South of the Border, West of the Sun

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My birthday’s the fourth of January, 1951. The first week of the first month of the first year of the second half of the twentieth century. Something to commemorate, I guess, which is why my parents named me Hajime— “Beginning,” in Japanese. Other than that, a 100 percent average birth. My father worked in a large brokerage firm, my mother was a typical housewife. During the war, my father was drafted as a student and sent to fight in Singapore; after the surrender he spent some time in a POW camp. My mother’s house was burned down in a B-29 raid during the final year of the war. Their generation suffered most during the long war.

When I was born, though, you’d never have known there’d been a war. No more burned-out ruins, no more occupation army. We lived in a small, quiet town, in a house my father’s company provided. The house was prewar, somewhat old but roomy enough. Pine trees grew in the garden, and we even had a small pond and some stone lanterns.

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