Mariel Lippe
Short Stories
Ms. Wiｌson-Scott

Immortal Gift
            In all honesty, I was one weird kid.  I was the kid in class who cried for their mom as soon as I realized she was gone.  This is normal behavior for pre-schoolers and maybe even kindergarteners, but in first-grade, this sort of behavior became intolerable for the teachers.   As a result, they stopped caring when I cried because I did it so frequently.  I was also the kid who never knew what was going on, ever.  It took the teachers a couple times to get the information through to me, and it took them even longer to understand what I was trying to say.

Although I understand now that I had a language problem as a child, back then, I had no idea I had a problem at all.  I could think and speak clearly, my mother and my two best friends could understand me, so what was the problem?  Being brought up in a purely bilingual environment where my mother spoke Japanese and my father spoke English, I was unable to speak either language completely.  Instead, I spoke a combination of the two languages, which could only be understood by three people in the whole world：my mother, Moica, and Martina.  I was spoiled in a way because my mother never made me go to school if I didn’t want to.  I didn’t attend pre-school at all and barely went to kindergarten.  As a matter of fact, my mom did not, and still doesn't, give a damn about school.  So as a result, I was sheltered from American society and the expectations of others until I hit the ripe age of seven as I was finally forced to go to first grade at Prospect Elementary school.  First grade, I can say now, was a major turning point in my childhood.  For one, it was the time to properly learn English.  And secondly, it was the year in which my parents got divorced and my time became completely split between my mom's house and dad's house.  Having fought a law suit against my mother in order to have half-time with me, my dad became much more involved with my life and worked less so he could take care of me.  Consequently, I was forced to go to school, because my dad finally noticed my language problem.
 
            The first day of first grade was traumatizing.  Although the children were nice, I felt the awkward silence piercing through me as the kids in the class recognized me from the previous school year.  When we were in Kindergarten, I went to school for an average of three hours a week in the beginning of the school year.  As the school year progressed, however, I went to class less and less until I finally never went to school at all.  What made the whole thing awkward was that the teacher introduced me to the class as if I were a new student.  I had no idea what to do, especially with my lack of communication skills, so I decided to become mute for the rest of the day.  Being silent was easier than trying to think of something to say, mostly because no one really expected me to say anything.  That day I just did my own thing; I colored, I drew pictures of hearts and diamonds, I ate lunch on the bench, and I thought of what I was going to do when I got home.  I thought of the television shows that I would watch and how Sailor Moon would defeat the Evil Power Thieves with her gang of pretty friends.  Or maybe my mom would let Moica come over so we can defeat the next level on Super Mario.  But when lunch ended, all the kids were told to come back inside the class room, and I was confused.  Weren't all the mothers suppose to come get the kids now?  Where was my mother?  I asked the teacher where my mother was and she told me that my mom would be here in about three hours when school ended since first graders get out of school at 3:20 instead of 12:15.  I was shocked and felt betrayed.  How could my mom do this to me?  What did I do to deserve such bad treatment?  I curled up on the dirty green rug and I sobbed into my dalmation dress quietly and discreetly.  I don't really remember what happened after that, except I remember being angry.  I was angry at my mom for leaving me for such a long time.  When she finally came to pick me up, we walked silently to the car because I refused to answer any of my mom's questions about my day.  Once we were both in the car, I slammed my car door shut, and I threw the biggest tantrum ever. 
 
            However, my tantrum-tactic, for the first time in my life, did not get me what I wanted.  This harsh reality hit me in the face as I was driven to school, a euphemism for hell, the following morning by my mom.  As I walked toward my first grade class room, I understood there was no more turning back to home in order to escape school, English, or America.  I had to face it full in the face because after all, I was American and it was ridiculous that I had not gone to school until first grade. 

 Instead of trying to become an American, I was slowly and steadily being molded into one.  As the year progressed, I made friends.  However, due to the lack of diversity of Prospect Elementary School, all of my friends and classmates were White.  I guess you could say I stood out as different, but because we were small children and racial stereotyping hadn't plagued us yet, we all got along well.  I had play dates with all of my friends; Stacey, Amy, Jules, Rachel, and Zoë.  We would play video games, Sailor Moon, tag, and Garden Fairies.  We played the same type of games that me, Moica, and Martina played except Martina and Moica were never present.  As my time became split between my mom's house and my dad's house, other aspects of my life became divided as well.  My time that was spent with friends became divided between my Prospect friends and Moica/Martina.  I spoke English at my dad's house and Japanese at my mother's.  My mind was evenly split between the two languages and worlds.  This was when I became truly bilingual, bicultural, and biracial.  However, this euphoric state of complete equilibrium was short lived.  As I got older and school became more demanding, I was being molded into the grooves and niches of society more and more.  Soon, I was reading English books and watching American T.V. shows.  My mother worked harder than ever to counter these pressures; she enrolled me in a Japanese Saturday school, got me a Japanese piano teacher, and took me to Japan every winter and summer.  If it weren't for the lawsuit between my dad and mom, she would have just taken to me Japan to raise me there.  These efforts were not ill invested; I bonded with my Japanese family, I learned how to read and write Japanese, re-learned science and math the Japanese way, made new Japanese friends other than Moica and Martina, and Japanese school made sure to portray the Japanese as superior to all other races and cultures (a distinctive characteristic of how Japanese people think).  Although more than half of my time was spent speaking English and going to regular school, my mom was able to successfully and efficiently retain the Japanese culture within me.

