stock, six years after she'd been stuck in the orphanage. That was during the latter days of the Occupation, but they'd stayed on in Japan through '54 while Lieutenant Colonel Richardson served as adviser for the rearming of what would be the Japanese Self Defense Forces. He'd also become a Japanophile by then, so he left her in a Japanese school rather than subjecting her to the "army brats" on the base. Finally they returned to the States, with a dark-eyed little daughter who'd spoken Japanese for almost a decade and being the achiever she was, read it virtually as well as a high-school graduate.
The thing she remembered best from all those years, though, was one word. Gaijin. It wasn't exactly that the modern Japanese consider gaijin inferior. They no longer dismiss Westerners as "red-bearded Barbarians." No, gaijin were merely unfortunate, luckless folk not part of the earth's elect tribe. You were either born a part of Japan, a full nihon-jin, or you were forever outside of it, gaijin.
But knowing it was one thing, and living it as a kid was something else. She wasn't one of them, and they made sure she got the message. Finally, however, she discovered the hidden secret of Japan. Most Japanese get very uncomfortable around a gaijin too fluent in their language or customs, since that outsider has penetrated their life without the constraint of relationships and obligations. No gaijin can ever entirely belong to their seamless culture for one simple reason: no outsider could ever be held accountable to the powerful social and family interdependencies that allow a population half that of the U.S. to get along in a place functionally smaller than California. So to survive there if you're not nihon-jin, you just play that fact for all it's worth. Then, like everybody else, you've got a niche; yours merely happens to be outside the system. As an almost-nihon-jin you're threatening; as a gaijin, you're safe. She'd finally learned this the hard way, from all those unsmiling little girls in blue school uniforms who used to hiss "gaijin." But thanks to them, Tam Richardson learned to be a permanent outsider. And a survivor.
Well, here she was again, ready for another bout. Round- eyed "Tama-chan" all grown up and still on the outside.
Though she knew Tokyo well from times past, she was still trying to readjust. After checking into the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo's Hibiya section, she'd showered, changed, and headed out for some jogging—the best way she knew to see a lot of the
city quick. Her major puzzle: where to look for the new impulse behind Japan's big drive, their meteoric move toward the target of dai ichi, "number one" in the world. Try to feel the vibes, she told herself, be a tourist and see the "New Japan" through fresh eyes. If it had been winter, she'd have gone straight over to Shinobazu Pond in Ueno Park to watch the migratory Siberian waterfowl diving for fish among the clumps of floating ice. In spring she would have first monitored the radio to find out which park had the finest cherry blossoms, then gone somewhere else to avoid the sake-swilling crowds. And if it had been summer, she probably would have headed for the cool of the Imperial Palace East Gardens to catch the pink and red azaleas.
Autumn, though, was a time for swallowing the city whole. She started with the Meiji Shrine, that garish tribute to Japan's Westernization, then moved on to the Imperial Palace, itself a place that, like Tokyo itself, had something for all seasons. She passed through the East Gardens watching provincial honey- mooners snapping pictures for the parents back home, then worked her way across toward the Sakuradamon Gate so she could follow the Palace moat as she made her circuit back to the hotel. Along the way she passed the Diet Building and the Supreme Court, then decided to look in on the Yasukuni Shrine, buried in its own exquisite grove of cherry trees and mixed foliage. The massive bronze torii arch leading into the shrine was always surrounded by stalls selling those marvelous little rice cakes, sweet and leaden, she remembered as a kid. She stopped and bought two.
By then she was experiencing advanced jet lag, so she decided to head on back to her crisp-sheeted bed at the Imperial. Tokyo this time around was as impossible as always, maybe more so. Where do you start? The garish Ginza, the self-conscious trendiness of Roppongi, the skyscrapers of Shinjuku, solemn Marunouchi—all of it engulfing, awesomely materialistic. Each trip the city seemed to get bigger, louder, more everything. More cars, more neon, more . . . yes, more money. She could remember, almost, a time when this town was a burned-out ruin. Now . . .
She needed some time to think, to work out a game plan. Sure, clues to the phenomenon of modern Japan were everywhere—drive, self-confidence, competence—but how did they fit together? Change was coming like an avalanche. Who could keep track?
The best thing, she'd told herself, was to start with a clear head. Back off for a while. After all, the last year had been much toil and little play, with the latest book coming out, hassles at the university. She needed some unwinding. Maybe a little time spent thinking about nothing would be best of all.