Cl in the world

Order and Freedom

An Italian sports journalist in the Land of the Rising Sun, where everything is orderly, precise, and impersonal. For some years now, a small community of the Movement has lived there. “The reality of Japan is very difficult, but the encounter with Christ is a chance to have a centered, less fragmented life”

By ROBERTO PERRONE

One day, one of my first in Tokyo, I went to ask information about a restaurant (food is a vice I don’t know how to give up) at the reception desk of the hotel. There was a nice young woman, who bowed and bowed. It was about 1:30 p.m. I asked her where the restaurant was located and if it was close to the hotel. She phoned and spent twenty minutes getting directions to the place. Conversations in Japan, even if you just ask what time it is, never last less than ten minutes, with exchanges of pleasantries interspersed with numerous exclamations of “hi.” After twenty minutes, she smiled at me and, holding the receiver, asked me if I wanted to make a reservation. “Certainly, that’s why I’m here,” I answered. She talked for another five minutes, then put down the receiver and bowed, for the last time, very sadly: “The kitchen closed at 1:45.” I would have liked to strangle her. But couldn’t you have asked if there was room; it is clear that if I ask you where a restaurant is, it’s because I want to go there, isn’t it? Well no, it isn’t clear. Another example: if you call a friend at work and he is away from his desk for a minute, the person next to him takes the call. His answer is, “Mr Carlo is not here, but…” What is that “but”? It is the ball thrown back in your court, it is saying and not saying, it is not getting involved. You are the one who has to come out in the open, who has to insist, if you want to. He does not want to know who you are or say anything about your friend. He wants you, if you really care, to make all the necessary moves. You have to say who you are and what you want, you have to do the talking. He leaves it hanging, not like in Italy where we would have recounted our colleague’s whole life story. You might be a nuisance who gives up on the call, or you might be someone who really wants to talk to Carlo, and thus you have to persist.

A notice on the bulletin board
This is the reality in which a small group of friends is living the experience of the Movement. There are three plus two of them. Three are in Tokyo: Silvia Bergonzi, who teaches Italian at TUFS (Tokyo University of Foreign Study, or Gaitai, as they call it there), Ernesto Cellie, and his wife Chieko. Silvia came here to learn Japanese and stayed, and Ernesto did the same. He came here before he had done his thesis, and met his wife by putting a notice on the university bulletin board, as he was interested in meeting students who wanted to learn Italian. She answered him by e-mail, they met, and were eventually married. Ernesto works as a translator (he translates the famous “manga,” Japanese cartoons) and an Italian teacher. This is the community of Tokyo.

Then there are two Memores, Sako and Marcia, who live in Hiroshima, and whom I did not meet. Sako is the Bishop’s factotum; Marcia, the daughter of Japanese who emigrated to Brazil, works for an organization that helps Japanese-Brazilians who return to Japan. With them, a little group of Japanese friends and two Italian priests from PIME.

A meeting point
Silvia, Ernesto, and Chieko invited me, as soon as I arrived, to go to Mass at the Jesuit church of Yotsuya, St Ignatius. It is sort of the meeting point of the Catholics in Tokyo, a great many of whom are Filipinos. They come here with their huge cars loaded with products, from food to video cassettes. The two weekend Masses are Saturday evening at 6 p.m. (in Japanese) and Sunday at noon (in English). Some Sundays, there are numerous cars; on others, the lot is empty–this means that the week before, the Immigration Service had come through, checking. This is why in church, during the announcements, they ask you not to take photographs–often those images end up in the Immigration Office’s files. Silvia, Ernesto, and Chieko do School of Community in a room in the church complex. “The reality of Japan is very difficult,” Silvia told me. “The society tends to absorb you; it is rare for people to find the room to try this experience. But the encounter with Christ, for them, is a chance to have a centered, less fragmented life. We found many Japanese who were looking for something more engrossing for their lives. There was a group that followed us, fascinated by the people they had encountered, who touched their sensibility deeply.”

A journalism lesson
Those who have been to Japan only for brief stays or who look at it superficially see an orderly country where everything works and the trains and airplanes arrive on time. The Japanese, in our collective imagination, are those who, lined up behind a guide, photograph everything and buy any designer article they can lay their hands on. The society is a complex one, where money is the true center of everything. And everything is very expensive: a watermelon costs 12,000 yen ($100). This too is a big obstacle to relationships. Another example to help you understand: Silvia invited me to give a lesson on Italian journalism to her class. There were 60 students. I asked how many of them bought and read a newspaper every day. My question was met by a long period of consternation. Silvia later explained to me that such a “personal” question was unthinkable for them. “Those who read the papers do not want to answer so as not to embarrass those who don’t, and those who don’t read them are ashamed. Another thing, I am the only person here who walks about the classroom. The teacher usually stays behind the lectern and doesn’t move.” Silvia said something that is really true: “Order is a nice thing, it makes life easier, but it limits human relationships if you make it an absolute rule.” Here, the rules are made in order to take away spontaneity. “If you suddenly invite someone to dinner, they are flabbergasted: how can we, just like this, without any warning, how can it be done? It is something shocking to them. This system does not awaken the human in people.” And yet Silvia has been here for many years. Why did she stay? “I am here because they opened the doors to me, even if I do not know Japanese.”

A presence that attracts
I’ll answer for her: she stayed because she is passionate about the history that generated her, with a passion that is visible and enthralling. I say this because I felt it, clearly, working on me. It may be a coincidence, but both in the United States and in France, the countries that hosted the World Cup before Japan, I never managed to go to Mass even once. Maybe I was moving about more, and my travels made this impossible… Who knows? But in Tokyo, I went to the Jesuit church three times, and I assure you that Mass in Japanese is harder to follow than in English or French.