hmmm

looks like that article about using monkey training techniques on your husband is back at the top of the NYtimes most emailed list.

Samurai genetics

My father is Japanese, from a prominent merchant family in Aomori. His father came from a Samurai family in a period in Japanese history when the status of Samurai had faded, and had married into my dad's mothers family and took her name. My dad, much to my frustration has held the values of the merchant class in higher esteem than those of the warrior class. As a result, he tended to downplay the fact that half of his genetics were of the decapitating/Toshiro Mifune type. Anyone who spends enough time with him knows where his brains wiring really comes from though. As a youngster, especially in the ninja-obsessed eighties, I would have been much happier to be able to tell my friends that I came from a Samurai family of course, but it was hard to get my dad to play along. I think for the most part his father also downplayed it in favor of integrating into his new family and moving on. Also, although my grandfather came from a Samurai family, he personally was never a Samurai. Indeed, before marrying my grandmother, he had been a servant in my grandmothers household from a fairly young age. As a result, my dad didn't hear very much in the way of Samurai stories, but he would from time to time see "Toshiro" boiling to the surface.

After watching Hara Kiri together a few nights ago, he remembered one of those stories. In the movie, a young samurai sells his blades and replaces them with bamboo: an unthinkable offense. The blade was the soul of the samurai, so selling it was well... not looked upon favorably. Anyway, when my dad was a kid, he and his brother would go to samurai movies and would sometimes re-enact scenes from the movie. One day, after watching one of these movies, they returned home and started play fighting in the guest room: my dad with a ruler, and my uncle with a *real sword*. You'll be surprised to hear that things didn't go as planned; my uncle lost control of thekatana and chopped a deep gash into the arch of his foot, which immediately erupted into a fountain of blood. The blood started spraying over the tatami, and my terrified dad ran to get his father. This is where things got even worse. My grandfather, upon seeing what had happened, started beating my uncle, yelling at him for unsheathing a sword in the house. My uncle rolled away from the assault of my grandfather, spraying blood like a garden hose that has slipped out of your hands. My dad was horrified of course, not just because his brother was losing blood AND getting punished by his dad, but because he saw a side of his father that he rarely if ever saw.

As I mentioned, despite his protestations, I can clearly see that in him as well, although I'm sure to a much lesser extent. No comment on whether any of that made it into my personality.