The Zen of 9/11

A Japanese-American Bildungsroman

Selected Excerpts

By Lawrence J. Howell

Synopsis: Reunited for a two-man pilgrimage to the remains of World War II Japanese-American internment camps, long-separated friends clash over questions of moral responsibility, the significance of 9/11, and the realities of American democracy. Excerpt One Excerpt Two Excerpt Three Excerpt Four Excerpt Five Excerpt Six Excerpt Seven Excerpt Eight Excerpt Nine Copyright Notice/Disclaimer/Contact Information Terminology Nikkei = A person of Japanese descent Kibei = A person born in the United States to Japanese parents and sent to Japan, most often with the intent of obtaining a traditional Japanese education Page 3 Page 9 Page 13 Page 17 Page 21 Page 24 Page 30 Page 35 Page 38 Page 44

Excerpt One: The narrator, an American resident of Japan, flies into Los Angeles to begin a driving tour of the remains of World War II Japanese-American internment camps. He is picked up at the airport by Kevin Nakatani. The two are childhood friends who have fallen out of touch and are meeting for the first time in twenty years. The Narrator Kevin Nakatani As the airliner taxis to the gate, one of the cabin attendants makes the customary arrival announcement, informing us we have crossed the international date line and thus are now in Los Angeles the same day we left Japan, 14 January 2002. She also informs us that the local time is 10:55 A.M., the skies are cloudy, and the temperature is 62 degrees Fahrenheit. She clicks off after wishing us a pleasant stay. Entry procedures are tighter than in recent years. At the passport inspection station I'm asked more questions than usual about my activities in Japan. At customs, the officer seems to find it suspicious that I have just a carry-on travel bag. I explain that I travel light and am only staying a week. The officer gives me a hard look and then gestures roughly toward the exit leading to the arrival area, ordering me to get going. After passing through the automatic door and turning the corner I climb the ramp, searching for the face of Kevin Nakatani amid the crowd awaiting friends, loved ones, or business associates. He isn't

there. I follow the ramp to its end where it splits the crowd into right and left, and look ahead. Kevin stands hands on hips at the electronic doors leading to the airport parking lots. He's clothed in a purple bandana, open-collar shirt covered by a black leather jacket, jeans neither too new nor too old, and steel-toed boots. With his wispy Van Dyke beard and gold ring piercing his right earlobe, he's just an eye patch and parrot away from that classic Japanese-American pirate look. There's only one proper greeting. Yo. He smiles. I was just about to go with Hey. That's one for you. But what's with the cowboy shirt? Planning on blending into the desert scenery? Believe it or not, this is how I dress in Japan. Got four more of 'em in my bag, different colors and patterns. Now you've got something to look forward to. I think not. Car's parked at the curb over there. Kevin jerks his right thumb. I look and see three nondescript sedans, a Ford Explorer and a canary yellow vehicle of distant memory from the 1960's. Something tells me to head for the classic. You carry around your tools in a passenger car? Of course not. Got a van for that. We're at the car. An elderly man is sitting in the passenger seat. Kevin opens the door and he exits. Kevin thanks him and he walks slowly in the direction of the arrival area.

Noticing the puzzled look on my face, Kevin shrugs. See that security thug over there? Standing at the curb two cars ahead of us I see a plump, uniformed woman scowling at us. When I got out of the car and started walking toward the arrival lounge, she yelled at me, Can't you hear the announcement? Unattended vehicles will be immediately cited and towed. I spotted that old guy, went up and quietly asked him to do me a favor. You saw the rest. The airport policewoman pulls out her walkie-talkie, but Kevin is unimpressed. All for show. Stick your bag anywhere you can find. The trunk is full. There'll be more space inside after we drop off these boxes in the back seat. If it had vocal chords, the back seat would be groaning under the weight of the neatly aligned cardboard boxes stacked atop it. A faint, oily odor wafts through the interior. I wedge my bag between the front row of boxes and the back of the driver's and passenger's seats. I pull the heavy door shut. Mind if I crank down the window? To freshen the air. Suit yourself. I push and tug on the handle until the window is all the way down. It takes fifteen seconds and half my arm strength. I look over at Kevin to toss him a question but catch myself when I notice a scar on his neck, just below his right ear. It's about the length

of my index finger. Sensing my gaze, Kevin glances in my direction. To avoid giving the impression I was staring, I quickly ask the question I had in mind. How many miles have you got on this monster? Hey, show some respect. This baby is freighted with symbolic heaviness. Speaking into her walkie-talkie, the airport policewoman is approaching us. Kevin ignores her, guns away from the curb and maneuvers into the middle lane leading out of the airport. That so? That is indeed so. But to answer your first question, I don't know. You don't know how many miles you've got on your car? That's right. The odometer doesn't work. To answer your second question, that too is indeed so. Have you no idea what you're riding in? Yeah, an Oldsmobile. A GM division now in lively danger of kicking the bucket. The brand and the division aren't the point; it's the model. If memory serves, this is a 442. '68? '69. So? So, what? So, you've got a Nikkei driving an icon of American power called 442. And ... Do I really need to explain it? I think a moment.