            However, my mom could not have done this completely on her own.  Moica was the primary reason why I didn’t conform, because I didn’t need to.  Playing with Stacey and Amy was fun, but honestly, it was nothing compared to the times me and Moica had.  She was my best friend, and by best friend, I mean she was the other half of me.  We intentionally wore each others’ clothes, shared stuffed animals, pretended we were twins, and went absolutely insane.  We made my entire basement snow with laundry detergent, flooded restaurant bathrooms while our moms’ ate dinner in blissful ignorance, smashed rotten lemons into my neighbor’s wall, and drew on each others’ faces with my mom’s lipstick.  We would launch attacks on Lony, our ill-fated baby sitter who was defenseless against our matchless teamwork and skill.   We went to Chucky Cheese’s and broke open the machines for tickets, and we would trade them in for Best Friends Forever necklaces that would make a full heart when put together.  We would worship and pretend to be our hero, Crayon Shin Chan, the notorious Japanese anime about a crazy boy who didn’t fit in with the rest of his community.  We spoke a combination of Japanese and English, but really we just had our own language.  We had our own religion, a monotheistic one which revolved around Crayon Shin Chan as our one and only god.  We had a single quest, which was to beat the next level and to destroy Bowser alongside our ally, Mario.  We had a common understanding, because we were one soul within two bodies.  Nothing came in between me and Moica, probably because there just wasn’t any room for it.  We proudly wore our Best Friends Forever necklaces as an emblem of our loyalty to one another and the culture between us.  .     

Then Moica moved away.  Her family, being entirely Japanese, moved back to their homeland for good.  Someone had torn out a piece of my soul.  Moica felt it too.  It was the winter of fourth grade.  I didn't even hear the news from Moica herself, instead, Martina told me in the car on our way to Japanese school.  I didn't believe Martina, thinking it was just one of her foolish tricks to separate me and Moica, but when my Mom told me the same thing, I had to accept the truth.  The first couple of weeks after Moica moved away were the most bland, empty weeks of my life.  With no Moica, I had no best friend, and me and Martina had no one to fight over.  For the first time in my life, I felt insecure.  I looked for other companions at my school, and this was when the fragile balance between my two cultures started to shift.  The equilibrium was broken, and I started to become more American. 

            Things have changed since the days me and Moica would spend time together that seemed so endless and care free.  I cycled through different best friends, as I lost interest in Japanese School altogether.  Middle school and its complicated social networks took up all of my time and my energy.  Because being shy and quiet became disadvantageous in the race for popularity, I changed myself; I became loud, dramatic, and edgy like everyone else.  Because being bad was cool, I wanted to be bad.  And I was bad, well, at least for Prospect Sierra I was.  I swore loudly, unsuccessfully cut classes, and drew on the girl's bathroom walls.  We pulled the fire alarm, got sent to Laurette, the principal, and talked back.  I wore ridiculously tight clothes, wore makeup, and gossiped about others who didn't.  I had boyfriends not because I liked them but because only the cool girls did.  I wanted to be like everyone else, but mainly, I wanted to be the coolest.  In other words, I became a complete dumbass.  I became the complete opposite of Japanese, mostly because "everyone else" was.  Although I was comfortable being a Japanese girl, I didn't want to act like one. 

            I have to admit, society succeeded me.  It conquered and stamped out the quiet Japanese spirit in me.  Even after we were all released from the pressures of middle school, more expectations and rules were getting hammered into us in a different way.  We had to go to school, which wasn't so bad Freshman year or Sophomore year, but Junior year was the end of messing around.  AP classes, SATs, SAT IIs, ACTs, and AP tests, liquidated any form of creative thought, much less another culture.  I woke up in the morning, spoke, read, and wrote English in school, came home and studied.  But now, unlike middle school, I miss being Japanese.  Maybe this is because being Japanese reminds me of the care-free childhood I spent with Moica, which I long for in times of stress and chaos.  Or maybe it's because I want what I can't have; the lost shards of being Japanese that were carved out of me.  However, this is not to say I am no longer Japanese at all.  I can still speak, read and write Japanese and I can name most famous Japanese celebrities.  If I were to thank anyone, I would thank my mom for culturing me and in doing so, giving me opportunities beyond what anyone else could have given me.  When I go to Japan, I still feel a surge of familiarity, a sense that I belong.  I look at all the Japanese businessmen and crazy hipsters and I see them as my people.  I can read manga, watch dramas, go to movies, go on dates with Japanese boys, go clubbing, and make friends.  I know the slang, I know the food, and I know the people.  I have the ability to mold myself into a Japanese person; my spirit rejuvenates and lives again.  I can go to the temple, and I am not an American tourist but I am there to pray by my grandfather's shrine.  I live by the ocean, but I know not to swim in it on the 14th of august because it is Obon, the day of the dead.  I know to throw coins in the Buddha’s box, but never a value with the digit of four, because four is a synonym for death.  And after I throw the coins in, I know to put my hands together and close my eyes, because only then can Buddha hear your thoughts.  When I pray, I know not to ask for too much, because Buddha does not listen to those who are greedy.  There is, and always will be, a tender spot in my heart, that is permanently reserved for my Japanese culture.  It is not only something I treasure, but it is something unique only to me, a rare and immortal gift given to me from my mother.  

The End