martha ogasawara
the life of an american japanese
by Hans O. Karlsson
Have you ever considered living in Japan? If so you will find in this story of an American woman - who moved to Japan for love, became a citizen, and settled down in her own house in rural Japan - interesting.
The following is an incomplete summary of our interview with Martha Ogasawara, a forty-year plus foreign resident of Tajimi. For more detail and nuance, put on a kettle and listen to Martha telling her story in her voice.
The following is an incomplete summary of our interview with Martha Ogasawara, a forty-year plus foreign resident of Tajimi. For more detail and nuance, put on a kettle and listen to Martha telling her story in her voice.
Martha Ogasawara in her old-style Japanese house
the centre of martha's universe
“I never wanted to be like everybody else”. Martha Ogasawara embodies her philosophy with her colourful appearance, her house, and her bicultural lifestyle far from where she grew up. She lives in a typical, old-style residence in Tajimi, Japan. The original owner probably built it sometime around when Martha was born, she says.
In the genkan - the entrance - I am greeted by a traditional Japanese flower arrangement. Shoes off here, of course - this is Japan. The solid plank floor feels reassuring under your feet as you proceed through a narrow corridor. It is a little squeaky, that’s the house’s way to let you know it’s there. Next, you enter a small living room. Here the floor is covered by tatami straw mats - how very pleasant! In the middle is a typical, low Japanese kotatsu table (1).
We sit on the floor, of course. There is a thick blanket under the tabletop to cover our legs. You stick your feet under the table and down into the cavity underneath. It’s a godsend, that hole in the floor. Western knees protest very quickly if you have to cross them, or, God forbid, sit on your heels, for more than a few minutes. Chinese knees do too, and African, for all I know. Floor-sitting is a typical Japanese custom. All legs, however, love the warmth from the heater underneath the kotatsu on a chilly day like this.
You get the feeling that this room and this house is very much at the centre of Martha’s universe. And yet, as we shall see, it just happens to be her home, in a land that happens to be her country, albeit one for which she seems to have much affection.
In the genkan - the entrance - I am greeted by a traditional Japanese flower arrangement. Shoes off here, of course - this is Japan. The solid plank floor feels reassuring under your feet as you proceed through a narrow corridor. It is a little squeaky, that’s the house’s way to let you know it’s there. Next, you enter a small living room. Here the floor is covered by tatami straw mats - how very pleasant! In the middle is a typical, low Japanese kotatsu table (1).
We sit on the floor, of course. There is a thick blanket under the tabletop to cover our legs. You stick your feet under the table and down into the cavity underneath. It’s a godsend, that hole in the floor. Western knees protest very quickly if you have to cross them, or, God forbid, sit on your heels, for more than a few minutes. Chinese knees do too, and African, for all I know. Floor-sitting is a typical Japanese custom. All legs, however, love the warmth from the heater underneath the kotatsu on a chilly day like this.
You get the feeling that this room and this house is very much at the centre of Martha’s universe. And yet, as we shall see, it just happens to be her home, in a land that happens to be her country, albeit one for which she seems to have much affection.
A small selection of Martha's impressive collection of handmade earrings.
Life in an old-style Japanese house
One gets the feeling that Martha and her house are on good terms. The house is ageing, and there is no running hot water (that means, among other things, no quick hot showers in the morning), and the washing machine is outdoors. “I am used to it, and it doesn’t bother me,” Martha smiles. I can see why, for despite various inconveniences it is a warm and welcoming place, indeed. The kind that many foreigners who like the feeling of traditional Japan appreciate.
Martha has lived in Tajimi for most of her adult life. She is now a Japanese citizen with no plans to ever move back to America. She has left all that behind her, although she does visit the U.S. regularly and is an active promoter of American culture, or, more specifically, dance.
After her arrival in Japan forty years ago and four years of Japanese language studies, she fell in love with Takashi, a Japanese potter. They both moved to Tajimii, so Takashi could study at the Ishoken, a well-known ceramics study institute in Tajimi. The city has a thousand-year-old pottery tradition. The couple planned to move on after Takashi’s studies but ended up buying a house and settle down permanently here.
Martha now lives alone after her husband’s passing a few years ago. Her story is full of insight into how to blend in and thrive in a different culture.
Martha has lived in Tajimi for most of her adult life. She is now a Japanese citizen with no plans to ever move back to America. She has left all that behind her, although she does visit the U.S. regularly and is an active promoter of American culture, or, more specifically, dance.
After her arrival in Japan forty years ago and four years of Japanese language studies, she fell in love with Takashi, a Japanese potter. They both moved to Tajimii, so Takashi could study at the Ishoken, a well-known ceramics study institute in Tajimi. The city has a thousand-year-old pottery tradition. The couple planned to move on after Takashi’s studies but ended up buying a house and settle down permanently here.
