Before we get started:
Narita: the name of an airport
Hao, Wang xian-sheng = 好，王先生 = translates as "yes, Mr. Wang" in Mandarin Chinese
and in Japanese...
Kiku = 菊 = Kiku's name (also means chrysanthemum)
Kiku = 聴く = variant for "listen"
Mr. Takashita is a dear old friend who I've chucked into the story, Yunqi and Norika are characters from another (non-fanfiction) story I'm writing, and Tadase is... I have no idea.
Kiku
A lesson for Yao, a lesson for Kiku and a lesson for you.
I should have known
That
Tokyo
Was no place for a clueless husband
To be left to his own.
•
Yao,
Hair disheveled and grinning,
Blundered out of Narita
The other night.
He scampered into the boulevards;
Into
The clutter of neon lights
And city sights;
Of skyscrapers
And the livid scarlet of the
Traffic frights.
Bearing no name and
Stagnant
In his Japanese.
•
Like a lost little boy
(a happy, four-thousand-year-old little boy),
He
Approached a Mr. Takashita
And uttered the only word he knew:
•
"Kiku?"
•
And Mr. Takashita,
Jolly-faced Mr. Takashita,
Patted him on the back and said:
•
"Ah, yes!
The symphony of urban Japan is
Indeed magnificent.
The tootle of traffic
And the murmurs of civilization—
It's simply divine!"
•
But of course,
Yao did not comprehend
A single thing that was said.
•
And so he
Bowed stiffly to
Jolly-faced Mr. Takashita
And stumbled on his way.
•
"If I am to get
Any lead
To Kiku",
He must have thought to himself,
"Then I must find
Someone
Who speaks Chinese!"
•
And with that mindset,
Yao
Blundered into a
Chinese restaurant off the side of a road.
•
Approaching
Young couple Yunqi and Norika,
He said in fluent Chinese:
"Excuse me, but the two of you may be of help.
I'm looking for my husband.
He is
A nation just like me—
In fact,
The very crest of this land.
May you be so kind as to point out his whereabouts?"
•
At the request,
Norika
Turned to her love and said
In clear, incomprehensible Japanese:
"Beloved.
I do not understand this man,
For
I do not speak Chinese.
How may we possibly help him?"
•
But to Yao's disappointment,
Yunqi shrugged and said
In clear, incomprehensible Japanese:
•
"I do not comprehend him either
Love,
For I am a mere diaspora
And not
Fluent
In the tongue of my ancestors."
•
All this buzzed in
Through Yao's left and rambled out of his right.
These people obviously do not
Understand him,
And so,
Yao was once again pushed to
Utter the only word he knew:
•
"Kiku! Kiku!"
•
"But we are listening,
Honourable sire!"
Young Norika wailed.
•
"Or maybe he was just complimenting
This restaurant's infrastructure.
The finely lacquered notes of the
Chinese violin
Is indeed sublime.
Exotic to the aural senses,
I dare say.
•
"Erhu,
Honourable sire?"
Yunqi strummed an invisible violin.
Yao,
Albeit vexed at his foiled attempts at progress,
Nodded in his good-natured self
And
Stumbled away.
•
"It's clear to me now",
The thought must have dawned upon him
As he sipped a mug of tea,
Briefly smiling
At the strum of the
Pre-recorded erhu jive.
"It will take me all night
To find a Chinese-speaking soul
In this metropolitan labyrinth.
In that case,
I shall have to approach
The closest other I know in Tokyo."
•
And in that manner,
After three hours, seventeen minutes and fifty-seven seconds
Of bickering
And wrestling officers,
Yao was finally gained admittance
To seek audience with my prime minister.
•
Now,
While the fire had been quenched
In fateful 2015
And Yao and I re-married
In glorious 2045,
Being the gentle fellow of his resume,
My prime minister can
Still be found jittering
Before my husband—I can only imagine.
•
But he was a man of intent, and so
He gargled his tea down
And murmured:
"May I help you with anything, Mr. China?"
•
And my "Mr. China",
Giddy
At finally brawling off of square one,
Proceeded to warble
With a throat sticky in tea:
"Ah, yes!
I'm looking for Kiku
Honourable sire,
But
I cannot find him anywhere, for
It appears that I have gotten myself
Utterly lost
In this city."
•
"Tokyo has indeed grown",
My prime minister concurred.
"And
With the much-valued
Inflight
Of Chinese immigrants now,
Our city is fatter than ever before!
If you wish to seek Kiku…"
•
"I do!"
•
"Though as much as
I'd
Like to escort you,
I am unfortunately much too stuffed to do so tonight.
However, if you'd like,
I can always send one of my men
In my place instead."
•
Mr. China blanched.
"But can your
Man speak Chinese? For
While Kiku nags of it constantly,
I have not endeavoured to learning his tongue
Honourable sire,
And thus my Japanese is rather deflected."
•
A moment of silence commenced.
"He can definitely speak",
My prime minister assured.
"Tadase!
Come take Mr. China to Mr. Japan!"
•
Now, I have personally known
Tadase
Since he was a child,
And regret to admit
That the boy was as shabby in Chinese
As Yao was with my tongue.
And so,
While my good-natured husband
Had attempted to engage in
Idle prattle:
"How was the weather today?
Did you eat a good dinner, young man?
What was your impression of China?
Is your girl doing fine at home or work?"
Young Tadase simply nodded his head
And tooted the occasional
"hao, Wang xian-sheng".
•
But it wasn't until
Yao's jovial inquiry of
"When did you and this girl last made out?"
Was replied by a "hao, Wang xian-sheng"
Did he catch on.
•
He was riding in the
Passenger seat
Of a man deaf to his good intents.
•
And possible,
Probably,
Petrifyingly,
Any of his intentions whatsoever.
•
"Stop the car, boy!"
No answer.
"TADASE!"
"H-hao, Wang xian sheng!"
•
"Oh, for crying out loud!"
Yao transgressed the wheel
And rammed the breaks,
Flinging the vehicle
Onto a lonely curb in the brink of the nigh.
•
Tadase simply gawked at him,
Oblivious to the sin his
"Hao, Wang xian-sheng"s
had committed.
•
"Tadase",
Yao panted.
"We are going to Kiku's house,
Aren't we?"
•
"Um… Hao, Wang xian-sheng."
•
Yao pinched the bridge of his nose.
•
"Do you understand me!"
He gestured
With frantic flails.
•
Tadase shook his head blankly.
•
"Kiku! KIKU!"
•
"I may not understand,
But
I was listening!"
Tadase would have retorted.
•
And Yao, having
Combusted
His midget fuse,
Would have stormed out of the car grumbling:
"This difficult city!
This blasted, difficult city!
I am Wang Yao,
The great middle kingdom,
And
I shall find my way to Kiku alone
If it's the last thing I do!"
•
•
•
I found Yao asleep in a park
On my way to the fish market the proceeding morn.
I shook him awake,
Dragged him back home
And gave him a proper bed to rest upon.
•
Yao bawled to me the entire tale
Of his first night
Alone
In Tokyo,
And drifted to sleep with
Promises
That he'd take Japanese lessons
More seriously from then on.
•
That was his lesson of the night.
Mine?
•
That Tokyo
Was definitely
No place for a clueless husband
To be left to his own.
Foreign languages is important, people. Take me, for instance: back when I was a kid, I didn't think I needed to take Mandarin Chinese lessons seriously until I realized that I had to learn it as a symbol of my devotion to ChuNi. And to keep my grandmother at bay.
-Plumeria-hi
P.S. to everyone celebrating it: MERRY CHRISTMAS!... And to those that apply, apologies that the greeting is one day late.