grew on me so much that I became sick of seeing those words over and over again. I tried to change but it wasn't that easy. It was a flaw that I needed to change, in slow steps. 

The word has become a supplement to me; a personal taboo word that I detest hearing for the life of me. I hear it every time, especially when meeting new people. Every time I hear it, I cannot do anything but admit the fact. They say it because they believe it's the truth, unless they were impulsive individuals who had no regard to people and their distinct qualities and personalities. However in my life I'm doing whatever I can to avoid being called quiet, and when I do get called quiet, it's as if I have failed a mission. When I hear the word it sends me back down to my personal history--from my elementary school days to the current--of quietness. Hearing the word is a signal to a regretful flashback of my quietness.

Even some of my friends used that word every now and then to describe me. This kid is quiet. Even now in college, people have told me that even if I was intimidating, I was still quiet or that they didn't know how my voice sounded because I don't talk or that they didn't know that I could talk when they first met me. They probably are exaggerated, but the tone and the sense of words just made it insulting, even if they didn't mean it.

Sometimes I would always comeback with: "If you think I'm quiet then you don't know me enough." or "So I'm the type of person who doesn't like to talk as much."

And it is true for those close friends I've met in my lifetime. I'm quiet initially, but once they get to know me more they see me as a garrulous and weird person. But sometimes life is not all about talking. It is, of course, since we need to communicate in order to live in this world, but those pauses and silences in between play a huge factor. Like a journalist who deliberately pauses to give time for the interviewee to answer a tough, personal or obscure question, we need silence in order to maintain a natural nuance in conversation.

Because most people see me as a calm person, I almost always got first dibs when I raised my hand during class. They wanted to see this person-who-didn't-talk talk and hear just what this kid had to say. Someone somewhere said that quiet people usually had the loudest minds, or the wisest words and I guess it is true. 

I was applying aloe moisturizer on my skin when the phone rang.

"It's me, hello there."

"How goes it?" I asked. 

"Say, you hungry at all?"

"Ate a granola bar and that's it. I'm pretty hungry."

"I made too much pulled pork," she said. "Come down to my suite for a bite?"

"I'd love to," I said, switching my phone to my other ear. "Fifteen minutes sound good?"

"Great. It's been lying here in my pot crock and none of my suite can finish it. I think you can devour it, no?" she laughed. "Of course those sour patches won't fill up everything."

I laughed. 

It was just past noon. Her place was about a ten minute bus ride away, just before approaching the town that was notoriously known as the "student ghetto." During the late nights it's impossible to catch the bus back because it's always filled with drunk students. At this hour it was empty. Swirling through the path out of campus, the bus would curve towards the avenue and go straight down. Along the way the bus would pass the bank, dentists, houses, Stewart's, an elementary school, and a few other eateries. I got off the bus, and walked towards her place: an ordinary two-story dwelling. She opened the door once I knocked, and welcomed me in the dining room. Melon was wearing sweatpants with her oversized Obey sweatshirt. 

A waft of pulled pork and fresh linen filled the room. Along with that there was the faint smell of someone's perfume. An Ariana Grande album was quietly playing through the Bose speakersystem placed on the coffee table. 

"Nice to see you show up," Melon said, placing before me a glass of water. "My roommate's in her room. She's pretty shy. The others are in class."

"Right," I couldn't think of anything more to say. 

She smiled. "Pulled pork will be right up."

"I'm glad," I said. "Thanks so much. I'm sure it's delicious as ever, no doubt about it."

She gave another smile, and walked back to the kitchen to get the pork ready. I took a sip of water and breathed a sigh. Behind me was the living room where there was a long L-shaped sofa and a coffee table in front. The entrance was adjacent, and by the side was a shoe rack stacked with a wide fashion of shoes from high heels to New Balance sneakers. A few steps over and there was a hallway with three other doors that led to Melon's suitemate's rooms. The footsteps from the neighbors above pounded, almost even shaking the room. It was something I'm sure was a nuisance for Melon and her suitemates. 

"So what are you up to today," she came with a plate full of pork. 

"Well I think I'm going to get screwed over for my journalism," I said.

"Why?"

"Well I'm supposed to interview a war veteran and report it," I said. "I visited a veteran house earlier but nobody answered the door. I called and left a message. Haven't gotten a call back. And this is due tomorrow."

"Gotta make use of time," she shook her head. "Didn't that happen to you before?"

"Yeah. Getting a hold of people isn't something you could pull off that easily. People are always busy, doing their own thing."

"Wonder why I got a hold of you in an instant," she giggled. "You must have nothing to do you lazy boy you."

"Hey, I'm a busy student here," I said. "By the way this pork looks amazing."

"Oh it's nothing. Girls gotta cook. Can't take-out so much anymore."

