Michael Ellis: In your memoir, you wrote that you were dancing at a party up until the moment of labor with your first child. Really?
Karen Hill: I really was. I was dancing to Jumpin’ Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones. Of course, I was very young. I was 23, you know, genki [energetic]. I didn’t think twice about it. It was a party, it was good music, and I was dancing. It’s as simple as that.
I guess it was a different time?
Yeah, certainly. I wasn’t cautioned not to move, and as I said, I was very young. It was my first child. When my fourth child was born, I was older and much bigger. I was not dancing the night before, I assure you. I was doing a lot of sitting at the kotatsu [heated table], and I practically needed a forklift to get me to the hospital!
You also wrote about yourself, “I realized that situations others might approach with apprehension, I embraced without reservation.” I’m curious, why do you think this was? Is it an intrinsic part of your personality, or is it something that you learned?
I really think it’s just my personality. It’s not something I learned, certainly not studied. I’m not a risk taker in the sense that you won’t find me jumping out of planes or doing anything like that, but I’m completely comfortable going into new situations, and I always have been.
As much as your memoir is about you, while reading it, I felt that it is also about the people you met throughout your life, the advice they gave you and the ways you helped each other. I felt this common and consistent theme of community through all of your journeys. When you moved to Vermont and needed a stove, your landlord provided one. When you were on your way to the far east, a friendly Dutchman you met in Turkey gave you directions. When you needed support from other women in Hamamatsu City, you were welcomed as a central member of a Feminist salon. Was this theme of community and helping others something you were conscious about when writing, or did it just come out naturally and inevitably?
I wasn’t thinking about community as a theme, but it is something that comes out in the writing. “Making connection” is something that is so important to me, and I think probably the first place you “make connection” outside of your family is within your community. I like knowing that I’ve made contact, that I can be responsive to other people and hopefully they can respond to me, whatever the situation is.
For me, that was one of the things that made the book so enjoyable. I find that memoirs as a genre can be naturally a bit self-indulgent. But yours, I felt, was so much about the people who supported you, whom you supported yourself, and that made it feel the complete opposite.
I’m glad to hear that. One of the things I pointed out in the workshop in Fukuoka City was that there’s a certain amount of self-curiosity necessary in writing a memoir. You’re really plumbing the depths of your experience, your personality and the things you’ve done, but if you just keep it there, then no one can respond to it. I saw once I was writing the memoir, that those are the experiences that mattered to me, the sharing, the community interaction, and all of the people who touched my life. It’s fair to say that when you find the important stories, the deeper message comes out naturally after that.
Another thread I noticed was the songs you mention to illustrate moments in your life. Some for the common zeitgeist, like Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” which was a response to the Vietnam War, and some for your personal lived experiences, such as “Free to Be... You and Me” for raising freethinking children in a progressive town in Vermont, or “Killing Me Softly With His Song” for your relationship with your partner Billy. As a reader, I found these song insertions really helpful in imagining a kind of soundtrack to your life. Was this intentional? Why did you make the choice to mention music in writing about your life?
In my talks with editors and in trying to share the time and the experience, one of the things they said to do was get into the details. What was the weather like? What were you eating? Not just where did you go, but how did you get there? What music were you listening to? The editors pointed that out, so I was able to incorporate those details. With Marvin Gaye though, that was there from the beginning because that had such an impact. It was also when I had just returned to the United States after living in Europe for two and a half years, and it just seemed to really reflect the zeitgeist at the time. It’s such a powerful album.
You also dedicated, I think, a significant amount to the foods that you ate or that you cooked for your friends and family, and that kind of leads into this next, rather long question I have. About Western expats who make their homes living in the Middle East, you write “I’d had no idea it was possible, or desirable, to live in the style you had lived, so far from home. . . . it occurred to me they might be missing out on not adopting more of the culture and customs of the country they were living in. I couldn’t imagine wanting to have a hamburger and soda over a traditional dish and tea.” This is in stark contrast to a later passage in which you describe a talk you delivered to a Japanese audience and began by introducing your family’s typical Japanese routines and diet, including your love for your homemade umeboshi. “I would stand out in Japan, always. But I could also fit in.” These words resonated deeply with me, and point to what I see as a difficult balance to achieve, between assimilating to and appreciating the local culture, versus importing the conveniences and comforts of the culture you came from. How do you achieve this balance in Japan, and is it something you do consciously?
