My father and his platoon were camped near a cliff. I don't understand the logistics of how the foxholes were laid out, but that's where they were. For some reason, the Japanese soldiers they were fighting were camped at the bottom of that cliff. For the most part, they left each other alone. There was no order on either side to attack, and no one wanted to die, so each group tried to pretend as best they could that the other group wasn't there.
It's pretty boring being a soldier. When you were camped, there was absolutely nothing to do. You could talk with your buddies, but after a while you begin to hear the same stories being repeated over and over redundantly, just like this sentence.
During this period, with the Americans at the top of the cliff and the Japanese at the bottom, the Japanese soldiers must have been just as bored, because one of them began singing their National Anthem.
"Kimigayo wa!
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni!
Sazare-ishi no!
Iwao to narite!
Koke no musu made!"
Maybe he was trying to ease everybody's boredom. Maybe he was trying to raise everybody's spirit. Whatever it was, it must have worked, because all the Japanese soldiers were soon singing their National Anthem.
"Kimigayo wa!
Chiyo ni yachiyo ni!
Sazare-ishi no!
Iwao to narite!
Koke no musu made!"
I don't know if you've ever heard traditional Japanese music, but it pretty much sounds like cats caterwauling to Americans, and I'm sure the Japanese thought the same thing about American music in the 1940s, especially if they heard anything by Spike Jones & His City Slickers.
When my Dad and his buddies heard the Japanese soldiers singing, they looked at each other with pained expressions. Some of them stuck their fingers in their ears, and others pinched their noses shut in the universal sign of, "This stinks!"
"Watch this," my father told his buddy Bennett, and then sang out, "Ay! Ay! Ay! Ai-eee!" like a Mexican mariachi singer.
The Japanese soldiers stopped singing.
My Dad and his friends started laughing. They could almost picture the Japanese soldiers beneath them looking at each other in befuddlement with big bug eyes.
"Good one, Duchene," one of the soldiers told my Dad.
Needing no more encouragement than that, my father, in full voice, started singing a Mexican folk song.
"Alla en el rancho grande!
Alla donde vivia!
Habia una rancherita!
Que allegre me decia!
Que allegre me decia!"
The platoon was busting a gut laughing. Some men were rubbing away tears from their eyes and others were holding their stomachs. Bennett had a hand on my father's shoulder for support as he cracked up.
"Te voy a hacer tus calzones!
Como los que usa el ranchero!
Te los comienzo de lana!
Te los acabo de quero!
Alla en el rancho grande!
Ay! Ay! Ay! Ai-eeee!"
With an exaggerated flourish, my father wrapped up his musical debut with a sweep of an imaginary sombrero. His buddies, their laughter tapering off, gave him a round of applause. And then...
And then, hesitantly at first, the Japanese soldiers started applauding my father's performance, too. Some even trying to imitate his mariachi cry.
"Goddamn those Japanese," my father told me, years later. "They were vicious killers, but they had good taste."
Raising My Father
RaisingMyFather.BlogSpot.com
jimduchene.BlogSpot.com American Chimpanzee
@JimDuchene
No comments:
Post a Comment