Nature's Child: A Life Within Two Cultures

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1. Pacific Ocean Child — 1942

The cold winter crept like a burgeoning bruise through Tokyo’s snow-covered alleyways. The atrocities of war had escalated causing intolerable hardship for the civilians.

Sugi Ugai was quietly jubilant. She could not believe her fortune in comparison to other families in the neighbourhood. Her husband, Fukutaro, held a senior analyst position with a pharmaceutical company manufacturing anaesthetics for the war effort and was exempt from enlistment into the Japanese Imperial Forces. They had two beautiful daughters, Fukuko and Mineko and awaited the birth of a third child. Sugi eased herself gently onto a zabuton to cushion her knees and ankles, before savouring her tea. Her loose-sashed, ankle-length, dark blue kimono, with long sleeves, was embellished with embroidered geometric patterns. She was radiant with baby glow.

Four weeks later, on the 18th of March, Sugi delivered a healthy baby with the assistance of a local midwife. That evening, laughter was heard emanating from the house when Fukutaro propped his bicycle against the wall. It had been a long day. After removing his shoes in the front entrance (genkan) and placing them neatly together pointing to the outside, he collected his house slippers from the adjacent shoe cabinet and stepped into the living room. Fukuko and Mineko ran towards him, their eyes gleaming.

‘Oto-chan, Oto-chan, we have a new baby,’ they chorused. Bouncing on their tiptoes they pointed towards a tiny bundle asleep on a baby futon.

Sugi wrapped herself in a warm coat.

‘Welcome home (Okaerinasai),’ she said with a bow.

‘Do we have a boy?’ Fukutaro asked.

‘We have a daughter and she looks just like you, Otosan,’ Sugi answered, taking a deep breath as she raised herself from the floor. She was proud of her new baby.

‘Oh, another girl,’ said Fukutaro offering Sugi a weak smile.

Sugi’s heart felt like the string on a Japanese harp about to snap. She ignored her husband’s reaction.

‘Take her, Otosan, and give her a cuddle,’ she said nodding towards the baby.

Fukutaro approached the futon where his tiny daughter lay wrapped in a kakebuton quilt. He picked her up and cradled her in his arms. His disappointment soon evaporated when he saw his reflection mirrored in the infant’s face. He lifted her tiny fingers between his thumb and forefinger, then gazed at her button nose and dimpled cheeks. She opened her dainty mouth wide to exhale a light delicate breath. Unbidden, silent tears threatened to betray Fukutaro’s self-assured persona.

‘She’s beautiful,’ he murmured. He held her for a long time, reluctant to return her to her futon.

Meanwhile Taikichi, Fukutaro’s brother-in-law, stepped into the living room to greet his sister. He was staying with them while studying for a certificate in the electrical maintenance of cargo vessels and had just returned from classes. Fukutaro invited him to sit cross-legged on the tatami floor mat around their low wooden table, while Sugi poured green tea into bamboo floral bowls. They sat in silence, sipping their tea.

‘What name shall we give our baby?’ Fukutaro asked as he knuckled his eyes in tiredness.

‘How about Yoko?’ suggested Taikichi tilting back his head, ‘That name will suit her.’

‘What kanji letters can we use for Yoko?’ asked Sugi as thin lines crept across her brow.

‘Yoko means Pacific Ocean Child (Tai hei yo),’ said her brother with unblinking eyes. ‘How about you write kanji letters for Ocean Child?’

Sugi sipped her tea and looked across at their baby who was sleeping soundly.

‘Yes,’ she said finally with a dip of her head towards her husband, ‘It’s a good name. We will call her Yoko.’

Fukutaro nodded sagely.

‘Yoko, Yoko,’ chorused Fukuko and Mineko clapping their hands.

And so it was for Fukutaro and Sugi Ugai, my father and mother. I was named Yoko, their third child. My birth heralded the arrival of the cherry blossom, our famous sakura season and a time of hope.

Part One

2. My Formative Years — 1942-1971

My formative years were significant in shaping my character and moulding me into a young woman who made my life’s work a devotion to nature. Throughout my childhood I was expected to work hard, try my best and keep trying until I succeeded. These traditional values are the ingredients of my soul. Although I deal with these years rather superficially, they are indicative of my eagerness to share with you my life’s passion and a state of being that my work with nature has given me.

Shinagawa, where we lived, is situated in Tokyo’s metropolis, south of the central city and adjacent to Tokyo Bay. Our house was a single-level building constructed from Japanese cypress*, a quality timber used for building palaces, temples and shrines. Its lemon-scented, rot and insect-resistent wood was light brown in colour with a rich grain.