It’s not conscious. I’ve just been living here so long, and this is my life. I know, as I mentioned in my talk, I’m not going to run into someone who looks like me. But what I look like is just one aspect of who I am. I do lots of things that a typical Japanese housewife does without thinking about it.
That rings true for me in my experiences as well. I’m often told by Japanese people that I’m so Japanese, and I never know how to accept that. I suppose it’s a compliment.
Well, yes, I believe it is meant as a compliment. From the Japanese perspective, it may be the biggest compliment. I hear it all the time too. “You are more Japanese than the Japanese.” It’s because of some food I’ve made, or how much I know about Japanese culture, or the fact that I do calligraphy. But it’s really totally natural. I believe that cultural behavior is learned, and once learned, it’s ordinary.
Just for an example, I have some friends who are coming tomorrow, visiting from Seattle. I was preparing the house and getting things ready. I put out some flowers, including sazanka [a type of camellia], from our garden. I know that ikebana [the art of flower arrangement], just like calligraphy, is an art form you can study for decades. I’ve never studied it though, so as I was arranging the flowers, I was thinking that someone who actually studies ikebana might have a lot to say about my choices. But I thought, whatever, this is my thing, and I like it. And, of course, my way of arranging the flowers is influenced by the fact that I have observed ikebana for a long time whether I’ve practiced or not.
What attracted you to calligraphy initially, and is it related at all to your passion for writing?
Well, it’s not related to writing in terms of writing books, but rather to the actual physical experience of writing. It might have come from the fact that my father had such fine penmanship. He was someone who always wrote with a fountain pen he dipped in ink (they didn’t have ink cartridges then) and always wrote on good paper. The experience of writing, making words beautiful on paper, is something I’ve always appreciated. When we came to Japan I thought I would like to pursue one of the Japanese arts, and I was drawn to calligraphy. From the minute I picked up the brush to do it, I thought, yeah, this is something I want to do. Of course, I was terrible at it in the beginning. I wouldn’t even say I’m great now, even if I am a ni-dan [second degree mastery ]. But I love it. I totally love it. It’s my passion.
In your workshop on memoir writing, you spoke about the importance of disclosure and honesty in writing about yourself, and indeed you share a lot about yourself and show a lot of vulnerability. I imagine this is why fans of your work feel like they “really know you.” Is it at all strange to meet people for the first time who already have this deep but one-way familiarity with you?
Not really. When I wrote my The Japan Times column, Crossing Cultures, a lot of people wrote to me saying that they felt like they really knew me, or that they did know me. Actually, I remember one-time visiting New York City and someone on a street in midtown said “You’re Karen Hill Anton. I know you!” It was a chance meeting because he recognized my picture from The Japan Times. People said they read my columns and feel like I’m a close friend, that I’ve been helpful to them because of my outlook and perspective, that writing about my experience helped them in their adjustment in Japan. It’s not strange because writing the column was a relatively narrow window in my life. It was really about living in the inaka [countryside] and raising children and being active in the community, and participating in society here at every level. One of the reasons I wrote the memoir was because I knew people who read the column were only getting that picture of my time in Japan, but I had a lot of experience before I came to Japan and after I stopped writing the column, which was around 1999. I had a lot more I wanted to say and share with readers.
I see. So, the way that people learned about your life in such detail wasn’t a side effect. It was the main purpose of writing the memoir.
Yeah. I mean, I wanted to share my story. People I know, good friends, read the memoir and said there was just so much that they hadn’t known about me, my life, and experience.
