Post College: Part 1. Transition

We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
― Thomas A. Edison

Boston, Massachusetts

The Search for work. 

I contemplated staying in Amherst after I finished my student teaching. My friends were there and campus life was exciting. But, my parents insisted it was better to return to Boston and find work. Staying in Amherst was not advisable unless I got a full time teaching job. There was no work. I listened and returned home. I was kind of disappointed, but since family had paid for most of my college, I felt it was being respectful and responsible. 

Back in the day, in order to find work, I read the newspaper classified ads and go to the employment office. There was no internet. All old school. So, I did that. There were no jobs for art teachers. Budget cuts in public schools meant that the arts were eliminated first. What to do? My parents said, "Get a job. Any job." OK. 

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.  ― Barack Obama

My first job was as an entry level clerk with Raytheon Company. Pushing papers for engineers. I was assigned to a group developing two products: 1) a computerized system for newspaper design and advertisements, and 2) the Patriot air defense missile system. I sat in a cubicle with an engineer and filed and carried signed files from one department to another. It was not interesting work. But the engineers in the cubicle were slightly interesting. They had a dry sense of humor. One guy like to mimic a fart sound by dragging his shoe on the tile floor. He would do it at surprising moments when I least expected it. 

Work without love is slavery.  ― Mother Teresa

When I started the job, our unit was held in a small annex apart from the main building. Every time I was sent on an errand I had to traverse the large parking lot. The most fun was walking from one building to another and talking to the security guards. There were two in particular; one young guard studying part time at night for some other subject and an older guard who had obviously been there for years. Every time I passed by I would say hello and ask if anything was new with them. There was always something, even if it was just a review of a nearby Chinese restaurant. Raytheon was within biking distance, about 5-6 miles, I rode my 3 speed bicycle to and fro as long as the weather was dry and not too cold. The salary was low but at least I was working Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:30pm. I was learning responsibility. 

All happiness depends on courage and work.  ― Honoré de Balzac

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. 
― William James

The Fellowship Group

Outside of work, I started attending the Friday or Saturday college and young adult group at the Chinese Church in Boston Chinatown. My good friend, Andy was a member of the church and invited me. He was my link and my mentor. Shortly after January, he got accepted to medical school in Oklahoma. So, he was gone. I missed him a lot.

The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

I began meeting others in the group. After a few weeks, I was getting acquainted, but still feeling like people were not engaging on a deep level. That Friday evening, I gave a ride to Pearl to Harvard Square, where she lived.  Pearl was a few years older than me and I saw her as like a big sister. As we drove across the bridge to Cambridge, I told Pearl how I felt about the group. 

I said, "Everyone is nice, smiling and friendly, but communicating on a safe surface level." 

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.
― George Bernard Shaw

As we pulled up to her apartment, she turned and asked, "How would you like to go out somewhere in Harvard Square and have a drink?" 

It was about 9:30pm. I accepted with joy and relief. I felt like she read my lonely heart and acted like the big sister I never had. We went to some quiet place and sat and talked and talked until 11pm. I said that I was looking for deeper friendships. Real people, not people who always smiled when inside they were hurting or hiding. Vulnerable and transparent. Pearl listened and affirmed me. She was a pearl, suddenly a real friend. Then, I took her to her apartment. That time in Harvard Square was a release and breakthrough for me. I felt like, now here is someone who is willing to interact on a deep level, heart to heart, soul to soul. 

It's not the perfect people who make no mistakes I like the most, but the people who know how to apologize and start again.   ― Young H.D. Kim, Damduk: Alexander of the East

The group met for a while on Friday nights but then switched to Saturdays. On Sundays, I was still attending the Episcopal Church with my parents, since I was still living with them. The worship service was OK. I felt my spirit connecting to God even if I didn't know anyone there. When we sang the old hymns, my soul was warmed and touched. Before, they were just words. Now, the lyrics meant something and I understood them. They were faith builders. 

The people from the Chinatown fellowship asked why I didn't come on Sundays. I explained. I missed spending time with Pearl and others, but felt as long as I was living under my parents roof, I should respect them. I prayed to God about my situation. This went on for a couple months. Then, one day my mother called me over to talk. 

She said, "Your father and I know why you are coming to church with us. We just want to let you know that you don't have to. You can go to Chinatown. That's fine with us." 

I interpreted this as God's answer to my prayers. God worked in my parents hearts without me arguing or disrespecting them. It was a blessing. 

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

What did I learn? 

