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The Screen Door by Bill Watanabe Summers in the San Fernando Valley can be stifling hot, and during the 1950's when I was growing up, a screen door was a nice thing to have. There were no such things as air conditioners (at least, not in my neighborhood), and we didn't even have a water air cooler to help cool the summer temperatures. A screen door allowed the occasional breeze to enter the house but could keep out the irritating flies and other insects that could come in. One day, my parents bought a new screen door and put it on our rear door which led to the backyard. When I was about 5 years old, I was a typical spoiled and self-centered rascal. One day, I was supposed to finish my lunch but I didn't want to eat it all up. My mother scolded me for not finishing my rice and I got angry and jumped off my chair and ran for the back door. I don't remember why I was so upset but as I approached the screen door, rather than pushing it with my hand, I kicked it open with my foot and ran outside. I wanted to play outside and not be made to sit inside the kitchen and finish eating my old rice. In my angry motion to open the screen door with my foot, I had kicked back about a 12-inch portion of the lower left hand corner of the new screen door. But I had no remorse, I was happy to be playing in the backyard with my toys. I don't recall my parents getting angry at me for my destructive deed. They didn't scold or punish me for damaging their brand new screen door. They never said a word. I think now about how I would have handled such a situation, if my child had done what I did. I would have scolded my child, and lectured about how expensive this new screen door was, and that a spanking would be in order and I would have delivered a spanking for such bratty behavior. But my parents didn't say a word. Neither did they repair the screen door. They left the corner of the screen door pushed out, creating an opening, a breach in the defense against unwanted insects. For years, the screen door remained unrepaired. For years, everyday, as I walked in and out the back door, I would see that corner of the screen, curled out, constantly reminding me of my actions and my moment of uncontrolled anger. For years, I knew that everyone in my family who went in and out of the back door would see that hole in the screen and remember who did it. For years, every time I saw a fly buzzing in the kitchen, I would wonder if it came in through the hole that I had created with my angry foot. I would wonder if my family members were thinking the same thing, silently blaming me everytime a flying insect entered our home, making life more miserable for us all. My parents taught me a valuable lesson, one that a spanking or stern words perhaps could not deliver. Their silent and passive punishment for my behavior delivered a hundred stern messages to me, and waved a nagging finger at me every day. Perhaps, in the long run, it has helped me to be more accountable for my behavior, and more in control of myself, and even, perhaps, has helped me to become a better, more patient person. Western parenting models seemed to stress that negative behavior should be punished immediately so that the consequences of the deed are clearly in connection. Not do or say something (about my damaging the new screen door, as well as my angry refusal to not finish my lunch) would seem to imply that we are not affected of that we don't care about the poor behavior of the child. This is not to say that any and all negative behavior of our children should be condoned or should be treated with passivity for to do so would seem to be a prescriptions for totally spoiled and self-centered children with no knowledge of the bounds of good behavior. Yet, somehow, the message that I had done wrong came through a thousand times over, and they never had to say a word. It was not them wagging their finger at me, but rather the door, flapping its loose screen at me. My parents taught me that our 'bad' behavior will cause shame (haji), that people will be noticing and will "laugh' if we don't behave properly ("warawareru") and that we should care about behaving properly. I believe this is why their non-action about the screen door would not imply condoning but rather would be a consistent message that my action has brought about a certain shame to myself that they will not seek to fix or remove until the lesson was driven home thoroughly. And, it was

.Bill Watanabe has been the Executive Director of the Little Tokyo Service Center for the past 21 years, providing programs and services that benefit the Little Tokyo and the Japanese American community. Bill has a Masters degree in Social Work from UCLA, and is married with a daughter in college.

Response by Gary Kawaguchi There is something very rooted in rural culture in the reactions of Bill's parents to his destructive behavior. The incident which precipitated his anger was of his refusing to eat his rice. There is something about rice which stirs something in the Nikkei mind. A couple of years ago, my mother actually chastised me for throwing some rice away (something which I rarely do) by saying that we should not waste rice because, "There are starving people in Japan." I told her that it basically wasn't true, but I could hear my late grandparents channeling their voices through her, and as soon as she muttered her words, she became embarrassed. But the sentiment is basically true. A society that knows scarcity does not waste anything. But I feel for the little Bill, who was eating the warmed over, leftover rice (remember those days before microwaves?) which must have been terribly unappealing. The act of wasting food, especially rice, I think is a key to this story, and in my opinion, no accident that the eating incident and the screen door incident are linked in Bill's mind. His disregard for those starving people and for the expense of buying the screen door, a luxury in the issei mind, are connected. I imagine that they were probably thinking that they bought the screen door for the sake of the children because they, the adults, could certainly live without it. The five-year-old Bill was self-centered and he was not grateful. Of course, it's hard to find a five year old that doesn't think primarily of himself and is only grateful for things which cause immediate self-gratification. The end result of the training was to sow the seeds of the person who I know and have deep respect for. Bill Watanabe, a person whose life is dedicated to others and who knows the meaning of kansha (gratitude). Response by Ken Ishibashi Like many others, I also was told not to leave any rice in the bowl. One of the first things that I was surprised about when I first came to Japan was in observing that most people here, they never ate up all the rice in their bowl. One exercise that might help people have a deeper appreciation of rice is going out to the countryside and helping in the backbreaking work required for preparing the fields for planting. If you do it once, you`ll realize how much time, work, energy and devotion is involved in growing it.