A Code of Silence

The "Japanese code of silence"
She said to me when I let him get away with it;
I kept quiet. I didn't sue him.
I didn't complain. I let him get away with it.
He did it again, wrongly, I knew.
But it was only money.

I thought I was the only one.
Never thought anyone else would get in his way.
No way to sue, I am an outsider. I have no way to win in court.
It bothered me, but no big deal.
Yet I kept the "code of silence" she said
Putting him in others' way.

Now, not he, but I, am the one at whom she glares.
I am the one brandishing the shame of silence.
I don't know if his crime is punishable.
It was only money.

But, she, so confident, so high and mighty,
To come here and take on Asian society,
When I have lived my life as best I could,
Heeding childhood teachings of
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do.."
I did.
It was only money.

What did non-Romans do in Rome? Nothing.
I am not Madeleine Albright. I do not want to be.
She is wrong about the "Japanese code of silence"
She and so many others who would come and make their
"Blackship" judgements of a culture so very old, so very different.

I am tired. I am weary. I am not who I was near 20 years ago.
I must grow old here. I want to live in peace.
I cannot take on the ancient ones and prove that I am right.

"Code of silence"? Have I adapted so?
No, it is not that I have adopted this "Japanese code of silence"
She left ringing in my ears, when she wrote accusing me
Saying, "You've been here too long, honey."
Did she say that to her own immigrant mother and father?
Did she tell them to go back to Europe?
Did she tell her mother to go back to a country that no longer exists -
A country she was lucky to escape from?

For me, too, how can she tell me I "have been here too long"?
Because my eyes are green? Is there a time limit to my stay?
When I start to show signs of adapting or taking on my family's character,
That it is time for me to go?
Why do we assume so, that one cannot enjoy living as an immigrant as our forefathers did?
Yes, through Castle Gardens and Ellis Island they came in droves
"For a better life," they said to a single country.
Through other gates they went as well.
To great lands in South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, and even China, and IndoChina,
And on and on all over leaving their mark for better or worse.
Diaspora.

Hey, I went through the gates of NARITA for "a better life!"
Where is the picture of my airplane?
Will there be a wall to honor my kind?
Will they write about the contributions of my kind to society here?
The great dams built by Koreans and Chinese?
What did I build?
I built two members of a decreasing population.
I gave them my DNA.
I gave them two future tax payers to work hard to support the elderly.
I gave a great-great-great-great grandchild some funny curly hair!!!

Will she, who judged me so, go back and tell of tales she spun of her success in the "Far East"
And how she took them on and without shame,
Broke the "Japanese code of Silence" she accused me of maintaining?
Will the American masses buy her book?
Immigrants have little time to write though theirs are the tales we long to hear.
"Too busy adapting and learning the ways and just plain worn out,"
I can hear the old ones say.
Can a drowning man write?

"No," I want to shout. I did not learn that "code of silence" here!!
I learned that as a little girl.
I learned it at the babysitter's in America.
I learned it when my neighbor (and others) showed their nasty self to me.
"Be quiet and don't tell anyone."
Be a good girl.
I learned it elsewhere too, and so you see, won't say, even now,
Though I want to tell you all, I learned to be a good little girl and
"Keep a code of silence" that only girls can keep.

The code of silence that keeps me from class reunions also
Where I know friends won't want to hear about the ones who won't return
Because they shot their brains out, or lie wasted in a gutter,
Or just disappeared into oblivion in some foreign land.

Who is she to tell me about the "Japanese code of silence" I keep?
A silence far greater that rips my soul apart and shouts so loud it deafens me?
Silence that lets me smile and be so sweet and demure,
And out of harms way for just a moment more.

And back into the silence I go and continue on my way.
Alone, without her guidance, like I have always done.
Just me and the One who sees all.