Japan: A Granddaughter’s Perspective
Kaitlyn Ferris (Mount Sinai High School)
One might wonder how topics as different as Japan and Katie Ferris are related. I am an Irish
American high school student who has never been close to the country of Japan in my life; however, just
because I have never set foot on the island nation doesn’t mean that Japan has not influenced my life.

During the cold snowy days of November, 1954, my Grandfather, Richard Sherwood Hackett,
witnessed the birth of his first daughter, my mother Lee Ferris, at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital near
Waukegan, Illinois. Shortly after experiencing this overwhelming joy with his wife, Richard boarded a
naval ship that brought him half way around the world to the island nation of Japan.

My Grandfather joined the Navy soon after he had graduated from high school. He was stationed in
Japan as a medic during the Korean Conflict. Japan was his “stepping stone” to the gruesome war that was
raging in Korea. Thankfully for my family’s sake my Grandfather never made it to the front lines; for that
matter he never even made it to Korea!! The armistice was signed before his unit was transported to Korea.

Even though he did not play an active role in the Korean Conflict, my Grandfather has told me that his
military duty in Japan changed his outlook on his own life and how he valued human life in general.

My Grandfather arrived in Japan after the treaty ending World War II had been signed in 1952. It was
a time of rebuilding for the country. He was stationed in a small village called Gotemba. His camp, North
Camp, was one of three camps located near Mount Fuji. As a medic his primary duty was to hold sick call
every morning. All military personnel who needed medical attention reported to sick call for treatment.

Once sick call was complete, that left quite a bit of free time for my Grandfather and his buddies to explore
the country. There my Grandfather and his buddies came upon a couple of orphanages. Children who had
been left alone after the war were being cared for in these institutions. The orphanages were always low on
supplies; my Grandfather and his buddies gathered the leftover food from the mess hall and brought it to
the orphanages. They collected staples like cereal, powdered milk and canned goods.

My Grandfather is by no means a war hero. He freely talks about how he hated his cold weather
training in the California Mountains. He even admits that he was sea sick on the long trip from California
to Japan. However, he was a hero to those orphans who depended on his generosity for food. I have also
learned that there are life lessons hidden within his “war stories.” My Grandfather said that taking care of
those orphans he barely knew, while he left his wife and baby daughter behind, made him realize how truly
lucky he was. He told me that I am blessed with a good home and a loving family for support. I understand
that people all over the world would envy my situation. His example also has shown me that it is the duty
of the strong to help the weak even if our cultural differences are deep. I hope that I can live up to his
example. The most important thing that my Grandfather learned in Japan was hope. He found it incredible that
the orphans who had lost so much were so hopeful and happy. Like most children, they played games,
laughed and sang songs. They welcomed the sailors and marines with unconditional acceptance. My
Grandfather witnessed the aftermath of World War II in the eyes of those orphans. And what he saw was
hope for a brighter future. He has tried to live his life that way—in a hopeful, optimistic manner. By
association I have learned to do the same.

My Grandfather has no medals or citations to commemorate his duty in Japan. He has only the marks
on his soul that have helped to make him the person he is today. His positive influence on the lives of his
children and grandchildren is his reward. The history books may recount events differently, but the country
of Japan has influenced me because it was the place where many of my Grandfather’s personal qualities
were strengthened. I am the person I am today because of his influence.

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Search for the Essential Japan
Jerry Blackman (The Cooper Union School of Art)
I had many preconceptions about Japan before actually going there. My ideas were derived from the
pop-culture images, and the general stereotyping that circulates around all cultures. I was looking forward
to seeing such Japan standards as the overly polite and awkward businessman who takes off his shoes to
eat, or the crazy hair-do, space-outfit wearing freak of Harajuku. Surely I would encounter slews of Manga
comic books, video games, and even robots walking the streets. Next to the traditional tea shop would be
the futuristic teleportation device of some sort. I was expecting Japan to be a land of excess, of spirituality,
and of the future: the singular anomaly that stood apart from the rest of the world.

Naturally my expectations were not met. They couldn’t have been just by their nature of being
idealized. Yes, I saw businessmen without shoes and kids with green hair, but these cultural signifiers were
never able to become fully transcendent and exist as essentially as their archetypal, American imposed
counter parts. Somehow, the images of my imagination exoticised and projected Japan to a state more
interesting than the real Sumo wrestler on the train, or lonely crane in the river could describe.

I had not given up completely on the realizing of my fantasies for Japan though, so I embarked on a
search mission. If archetypes and essentialist ideas function in the realm of images, I’d create as best I
could the Japan I was looking for. With a digital camera always holstered to my hip, I was hyper aware and
fanatic. Literally minutes were spent in framing shots and finding the perfect composition between the
rectangle of the viewfinder and the pink leaves of the Sakura tree beyond it. Not once looking up from the
LCD screen, I would wait for that clear a line of sight amongst the crowds of people so I could possess the
lie of the quiet temple garden. I would climb, crawl, jump, and even balance to take advantage of, what I
thought was, the most beautiful shot to date. Sometimes getting the perfect picture involved maneuvering
into painful positions over bridges or fences, and I even believed that of my waving finger in the water
could beckon at least one Coi fish next to the patch of blossoming Lotus flowers. By the end of my stay, I
had been to over forty gardens and even developed a reflex where the sound of running water would trigger
my arm to jerk downwards, and my fingers to grab at the Velcro of my camera case. I was trying to recreate
every Japanese postcard and calendar I had ever seen, investing almost religiously to the archetypal
sentiment of that perfect blossom, hanging in all its solemn Japanese glory, over the pond.

In an obsessive-compulsive manner I went down the list of everything I thought to be Japanese, and
made a foreign culture into my own personal scavenger hunt. Nothing was sacred: praying monks on
bridges: *snap*, schoolgirls on the train: *snap*, little old woman holding an umbrella: *snap*, Sumo
wrestlers, Geisha, Businessmen: *snap*, *snap*, *snap*. It carried on like this for more time than I care to
remember. I found that the more essentially I could capture a situation, and the more I could remove it from its
reality and make it a commonality, something I had seen before, the better I thought the shot. I was indeed
attempting to dissolve the reality around me, and redefine it in terms to match my preconceptions. But these
idealizations proved in fact impossible to meet. Though a photo might look perfect, there was always
something that irked me. My Geisha-by-the-Water shot, for example, has a sky that is a little bit too
overcast to transcend itself, apart from the fact that she actually just a tourist in costume. My Osaka-
Nightlife picture appears chaotic and exciting at first, but after a moment of inspection, the rather
rudimentary geography of the street is exposed, and the streetlights all fall back into their simple
geometrical orientation. I thought I had found the essential Temple Garden shot, but the otherwise perfect
harmony of the tea house, bridge, and waterfall was interrupted by the electric grate buried in the sand, and
the six spotlights surrounding the pond, undoubtedly connected to it. I wasn’t frustrated though: I think I
had some awareness that I was engaging with artifice, and couldn’t let my heart mistake the photograph of
an experience for a real one. Collecting the archetypes in this clinical manner became an experience in
itself, and part of my genuine understanding of Japan.

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