That communication occurs on several levels. That when it is superficial or shallow, I go away feeling dissatisfied. But, when we interact on deeper levels, on personal issues and emotions, we feel understood and connected. We are satisfied and comforted. That was me. 

All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.  ― Seán O'Casey

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
― Oscar Wilde

In the Rock Garden, A Reprise

I got a phone call from Amherst. Roberta Uno was producing and directing In the Rock Garden for the third time, this time for the Asian American Student Association (AASA) East Coast Conference, being held at UMass Amherst. UMass had invited all the AASAs from Harvard, Boston University, Yale, New York University, Cornell, Princeton, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and others. Roberta was expanding it, going bigger with more extras. And, she and the rest of the cast wanted me to return to play Uncle Kenji. Wow, that was flattering! And since I had already been in the Smith College play, it was easy to review my lines. No sweat!

Because I was working full-time at Raytheon, our rehearsals were on weekends. I drove from Boston on Friday evening, stayed overnight, and returned on Saturday or Sunday. Most of the previous cast stayed on from last time. Only June, the main character changed. The Smith College June didn't return. This time, Roberta chose Mariko, an exchange student from Hawaii. Roberta herself had been born in Hawaii and grew up in Los Angeles. Maybe there was an emotional connection. Mariko was a more relaxed and friendly personality than the Smith College girl who played June the year before. Hawaii folks are laid back.   

The first day I showed up for Saturday rehearsal, everyone was excited. It was like "In the Rock Garden" reunion for season 2. We all knew each other except Mariko. When she met me, she said smiling, "All I have been hearing is, Cary is Uncle Kenji, Cary is Uncle Kenji! It was music to my ears! Roberta worked us through the expanded script. At the end of the practice, Mariko remarked, "Wow, Cary, you remind me of my real uncle!" 

When the AASA conference arrived, we were totally pumped. The play was performed on the last day of the weekend. The room was packed, maybe 400 in attendance. The audience was very attentive and fully engaged, laughing and reacting with more gusto than previous shows. It was a blast! When we finished, everyone joined in on the Tanko Bushi folk dance and we kept grooving and moving. We wished that we have done it again. 

Theater does something that movies don't. Because it is a live performance, there is instant reaction, response and interaction with the audience. You are physically close to each other. It is intimate. The players cannot stop and take two takes like filming. It is all or nothing. If you slip up, you go on. Continue. The trick is, the audience doesn't know the script, only you do. And since we rehearsed so many times and memorized our lines well, we could play with joy, emotion and intensity. It was fun!  

A choir is made up of many voices, including yours and mine. If one by one all go silent then all that will be left are the soloists.  Don’t let a loud few determine the nature of the sound. It makes for poor harmony and diminishes the song.  ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

What did I learn? 

The stage is a magic circle where only the most real things happen, a neutral territory outside the jurisdiction of Fate where stars may be crossed with impunity. A truer and more real place does not exist in all the universe.  ― P.S. Baber, Cassie Draws the Universe

Personally, In the Rock Garden was the vehicle for another part of my journey of identity and ethnic roots significance. Although I am not ethnically Japanese, I identified with a common Asian American minority experience. An experience of racial stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, rejection, and feelings of inferiority.

I became Uncle Kenji, an elder reminding the younger generation of the importance of knowing where you come from, where your family comes from, and knowing something of the culture and dance because that is part of who you are. I was strengthened mentally and emotionally by participating in theater that promoted me and my fellow sojourners. It was individual and communal performance. I felt united and healed again.   

I learned teamwork, hard work, dedication and joint effort toward a common goal, which was the production. In the Rock Garden was groundbreaking in terms of Asian American theater. In the years and decades since that day, other playwrights, actors, artists, poets, and writers have authored works of meaning and beauty about the minority experience in North America. I didn't realize it at the time. Only recently, I Googled Roberta Uno and "In the Rock Garden" to find out what she had done since 1979.  

Roberta was hired by UMass in the Fall 1979 to be the director of the Third World Theater, later renamed New World Theater. Over the next 25 years, she led, directed, invited or organized dozens and dozens of theatrical performances at UMass, for the 5 Colleges, and for the community of the Pioneer Valley. Later she directed in New York and most recently is the Director of Arts for a Changing World, at California Institute for the Arts. 

The theater is the only institution in the world which has been dying for four thousand years and has never succumbed. It requires tough and devoted people to keep it alive.
― John Steinbeck, Once There Was a War

The theater is a communal event, like church. The playwright constructs a mass to be performed for a lot of people. She writes a prayer, which is really just the longings of one heart.  ― Marsha Norman