| Biruwa |
Posted
on 29-Nov-03 05:03 PM
One of the the most interesting people I have ever met in my life is now an old man in Japan. He was born in Japan to Russian parents who had left Russia just before the Revolution.
As their ship sailed towards Japan, the mother pregnant and close to delivery, they heard the news that the Tsar had been removed from the throne by the Communist revolutionaries. The mother turned to her husband and said "The Russia that we knew and loved is no more. We must make Japan our new home."
So this gentleman was born on Japanese soil and is a native Japanese citizen. He was raised in a "Russian Ghetto". He speaks Japanese as a native (naturally) and also speaks Russian as a native. His English is excellent too. We conversed for several hours in the 1980's.
During World War II, he was confined to a concentration camp for non-Japanese, just as native Japanese Americans were confined in the USA (as potential security threats). There was not always much food. Sometimes he was served a dreadful tasting meat which he suspected was some kind of lizard. (There is some possibility that eating such creatures as lizards may cause leprosy. Armadillos in Texas have been known to transmit a form of leprosy to those foolish enough to catch and eat them. ) He contracted leprosy (a skin disease). It was arrested (cured) after the War with the use of Sulfa drugs, but not before he became grossly disfigured, losing and eye and several fingers, as well as other disfigurements.
To meet him was to meet a modern day "Hunchback of Notredame" or "Elephant-man". His outward appearance is disturbing, but he is very gentle, kindly and educated. He smiled and said that if he called a store or office in Japan, and made an appointment to visit, everyone was SHOCKED when he arrived, for on the phone he sounds like any other native Japanese (no accent), but when he arrives, not only is he Caucasian, but he is also disfigured. Over the years, he had developed quite a sense of humor about his condition and his "being different" in so many ways. These factors in his life probably contributed to his profound patience, humility and courage and to his life long interest in religion and spirituality.
I asked him where he was when the bombs were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. He said he was 700 miles away, and so did not really see or hear anything. He said that the newspapers reported: "The enemy used a new weapon, and a few buildings fell down." (obviously an understatement).
But here is the most significant question that I asked him: "Since you have clear memories of Emperial Japan, before the War, and since you have experienced all the subsequent years of reconstruction and reorganization, what can you say about spirituality in Japan. How does the spirituality of the people under the Emperor compare with the spirituality of modern day Japanese?" His answer surprised me. He said that the people under the Emperor were far more spiritual and found more philisophical meaning to their lives and human existence. He describe the Japanese of today as spiritual vacuums, voids, automatons vainly striving after empty material goals, and plagued by depression and a sense of desperation.
This old man remained a devout Orthodox Christian all of his life, and now, in his old age and retirement, he has taken vows of monastic tonsure while visiting a monastery in USA. His dependency on social security benefits, and the lack of experience in America for the medical treatment of arrested leprosy (it is rarely encountered in America) forces him to remain in Japan, although he would prefer to spend his last days in a that Orthodox monastery in America where he was tonsured (initiated into Sannyas).
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