I forgot about this blog. Caught myself thinking today, “I wish I had somewhere to write random blog posts”. There’s been a lot going on with pandemic and all that I could write about, but I wanted to ramble a bit about something that’s been on my mind lately, and that’s my family history.
My Japanese course finished a few weeks ago, and for my final essay I wrote about my paternal grandmother’s life. My Bachan (short for oba-chan, the Japanese term of endearment for an old woman or grandmother), who passed away in 2010, had such an interesting life. She was born in Japan, came to Canada as a teenager (alone on a ship! Her family had gone ahead of her), was put into an internment camp during the war, met my grandfather there, and moved to Toronto for the rest of her life.
My paternal grandfather (Gechan, short for oji-chan), on the other hand, was born in Canada, went back to Japan for school, and then after returning, followed a similar path.
From the trans-Pacific immigration and travel, to the vast injustices committed against Japanese-Canadians during the war, to building a new life from scratch in Toronto, my grandparents’ story is so compelling to me. But many of the details have been lost, as they’ve both passed away, as have most of my relatives in their generation.
My Japanese study has been piquing my interest even more, lately. One of the reasons I began my study was to connect with my roots. So lately, I’ve been thinking about writing an account of my grandparents’ lives, with as much detail as I can.
I’m in turns excited and discouraged about the project. Things that would be difficult:
It would take a lot of time, and I’m gearing up for a very busy month at work. However, as this pandemic doesn’t seem it’s going to resolve itself anytime soon, maybe it’s a good time to start.
As I mentioned, a lot of the knowledge has been lost. But maybe that makes it more important to preserve what’s left that we know.
Maybe there would be some good resources available in Japanese, but my Japanese is nowhere near good enough to be able to be reading books that aren’t really easy children’s books. Seems like a very far-off goal.
But I do think it would be a fun and enlightening and valuable (to my family, at least) project, so I’ve started collecting resources. Once I get organized, hopefully I can record interviews with various family members, and see how much of the past I can piece together.
I like to think of myself as a half-decent writer, and I’ve been itching to write something lately, but I’ve never tried my hand at writing non-fiction, nor have I even read much non-fiction. But I think like this will be a good learning experience, in many ways.
The Kishimoto family in front of their house on Clinton Street in Toronto. My grandmother’s parents are on the outsides, and my Bachan, Gechan, and five children in the middle. My dad is the one in front with the cute hat.