Just Another Brick in the Japanese Wall

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photo by Nao

All---

Things like cultural heritage, tradition, and family are interesting things.  For some, these things bring with them warmth, nostalgia, and a grounding for everything they have become.  For others, the same things are prisons, tying them down and restricting their freedom and growth.  In America, we tend (broad brush here) to circumvent this problem by shrugging off our heritage and traditions and downsizing our meaning of family.   In other cultural contexts, this isn't an option.













Tanaka Jun is a young Japanese man struggling with the weight of this. Torn between pressures to celebrate his heritage and pressures to shake off, as Ben Folds might say, his redneck past, he exists in a shell that he has created for himself. Then, he starts receiving text messages on his cellphone. A menacing countdown to an evil he does not know.

Tanaka Jun popped a takoyaki into his mouth, took the toothpick which had speared it, and flicked it over his shoulder.  As he slowly savored the fried octopus, he set the container of remaining treats on the counter and, to the chef’s confusion, walked slowly away.  The slim young man adjusted his dark sunglasses, pulled down his hat and, even though it was a hot Osaka summer day, he wrapped a knit scarf around his mouth.


In his pocket, the last mail his cellphone had received still shone with a single character: the stark cross-shaped mark that meant 10.

 -- From "Kansai Oniisan," Stories for Sendai, by C. N. Nevets (c) 2011

Since, my friend, you have revealed your 

Deepest fear,

I sentence you to be exposed before 

Your peers.

Tear down the wall!

-- From "The Trial," The Wall by Pink Floyd (c) 1979

The anthology Stories for Sendai is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.   The costs is $7.99 for the print release with nineteen stories and a poem.  Featuring Michelle Davidson Argyle, Phil Loring, Davin Malasarn, JC Martin, JR McRae, C. N. Nevets, and many more. 

International readers and fans of e-reading, the Kindle edition will be available very soon.  I will make sure to keep you posted, but you can also follow the Stories for Sendai blog for more information.

Stories for Sendai