Calligraphy

We're very culture-fied here at Lem's. Because we see these strange things all over the place and we wonder all the time what the heck they all mean. And now because of global interconnectedness we no longer have to sit here and wonder. We know. Merely by asking what the heck does that mean.

Sometimes I wonder if my dad wondered what the heck he was getting his family into. Looking back at the photos that others uploaded I still think that all over again. People write about their experience lovingly. But that's not what I was feeling then and it's not what I feel looking back. It was weird. The whole thing was weird. Why were we subjected to such weirdness? 

School in a Quonset hut!

For crying out loud. 

I see those today in schools overloaded temporarily and It makes me sad.

I think of all those kids stuck in Quonset huts for a year. 

Maybe they like it.

There we were following orders as usual. 

We left our Quonset hut and went inside the imposing main building for a separate class in art.

Yay!

For art. 

But now, for some unfathomable reason they're teaching us how to write fancy letters. 

Ew. Come on! Teach us some art. Not how to write!

Gawl!

Holding a pen with a flat nib just so, keeping the flatness oriented at an angle throughout the whole process. Forming swirly serifs all over the place. Getting fancier and fancier. Codifying our swirls throughout documents. Making loops and tendrils, complicating letters with swoops and curlycues and waning filaments like our letters are extended by complicated subterranean mycelial cords. Over and over and over we're stuck on letters in art class. How many weeks are we going to be stuck on this?

What am I even getting into?

Why are we doing this?

Nobody sensible writes like this. 

Why so much importance on calligraphy? And why is it art?

I want to draw pictures. Not letters.

Then, the very next class when I move up a year I do not go into the larger imposing building. No. I go to Camp Drake instead because it is closer. Actually attached to the base where I live. Apparently the barracks of a previous Japanese army base. That's what we surmised. But we were kids surmising this. That's what I was told by other kids. 

The place looked like a barracks. And not an American barracks.

I've been inside American barracks. A couple of times. Just wandered in. And these are similar and at the same time very different. They're built differently. We actually watched movies about how barracks are built and these were built differently.

And now they are showing us calligraphy all over again. Except this time it's all Japanese writing. And we don't even know what we are writing. We're told what each symbol means. But we don't really care. This is not our life. This is something odd that they're showing us. We are copying their writing the way that they do it. Using their kind of paper, their kind of brushes, their weird kind of ink that comes in small blocks like watercolors except in black and red. 

They're quite insistent that we follow their instruction for each succession of stokes. One thing that we learned is that Japanese can take the fun out of everything. Everything codified. How the liquid ink is made from a solid, codified as a tea ceremony. How the paper is positioned. How we sit in front of it. How the large tissue-paper is filled with a character. How the brush is loaded with ink. How the brush is held. How the character is formed. Each stroke is codified, 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. One character at a time. 

Now, within all that codified exactness. Be spontaneous!

And we learn these characters stroke by stroke. Each stroke is important. How the brush is loaded with ink, how the brush is set on the paper and moved across the paper, how the brushstroke trails off. How the ink flow is controlled. How the streaks add to the character of the character. How each individual brushstroke is its own art. Each character is art. 

The idea is to make each character pop from the page as if it had spontaneously appeared. As if each concept has its own life. You are the medium that brings these characters to life. And their life-force is shown by each stroke. Zippity-zap boom the living concept appears in the material world frozen in its own life. This language lives. And that's why you see it all over the place. All of Japan is literally covered with their living language. It's not just signage. It's art!

That's what all this crap is about. That's why they are drilling it into our brains.

Did my dad understand that this is what they would do to us? Is this what he wanted for us? He had been to Japan before. He spoke Japanese. He knew what we were in for. So, yes. Apparently. This is what he wanted for us. He didn't know exactly how it would shake out, but this is what he wanted. 

All the Air Force stuff came with it. The experience was the tremendous dichotomy between American military on temporary bases and permanent Japanese culture and that's the thing all these people now my own age and older are uploading and looking back upon with an affected fondness. This is what they are returning to and bringing their own families to see. They're showing their children and grandchildren where they grew up. At least that's the idea. Except it's all disappeared for the most part. Those Quonset huts and barracks schools were always meant to be temporary. Even the imposing buildings are gone. That whole twenty year period is a mere moment in Japanese history, and not all that happy a period besides. Best to forget it and turn the place into a park. The sooner forgotten, the better.

They'll make a point of remembering Nagasaki and Hiroshima. But they are not taught in their schools what started the war. My group returns to remember. But there is nothing of their actual experience to show their families. It's all been overwritten. With splendid urban parks and endless artistic living Japanese calligraphy.