“People ain’t one thing.” - Jimmie Fails from The Last Man in San Francisco.

A person is neither simple nor one thing. I have a strong feeling about that. Because my life was certainly not made of one thing. 

Chiye, as a child

I was a precocious child. My mother said I must have been “born with my mouth first,” openly criticizing my lack of respect toward adults and my talking directly to them. Unlike my older sister, who was taught to be responsible and somewhat complacent about adult decisions, I was given relative freedom in expressing myself. Or so I interpreted my parents’ utter resourcelessness about my rebellious nature as gaining freedom. My homeroom teacher wrote in my sixth-grade book that I lacked respect for him. I was aware of that. I was even proud of that. Because I felt I had no defense against the random boorish behavior of adults around me or any other child. They often talked down on us. At school, the punishment usually involved direct verbal insults to my character or physical beating. No adult ever verbally explained why I deserved such punishments. The lack of communication increased my skepticism toward social mores and power hierarchy. It also exacerbated my inclination toward creating a few insulated fantasy worlds within my mind. I read voraciously, drew funny cartoons, and often daydreamed. 

The intricacy of understanding the language of love through food

As a child born to a multi-generational South Korean living in Japan, I drank daily doses of the two cultures' wonderfully complex, spicy mixed juice. I grew up eating very elaborate Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and European cuisines that my mother made. She could make almost anything from traditional Korean cuisine and created complex ways of making kimchi, dumpling soups, and fibrous seaweed dishes. She would parboil coarse Daikon radish leaves, add garlic, miso, and dried anchovies, and simmer the soup for hours until all the delicious flavor and nutrition permeated the broth. I would eat only that with rice. Koreans were very into vegetables. There were so many dishes we called “nameless whatchamacallit with (fill in the blank, say, dried pollack or sea cucumbers).” She never followed recipes. She began cooking at the age of seven or eight since she was responsible for feeding the large extended family. She thoroughly internalized the art of cooking. She used to say, “Your tongue remembers what the right taste is. The rest, you pick up a kitchen knife and experiment till it’s right.” Experimented, she did. My family often saw her standing in the kitchen till midnight, trying this and that. To this day, my favorite way of cooking is to go to a good restaurant, pick a dish I like, and go to the market where the particular ethnic food ingredients are sold, then experiment till the taste memory in my tongue aligns with the flavor I made in the cooking pot. But I am not my mother; I am not ready to ignore written recipes when they are great.

My mother was never closed-minded with food. She was open to many different dishes from around the world. She even perfected her Shepherd Pie. She picked up the authentic recipe from a British minister from our church. She insisted that the real Shepherd Pie must have Marmite. So we went to the downtown import store and bought a jar of Marmite. I loved her Jyajanmyong (Black bean noodles without broth), except hers was a Chinese version. She used minced pork instead of the black sauce. I loved her slicing cucumber into needle-thin and crisp. There was Emiko’s (my mother’s name) famous apple nutty cake, Emiko’s famous spring rolls, and Emiko’s famous spaghetti meat sauce. No guests of our house went home hungry. 

I am fully aware that my mother expressed her love toward her family and friends through cooking. She also incorporated many teachings into her cooking. For example, she would say, “Do not wait until you were told what to do. Look around and know I am making a hot pot for dinner. Then, you should know what utensils and plates you should bring by observing. Don’t ask the same dumb questions. Observe and be keen. Set the table before I bring out the bubbling hot pot. Do not waste the hot temperature in the pot. Align your action with everything that is co-arising.” She also said, “Each ingredient has distinctive shape, flavor, and texture. Observe and find the best way to preserve their essence. Do not kill their spirits by overcooking, chopping up too small, or letting them sit in the fridge until they lose their prime time. All those actions will obliterate their beauty. Show respect and gratitude for them.” Can you imagine how she taught me all that without saying much?! But I picked up that wisdom while helping her in the kitchen. The lessons were etched in my body. We were intimate despite our differences, thanks to food. 

I did not choose cooking to cultivate deep inner awareness and listen to the mind-body interaction; I chose music. I am big on body awareness when I teach singing; that will be another chapter to write about.

How music played a part in the mind of teenage Chiye

Although it never occurred to me to choose music as a profession, my life story as a teenager cannot be told without the steady companion of music I carried inside my school uniform pocket in the form of the metallic blue Walkman. When I heard about it, I begged my electrician father to get me the brand-new sensation. I took advantage of him entirely, as he was a dealer of Hitachi Electronics. After I got it, first a cassette tape version, I popped in mainly compilation tapes I or my younger brother made with the dual cassette deck at home, devoured Japanese Showa Era pops, Spandau Ballet, Steely Dan, Queen, Doris Day, Fiddler On The Roof, Rakugo (Traditional storytelling art) while holding on to the leather strap in a rumbling bus back and forth to my high school. I was born with a good ear. I was a good singer. My mother insisted that it was her excellent voice I had inherited. My mother tended to remind her children that every good trait we showed came from the genes on the maternal side. I am not sure if that’s scientific. But I am grateful that my mother kept paying for my and my sister’s piano lessons for nearly a decade despite the fact we were not wealthy. I played classical piano since the age of seven. My development in the instrument stagnated, and eventually, I got stuck at the intermediate level. Later in college, I stretched my ability to the early college level but never went further than that. 

My first piano teacher was a family friend. She was plump, had acorn eyes (in Japan, that means she had a set of not too big, but cute, round eyes), and a pleasant disposition. I don’t think I was an exceptionally attentive or serious piano student. I swear, to this day, I cannot remember what she taught. Piano playing was simply one of many things I enjoyed as a child. The teacher must have been skillful because she never made us feel music learning to be dreadful or demanding. After she moved to another prefecture to get married, my mother found another local piano teacher. My sister and I used to have our former piano teacher at our house and ate meals together after the lessons. Instead, my sister and I had to walk to this new teacher’s house for a lesson. Although it was only a ten-minute walk, I did not enjoy the excursion. Her house was dark, and stank of mold, and her studio was furnished with moss-colored curtains and old carpet. She was stern and very impersonal to me. I can’t blame her, for I made a minimum effort while I was with her. I struggled for a year. I was already a freshman at that time. My mother finally relented, and I was allowed to quit. So long, Mr. Mozart and Beethoven! Well, I like their music very much now. Back then, I had so little space in my heart to appreciate other people’s kindness or generosity.

(Thank you for reading this far. Please let me know if you enjoyed my writing. Please give me suggestions. Let me know if you want to know more about my life.)