I’ve come to admire the shikataganai attitude to a degree. There’s a certain kind of stubbornness in that attitude to not be defeated in the face of the devastation. There’s a huge amount of resilience and determination that is borne out by how the Japanese community survived and established themselves wherever they were settled. No doubt there are those who have suffered trauma and still do. But for me personally, I am grateful to my parents who, by example, carried on their lives the best way they could, without expressing bitterness or regret and encouraged us to be “good” people.
So having said all that, I’ve accepted sadly, the loss of language and connection to my parents’ culture and history. The positive of that acceptance is being active about relearning and learning my past history and passing it on to my children and grandchildren. How the future unfolds for my children is already interesting as they haven’t established themselves as part of a cultural group and have expressed that fleeting sense of not belonging. And as they are children of a mixed marriage, inter-racially married themselves, how will they and their children define themselves in the scheme of things?