I took a bite of the pork and another. It was delicious.

"So I heard you were performing some kind of taekwondo thing sometime this month?" she asked.

"You heard right," I said, taking a sip of water to wash down the pork. "Some solid practice and we should be good to go."

"So you're like the captain?"

"Co-captain," I corrected her. "My roommate is also captain. He usually does all the leading and handles the paperwork. I give him suggestions if things could be added. Basically I got his back."

She nodded, taking a sip of her water. "Looking forward to it."

"Please do. We're going to woo the audience and shut down the stage."

"Okay, yeah sure."


I left about an hour later and it was lightly raining. I zipped up my jacket and held the umbrella Melon lent me. Slowly I walked towards the bus stop, avoiding puddles.

The start of the first week of November

My teammates were there in full uniform, as well as my black belt friends and rivals as I was there in adidas sweatpants and a training fleece with a brace around my left hand, wandering around watching every division's poomsae (forms) and sparring matches. Our team fought well, and each of us learned some new things for the long run at the Cornell taekwondo tournament, Sunday. A long-haul car ride in the early morning and in the evening on the way back. Universities from all over the northeastern region came to compete to aim for the top of the division. It was the first time I was at a tournament and didn't compete, which, felt both awkward and frustrating. My teammates from the all-star team expressed their brief sympathy to me.

Our team didn't come home with any medals but there were some great matches. The matches we didn't win were all worth the experience. Sure, losing sucks, but what mattered was the effort the person put in as well as the mistakes we learn from. That's how we got better.

The next day everything resumed to the daily grind. I got up, had some breakfast at the dining hall, studied at the library for a test the next day, and went to class. Monotonous note taking and reading. The usual college student's ritualistic procedure during weekdays, devoid of elation. I'd walk outside campus and see regular students walking their way to class. I'd walk into my next class and sit down in my regular assigned seat, take out my regular pencil, textbook, and notebooks, stare at the regular outside view of campus, and glance at the attractive classmate two rows down. She wasn't a beauty, but exuded an aura and charm that was good enough for my tastes. Seeing that she always came just before class started, and left right after class finished, there was simply no time for me to strike up a small conversation with her. So what were the chances? Very slim, as slim as Virginia Slims, if that made any sense.

After class I'd have lunch with two other people. One, as I mentioned already before in my previous post, was a smoker and the other was a writer. The smoker was a smoker. When he was studying abroad in Japan about a year ago he used to smoke two packs a day. Now he recently cut it down to less than a pack. The latter, the writer, was an international student from Korea, who was also my roommate last year. Now these's two were roommates.

After class I went to the library with a friend. We had a discussion about the recent alteration of the role of the Japanese military. The prime minister allowed the military to serve as allies with countries including the U.S. whenever they needed aid. Japanese citizens were not in agreement with the idea, my friend said, and didn't know if it would positively boost public morale.

After he left for a rendezvous with friends, I flipped through the pages of my textbook and notes to grasp the material for a test. Nothing was exceptionally appealing. Over the course of three hours, I stretched out my legs and arms ten times, gazed into the wall in front of me for an estimate cumulative time of five minutes and twenty-three seconds, yawned sixteen times, downed three glasses of water, and went to the bathroom twice. Around ten in the evening I headed back to the dining hall to satiate my semi-hunger. A plate of white rice, ground beef, chicken, and potatoes. On the side I made myself a salad. Coke on the rocks as the beverage. To stay.

Undifferentiated student chatter and laughter played as the background ambiance as I devoured the rice, which, was good enough to eat. There were no other options as the other dining halls were closed. What else was there? Nothing. I had to resort to eating it.

On my way back the weather became chillier. The day felt shorter, as daylight savings time just recently ended. Humming along 'Till There Was You, I came back to the dorm. All my suitemates were already there, as usual.

I ripped open a bag of gummy bears and read a paperback. During academia season slating a time for casual reading was difficult. Even if I did have time, it was hard to focus on the story since I was inevitably focused on schoolwork and tests and all that jazz. But sometimes, I needed it on order to wind down and get my stressed out mind somewhere else, traveling with reverie amidst characters and antagonists and scenes contrary to the ones I saw now. Meanwhile my suitemates were watching episodes of Yuyu Hakusho in the living room, as usual.

The Student Communique

The more you look at international students, the more you gain a sense of loneliness because they all eventually have to return to their hometown and you wouldn't be able to see them as often. They land here for a good college education for however long it takes, then eventually fly back home miles and miles away.