 Ah! The 442nd.The Japanese-American regiment in World War II, that fought in Europe. Give the man ten points. We're out of the airport and heading east on Century Blvd. I decide to chaff him a bit. In other words, you're paying ironic tribute to your heritage by tooling around in a car that chug-a-lugs irreplaceable fossil fuels? And subsidizing the insurance end of Wall Street by forking out hefty premiums to drive a classic sports car? Whoa, that's making a lot of assumptions. First, how do you know I haven't converted the engine to run on recycled safflower oil? Second, who said the car's insured? And third, what's this about my heritage? Well, you are Nikkei. And we are headed to the camps where the Nikkei were interned. And you are using an outdated term. Incarcerated isn't a dirty word. Kevin pulls onto the southbound 405 Freeway. South, huh? So we're starting off at one of the camps in Arizona? That's a much more accurate assumption. First we're stopping in Torrance. I have to drop off these parts in the back seat. We follow the 405 southbound a little longer, to Crenshaw Blvd. Kevin exits, makes a few turns and pulls into a self-storage facility. He stops in front of a garage. C'mon, help me unload. He pulls on a keyring attached to his belt and extends one of the keys

into the garage lock. He raises the shutter, revealing stacks of neatly piled cardboard boxes. What've you got in here? Deniability is a precious commodity. It'd be a moral failure for me to steal that from you. He flips the driver's bucket seat forward and snatches some of the boxes in the rear. I do the same on the passenger's side. After we add the boxes to the stacks in the garage, Kevin lowers the shutter. Didn't you say the trunk's full? What about that stuff? Questions, questions, questions. We return to the car and proceed on our way. I'm gonna fill up before we get back on the freeway. If you need to hit the can, here's your chance. We pull into a gas station. How long have there been pumps for recycled safflower oil? Kevin smiles. While he refuels I go relieve myself in the station's malodorous urinal. With one tank now empty and another full, we jump back on the 405 via the Crenshaw Blvd. on-ramp. Look, the jet lag is hammering me pretty hard. Will I miss anything significant by visiting dreamland just a bit? Naw. I'll shake you up when it's time for grub. With the boxes out of the back seat the oily smell has all but disappeared. I crank up the window, lean my head against the window and drift away.

Excerpt Two: The protagonists are accompanied to the Gila River Camp in Arizona by John Sakaragi, who discusses his family history. John Sakaragi The Narrator Kevin Nakatani On the ride down I ask John if he wouldn't mind discussing the particulars of his life. He's agreeable, so I ask him to start with his first relative in the US. My great-grandfather on my mother's side worked on the Great Northern Railway, in the state of Washington. That was in the 1890s. After that, he bounced around and finally settled here in Arizona, doing truck farming. You know what that is? Can't say I've heard the term, but I'd guess it means trucking crops you've grown and selling them in nearby towns. That's it. My grandfather grew strawberries at first, later cantaloupes and lettuce. That was in Glendale, a little northwest of Phoenix. Being first generation, he wouldn't have been able to own land. How did that work out? He rented. Sometimes the owners treated him fairly, sometimes they didn't. Later, after my father was born and reached legal age, my grandfather bought land in my father's name. The family was doing pretty well until we got sent to the camp in 1942. You lost the property?

 You can call it that. We could sell it for pennies on the dollar, or walk away. Not much of a choice. And how about life in the camp? Well, I talked about that for an oral history project. I'll give you the URL later; you can watch the video online. Great. And how about after you all got out? That's in the video too, but just to give you a quick summary, we went right back to the same business, on different land, of course. We started from nothing, and barely scratched by for the first ten years, but by the time my grandfather died in 1970 we were doing well enough to employ a few workers from outside the family. When my father retired a few years later, my brother and I ran the business until we got too old for it. That was, let's see, eight years ago. We sold out to our foreman. I see. As a successful local business, I suppose you were active in chamber of commerce activities or the like? John laughs. Not hardly. Our labor practices, as they were called, earned us a lot of enemies. What do you mean? I don't think it'll come as news to you that hardly anyone gets exploited worse than migrant farm workers. Once we got the business back on track, we hired five or six dozen of them to work the fields every picking season. We paid legal wages and provided decent living conditions while they were with us. Most of the other farmers in the area didn't appreciate that. Said we were driving up expectations. We

got harassed one way or another for years. But then the harassment stopped? For a while. I wait for John to continue, but he doesn't. Why did it start up again? John appears regretful the conversation has taken this turn. He sighs. Everyone needs health care sometime, sooner or later. We thought we could do something about that. What did you do? You mean you don't know? John and I are taken aback at Kevin's sudden entry into the conversation. You should've come across that information when you were putting together those notes of yours about the camps. The Sakaragis are well known for networking with humanitarian groups to build a clinic outside Glendale. Kevin, there's no need to Sure there is, John. Everyone talks about what needs to be done. Some will get off their butts if the cause overlaps with their selfinterests. Your family is the rare case of acting out of disinterested humanitarianism. That's not true. It was definitely in our interests to have motivated, healthy workers handling our crops. And we weren't having much success with that clinic, either, until ... Until the community finally rallied around it.

