This is an English translation of my Japanese article to appear in Nikkan San on September 5th, 2021, as a part of my bi-weekly column, “The Way of the Pianist.”
Where were you when you saw the news of 9.11?
I had just finished my last concert in Japan and was getting ready to go back to NY at my parents’, when I saw the planes fly into the World Trade Center. I thought it was a scene from a movie. The reason I went back on one of the first flights to NY out of Narita was because a conductor who took me under his wings was dying. I went to him as soon as I landed. Despite the sun just having set, Manhattan was dark, desolate and quiet like the city that never sleeps was dead. An eccentric guy with a thick Southern accent was now skin and bones, holding my hand and nodding to me over and over without a word. I wondered if everyone shed their identifiers as he seemed to have done, as they approached their last breath. The apartment I lived in then was across the Hudson River from Manhattan, in Queens. The World Trade Center kept burning for several weeks. Its smell made me throw up a couple of times. I played the piano in a church near World Trade Center where the firefighters and rescue workers rested in between their shifts. I will never forget the soot-covered firefighter who came to me as I played and put his hand together in a prayer.
That was 20 years ago.
On August 15th this year, Taliban took over Afghanistan, and the U.S. declared its chaotic evacuation completed on Aug. 30th. To the many in my generation who enlisted after 9.11 to realize their ideal of patriotism and the ideal of global democracy, these have been difficult days. And to the U.S., in a country that cannot even agree on how to deal with a pandemic, as a scene that closely resembles the last days of Vietnam stream to the entire world, it is being asked of its national identity, direction and purpose.
What is a nation, international politics, and ideologies?
My only strength as a musician in days like these is that I can unabashedly flaunt my naĂŻve idealism: universal brotherhood.
Your thoughts were very provoking bringing me back to 9-11. My mother was still alive and staying with us as we watched in bewilderment. That is one of two days that every person in my generation will never forget and add in Pearl Harbor for my mother. Yes we need to protect ourselves but 20 years is just too long in today’s world. We cannot change people’s minds and beliefs no matter how hard we try. We are a divided country that needs to heel. Only by bringing our country together in peace can we actually work to make changes elsewhere. The sword should be swift or not used at all.
Thank you for your writings, Rae
Thank you for sharing your thoughts here, Rae.
I cannot wait to discuss all these when I visit next month.
Makiko