What's more, when you're speaking with international students, even bilinguals and trilinguals, they essentially have two sides to them. One side is their native mind where they could express their thoughts exactly how they want, whilst their other side, their second language, is another story, where they aren't able to express as freely as their first language. Even if they are perfectly fluent in all the languages they know, it still affects how they think and express their thoughts. So if you speak with someone in their second language, you still wouldn't be able to know the other side to them: their native side. Their lifestyle, their personality, and the way they interact and express their ideas may be startlingly different, and unless you become fluent in their language, you are totally clueless about that side. Thus it brings us to see that your best international friend may still, and forever be, a stranger to you.

Melon shook her orange juice, twisted it open and took a huge swig. Melon was her real name, and surely it was an unusual name. Her parents thought it was a good name for her after they noticed her soft, plump cheeks when she was a child. A native Korean, she had smooth, jet black hair with a few brown dye marks and flawless skin. Pearl earrings were attached by her earlobes and her woody fragrance rushed towards me whenever she brushed her hair and made theatrical hand gestures whenever she talked. 

We had first met here, at the campus center, after she saw me munching through a sandwich while casually thumbing through a Truman Capote paperback. Her first words to me was what book I was reading and once I told her the author she became fascinated and in sheer reflex plopped down on the seat across from me to discuss it. She had read the book countless times, and she told me her life story, her fascination with books since childhood, how she read newspapers when she was still wearing a diaper soiled with piss, and how her parents named her Melon. Of course because of her name she was bullied a lot during her secondary education years in Korea, where she almost even got part of her ear chopped off by a classmate and some elder bullies (because in Korea age played a huge role.)  Everyday she'd get something stolen from a pencil to her electronic dictionary and would come home crying to her parents begging them to change her name. But they couldn't do it, and she eventually had to transfer schools. Life was better after Melon had transferred, and she more and more became interested in traveling to the U.S. around the time she was a senior in high school. She wanted to see what it was like to travel and study somewhere else. She aimed for a fresh start, a place devoid of bullies in her circle. And of course she upheld her pride and erased all of her terrible memories.

She prevailed, and became an exchange student. The communications major would meet up with me on occasions to have some coffee and chat until the evening. She was fluent in English, without a trace of an accent. Melon always grinned and giggled and never seemed to see life from a negative viewpoint.

She reached in her burgundy Longchamp, pulled out a bag of candy, and threw it on the table in front of me. Before me eyes were a bag of Sour Patches.

"Happy Halloween," she giggled.

"Well, hey, thanks!" I opened the bag. "Trick or treat."

"I thought about it hard, but bought it anyway on my way back from the market," she said. "For Halloween's sake, I felt like I needed to show some spirit."

"Good idea. Since none of us are in costume, unfortunately."

She nodded. "Going to any parties?"

"Can't say I am," I said. "But who knows, someone always invites me something last minute. Are you up to anything?"

"My friends and I are going to eat at a pretty nice seafood place. After that I think we're just going to hang out at the mall."

She clasped her hands together. Her teal fingernails glimmered from the light. While staring at them, for the strangest reason, I thought about where she was going after she graduated; when she would return home, and get jumbled in with the crowd miles away in a whole different society with distinct customs and personalities. A world that seemed so separate. Where will Melon be? Will she ever return? Those fingernails with teal, amidst a crowd of people, unnoticeable, almost becoming vanished. To me, she always belonged here, on campus, and it seemed artificial imagining her casually walking in the streets of Busan, her hometown, and casually talking with her friends in her native tongue.

"Sean?"

"Yeah, sorry. Totally caught off guard there for a sec."

"Aw poor little baby," she laughed. "Does somebody need some milk to wake up?"

"Call it quits. I'm a grown man."

"Are you really now?"

"Plus these sour patches fuel me up well enough."

"All that sugar."

Melon drank the rest of her orange juice, tied her hair into a ponytail, and got up from her seat. Swiftly, she slung her Longchamp on her shoulder and glanced at her watch.

"I have class soon, mister," she said.

"I'll escort you there."

Whereupon we headed outside. The campus was full of students making their way in and out of classes. It was the transition time, where most classes ended and students shuffled their way to their next one. I dug my hands in the pockets of my hoodie, taking in the occasional chilly breeze.

We strolled through the path of fallen, dried up leaves and up the stairs to the main halls. This was the point I set her free.

"Thanks for the escort," she said. "I feel special."

"I'm glad. Bodyguard, security guard, lifeguard, you name it. I'll be there."

She blushed. "Well I'll see you."

She turned away and just when she was about to head inside, I hollered her name.

"Yes?"

I thought about my words. "This may be out of the blue, and it just keeps floating in my mind so I need to get it out."

"What is it, Sean?"

"Are you planning to go back to Korea once you graduate?"

"Most likely, yeah. But who knows? If I land I job here then I'm here. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. It's just flew in. I don't really have an exact explanation, really."

She looked into my eyes for a couple of seconds, then looked at the ground as if seeing her reflection on a pond.

"Let's not look to far ahead," she smiled.