 What made them rally ...? Speaking about rallies, how about that World Series, John? Were you at the victory parade in November? I wonder why Kevin has, so abruptly, switched the subject to the local National League baseball team. For the next thirty minutes, until we reach Butte Camp, John speaks enthusiastically about the recently concluded Series and the team's prospects for a repeat in the coming season. The SUV has demonstrated its value, smoothing the ride over the potholed dirt roads leading to the hill-top monument, a series of small arches that John explains was erected during World War II to honor the Nikkei servicemen who enlisted out of Gila River. Approaching the monument, Kevin swears at finding it defaced with graffiti. Looking over the assorted remains of the camp visible from atop the hill, I observe little to help a visitor picture what the camp looked like, and how the inmates went about their lives. At its peak, Gila River had over thirteen thousand residents. Like all the camps, it contained most of the paraphernalia of daily life: A hospital, post office, theater, schools. Unlike all the other camps, there was no fence, as the inhospitable desert functioned as an effective deterrent to escape.

Excerpt Three: The protagonists discuss their childhood days with Erika Matsuo (Eri) Fontaine as she guides them to the site of the Poston, Arizona camp. Eri Fontaine The Narrator Kevin Nakatani How do you two know each other? We go way back. How far is that? Kevin joins in. Kindergarten. That far back. And you actually remember things that happened there? Just one. I wonder what's coming. Crayon drawings. Every time the crayons and paper came out my compadre here drew the same picture. I remember! The sun over a hill. Yeah. One curved line, everything underneath colored brown. The earth: Very imaginative. The sun, yellow with yellow rays. The rest of the drawing blue, for sky. So you guys have been friends for nearly all your lives. To call us friends would be an overstatement. It's just that we've known each other a long time. Not nearly the same thing.

 Kevin was a clever boy, Eri. I couldn't keep pace, so the educational gods placed us on different tracks. After that, we moved in separate orbits. So why are you together now? The One on High works in mysterious ways. Just let it slide, Eri. Kevin has an idiosyncratic sense of humor. Very well then. So, what's this orbit of yours? As a teenager, I became interested in Zen, and in Japanese ink wash paintings. Right, Zen was a fad in those days. At one point, half a shelf of my book collection was dedicated to it. Did you do zazen? No, I never got into meditation. I'm more the tariki type. Eri and I laugh. Kevin doesn't. Eri decides to explain. In Buddhism, tariki means relying on others to enlighten or save you. That's in contrast to jiriki, where you do it yourself. Kevin retorts. Duality. Buddhism holds that there's no distinction. You're right, it does. I guess the division is a concession to human limitations. Eri turns to me. How about you? Do you do zazen? I gave it a try some years ago. St, or Rinzai?

 Both. The just sitting aspect of the St school appealed to me, and I was active in a St center. But you switched to Rinzai? Right. I was supposed to be just sitting, but my mind was uncontrollable. I decided that if I couldn't keep my head out of it, I might as well be working on a kan. Eri looks at Kevin to gauge whether an explanation is required. Kevin's face reveals nothing. Eri plunges in. A simple definition of a kan would be to call it a phrase, sentence or question the master has chosen to provoke satori. Another round of Eri scrutinizing Kevin's face, with the same result. Satori refers to awareness, or enlightenment. The satori experience is often described as a breakthrough in understanding, one that's triggered when someone is put in a situation where he or she is pushed to the extremes of rational thinking but at the same time is forced to make a decision, or act. Kan, satori: This conversation is starting to stink of Zen. Eri and I laugh. Yeah, actually I prefer stories that don't have so much of a kan-like quality. For instance, the story of Zhuangzi's dream. Kevin asks Eri to tell it. Well, Zhuangzi was an ancient Chinese philosopher. The story goes that he had a dream in which he was a butterfly, happily flitting about. The punch line is that after he awoke, he couldn't be sure if he wasn't a

butterfly dreaming he was a man. Kevin nods. Kafka showed what a little modern angst can do with that idea. You mean in The Metamorphosis. I should re-read that one of these days. Eri brings us back to the subject. So, do you still do zazen? Not any more. I quit long ago, after I developed back pain. In any case, I discovered that walking is the meditation method that best suits me. And what was it about the ink wash paintings that intrigued you? The suggestiveness, and the beauty that can be expressed with just a few brushstrokes and a little ink. I love the minimalism. The way Kevin explains it, you were a minimalist way back in kindergarten. Interesting! I never thought about it that way. And those are the reasons you decided to take up life in Japan? Well There was another, more compelling factor. A hopeless attraction to Japanese babes. Kevin flashes a toothy smile. Nothing hopeless about it, pal. Eri laughs.

Excerpt Four: Driving from Arizona into Utah, the protagonists discuss literature and quiz each other. The Narrator Kevin Nakatani You mentioned armchair historians yesterday. Yes, I did. That gave me an idea. Let's see where our literary interests converge. I guess there are worse time-fillers. You start. The classics. As determined and published by an imprint bearing the name of an aquatic bird that inhabits Antarctica. Kevin guffaws. Get serious. Let's do this: Name the first three novels that come to mind. Ones you've actually read. I think. OK. Candide. The Catcher in the Rye. To Kill a Mockingbird. Kevin bursts out laughing. Man, what a case of arrested development you are. What are you talking about? I tell you to name three novels, you give me three Bildungsromans. English please: My German is a bit rusty. A coming-of-age story. And just in case you associate that with adolescents, be advised that the genre covers the emotional, moral or spiritual maturation of people in all stages of life.

