Ms. Shiho Kishimoto, the author of the novel I Hear Them Cry, is a strong proponent of neuro-linguistic programming. A therapist herself, she has employed this technique to help women navigate through turbulent divorces while also helping so-called "corporate warriors" of Japan ease into retirement when they tend to have a tough time reinventing themselves at home. According to Ms. Kishimoto, that's the time when they really need to make the transition from left-brain thinking to a right-brain one. But more importantly, she believes that's when empathy and understanding can begin to blossom, a key theme explored in I Hear Them Cry, which won the prestigious Toyo Shuppan Literary Award.
Mr. Koji Chikatani, TranNet’s senior agent, and I met up with Ms. Kishimoto recently in her charming well-appointed apartment overlooking a spectacular view of Tennozu Isle, a vibrant waterfront in Tokyo linked to the rest of the metropolis via the quaint monorail. With insight and passion she gave us an illuminating glimpse into her worldview and so much more, including the reason why the word "understand" is so profound to her.
What inspired you to focus on characters with personal experiences of abuse?
My family, I suppose. Ever since I can remember my home was a battleground where my pre-Meiji era mother in law, my father the serious scholar, and my mother who was constantly bullied, waged their wars.
As a child I was completely baffled. I could understand my father's feelings, I could see why Grandma was possessive over my father. He was her only surviving child after all and she was very proud of him. But I also understood how difficult it was for my mother who was this fish-out-of-water character there. She had to raise three children and we weren't that wealthy. It was odd that I couldn't see anyone who was really bad among them. Essentially, they were all good people. There was no one who was like an arch villain or anything. Yet they hated each other. They just kept fighting, hollering at each other. I thought to myself, what a world adults live in!
So that's the kind of childhood I had, and then I went on to work in a trading company and was stationed in its Hong Kong branch. And what I realized then and was surprised by was how tough it was to succeed in business. How tough the environment of socioeconomics really was. My father had spent forty years in such an environment to provide for us and raise us, making enough money for our education. It was eye opening.
I had seen things more or less from my mother's perspective until then, but once I was out there in the workforce as a working member of society, I immediately came to realize my father's troubles, his hardships. And then when I started to speak in defense of my father-- telling my mother to stop putting him down so much, pointing out that she didn't understand the trials and tribulations of my father, that she was having three meals a day after all--all she could see was that I had become a traitor to her! She really took offense and started to say things like, "Who's responsible for your happiness now?"
Our rapport deteriorated and she began complaining that I wouldn't be leading a happy life if it weren't for her. She'd get really vicious like that. So I was feeling really mixed up, wondering what my mother was all about when I came across a book written by Sayoko Nobuta titled "My Mother is Unbearably Heavy" (Ha Ha Ga Omukute Tamaranai). I came to realize that my concerns weren't unique. There were many in the same position as mine.
Next I read "The Way I See It" by Patti Davis, President Reagan's daughter's insider account of what it was like to have President Reagan as a father. Reading this book, you can clearly see how a relationship enters into a destructive spiral. I very much related to what she was saying. She's basically rejected by her mother, you see. Everything about her, the mother rejects. Now the mother it seems was afflicted with what's called the "Münchausen syndrome by proxy." In other words, a person with this affliction would make her child ill on purpose and take him or her to the hospital. They'll stay close to the child day and night, taking care of the child, comforting the child. The doctors and nurses begin praising what a lovely mother she is and that's when she's most happy, having found her place in the world, feeling her sense of self-worth in such a situation, you know. Then when the child recovers, her work is done right? So she goes on to make the child ill again, slipping some poison into him, see. That's the Munchausen syndrome by proxy. In other words, the child is used as bait to garner attention and appeal herself to the world.
Cover of The Way I See It: An Autobiography
Anyway, in the book it was said that the mother was diagnosed with this affliction, and when I read it, I was reminded of my own mother. She would always say things like I was a good for nothing, and that she really had a hard time raising me, recounting all these incidents that proved her point to my mother-in-law, and in front of my children. The book really showed me that there was a world like this, that I wasn't alone. And then there was another book titled Toxic Parents by Susan Forward. It's really famous and a bible for women in their thirties.
Can you talk about the connection between healing and religion?
The message that God loves you is powerful. That is a fundamental idea that can drive a person's life. Sometimes I feel Japanese people lack this drive and lead shallow existences, cocooned in the trappings of affluence, living in blissful ignorance, see. So the things they say sound shallow sometimes, ha, ha, ha. I've had men who got divorced in their later years visit me for counseling. They find themselves at a loss as to what mode of thinking they should adopt after retiring from their corporate-warrior days, you know. It’s such a shame. All they have to do is stoop to a lower position and understand. Such an attitude will simply relax any marital tensions, you see. The English word "understand" is such a lovely word by the way.