Martha now lives alone after her husband’s passing a few years ago. Her story is full of insight into how to blend in and thrive in a different culture.
Enjoy this lightly edited audio recording of the interview. It includes substantially more material, nuance, and brings you the human quality only voice can convey.
Why Japan?
“Every now and then,” Martha wrote in an essay from 1993, “for no special reason, it’s like there’s a third person in my mind who looks down at me and says, “What am I doing here, and how did I end up living like this? Why am I eating fish for breakfast and sitting on the floor?” It’s not a judgmental sort of thing, but more one of surprise. Back in high school, if someone had told me that I would end up marrying a Japanese and spending the rest of my life in Japan, I would have just laughed. I didn’t even know where Japan was.”
“Back in the U.S. when I was a student,” Martha says, sipping from her cup of Chai, “I entered a small collage, Earlham College, and they had a Study Abroad Program. They sent me a postcard informing me that you have to choose a foreign language. I have always liked being different from other people. Some years they offer a Swahili course, and that would have been even more exotic. I might have ended up in Africa if I had had that choice. But when I started at Earlham, Japanese was the most exotic language, and it caught my attention. I think it was only one of two schools offering a major in Japanese at the time. I didn’t know anybody else who studied the language, so I gave it a try. And it changed my life.”
“Back in the U.S. when I was a student,” Martha says, sipping from her cup of Chai, “I entered a small collage, Earlham College, and they had a Study Abroad Program. They sent me a postcard informing me that you have to choose a foreign language. I have always liked being different from other people. Some years they offer a Swahili course, and that would have been even more exotic. I might have ended up in Africa if I had had that choice. But when I started at Earlham, Japanese was the most exotic language, and it caught my attention. I think it was only one of two schools offering a major in Japanese at the time. I didn’t know anybody else who studied the language, so I gave it a try. And it changed my life.”
Martha makes Chai using spices from a local coffee shop. Here served with traditional Japanese snacks.
Shocking kids in the street
Martha began teaching English to private students. She never had any desire to work for one of the many English conversation schools or in public education. Instead, she preferred to be in full control of her work situation, and maybe that has been a significant reason she has had few problems adapting to life in Japan.
Friends play a significant part. Martha has a broad base of friends and acquaintances, and many of them share her love for dance. She helps organize large dance events and trips, bringing over dance people to Japan, and taking Japanese people to dance events overseas. Her fluency in Japanese is of course also crucial in this country, where a vast majority of people are monolingual. During her first years, she had trouble blending in mostly because of the language barrier. “People would try to include me in the conversation when we had a gathering of some sort,” Martha says, “but I couldn’t quite follow, and they would give up and continue their discussion. But now I feel I am close to the same fluency as I have in English. These days people will tell me that ‘Oh! You are more Japanese then we are! I know they mean it as a compliment, and I do have many hobbies related to Japanese culture. I play the Koto and the Shamisen, I do Ikebana (flower arrangements) and so forth. ‘I am Japanese, but I don’t play the Shamisen!’ they say. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but maybe you do American patchwork, and I don’t, and that doesn’t make you more American than me.’ I guess people like to put cultural labels on things. So when I was about to decide about living permanently here, I had to consider whether I could stand being a Gaijin (literally “outsider”) all my life.” Gaijin, meaning “foreigner”, is a word some foreigners dislike, as it has the connotation of not being included in the community.
Is it extra hard to deal with this in a rural, and by nature more conservative town, like Tajimi? “Well, it doesn’t happen anymore, but back in the early days, kids would stop and point at me, shouting “Gaijin! Gaijin! And when I would walk up to them and speak to them in Japanese, they were shocked.”
Friends play a significant part. Martha has a broad base of friends and acquaintances, and many of them share her love for dance. She helps organize large dance events and trips, bringing over dance people to Japan, and taking Japanese people to dance events overseas. Her fluency in Japanese is of course also crucial in this country, where a vast majority of people are monolingual. During her first years, she had trouble blending in mostly because of the language barrier. “People would try to include me in the conversation when we had a gathering of some sort,” Martha says, “but I couldn’t quite follow, and they would give up and continue their discussion. But now I feel I am close to the same fluency as I have in English. These days people will tell me that ‘Oh! You are more Japanese then we are! I know they mean it as a compliment, and I do have many hobbies related to Japanese culture. I play the Koto and the Shamisen, I do Ikebana (flower arrangements) and so forth. ‘I am Japanese, but I don’t play the Shamisen!’ they say. ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but maybe you do American patchwork, and I don’t, and that doesn’t make you more American than me.’ I guess people like to put cultural labels on things. So when I was about to decide about living permanently here, I had to consider whether I could stand being a Gaijin (literally “outsider”) all my life.” Gaijin, meaning “foreigner”, is a word some foreigners dislike, as it has the connotation of not being included in the community.