 Whatever definition you give it, the fact is I've read hundreds of novels, and coming-of-age stories are probably just five percent of the total. Yeah, but here you are, over forty years old, and the first three you think of are about people coming to grips with the world around them. Mountain. Molehill. I don't think so. You're still working through the issue of how to deal with the contrast between reality and life as you think it should be. In a way, that's kind of cute. Don't patronize me, boy. Kevin glares at me, but then pushes the conversation in a different direction. OK then. I'll bet that among those hundreds of novels you've read, many are mystery novels. I see what you're thinking. You're supposing that mystery novels or detective fiction appeal to someone to whom you ascribe an interest in synthesizing reality and fantasy. Well, yeah, I've read Poe's Murder in the Rue Morgue, all of Chandler, most of Hammet's works ... So, what psychoanalytic clues does that provide you? Plenty. But never mind. I recall something. On the subject of American writers I reach to the back seat and take the notebook I've brought with me from Japan. I made a list of particularly striking entries from Ambrose Bierce's

The Devil's Dictionary. I have to admit I stole the idea from you. Kevin smiles. I'm thinking of weaving some of them into my journal. He seems to be a perfect match for this adventure of ours. You know, Bierce being a writer associated with the old west, the two of us traveling through the western states, and you having quoted him in the foreword to your poetry collection. Here's what we'll do. I'll read you the definition, you give me the word being defined. I've got a lot of them memorized. If you weren't surprised before, you will be soon. We'll see about that. To make it more challenging I'll shuffle the alphabetical order. Here we go. The act of repeating erroneously the words of another. Quotation. Yeah, I was starting you off easy. Next: One to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors. That's even easier. Patriot. Hmm. OK: The art of orally persuading fools that white is the color that it appears to be. It includes the gift of making any color appear white. Eloquence. I'm impressed. Next: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. Corporation. You've picked out all the most obvious ones.

 Hmm. A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. Ahh There's one I haven't heard. Give me a minute. I wait. Kevin gives no sign of answering, so I jump in. Fidelity. Ah, I would've had that if you'd waited. Really? OK. Just a couple more. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. Absurdity. All right, and last: Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. Politics. Bravo! A splendid performance. Here's one for you, then. To be mistaken at the top of one's voice. I think, then shrug. To be positive. That wasn't exactly fair. All the others were just a single word. Then here's another. Kevin takes a moment to think. A momentary insanity curable by marriage. Love. But wait a second. Isn't that temporary, not momentary? Kevin ignores the question. But don't forget that Bierce was in the pay of the king of yellow journalism all those years. Which is part of the reason I quoted him in my book in the first place.

Excerpt Five: Kevin describes an atomic test carried out in the 1950s, then contextualizes 9/11 and other Cold War-era events. The Narrator Kevin Nakatani You are of course aware of Dirty Harry? Something tells me you aren't referring to the movie character. You're right. Meaning you aren't aware. How about the Downwinders? Why don't you tell me? Dirty Harry is an atomic bomb our benevolent government detonated at the Nevada test site in 1953. Residents of certain parts of Utah, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were downwind of the fallout, hence the name Downwinders. To the Atomic Energy Commission at the time, they were known as a low-use segment of the population. Like that phrase? I find it hard to believe that such a description would be allowed to go on record. The Downwinders suffered unusually high rates of leukemia, cancer, melanoma and other afflictions. The government lied about the safety of the test and falsified data. Some of the victims eventually fought back in court, so the next step was to hire experts and have them perjure themselves. That wasn't completely successful, so then they leaned on industry-friendly appeals court judges to overturn the

verdicts. When the victims realized they'd get nothing from the justice system they started pressuring members of Congress. You remember the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act? No? That's when the government finally apologized and set up a trust fund that paid people living or working downwind of the site $50,000. Provided of course that they could meet all the proof requirements. Being at a loss for a comment, I keep silent. That's the typical pattern when the excrement hits the fan. Lie. Destroy or falsify evidence. Intimidate. Drag things out in the court system. When all else fails, express regret, like the Bureau of Indian Affairs did about a year ago. If absolutely necessary, apologize, like the prior incumbent of the White House did for the Tuskegee syphilis experiment. You know about that one? Good! I still have nothing to say. And trust me, that's not the only Cold-War era case of the government treating members of a so-called low-use segment of the population as guinea pigs in life-threatening experiments. Just wait and see what gets exposed in documents that'll be declassified in the next couple of decades. Kevin, you are an ambulatory encyclopedia of historic injustices. He regards me carefully. You seem to think that's a compliment. It's not: It's an indictment. Encyclopedias are where people go when they need information. Information about government agencies targeting civilians is a matter of public record; it should already be in the heads of every American