Fukuko was seven and Mineko four when I was born. I was fortunate to have two older sisters.

‘You were a chubby baby with arms like plump sausages,’ recalled Fukuko.

My family joked about this and called me a baby sumo. My nickname was Futabayama. He was a champion sumo wrestler, a yokozuna. Fukuko drew a picture of me and entered it in a competition which won first prize. I also won the ‘healthy baby’ award from the Shinagawa Shire Council. As I grew older my sisters taught me nursery rhymes with repetitive words, actions and rhythmic melodies. One was ‘Close Hands, Open Hands’ (Musu’unde Hira’ite). Its melody had been adapted from Schubert’s ‘Rousseau’s Dream.’ This song used hand actions; palms closed, then open and clap before closing them.

We had few toys to play with as it was wartime, so this simple tune and actions, along with other rhymes, occupied us for hours.

Yoko at seven months

My father (otosan) was a serious and composed gentleman with a humble and respectful disposition. His russet-brown eyes shone when he smiled. Although short in stature, he was always elegantly dressed. At home he wore kimonos in subdued dark colours. My otosan was a familiar sight in our neighbourhood, often seen pedalling through the narrow streets, mounted high on his saddle between two spoke wheels. He wore a business suit for work, which was the standard apparel for company employees, but on arrival at the factory he replaced his suit jacket with a white laboratory coat. At university he had topped the last two years of his course in pharmacology and after graduation was sought after by several companies. He accepted the position of assistant manager in a factory which specialised in the manufacture of morphine and other anaesthetics. Twenty years later he was awarded a doctorate in pharmacology. His thesis, Sterol Constituents of the Alkaloid-free Fraction from Opium, was published in 1962 and commented on at the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization Conference (UNESCO).

‘Why did you become a pharmacist, Otosan?’ Fukuko once asked him.

‘Doctors diagnose illnesses but pharmacists make the medicines to cure them,’ he told her. Such was my otosan’s charisma that this singular reply inspired Fukuko to also follow a career in pharmacology. He excelled in many hobbies. He enjoyed photography and a type of calligraphy called shodo. I would kneel beside him mesmerised by his harmonious, proportionate and perfectly balanced hieroglyphs, which he wrote on rice paper using a bamboo brush dipped in black ink. At home he played a small flute, which had a reed-like quality of tone. We gathered around him to hear him play and his music inspired us to sing folk songs. I adored him. Languages were also his passion. He read and wrote English and German which he had studied at school and university.

Shodo – Fukutaro’s calligraphy.

Translation: Family happiness is the foundation of life.

In our neighbourhood, families struggled to survive the brutal obscenities of war. Food rations were never enough. My otosan’s company provided him with extra basic provisions such as rice, oil, sugar and salt. He shared these supplies with our neighbours and was held in high esteem for his generosity.

My mother (okasan) was also well-educated. She too had studied English at senior high school. Prior to her marriage, she was a home science teacher. My okasan was petite, graceful and stylish. She wore silk kimonos of traditional dark colours befitting a woman of her age. She managed our household, which included the family’s financial affairs, and took full responsibility for rearing us and overseeing our education. In Japanese culture this was considered to be the role of a wife and mother. Despite living in a war-ravaged city, she cultivated a good-humoured disposition. Her laughter was infectious and her chocolate-coloured eyes glowed with an inner light. My okasan’s warm personality endeared her to people of all ages. She was blessed with fortitude and an ability to empathise with others. I believe my sisters and I were fortunate to have inherited these qualities.

While living in Shinagawa, my okasan befriended a Korean family who lived nearby. This was considered to be unusual at that time but her actions showed great humility and humanity. From them she learnt to make kimchi which is Chinese cabbage fermented with a variety of seasonings. She added kimchi to her soup stock to make a nourishing broth for noodles and also served it as a side dish with meals.

World War Two continued to ravage the lives of Tokyo’s civilian population. The city was vulnerable to incendiary bombs due to its wood-and-paper buildings. In February 1945, jets delivering flaming napalm globs created a firestorm in the more densely populated districts. Over a million residents were displaced and a hundred thousand perished. Shinagawa was spared from these attacks, but not from the privations and disease that permeated the city like a swarm of crickets in a rice field. My sisters remember these times but I was too young to be aware of the effects of these devastating events.

I was two and a half years old when Kunihiko, my brother, was born. My otosan was delighted to have a son and the Ugai family was now complete.

When I was three, my otosan’s company moved its anaesthetics department to Matsumoto city in Nagano Prefecture. My parents were keen to leave war-torn Tokyo and my otosan told me years later that the two hundred kilometre train journey was difficult. He took dangerous risks to travel such a long distance with his family during war time. My parents endured a fear and anxiety for their future and our safety.

