I saw a Japanese man cry on Saturday. I had always thought that outward displays of emotion were rare here. I had always thought that a woman may get away with it here but not a man. So when I saw a Japanese man cry I thought I would melt.
He was not drunk and he was not a madman on the street. He was a performer in the Japanese play “a message from Gaza”. I attended the third showing. He was reading out letters from a man called Mustafa, I shall call the performer Mustafa-san. My Japanese is bad so I did not follow all that was going on. So I focused on the performers body language and the photos in the slides projected behind them. They all showed such passion.
Mustafa-san stood out. At the end of the play all the performers stood on stage. Mustafa-san was in the center. The producer made a speech, where the words Israel, Gaza, Palestine, Rachel Corrie and Vittorio Arrigoni were among the few recognizable words. I looked at the performers, and Mustafa-san caught my eye. His face was scrunched up in a grimace like he was holding back a sob. I observed the others, some looked studiously serious, mirroring possibly the connotations of the words of the producer, and some wore the standard neutral expression I have come accustomed to here. My eyes drifted back to Mustafa-san, and wondered why his cheeks looked so shiny… and why was he wiping his face with his Kuffiyeh? His shoulders shuddered as he buried his face a second time into that symblic white and black checkered scarf what an amazing actor! I whispered to my friend.
But he was not an actor, the producer told me later, he had visited Palestine. The play, the photos and the memories of Palestine and not skillful acting were behind his tears.
So there you have it… Palestine brought public tears to the eyes of a man from one the worlds most reserved and stoic societies. Palestine made a Japanese man cry.
Otoko no hito is Man in Japanese.