As a high school teacher, I could sympathize with your criticisms of Japanese secondary education, for example, how it can stifle creativity. From your perspective, has the situation improved since your children went to school?
I’m not a teacher, and my children are all grown. They have their own children who are in school now. I was highly critical of Japanese education for many years. I just thought it was really like a factory or an education mill. I honestly don’t know if the situation has improved, but I’ve come to temper my perspective about Japanese education just because I felt it is so effective in so many ways. The fact, for example, that there’s almost 100% literacy here. We’re both American and our country can’t say that. I feel Japan has been successful in nurturing a literate populace.
I don’t know to what extent this is true now, but I always felt that they didn’t take enough student individuality into consideration. Some people will be really good as scholars or academics, and some might not be so good at that, but they’ll be good at something else.
There was a time where it felt like good grades were everything, and I felt that too many people, young people, learn to denigrate themselves, comparing themselves with others in that way. I thought that was unfortunate
Are you currently engaged in politics either in the U.S. or in Japan?
I don’t think much of politics. In Japan, obviously I can’t vote, and I don’t think twice about it. I’ve kept my American citizenship, often I’ve thought so I could vote in presidential elections. But America has become so dysfunctional as a society in so many ways. I wouldn’t say I’ve lost interest, but I feel like it’s become too partisan. Almost like a drug, people are caught up in the politics of red and blue, whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, right or left. I feel it shows the unattractive underbelly of American society. That’s not to say I’m apolitical, because that’s not the case either, but I feel in a well-functioning society, citizens do not have to be concerned with politics day and night.
As an American myself, I’ve remained active in American politics, but yeah, it’s exhausting and, in a sense, a distraction from our life here because it often doesn’t directly impact us. But I still worry for our compatriots.
Yeah, I’m concerned too. I feel sorry for American people. I really do. It’s a wonderful place in so many ways, but it’s so chaotic. I feel Americans have learned to tolerate the intolerable, the violent crime, the lack of good public transportation, crumbling infrastructure, proliferation of guns, and so many Americans are wary of one another, even their neighbors. All of these things are just part of daily life. But I feel there is nothing normal or acceptable about it. But maybe people feel like, what can they do?
I was interested in the way you describe America, particularly New York City throughout the memoir. You wrote about it in the first few chapters and your life growing up there. The second time you described the city was coming back from your first trip abroad to Copenhagen, and how you saw it in a new way with new eyes. Then finally in the last chapter, you write about how when you go home more recently, it feels almost like foreign country. I think this speaks to what you’re saying now about American politics and how it just feels nonsensical to us now, whereas if we had never left America, we might just tolerate those things too.
Absolutely, for sure. I think it comes down to distance and being removed from it and knowing a different way of living. As I said, I care about America, but it doesn’t impact my life directly. I’m not concerned about health care, but my eldest daughter lives in the United States and if she wants to go to a dentist, she has to think about it. What is it going to cost? Can she afford it? That sort of thing never crosses my mind living in Japan.
In your workshop at the conference, you talked about the importance in memoir writing of topics like theme, which provides coherence and purpose to the text, and voice, which helps your writers connect with you and may target a specific demographic. However, you also said that your memoir has been received positively by people of all ages, ethnicities and genders, by people who have traveled the world extensively as well as people who have never left their hometowns. I wonder, if there is a specific message you hope this broad group of readers will take from your writing? Or, is it open to the individual reader’s interpretation?
I’m always fascinated to see different people’s takes when they write to me or post reviews. They see things and are responding in ways that I didn’t see or plan, and I feel that’s wonderful. People take what they need from it. We tend to separate and put ourselves into boxes with categories and labels which I really do not subscribe to. I didn’t write the book with a purpose or message in mind, but if there is one message it’s that our connection as human beings. It is just so much more important than our various “identities.” I just can’t imagine putting a wall between me and someone else because of their gender or their educational background or their ethnicity. And I think people are more than their politics. I believe we need to give people the chance to show us how good they are.