Nagano Prefecture contains nine of Japan’s twelve highest mountains and boasts alpine resorts with hot springs. In peaceful times, visitors and locals go to relax and recuperate in these natural wonders.

Ariake is a village in the Azumino valley, nestled below lofty mountain ranges west of Matsumoto city. The imposing snow-capped mountains, glacial rivers, rice fields and pure mountain air were in stark contrast to the urban environment of Shinagawa and the atrocities of war. Our house featured a high-pitched, thatched roof. Prior to our arrival it had been a silkworm house where the tiny larvae of Chinese moths had been raised and sold to silk farmers throughout the Chubu region. We lived in a multipurpose living space, divided by large wardrobes into two rooms and a kitchen. In the evenings our thin mattresses of tufted cotton (futons) were rolled out onto tatami mats and during the day they were folded and stored in a closet. This allowed the tatami to breathe during the day and provided space to be used for other purposes.

A glacial river meandered in lazy curves past our house. Its crystal clear water babbled over smooth white and grey rocks. Farm houses, surrounded by rice fields, occupied the alluvial plains on the opposite bank. They created an image of nature and people living together, but not always in harmony because the rice plant was host to many insect species from the time of sowing in spring to the harvest in autumn. There were colourful red dragonflies, butterflies and grasshoppers, which were easy to catch. But I was terrified of the caterpillars, especially the hairy ones and the black giant centipedes with yellow legs. In summer, the buzzing, deafening noise of cicadas and crickets hammered my eardrums during the day and at night the frogs were loud croaking neighbours. Mice from the rice fields often invaded our house and my okasan set traps to catch them.

Like most siblings, Fukuko, Mineko, Kunihiko and I teased and annoyed each other but the bonds between us were strong. We were expected to respect and care for one another and we did. Fukuko was ten and Mineko seven when we moved to Ariake. During the day they were at school and my okasan was kept busy caring for Kunihiko, my brother, who was a frail baby. I had few toys so nature was my playground. I played outside in the sun, rain and freezing cold, even when blustery winds tortured the trees and blistered my cheeks. I was instinctively attracted to the beauty of nature. At the age of four, I could identify the local flora. I knew them all from listening to the conversations of the village people – mulberry (kuwa); maple (momiji); yew (ichi-i); apple (ringo); chestnut (kuri) and persimmon (kaki). I collected their leaves in a paper bag and took them inside to play with. My okasan watched me caress them with my forefinger and crush them in my tiny hands to allow their scents to infuse my senses. She shook her head with a look of incredulity.

I spent hours squatting by our neighbour’s dank pond to catch a glimpse of the koi and catfish when they floated to the surface. I scrunched my face up at the sight of those black, ugly catfish with their square faces and whisker-like barbels growing from their mouths – but still they fascinated me.

On autumn mornings, I stomped in the gold and brown carpets beneath the canopies of mulberry trees and giggled with delight when the leaves crunched beneath my feet. After rain, the golden leaves changed to a burnt-coffee colour and my sandals (geta) squelched through them making a sucking noise.

During periods of prolonged rain, my okasan showed me how to make dolls from white tissue paper. I hung them from our windows to wish for sunny weather. My okasan taught me a song called ‘Teru-Teru-bozu’, about these cute little paper ghosts seen hanging from windows throughout the village on rainy days.

I recall one autumn morning when I was six. I invited a friend to come with me to the Takase River. We had walked a long distance before a neighbour spotted us and noticed we were heading in the opposite direction to our village.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘We’re going to the Takase River,’ I answered. ‘We want to see the river and play there.’

‘It’s too far,’ she censured, waving an authoritative finger. ‘Wild snow monkeys and bears live there. It’s not a safe place for children to be on your own. Go home now or I’ll tell your mother.’

Her look was cold and stern. We fled with trembling chins. I imagined snow monkeys and bears crawling and jumping on me. I was terrified. At that early age, my adventurous spirit was evident. It was to have a profound impact on my destiny.

The autumnal harvest was an annual festival celebrated in the village. Wearing their best kimonos, the villagers gathered at the Shinto shrine to give thanks for good rice crops. A forest of ancient Japanese cedars* and Japanese red pines* enclosed the shrine. Their stately grandeur gave protection from harsh weather conditions and created a spiritual aura. Four unpainted wooden posts, with curved upper lintels connected by a thick plaited rope, formed a gate (torii) to mark the entrance to a sacred place. Two stone lanterns stood in front of