over the age of eighteen. If people who believe 9/11 was an outrageous act of state-sponsored terrorism are angry now, what stopped them from being angry before now, say in 1977 or 1994? Not that I enjoy displaying my ignorance, but what happened then? Kevin shakes his head, then angrily flicks his right hand in the air. 1977: The Project MKUltra hearings in the Senate. 1994: The Rockefeller Report. You don't know about either of those? I'm sure I read about them at the time, but ... The Project MKUltra hearings revealed that more than two hundred populated areas were contaminated with biological agents over two decades during the Cold War era. Those populated areas include San Francisco, St. Louis and Minneapolis. The Rockefeller Report concluded that during the course of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel had secret biological experiments performed on them. Kevin waits for a reply. OK, so what you're saying is that, if by chance 9/11 was staged, it wouldn't be an aberration in American history. Bingo. There's nothing new, or secret, about elected or appointed officials in our government targeting civilians on U.S. soil. If 9/11 belongs to this tradition, the only distinct feature is that the perpetrators carried it out in plain sight. That would say a lot about their confidence in remaining immune from justice.

Excerpt Six: Roy Sugimoto, who along with his wife Sally is hosting the protagonists, asks the narrator to clarify a point about a topic that was of interest to his late father. The excerpt opens with a reference to Sally's brother Rick, who died in the closing days of World War II. Roy Sugimoto The Narrator You know, we were talking about the Military Intelligence Service last night. I expect Sally to look around, but she doesn't. And the language school at Camp Savage, in Minnesota. Actually, my father was an instructor there. Was he? Yes, and Rick was one of his students. That's how I got to know Sally, in a roundabout way. Now Sally looks back. She smiles, then resumes washing the dishes. He was a Kibei, like Rick. He was born in Hawaii, and my grandparents sent him to Japan to learn the language and traditional customs. He lived with my grandfather's family in Kyushu for ten years, until he was twenty-one. So, he and Rick had something important in common. Roy nods. Then he came back to the US and got advanced degrees in linguistics. He was like you, very interested in Chinese characters. He

might have made a specialized study of them, but his professors insisted that he concentrate on the Japanese language instead. I think there was some pressure from the government there, you know, with how research grants were handed out. I wonder where Roy is going with this. Well, after my father retired this was in the mid-1960s he started studying Chinese characters again, more as a hobby than a research project. Uh-huh. I never understood what he found so fascinating, but he always said, The important thing isn't the shapes: It's the sounds. True enough, in a way. But that's a paradox, isn't it? Characters are written: Why do their pronunciations matter? I asked him, and he explained a few times, but I never got it. Can tell me what that's all about? The clock in the galley tells me I have fifteen minutes before our fax arrives. It's enough time if I keep things simple. What your father probably meant was: The way the Chinese characters were pronounced in ancient times offers important clues to their meanings. How can that be? Forget about Chinese and Chinese characters for a minute. Let's start with an analogy in English. There are a dozens of common words with the sound graph: Graphic, graphite, choreograph, cryptograph, lithograph, phonograph, photograph and so on. I'm sure you know what

graph indicates in all these words. Write. Uh-huh. That's the meaning of the ancient Greek verb graphein, the source of our English word. We English speakers can associate the sound produced when we read graph with the concept write. But to make that association, we have to know the etymological background. No, all it takes is for the connection to be pointed out, or noticed by oneself. For example, once a teacher tells her students, Words with 'graph' are connected with writing, they have sufficient information. They don't need to be familiar with the Greek term. OK. But doesn't that only work for English words that come from the classical languages, Greek and Latin? No. This is moving away from the subject, but we can circle back. Are you familiar with the Indo-European language family? Can't say that I am. I check the clock; there's still time. I've spoken on the following subject more times than I can count, so I have the whole presentation committed to memory. To keep things simple, Indo-European is a language family with many branches. Greek is the Hellenic branch. Latin is part of the Italic branch. English is part of the Germanic branch. Modern English contains words from many sources, including non-Indo-European languages. Like sushi.

 Right. Your second question concerned whether there are sounds in English that aren't derived from Greek or Latin and that can be associated with particular concepts. The answer is yes. Think about these words beginning sl-: Slick, slide, slime, slip, slither, slobber, slop, slosh, sludge, slurp, slush. Can you identify anything they have in common? Of course. All of them have something to do with motion and wetness. Precisely. The pronunciation was imitative of the sound made by an object in moving through liquid. Hmm. But there are lots of English words beginning sl- that don't match that description. Let me think. Umm, slave. Or slap. Or slow. Good point. That shows the complexity of the English lexicon. In some cases, as with graph, the sound is always, or nearly always, connected with a single concept. In other cases, such as words beginning sl-, the pronunciation has a variety of derivations, so the one-to-one correspondence between sound and concept in the modern language is fragmentary. But you follow what I'm saying about connecting a particular sound with a particular concept? Yeah, I'm with you. Great. Now we can return to ancient Chinese. Terms beginning with the sound K- nearly always refer to objects that frame, or are framed. For example? Can you lend me a pencil, and spare a sheet of paper? Roy steps into the galley, opens a drawer and pulls out a writing pad

