Remembering Yayoi

A couple of days ago I made contact with my friend Yayoi Abe in Japan. My brother and I will spend a couple of days with her on our way home from China in May. I want to take my brother to see a Noh play while we are in Tokyo but can’t find the place to purchase tickets on-line so decided to get a travel guide to Tokyo. As I thumbed thru the guidebook I thought about Yayoi.

In 1970 I was in college, just having finished 2 years. I heard about World Campus Afloat, an extension college through Chapman College in Orange, California, a college on a ship that went around the world. I applied and in February was off to see the world. None of my friends wanted to go along, they thought that they’d see the world later, wonder if any of them went anywhere.

The ship was not large especially when docked near its mother ship the Rotterdam. We left from L.A. and sailed from port to port, going to school when at sea and traveling when in the port of one country or another.

Before we got to Japan we heard an announcement that those who wanted to sign up for a home stay could do so. I had no idea what they were talking about but signed up anyway.

We were bused to the University of Osaka where we were paired up with the party we were assigned to. I was paired up with Yayoi a student at the University. Yayoi and I hit it off immediately. She had arranged for us to go back to her boarding house where the landlady had made a wonderful meal. We sat on the floor around the table covered with quilts (this was February) and ate a traditional meal. After eating we went to a traditional Bath which I’ll never forget, one goes from a warm pool of water to a boiling hot pool. Later friends of Yayoi’s came over and we were treated to classical Japanese Dances preformed by the landlady who taught dance by day. She explained the dances to us which helped me to understand.

Yayoi and I have remained friends all of these years. I was unable to attend her wedding but I always promised to go back. Unfortunately I didn’t make it soon enough, her husband, a world renowned termite researcher, was killed in an accident during a trip to Baja with the University of California at Davis several years ago.

I went to Japan to be with Yayoi soon after her husband was killed, just to spend the time with her. I felt so badly that I had not gone earlier to meet her husband. We were in Kyoto over dinner when she broke into tears because I had not gotten to meet him before he died. We did go to the cemetery and took his favorite bean cakes. After setting the cakes on his grave we meditated and spoke of him, then ate the cakes in his honor, a Japanese tradition.

Now I will see Yayoi again and bring my brother. He has never been to Japan but did meet her when she came to visit in 1974. She will come to Kyoto to meet us. I haven’t seen her in several years, she has survived lung cancer, kids acting up, has a grandson. It’s about time for another visit I’d say.