12. Stepping In It and Moving On

Well, as I had mentioned before it seemed like there was an uncomfortable truce between Grandma Grandpa and us, specifically me.  Typically speaking when a Japanese person gets married they call their in-laws "mother" or "father". Yet my wife's dad told me, "I am not your father so you call me ”oyaji"　which literally translates to "old man".  Everyone in the family called him that so I called him that and grandma was "Ba-chan" or literally grandma.  So as we started settling into a routine of getting up, going to work, and pre-school, things were pretty calm, but little did I know, in my ignorant bliss of not knowing any Japanese that my presence was causing trouble within the family.

I recall, even to this nearly 25 years ago, the events that started a firestorm at the time and forced us to move out of the house.

Typically in Japanese houses people remove their shoes upon entering, and either put on slippers, or more commonly walk barefoot in the house.  Ok no biggie right!  WRONG!  No I didnt walk around the house in my shoes and no one expected me too either, but my shoes, yes my shoes of all things was the spark that started the blaze.

One morning I was heading out to go somewhere, and I was off, I went to the door looking to put my shoes on and they were gone.  There is a large shoe box near the door, but my shoes were not there either.  Sure I could have put on another pair of shoes and it wouldnt have been a big deal, but I was annoyed that only my shoes were missing.  My wife was out, and only Ba-chan and I were home.

By this time, it's only about 6 months after we had initially moved in, I remember now, it was Golden Week, which happens in the beginning of May every year, there is a period of 3 days in a row and 4 in 7 that are national holidays.  Many people take off an entire week or sometimes more depending upon the calendar.

I could only speak a few words of Japanese and Ba-chan of course couldnt speak any English so in my broken Japanese and with an edge on my voice I asked her where my shoes were.  She replied saying something I totally did not understand, and I raised my voiced frustrated that neither of us could communicate and wanted to know where my shoes were.  This went back and forth a few times and eventually I ended up putting on a pair of sandals and stormed out the door.  I didnt think much of it but boy was I ever wrong.

When I came home later that afternoon my wife was home and in a heated discussion with her Mom and Dad.  Things were escalating and without knowing what was being said I interruptied my wife and asked her to translate  what was being said.  I was picking up a word here and there and didn't like what I was hearing.

Long story short; after I left the house Ba-chan went nuts, she went across the street from our house, there is a small Mom and Pop grocery store there where all the neighborhood grannies would gather and gossip, and start raving about this giant loud-mouthed, good for nothing, "gaijin" (foreigner) of a son-in-law, who wouldn't listen to Ba-chan because she put his shoes outside, because she thought they were too big and took up too much space at the front entrance, and he got angry because he couldn't find them, and even when she told him where they were, he didn't understand!

I have to add here that eventually I found out that my mother-in-law was one of the most unique individuals I have ever met in my life, and not necessarily meaning that in a good way either.  She was NEVER , EVER, guilty or wrong of anything.  NEVER once in all the years we lived together did I ever hear her apologize for anything SHE did wrong.  Not once, never! She always managed to find a reason or a person to blame for anything that went wrong, always.  (An example of what I mean: My youngest son once fell out of a tree and got a minor concussion and we thought he broke his nose as well, she blamed the tree, she blamed me, I was at work when it happened, she blamed the weather.  She blamed everyone except my son.  It was just an accident and we were fortunate that it wasn't worse, there was no one to blame, but she did!  And ALWAYS was like this about anything and everything in the house and her life. In later years this became more pronounced and caused a lot of frustration and headaches)

It was  MY fault that my shoes were too big. It was my fault for not understanding Japanese.  It was my fault for making her feel like she was going to have a heart attack because it was my fault that I was too big and my voice too loud for her liking.  It was my fault for not listening.  It was my fault because I married (stole) their daughter.  You get the picture I think.  She even went so far as to call nearly everyone of my wifes relatives and complain and "bad-mouth" me to everyone she met. I was my fault that she had to hide my shoes outside the house because she thought they were smelly and too big.  (They were new shoes hardly worn at all, smelly was just an excuse she gave)

Fortunately I was in ignorant bliss of the details at the time, otherwise I may have really stepped into it I bet.

Because of all of this, we ended up having to move out of the house to keep the peace.