Cherry Blossoms and Magnolias

One bare foot follows the  other down the steep, dirt, mountain road. It winds  like a ribbon, rising and falling between the trees and hills. Here we follow a small, thin, girl in a  sack-style cotton dress as she follows this road.  


Its twists and turns are familiar as she passes the rural cottages dotted along the roadside. The ground beneath her feet is the same her great grandmother  once walked as she too hummed childhood tunes, stopped to watch drops of dew slide  down a petal and pretended she knew what the birds were saying - and sometimes maybe she did.  


Some technology may have changed but grandmother and grandmother's stories have  not. The girl’s mind slips away, passed the tops of the trees while her feet beat the dusty road in a timeless rhythm.  

In her mind she sees warriors and dragons, princesses and witches, demons and  angels. Her thoughts are as light as the breeze and wave with a purpose and almost mathematical flexibility, like stalks of grain in the summer sun.  


And here, in the place of  her whimsical mind, her life and her path unfolded like that ribbon road, like the first uncurling of a small plant sprout as it slowly looks up toward the sun for  the first time. 

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The week before Easter, Americans and Japanese learned that we both give our sprouts, our little children, the same nourishment as they grow - and through that, both heritage Americans and Japanese have cultivated very similar "gardens," or in other words, very similar community values.


Twitter's recent automatic translation of English to Japanese and vice versa gave both communities instant access to one another's innermost thoughts and reflections - and shockingly, we found them not foreign.


What began with posts of Japanese people longing to try Texas BBQ quickly spiraled into a cultural exchange of Japanese children excited about Marvel movies and American children showing off their favorite Anime collections.  


The American South featured prominently as Japanese friends posted about Elvis and Buc-ee's and longing to sit around a campfire and share some of their rice in exchanged for authentic Southern vittals.  


Now, everyday, there seems to be a new theme as Americans gush over Japanese cherry blossoms and show off their large dogs. Today,  rice cooker pancake recipes became all the rage, and my personal favorite is reading the pure poetry Japanese parents write upon the birth of a baby, describing them in angelic terms.  


But it wasn't just the food, the movies and the love of  nature, it was what clearly lay beneath that which had Americans and Japanese so excited for this new cultural exchange - it was the values these things expressed.  


Let us return to the little girl on the country road. Is she Japanese or American?   The truth is, she is both. This child we began with lives in a society, built by her ancestors, which values social cohesion and high trust. A world where strength is seen in a sense of duty to others and proper justice for those who will not do their duty. 


This is a reality where power is not found in being the strongest physically or in   attaining the most material goods (like war lords or tyrants) but instead in how we treat others and our ideas of real fairness.  


We both emphasize respect for our elders and those who carry out important, brave or vital social roles such as police, military, and clergy.  


It's understood that what we want as an individual, our immediate gratification, is not as important as that little girl on the road and the life she leads.  


So we bear our crosses. We do what's right. We choose the hard thing because it's the better thing, and we try with all our strength to discipline our minds and hearts so that we may live up to our responsibilities well.  


It's an idea of honor which balks at unearned handouts and those around us who will not follow the rules and norms. 


We push back against a notion of social "progress" because allowing those sweet and beautiful spaces to surround us - spaces in which our minds can quietly reflect and our hearts can dream, is what holds the highest value for both of us.  


So when we hear Japanese blue grass bands singing "Country Roads" by John Denver we know it’s more than just a song to both Americans and Japanese. It reflects a shared spirit that now unfolds before us like the winding, ribbon road, and I for one am excited to see where it takes us both.