Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Who's My Padawan? A Father's Day Reflection 2024

Very recently, someone we cared about, whom we had helped and guided, just turned their back on us and walked away: a heartbreaking experience.

Reflecting on this, I casually remarked in a family conversion, "Well, I guess even (the great teacher) Master Yoda's padawan (apprentice in Star Wars) became Count Dooku (the villain)." I meant (in ordinary language): Even the greatest teachers will have students who will turn against them and bring them sorrow.

Whereupon, the Haj (our 16-year-old daughter) came to me and gave me a hug with these sweet words, "They (this person) are not your padawan, Daddy."

Looking into her eyes, I knew what she was thinking so I voiced it out, "You're right. You're my padawan." And she just nodded contentedly.

It hit me afterwards. The Haj is already one of the persons that I admire and respect most because she's just an overall beautiful person in and out, tremendously gifted and diligent, and making such a positive contribution to the world. For her to consider herself "a padawan" (apprentice) of her good ol' dad is high honour and praise indeed for me. I have tears in my eyes as I type this. She has already surpassed me in many ways! But it is these little acts of love and affection from one's daughter that make life as a dad really, really worth living.

I will savour, cherish, and treasure my daughter and this thought of hers all my life. I feel so warm and thankful inside on this Father's Day. Such a joy to be this girl's dad! Love you to the moon and back, Haj!

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Friday, May 31, 2024

Leaving Home and Starting Your Own Hero's Journey (Dear Khaj #06)

 

[Some parts adapted from Julius-Kei Kato, Reading the Bible in a Secular Age (2023), pp. 1-3]


The Hero's Journey

[Dear Khaj]  At this point (2024 May), you have told us several times that, when it's time for you to go to university, you don't want to stay here in this place, where you were born and raised. Mommy doesn't seem too happy with that but is resigned. For my part, I totally get it. What I say in response to your intention is, "You have to go on your hero's journey."

"Leaving home" is indeed the indispensable beginning of the so-called Hero's Journey. "Home" stands for a place where one is loved, cared for, and where all one's needs are met. I think you've been blessed with a happy and peaceful "home" since your birth. Mommy and I  are incredibly proud of that. However, there comes a time when you have to leave that cocoon of security and venture out into the wide, beautiful yet also at times dangerous world, spread your wings and fly out. Of course, we worry about how you'll do. That's the lot of being parents. But we hope for the best. 

Let me share with you here, one of the major "home leavings" that I've had in my life: the time when I left the land I was raised in (the Philippines) for the land of your lolo (ojīsama, grandfather)--Japan. This journey irrevocably changed my life. I hope you can learn something from it.

My Original Two Worlds: The Philippines & Japan

Let me begin with the theme of "ancestry." Ancestry has occupied me for practically my whole life. I was born in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, as the second son of a Japanese father from Kyoto, Japan (the ancient capital); and a mother from the Province of Iloilo in the Western Visayas region of Central Philippines. From the time I became aware of myself, my family, and my communities of affiliation, I was always struggling to define who I really was.

Although I was born and raised in the Philippines and continue to love my Inang Bayan (mother country) deeply, as a child, I was always labelled a “Hapòn” (a Japanese) because of how I looked and my dead giveaway last name—“Kato.” Despite growing up in the capital region (we called it "Metro Manila" then), I couldn’t speak Tagalog/Filipino straight at first (the language of the region as well as the national language) because my mom spoke to us in her own native language called Hiligaynon, the main language of the group of languages spoken in the central part of the Philippines referred to as Ilonggo. English was the common tongue that united my Japanese father and Filipino mother and, hence, we used a lot of English at home.

I distinctly remember that when my grandparents, granduncle (we called them ojī-chama and obā-chama in our family) and grandaunt visited us from Japan when I was around 9 or 10 years old, and spoke amongst themselves or with dad in Japanese, a language I wasn’t functional in as a child, I vowed to be able to speak with them one day in that language which I felt was a part of me that had not yet been awakened.