and a ballpoint pen. Pen OK? That's fine, thanks. Roy re-seats himself as he hands me the writing materials. OK, here's a character meaning vehicle. I draw . Originally, it depicted the frame of a vehicle, as seen from above. I draw another character, . This is a pictograph of an altar. What's the connection with a frame? The altar frames the objects placed atop it. Hmm. I draw a third character, . This one is a carpenter's square. In other words, a framing tool. OK, and in ancient Chinese the pronunciations of these three characters began with K-? Right. I see what you're getting at. And you're saying that every word in ancient Chinese that was pronounced with an initial K- sound had something to do with a frame? Almost. There's a small number of exceptions, ones that are imitative in origin, like the sl- sound we were talking about for English. Like what? The term for dog. It was pronounced something like KAN or KEN,

intended to be imitative of barking. Is that by any chance related to the English word canine? Possibly, but if so only in a roundabout way. Chinese belongs to what's called the Sino-Tibetan language family rather than the IndoEuropean family we were discussing. The clock reads 7:56. Time to wind things up. So, I think the link between sounds and concepts may be what your father had in mind when he said the pronunciations of Chinese characters tell us more than their shapes. I understand now, but I still can't see what's so interesting about it. Different strokes for different folks. Vive la diffrence, right?

Excerpt Seven: Marc Asahina, incarcerated in the Minidoka (Idaho) and Tule Lake (California) camps, describes the trials undergone by his family during the war years and afterward. Marc Asahina The Narrator Kevin Nakatani I guess you were told we're making the rounds of some the camps. Yeah. My family was incarcerated in Minidoka. I see. And then in Tule Lake. Was your father a no-no boy? Oh! A well-informed honky. Do you know what the term means, or are you just trying to sound intelligent? Kevin intervenes. Hey, Marc, we can do without the attitude. Marc shakes his head slightly, as if to say, Who cares? I decide to play straight man. Those who answered No to two questions, one about willingness to perform military duty for the US, and one about willingness to forswear allegiance to the emperor of Japan. Very good! And to answer your question, no. No, what? No, my father was not a no-no boy. But I was.

I wait for Marc to continue. My father was an Issei, one of the first-generation immigrants. Do you know that the Issei couldn't become U.S. citizens, couldn't own land, and in most states couldn't marry honkies? Kevin stares at Marc. I mean, Caucasians. Yes, that's what I understand. Marc flashes annoyance at my choice of phrase. And can you understand how people in my father's position tended to feel when they were incarcerated? First they endure decades of discrimination, exploitation and persecution. Then, without having committed any kind of crime, they're stripped of their property and tossed in concentration camps set out in the middle of nowhere. If that wasn't bad enough, now they're required to make a loyalty pledge. Can you understand that? Kevin intervenes again. Marc, talk to the situation. There's no point in alienating your audience. Marc gives no sign of having heard Kevin. Well He breaks off as the waiter sets our drinks on the table, then resumes after he leaves. Minidoka, as you may know, was the camp with the highest percentage of volunteers for military service. A lot of them served in the 442nd. Perhaps you've heard of that too?

Marc's bitterness is beyond anyone's control, including his own. The rest of his story is punctuated with unrelenting sarcasm, irony and hostility. A filtered version runs: Marc's father Kenzabur refuses to answer the two questions. Worried about his eighteen-year-old son losing his U.S. citizenship, Kenzabur urges Marc to answer yes. Instead, out of loyalty to his father's views, anxiety about the possibility that the family will be split up, and outrage at the incarceration, Marc gives a double No. Accompanied by Marc's mother Yurie and thirteen-year-old brother William, the family is sent to Tule Lake, the living conditions of which Marc describes as a hellhole. He urges me to familiarize myself with the details. In December 1944, word leaks that the camp will close and that the incarcerees will be released, leading nearly 5,500 of them to renounce their U.S. citizenship. Some among the younger renunciants are motivated by fear of being drafted. Many others dread the consequences of being released into hostile communities without resources or prospects for work. Still others fear the non-citizen Issei will be repatriated to Japan at war's end, splitting up families. Kenzabur and Yurie have William renounce for this reason. Marc also renounces, in his case out of devotion to his parents and disgust with the family's treatment at the hands of the U.S. government. Post-war, one-quarter of the renunciants are expatriated to Japan, the Asahina family among them. The Asahinas go to live with Kenzabur's

older brother and his family, in rural Yamaguchi Prefecture. However, it's clear there isn't enough food to go around. Marc leaves to do construction work in Hiroshima, rebuilding after the atomic devastation. He soon learns that more affluent families rebuilding their homes are willing to pay for better construction materials than those readily available. He scrapes together enough money to order a single house's worth of quality lumber from Oregon and Washington. Word soon spreads, he receives more orders, and by 1950 Marc is making enough money to support his entire family. In 1956, Marc and William succeed in getting their U.S. citizenship restored. Leaving the Japan end of the lumber import business to Kenzabur, the brothers return to the U.S., settling in Seattle. Five years later Kenzabur and Yurie obtain permission to reenter the U.S. Kenzabur entrusts his job to a nephew, and the Asahina family is reunited back in Washington. By now, Marc is married, with a six-yearold son and a daughter on the way. Marc and William diversify the business to include packaging materials and cellulose-derived products. Eventually, William's daughters take over the business. Marc's son, Ted, becomes a forest ranger in Idaho's Sawtooth National Forest, and Marc and his wife retire to Twin Falls to be near their grandchildren. Zoological references feature prominently in Marc's story; I figure them out by context.