How so?
When I first learned English, I was struck by how odd this word seemed, literally meaning, "to stand under." I was like what's this all about? From my perspective, it seemed like two blocks of meaning just layered on top of each other. In Japanese, on the other hand, the word for understand is rikai, which is formed by combining the character for "logic" and the character for "explain." So I used to think, ‘Oh what a nice word.'
But when I was in my mid-thirties, I read an article in the Asahi newspaper that said it was a mistake for the Japanese to translate the word "understand" as "rikai."It should have been translated more literally to something like "stand under" as in assuming a lowered stance in relation to another person. It's an act of humility at heart, you see. Ms. Michiko Inugai, the granddaughter of Tsuyoshi Inugai, the former Prime Minister, who's a philanthropist, wrote the article. She's active in providing aid to refugees.
Anyway this two-page spread article was a commentary written by her and she was pointing out that in an ASEAN conference the talks that were underway between the First World nations and the Third World nations were at loggerheads. The developed countries were pursuing their own vested interests and the developing nations were there to seek aid. To come to a resolution, Ms.
Inugai suggested each party must take a lower stance, or in other words, assume a more humbling standpoint so as to see eye to eye. That's exactly what the word understand implies. Stand lower, stoop if you have to in order to be able to see eye to eye. Without seeing the other person at eye level, understanding cannot arise. It was an aha moment for me. I saw what understand truly meant. You know, I wonder if English-speaking people actually appreciate the true meaning of the word understand when they say it themselves. I'd really like to ask if they're conscious about such a connotation, that to understand, you have to stand under someone, that you have to humble yourself.
In the first part of I Hear Them Cry, Mayu is in France where she is portrayed as a sort of an incarnation of Joan of Arc, or the spirit of crusade—the spirit of rectifying the rampant wrongs in life. Do you suppose this sense of crusade carries through even when she finds herself in Japan in the second part of the story?
Yes, all the more so since Mayu realizes that life can't just be pigeonholed as a romantic notion in the end. At least not until one puts up a good fight. That's got to happen, you see, if you want to show your moral fiber, show the world that you are indeed good.
Mayu is attracted to religion because of its symbolism for purity and piety?
Yes. The thing about religion is that, no matter who you are, it will accept you. Its capacity to do so is huge and such a space is essential in human existence. I really think Japan should have something equivalent as well. I want to say to the Buddhist and Zen priests here in Japan to try harder, you know. I mean all they do is appear now and then just for funerals. What's with that, right? They should hold more events in their temples, events like seminars featuring talks on end-of-life issues. Japan's on its way to becoming an empire of the elderly, and since most people will have a lot of time on their hands, I really think many will go to such events. You see, the priests here don't have many opportunities to make public appearances. But in the case of Christian priests, they have their churches and the custom of confessionals and every week they have mass. Their activity is really focused on sending out the message that they are accessible, that they are always close to anyone who needs them. In Japan, the obo-san, the Buddhist priest, doesn't enjoy such a favorable image.
I suppose art and religion are similar in that they both can help the individual transcend the mundane, all the petty worries that are a part of daily life. Is that how you feel Mayu views religion?
Yes, she had been pretty much self-centered but then she becomes awed by what she sees in Jean, the priest who appears in the story. It's something she doesn't have: a power that's not in her, a big, big, vast reserve of love, if you will. She gets attracted to this. To her it's an eye opener, as an instance of culture shock often can be.
Do you see differences between American and Japanese perspectives when addressing abuse and recovery?
Well you know the thing about these well-intentioned initiatives is that you really need funds to make them work. The civil servant may visit the house of an abuser but more often than not he ends up giving up after trying something like three times, after which he simply reports that the family was absent before closing the book on the case. He should be actually doing a bit more, like actually waiting around for the family to show up or bang on the door loudly or stake out the premises to find some evidence of a crime, like hearing someone cry out and then going in for the rescue. But since they have to work within a limited budget, or an hourly wage of a few thousand yen, it becomes quite untenable.
In America, I think a good amount of money goes into supporting such types of activities. There, religion is in the background, serving as a reminder to people to aspire to be noble, to be charitable and helpful. Such an environment really goes a long way for care workers. In Japan, cases of abuse and such are still seen as just "someone else's problem, not mine." If an abuse occurs, people will say, "Oh how sad, how pitiful," and that'll be all. There are so many incidents that need to be examined.
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