When I started to attend school and the teacher would do roll call at the beginning of the year, she would eventually pause when faced with my Japanese surname and ask me, “Are you Filipino?”. I remember that I would reply, “I’m Japanese” (meaning: I’m not only Filipino but also Japanese). There were times when I would sit in agony through social studies sessions on the Second World War as my classmates would glower at me when they learned of the various atrocities committed by—what some of them expressed as—my “brutal” Japanese ancestors during the war.

Experiences such as these left such an indelible mark on me that, at the end of my teens in the mid-1980s, I left my mother’s country, the Philippines, where I grew up, and moved to my father’s country, Japan. I did that for a number of reasons. At this point, I was a young member of a Catholic religious order already and I wanted to work as a missionary in Japan, with dreams of "winning Japan for Christ." Looking back at that dream, I'm embarassed at my naivete. But all of us can dream sometimes, especially when we're young, right? 

Another major reason though for the move was because I wanted to search for that part of my ancestry that I did not know very well—my Japanese roots.

Life in Japan

Those first years in Japan were tough ones. “Japanese who grew up abroad,” the so-called kikoku-shijo (帰国子女 literally, “kids returning to the homeland”) face a lot of difficulties when they enter a strictly regimented and very different Japanese society from wherever they came from. Besides, the h­āfu (the half-Japanese or mixed-race kids) had even tougher challenges as they were not well-regarded by many Japanese, given the general tendency to prefer a kind of “Japanese purity” at the time. And I belonged to both groups! Add to that the fact that learning not only to speak but also read and especially write the Japanese language as a grown-up is nothing short of a gargantuan task. But I was young, idealistic, and on a high stakes search for my Japanese roots. I just gritted my teeth and told myself that, against all those great odds, I would learn the culture and the language well enough to truly become Japanese, even if that were the very last thing I would do. The search for my ancestry and roots had a “do or die” importance for me at that point.

Feeling Whole by Knowing My Two Ancestries

After a few years in Japan, I started to feel that I was indeed becoming Japanese with the result that the people and culture that seemed so “other” to me once upon a time were becoming a true part of me. It was at this time that my dad, younger brother, and I had a chance to visit our ancestral tomb in the place where my dad’s family originally came from—Akita in Northern Japan. By this time, I could speak, read, and write Japanese with some fluency and conversing first with my dad and with my other relatives in their, or rather, our Japanese language jolted me with the realization that I had fulfilled my childhood vow to speak with my family in Japanese!

Moreover, listening to my uncle’s hypothesis about our ancestors possibly being samurai because of the location of the tomb was also an unforgettably moving experience. Let me tell you now: When things get rough in life as they will, remember: YOU ARE OF SAMURAI STOCK! You are descended from the famed, bold, and courageous samurai of old! 

Standing in front of our ancestral tomb in Akita—that concrete, material embodiment of our lineage—was a high point in my life. It gave me the shivers! I tangibly felt that I truly and experientially knew now what it meant to be deeply connected also to my Japanese roots and ancestry. Now, I was no longer limping on one foot knowing just one side of my roots (my mother’s); I was also tapped onto the other part of my ancestry, my father’s Japanese side. This experience finally made me feel whole. Then and there I realized that knowing one’s roots and ancestry, as many teachers have reminded us throughout history, is indeed one of the most essential and vital things in life.

Reflections

Of course, that was just the beginning--we can say--of my hero's journey. Actually, there have been many "departures" in my life to begin different adventures. But this "leaving home" that I described above was the one crucial event that changed my life. That's the one great home-leaving that has impacted me the most. I was certainly afraid and nervous at the beginning. But I gritted my teeth, firmed up my resolve, and just did it. And the rest, as they say, is history. I would not have become the person I am today if not for that departure. 

So, I understand why you have to leave. May your hero's journey be as exciting and fruitful as mine. And don't forget: you'll always have a home here with us to return to.

Wishing you all the best, 

Dad

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