Is it extra hard to deal with this in a rural, and by nature more conservative town, like Tajimi? “Well, it doesn’t happen anymore, but back in the early days, kids would stop and point at me, shouting “Gaijin! Gaijin! And when I would walk up to them and speak to them in Japanese, they were shocked.”
Martha greeting a guest in her traditional genkan entrance
Half-and-half is a comfortable place to be
“One thing that still frustrates me here is that people keep asking me where I am from. ‘From Tajimi,’ I reply, and they are taken aback. ‘But where are you really from?’ they ask. I have been living here for forty-five years, doesn’t that qualify me as a citizen? But people don’t seem to be content unless you tell them that you are from another country. They want to put you in a pigeonhole, I guess.”
“I like to call myself an American Japanese,” Martha smiles. “I am certainly not a nationalist - I am quite happy not to have American citizenship these days. It’s a relief not to be involved on all that over there” she laughs. “I have family and friends back home, of course, but I don’t feel like an American anymore. I will never return to live there, but on the other hand, I also have no desire to cling on to Japan for the sake of it. I could see myself living in another country in the future.
“I did try to be more Japanese than the Japanese in the beginning. I refused to go to McDonald’s, for example. I did not want to be a caricature of a foreigner that comes to Japan and just have to go to McDonald’s. Then I arrived at a stage where I was comfortable being half-and-half. My two identities merged into one. Once I arrived at that place, I began to feel comfortable living here.”
“I do some interpretation work for visiting dance troupes, and I can switch between English and Japanese quite effortlessly, but I believe becoming bicultural is a greater accomplishment. I think you can be bilingual without being bicultural.”
“I like to call myself an American Japanese,” Martha smiles. “I am certainly not a nationalist - I am quite happy not to have American citizenship these days. It’s a relief not to be involved on all that over there” she laughs. “I have family and friends back home, of course, but I don’t feel like an American anymore. I will never return to live there, but on the other hand, I also have no desire to cling on to Japan for the sake of it. I could see myself living in another country in the future.
“I did try to be more Japanese than the Japanese in the beginning. I refused to go to McDonald’s, for example. I did not want to be a caricature of a foreigner that comes to Japan and just have to go to McDonald’s. Then I arrived at a stage where I was comfortable being half-and-half. My two identities merged into one. Once I arrived at that place, I began to feel comfortable living here.”
“I do some interpretation work for visiting dance troupes, and I can switch between English and Japanese quite effortlessly, but I believe becoming bicultural is a greater accomplishment. I think you can be bilingual without being bicultural.”
Breaking the isolation
Martha believes Japan is quite a different experience once you get under the surface. “People come here for the first time and say: ‘oh, can you believe how warm and friendly folks are here!’. Then, if they stay, they come to a point where they begin to feel that the Japanese are secretive and hide their thoughts from you. They are hard to read, and you can’t tell what they want to say. I think a lot of people get stuck there and are not able to move beyond that point.”
I guess one reason I managed to do that was simply by living long enough here. But I got help from my husband as well. He avoided always fending for me, made me do things myself. Now that he has passed on, I am grateful for that, because I am quite self-sufficient.”
I have also had the advantage of being a Gaijin woman. I am not held to the same strict standards that a Japanese woman would be. ‘Oh, she’s not Japanese, you can’t expect her to do that!’ they say. And I have learned to work that to my advantage.”
One more thing that has been of great help is my friends. And that includes friends from abroad, as many of them are foreign dancers. When dance instructors come they stay here, and in the evening we will go to a hot spring bath. Then we go back here and go to bed, nice and cosy. It’s a great way to give them a simple yet authentic taste of Japan. I do round dancing, square dancing and line dancing. I arrange dance events for people in Japan; two hundred will be coming next month. I also organise dance-related trips, mostly to the U.S.”
I guess one reason I managed to do that was simply by living long enough here. But I got help from my husband as well. He avoided always fending for me, made me do things myself. Now that he has passed on, I am grateful for that, because I am quite self-sufficient.”
I have also had the advantage of being a Gaijin woman. I am not held to the same strict standards that a Japanese woman would be. ‘Oh, she’s not Japanese, you can’t expect her to do that!’ they say. And I have learned to work that to my advantage.”
