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One Man in Japan

By Ben Falik

don't know much
about Japan, natural
disasters or nuclear
power — certainly noth-
ing to add to the rugged
roadside reporting of
Anderson Cooper and
Novi's own Dr. Sanjay
Gupta — but I do know
one person in Japan; and
I've been thinking a lot about my friend
Ken over these past few weeks.
Kanenori "Ken" Morikawa, his parents and
two sisters moved from Tokyo to Bloom-
field Township when we were in fourth
grade. His dad worked for Toyota, and they
bought a big house — heavy on fragrant
food, light on furniture — near the Maple
Theatre.
In the United Nations that was Conant
Elementary School, the kids or their families
were from all over the world: Korea (Gene),
Germany (Lisa), Brazil (Bruno), Egypt (Heb-
ba), Greece (JoAnna ), Iran (Marcy), India
(Renu) and Utah (John and Julie Wirthlin
and their 15 siblings).To us, Ken was not
particularly exotic; his arrival was greeted
with little fanfare and lots of basketball.
I don't remember Ken ever having
trouble with English, though our universal
language was video games —fluency
achieved playing the brand new Super
Nintendo, with Italian plumbers eating
mushrooms and riding friendly dragons
through extensive sewer systems.
International understanding was ce-
mented at my house by repeated VHS view-
ings of Three Ninjas, the underrated 1992
film where three American boys master ka-
rate under the tutelage of their inexplicably
Japanese grandfather. (It somehow lost the
Oscar race for Best Picture to Unforgiven.)
Each time Ken's mom, who spoke almost
no English, would pick him up, she would
say"thank you" again and again and give
us a folding paper fan, a bag of oranges or
some other small gift.
Less than two years later, Mr. Morikawa
got word he was being transferred back to
Japan. On hearing the news, my parents
immediately offered to have Ken move in
with us — a kindly, if impulsive, gesture
that must have induced some uniquely
Japanese combination of honor and horror
among the Morikawas. Effusively, they said
"thank you" again and again.
Ken and I wrote each other a couple of
letters, and then — letter writing not being
a forte of newly adolescent boys — silence
soon set in.
In 2005, Ken materialized out of the
blue at Maple and Telegraph with a 1992
Conant phone directory in hand — and
the stunned realization that the populous
Wirthlin family had moved.
He had flown to Detroit without advance
notice, taken a taxi to the 'burbs, found his
way to a classmate's parents' house and
then to mine. He was visiting the States be-
fore heading back to become "a business-
man in Toyota," with a three-year assign-
ment at a location to be determined.
So, we did the only logical thing we
could do with our short time together:
shopping at Value Village for dozens of
second-hand T-shirts. Turns out those bar
mitzvah shirts and intramural sports jerseys
go for big bucks in Japan.
Ken gave them away as gifts back home
and later confirmed,"Everybody loved
the T-Shirts. It really saved my shopping
expenses last year!" (Offsetting, at least, the
Detroit cab fare.)
Six years on, Ken and I have yet to turn
our T-shirt scheme into a trans-Pacific busi-
ness venture. On March 5, Ken became a
father, posting "Junior Born!" on Facebook
via iPhone.
On March 11, an 8.9 magnitude earth-
quake struck off the coast of northeast
Japan. I e-mailed and stalked him on Face-
book with no word.
After a week of high anxiety, Ken replied:
"I'm OK! My region is west from where the
earthquake and tsunami hit. Thank you
again for the worry."

I

Mayer & Helena Lebovic, Bruce Denise Wayne

Andy Warhol

John Reinhard Weguelin

Anthony Quinn

14KT Gold Pearl &
Diamond Necklace

Meissen Feature - 40 Lots

Paul Jenkins

Clarice Smith

1 8KT

Gold & Diamond
South Sea Pearl Earrings,
Designed By Ruth Taubman

CT. Diamond Ring
From the Estate of
Ruth Keil Wayne.

3.75

409 F. _JEFFERSON, DETRorr, Mi 48226
TEL 313.963.6255 \x/ww.DUMOART.com

8 May 2011 I

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