Jackals: Members of a certain group promoting Nikkei rights. Orangutans: Nikkei who join the U.S. military. Poodles: Nikkei strikebreakers sent to bring in crops the Tule Lake incarcerees refuse to harvest. Hyenas: Caucasian civilians who profit from the Occupation. Vultures: Nikkei involved in Occupation activities. Vampire Bats: Nikkei who take reparation payments. Ostriches: Americans who believe the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Middle Eastern fanatics. Marc expects reactionary elements within the U.S. government to jump on 9/11 as a pretext to infringe the constitutionally protected rights of targeted members of society. He concludes his harangue by assuring Kevin and me that those measures will only be a prelude to even broader restrictions designed to enslave all non-elite U.S. citizens.

Excerpt Eight: The protagonists discuss rural economics in the United States at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Narrator Kevin Nakatani We approach the town of Susanville. This town's a symbol of what's happening in rural parts of the country. How so? Traditional industries are dying and getting replaced. Take a guess by what. I think for a moment. Gaming. Casinos. Right. Keep going. I think again. Clean energy. Be serious. Corporate farming. Agribusiness. That's more a transition than a replacement. Prisons. You got it. There are a couple right outside town. The country's been on a building spree this past decade. Especially in Texas, where the oil field jobs are disappearing, and in Appalachia, where the coals mines have tanked.

 Hmm. And how's that working out for the local communities? Not enough data to say at this point. But there's anecdotal evidence. The towns are promised jobs and, in some cases, contracts to source food and other supplies from local businesses. But what happens is the good jobs in the prisons go to senior workers transferred in from other prisons. Meanwhile, local procurement tends to end after a few years, when the initial contracts run out. After that the contracts go to big players from outside the community. I imagine there are also social fabric issues. Kevin nods. Prison jobs are stressful, and the stress tends to lead to higher rates of things like DV, suicide, and substance abuse in the hosting communities. Then, when inmates commit crimes, they're often processed in the local court system, adding to the workload of people outside the prisons. Another issue is what happens when inmates are released: What do they do when they have nowhere to go and no resources? They go on welfare in the host community? They commit new crimes there? Sure, those things happen. And then there are other little, hard-tomeasure things, like the impact of prison work crews taking work from local businesses. Around the country are crews that do roadside work, clean or repaint buildings, maintain fleets of public vehicles, wash laundry: All kinds of things. And they do it for pennies an hour. Local businesses providing those services can't compete.

 And I suppose the prisons have clout with the local politicians and chambers of commerce. Naturally. Add to that the incursion of big-box stores, and small businesses are being squeezed to death. It almost makes casinos seem attractive. Pick your poison.

Excerpt Nine: The protagonists arrive at a Zen retreat being held in Tahoe City, California. They are greeted by a man named Kent Edgerton. The Narrator Kevin Nakatani Kent Edgerton We arrive at our lodge in Tahoe City just before five P.M. At check in, we are told to stop by the meeting room before going to our rooms. The meeting room, we find, has been transformed into a Zen hall. There are no tables or chairs; instead, thirty seating mats are lined against the wood-paneled walls. On each mat is a black zabuton, a round cushion on which to rest the buttocks, ensuring a balanced sitting position. In the center of the rooms stand two middle-aged males, wearing black cassocks. Seeing us, they break off their conversation. One exits by a side door, while the other approaches us. Hello there. Kevin and I return the greeting. I'm Kent Edgerton. Been expecting you. You have? Yeah. I guess you didn't get advance notice. Nope. You're holding a Zen retreat here in this lodge? Right. That surprises you? Zen is full of surprises.

Kent laughs. The two of you are familiar with Zen practice? To a certain extent. I look at Kevin. He cocks his head to the right in a vague gesture. Well, let me give you a quick rundown. This isn't a typical retreat where every minute is accounted for. We meditate in the mornings and evenings, but otherwise the participants are free to do what they want. Nearly all of them go off to the slopes. We're just about to get started with the dinner preparations. Mind lending a hand? Kevin and I freshen up in our rooms, then go to the lodge's kitchen. Kent is talking with the other person we saw in the hall, who identifies himself as Zeke. Kent takes Kevin to the dining area, while Zeke hands me a peeler and points to a bucket of potatoes and a pail of carrots. I greet the people working around me, including the teary-eyed woman in charge of the onions, but after that we carry out our tasks in silence. We take our dinner in the dining area. The meal is meatless and simple: Hearty vegetable soup, corn casserole, whole-grain bread, brown rice, cheese and fruit, served with a variety of herb tea I can't identify. We eat as we worked, in silence. Afterwards, Zeke comes around and shows Kevin and me our cleanup chores: Wiping the tables after they've been cleared and then sweeping the floor. Fifteen minutes later we finish, and I head for the meditation hall. Kevin starts for his room. You're taking a pass? Yep. I'll be there for the talk after the meditation.

