7. Fear of the Unknown

So, we fly to Japan, leaving the day after Christmas, flying from O'Hare.  My daughter, my wife, and I, not knowing what I was getting myself into really, but just knowing that it was probably better for my wife being around her family and relatives and in her "home".

We get to Okinawa on December 27th, right before the new year, and my wife's friend Mutsuko, the woman that introduced us to each other, came to Naha airport with her finance, an American like me, to pick the three of us up.

We drove to my wife's house, and you would not believe how nervous, anxious, and a bit scared too, ok a lot scared, that I was.  I walked in the front door and standing there were my father-in-law and mother-in-law, the looks on their faces made me feel like "Oh boy am I going to get out of here alive!?!?!"

You have to remember that they never met me before getting married, plus my wife was their only daughter together, and on top of that my father-in-law was a former Japanese police officer as well.  The looks he gave me felt literally like daggers going through my heart...but as he was looking at me, he glanced down, and grasping me around my lower leg was my daughter, she was about a year and a half old, and she looked up at Grandpa with her impish grin, and he melted.  He reached out with both of his arms for her, calling to her, she hesitantly walked over to him, he picked her up, took off her shoes, forgot all about me, and took my daughter into the house.

The sighs could be heard from everyone.  I knew, I don't know why, but I just knew, that things were going to be alright.  My mother-in-law is just blabbering on in Japanese to my wife, and looking at me saying only Lord knows what, but to my ears, the tone was not very welcoming.  I went into the house, carrying our luggage, and my wife takes me to our room, and I ended up hiding up there afraid to come down for what seemed like forever.

Since we arrived just before the new year, there was a ton of work that had to be done in and around the house.  Typically speaking Japanese do their "spring cleaning" at the end of the year, to welcome in the new year with a clean house, which includes cleaning all the windows in the house, inside and out, top floor too. My wife, translating for my father-in-law, tells me what I have to do, and from early morning until late in the afternoon all we did was clean, clean, and clean some more, for 2 days straight.

It literally took one day alone just to clean up the kitchen, exhaust fan, ceiling lights, cabinets, inside and out, I mean everywhere you looked, we cleaned.  I never knew cleaning could be so tiring!

Then on the last day of the year, we went shopping.  Shopping for new year's was major, we had to buy all sorts of food and drinks for preparing for all the relatives that were going to come over to the house.  My wife's father was the oldest surviving son in his family so he had the responsibility of maintaining the family altar.  (That is another story all of it's own too!) So all the relatives came over to pay their respects, light an incense and see the "new" gaijin, (foreigner) in the house. ME!

Next: New Years Day!