One more thing that has been of great help is my friends. And that includes friends from abroad, as many of them are foreign dancers. When dance instructors come they stay here, and in the evening we will go to a hot spring bath. Then we go back here and go to bed, nice and cosy. It’s a great way to give them a simple yet authentic taste of Japan. I do round dancing, square dancing and line dancing. I arrange dance events for people in Japan; two hundred will be coming next month. I also organise dance-related trips, mostly to the U.S.”
Martha was inducted in the Linedancer Hall of Fame and given this crystal boot trophy for her role in bringing line dancing to Japan.
Looking forward
What is the advice Martha would give to other foreigners thinking of moving to Japan? Are there any benefits to living in the countryside?
“People often have the belief that the cost of living in Japan is extremely high. That is true for Tokyo, but the farther out you go in the countryside, the cheaper it gets. Here, you need a car for transportation and a proper visa. It used to be quite hard to get one when I came here.
Adapting to the new culture is the key. So many things are different from the West - attitudes to religion, for example. Many foreigners are astonished by the way people seem to take faith quite lightly. It’s normal to be “baptised” by a Shinto priest, wed by a Christian one, and buried by a Buddhist monk. It’s more about the ritual than the philosophy behind it. And practical thinking seems to be more important than doctrine. This is true for Martha as well.
“Not being religious myself, I am quite comfortable with how the Japanese mostly avoid doctrinal thinking about religion. I was more concerned about worldly matters when my husband passed away. I suddenly realised that I have no blood relations here. My siblings in the U.S. will not be interested in my house, and it’s not very valuable. My older brother’s daughter in Japan has agreed to be legally responsible for my affairs, so I won’t leave a mess behind when I die.”
“We had a Buddhist funeral for my husband, but I have basically opted out of all the ceremonies that usually follow for years after someone passes away. Fortunately, people had no problem accepting my thinking.”
Martha seems to have found a harmonious lifestyle. She has stayed in control of her work situation, free from the shackles of the corporate world. Her involvement in the dance community seems to be the perfect fit for someone who in one sense, chose to be an outsider, yet enjoy building bridges around the world. And in the centre of her universe is her snug, traditional Japanese home, open to friends next door as well as across the globe. It is a pleasant place to be, not least with the warmth under her kotatsu table on this chilly day.
“People often have the belief that the cost of living in Japan is extremely high. That is true for Tokyo, but the farther out you go in the countryside, the cheaper it gets. Here, you need a car for transportation and a proper visa. It used to be quite hard to get one when I came here.
Adapting to the new culture is the key. So many things are different from the West - attitudes to religion, for example. Many foreigners are astonished by the way people seem to take faith quite lightly. It’s normal to be “baptised” by a Shinto priest, wed by a Christian one, and buried by a Buddhist monk. It’s more about the ritual than the philosophy behind it. And practical thinking seems to be more important than doctrine. This is true for Martha as well.
“Not being religious myself, I am quite comfortable with how the Japanese mostly avoid doctrinal thinking about religion. I was more concerned about worldly matters when my husband passed away. I suddenly realised that I have no blood relations here. My siblings in the U.S. will not be interested in my house, and it’s not very valuable. My older brother’s daughter in Japan has agreed to be legally responsible for my affairs, so I won’t leave a mess behind when I die.”
“We had a Buddhist funeral for my husband, but I have basically opted out of all the ceremonies that usually follow for years after someone passes away. Fortunately, people had no problem accepting my thinking.”
Martha seems to have found a harmonious lifestyle. She has stayed in control of her work situation, free from the shackles of the corporate world. Her involvement in the dance community seems to be the perfect fit for someone who in one sense, chose to be an outsider, yet enjoy building bridges around the world. And in the centre of her universe is her snug, traditional Japanese home, open to friends next door as well as across the globe. It is a pleasant place to be, not least with the warmth under her kotatsu table on this chilly day.
“No ‘reason’ to live here; it’s my home.”
“[...] When I go back to the U.S. to visit,” Martha wrote back in -93, “I realise how much I have changed. It’s nothing very obvious, like mixing up my r’s and l’s (although the first few days back, people do give me a hard time about my slightly stilted English). It’s more a question of values, of the way I perceive things. I catch myself looking at things like an outsider.
When I tell people that I live in Japan, they inevitably ask, “What for?”. And I’m never sure what to tell them. It’s not for a reason, Japan is my home.”
When I tell people that I live in Japan, they inevitably ask, “What for?”. And I’m never sure what to tell them. It’s not for a reason, Japan is my home.”
notes
1. A kotatsu is a wooden table frame covered by a heavy blanket, upon which a tabletop sits. Underneath is a heater, to keep your feet and legs warm in the typically drafty houses in Japan. If you’d like one in your own home, here is how to make it.
2. Download Martha's essay "A Gaijin Living in Japan".
2. Download Martha's essay "A Gaijin Living in Japan".