In the meditation hall, I pick a seating mat at random. Others have already started positioning themselves, some in the full lotus position, some in half lotus, others with their legs simply crossed. Two older men have brought in chairs on which to do their sitting. All the meditators face inward, an indication that this is a Rinzai, not St, group. It's been fifteen years since I last sat. To my surprise, I find my legs are still flexible enough to be contorted into a full lotus. But immediately I bring my left foot down off my right thigh, creating a half lotus. Not having sat for so long, going full lotus for the thirty-minute session would leave my legs completely numb for at least five minutes. That would prevent me from doing the walking meditation preceding the second session. A bell is struck, and the session begins. One female disciple, in charge of the meditation hall, walks slowly about with a keisaku, a thin stick used to strike the back or shoulders of a meditator whose concentration is flagging. When employed, the keisaku produces a cracking sound and a short-lasting sting. Assuming the retreat is following Rinzai tradition, the master will have assigned each student a kan. I try, unsuccessfully, to recall the kan I was first assigned so many years ago. Then I realize I'm not meditating, and try to sit emptily. Then I think about trying to sit emptily. Then I think about not thinking about trying to sit emptily. That puts me in mind of the chicken and egg question. Then I'm thinking about the Japanese dish oyakodon, rice topped with simmered chicken and egg. Then I'm thinking I need to gesture for the female disciple to strike me

with the keisaku when she comes around. Thirty minutes pass, my mind chasing madly from thought to thought. Another striking of the bell signals the start of walking meditation. We all rise, shake the numbness out of our legs, and circle the meditation hall in silence for ten minutes. Then we return to our seating mats for another thirty minutes of meditation. The bell ending the session is struck, and Kent announces we have fifteen minutes to use the bathroom or do whatever else we may need to do before the master gives a talk. More to clear my mind than anything else I go back to my room and wash my face. Then I walk down the hall and knock on Kevin's door, but there's no answer. I return to the hall and find that he has taken a mat on the opposite side of the room from mine. The master enters, accompanied by the same disciple who wielded the keisaku. Both wear cassocks, though the master's is clearly made of finer material, silk perhaps. The master walks unsteadily, the disciple firmly grasping his right arm. When he arrives at his mat, Zeke assists in lowering him into seating position. The talk begins. The master speaks in Japanese. His words are rendered into English by an interpreter, a Japanese woman of about forty. The talk is based on a classic text used by the Rinzai school. The master speaks in a monotone, and the English version is almost equally flat. After ten minutes, many of the participants are finding it hard to sit

still, though they do their best to be unobtrusive. Kevin sits motionless, his legs crossed and his head lowered. I wonder if his eyelids are closed or if he's scanning the hall as he did the Sugimoto's RV. The talk drones on. I imagine a power struggle in the group, traditionalists bent on transmitting Japanese Rinzai practices to the West unchanged, progressives equally determined to adapt to local circumstances. Probably, the retreat structure fully pleases nobody. The talk concludes after forty minutes. I expect we'll be dismissed, but learn that time has been allotted for questions. Perhaps this opportunity is what attracted some of the participants in the first place. A young woman, a redhead in a sweatsuit asks, What is the point of Zen? Many of us chuckle. The question is interpreted for the master. He smiles. The redhead smiles too. The master continues smiling. Twenty seconds later, the interpreter decides this is the master's answer. She asks for the next question. The smile disappears from the redhead's face. A middle-aged man in elastic-waist pants and a hand-knitted sweater raises his hand. He speaks in a thick, possibly Eastern European accent. What did you do in the war, master? The Second World War. Did you kill people? The interpreter stares at the questioner. Then, for some reason, she looks at Zeke, who jerks his head in the direction of the master. She puts the question into Japanese. The master arches his eyebrows. Then he turns his eyes to the man in the sweater. He replies slowly in

Japanese, I just spoke to all of you about duality. Black/white, male/female, death/life. If you insist on clinging to these distinctions, you are wasting your time here. After the interpreter renders his answer in English, the man attempts to reply, but the interpreter cuts him off. No dialogue. Last question. She points to someone holding out two fingers sideways. It's Kevin. He straightens his back, turns to the master and asks, What is the Zen of 9/11? Murmurs from the participants. The interpreter hesitates, but then puts the question to the master. The master regards Kevin carefully. Their eyes lock. Half a minute passes. People begin to look at each other. The master and Kevin are too far apart for me to view at the same time. Repeatedly I look back and forth, from one to the other. Another half minute. Finally, in the split-second when I'm transferring my eyes from Kevin to the master, something happens. When my eyes focus on the master, I see that he is looking down, while Zeke and the interpreter are extending their hands to help him rise. I glance again at Kevin; his expression reveals nothing. Accompanied by the interpreter, the master walks slowly down the hall. Kevin stares straight ahead; the master passes without acknowledging him. After the door closes behind the master and his attendant, the participants begin murmuring to each other. Kevin stands, plumps his zabuton, and strolls away.

Copyright 2013 by Lawrence J. Howell All rights reserved. This document or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of Lawrence J. Howell, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Disclaimer The Zen of 9/11 is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between the characters depicted in this novel and real persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental. (Exception: The narrator, patterned after a certain researcher, lexicographer and translator who kindly consented to the portrayal.) Readers are invited to verify the accuracy of historical references made by the characters. For information regarding availability of the complete novel in electronic or paper format, or to offer feedback, write to the author at admin(at)kanjinetworks(dot)com