I am Toranaga Yoshi, those of you from the west would say Yoshi Toranaga, and am the twenty-six year old only child of my father’s house. I work as an Atlantean translator for the Yosanito corporation at global headquarters in Onaki. To get me there my parents made great sacrifices for my education. That they did it willingly and are proud that I have achieved so much, which reflects well on them as parents, does not alter what I owe them. Since I was a little girl I have studied diligently to repay them, and at university I studied Atlantean languages because I had always dreamt of going to Atlantis.

My opportunity came when my director Namishi Goroda had to go on a business trip to Elana and he needed someone fluent in Elanai. I was the only one whose Elanai was good enough for his needs, so as a personal assistant to a director it was obvious that I had to be promoted.

When I had been promoted of course my father was proud of me, but he couldn’t tell a daughter he was proud of her! So he masked his pride and to reward me said, “I have instructed your mother to make enquiries about a husband for you. I have told her he must be university educated and have a good position with excellent prospects of rising to directorship level,” my father hesitated a little before continuing, “and he must be able to convince me that he is respectful of tradition and at the same time will treat you with the modern respect you are used to. I have no interest in an arrogant son in law who thinks manhood is about dominating his wife. That is not having reverence for the past. It is being out of touch with his own times, and a man worthy of respect has always revered the past whilst being fully aware of and in touch with his own times.”

I knew that what my father said to others was what he and my mother had agreed he should say, for I knew that my parents truly loved each other deeply, and my father would never even think about dominating my mother who was his closest friend and soulmate, but I also knew they both adhered to the accepted conventions with perfect good will. Naturally they never allowed their love to be seen, though they always exhibited perfect harmony to all, which was expected and just good manners. Though older by far than the youngest generation of adults they were a long way in advance of societal changes. The first part of what he had said to me I knew my mother had told him to say, but the second part was what he wanted for me, and that made me very happy because I knew he was telling me that he would not accept a husband for me who expected me to give up my career. I was pleased by what my parents had decided because I was ready to marry and have a family, but I was surprised when he went on to say, “It is not proper that an assistant to so important a man as Goroda Sama should be seen to be wearing a common cotton obi. People will say your family does not have a proper sense of what is owed to him,” which wasn’t at all true, but I should never think to contradict my father.

After the evening meal the following day, with great ceremony my mother had presented me with a beautiful silk obi that must have cost my father a quarter of his yearly remuneration, he is a highly regarded creator of zen gardens. He is much sought after for his view that a true craftsman is humble and subservient to his craft, and those who only create and will not subsequently maintain not just their own work but that of any other are displaying a kind of arrogance and are being disrespectful to those craftsmen whose souls are now on a higher plane and can no longer maintain their work for themselves. He is, he says, honoured to assist them. His beliefs are not entirely in keeping with the teachings of the shrines, but such is the respect he is held in it is considered he may be correct. I am very proud to be pointed out as his daughter. I thanked my mother for the obi and completely ignored my father, who would have been very embarrassed by the impropriety of anything else.

The service at the conference hotel where the negotiations were taking place was wonderful, the food was very different from familiar Doitumi cuisine but exquisite, and Goroda Sama had subtly indicated he was very pleased with my work. I felt so grateful to my parents for having enabled me to experience all this, and, I wondered what I could do for them with my much larger income than theirs to demonstrate my love for them as a dutiful daughter without embarrassing them.

I met a clever young Belotic man called Michael at the second day midday meal in between the negotiations. Michael was a translator for the other side. His Doitumi was really good, well it would have been if he had been a woman. He must have been taught by a woman, and, didn’t realise he was speaking formal female Doitumi. It was embarrassingly difficult to reply because I kept replying as if he were a woman, and despite the fact that he was not aware of that it was much easier for me talking to him in Belotic. He had lived in Elana since he was twelve, and I was very grateful when he explained many things to me I could never have learnt from books, and which I knew would help me to advance my career.

We had only been there five days when at three in the morning the storm awoke me. Even by the standards of Doitum, where we are used to earthquakes and tsunami, the storm was a severe one. Not long afterwards a knock on the door was followed by a member of the hotel staff telling me to grab some warm clothes and go down to the foyer as the hotel was in danger from the flash flood and was being evacuated. He told me to leave all my possessions as there would not be room to take them. I put a kimono on top of my night clothes and a coat on top of that, and took my handbag containing my documents, money, and phone. That was all I had time for. The wonderful and very expensive obi my father had bought me when I was promoted I had to leave behind, and I even lost my new red shoes in the chaos. The shoes were no real loss, but leaving my obi hurt.

The little old man who had awoken me and all the others on that corridor of the hotel was telling us to hurry. We went down six flights of stairs, to be told “You must get out. The dam has burst and the hotel is in danger of being washed away.” The water was lapping at the hotel steps, and I was not sure how many more than the four I could see above the water I had walked up earlier. A flotilla of small boats came from around the corner. The streets were now waterways.

“Hurry, Hurry,” we were told as we climbed into the boats. We were taken to somewhere about half a kilometre from the hotel and were told the boats were going back for more people. I turned to look at the hotel just in time to see it overturn and collapse into the water as a huge wave at least ten metres taller washed over it. No one ever saw Namishi Goroda or Michael again. A nightmare? Yes, but at least it was one the kami wanted me to survive. I am not sure what I had expected in Elana. I certainly hadn’t expected jade trees bearing golden fruit, but neither had I expected a hurricane induced flood and to spend four days in a relief centre, which I believe was originally a school gymnasium.

There was no signal for my, or anyone else’s phone, and it was the following evening before I managed to speak to my mother on one of the temporary telephones the relief agencies had set up. My mother had seen the hotel collapse on the news, and I think she was happier than I at my call. She told me my father had gone to the shrine when he saw the news. He hadn’t of course told her why, but when I told her my obi was lost she replied, “Your father did not go to pray for the return of an obi, but for his grandchildren. It was rare that my mother revealed anything concerning my father. That she had done so indicated considerable disruption of her harmony.”

When I arrived home my parents were outside waiting for me, and both bowed deeply to me as was proper to one whom the kami have brought back from the dead. I had never seen my father bow so deeply or for so long to anyone. It was very embarrassing because it meant contrary to all custom I had to enter the house before my father. Things eventually returned to normal at work, but my relationship with my father was still a little strained.

The company gave me a huge bonus for my public demeanour during my experience, and my new director, Watanabe Noboru, presented me with the cheque in front of hundreds of colleagues, which included a very large amount for the loss of my personal luggage too, many times more than what I had lost, but it would have been impolite to point that out in the face of the company trying to do what it considered was appropriate. He said, “No one could have represented the company with more dignity at such a terrible time in a foreign land. All Doitum saw you on the news. To have had such calm with so little, just a kimono, no shoes and no obi to give you presence. I can only hope that if such a misfortune ever overcomes me I can summon as much inner peace as that must have required of you, Yoshi San.” He bowed deeply to me and then all my colleagues did too. I wanted to cry, but that was not possible, so I bowed, not quite so deeply, and, as was expected of me, I left first.

When I told my father, he bowed deeply to me and said, “The company has behaved properly, as one would expect, but Noboru Sama did it publicly which requires great presence. He has honoured you, and in doing so he has honoured our house. The house is proud of the honour you bring to it, Daughter, but it will be prouder still when you go with your mother to replace that which was lost.” I knew he meant when I no longer had to wear my Atlantean clothes. He bowed again, and I bowed to him just a little deeper than to an equal, and everything was back to normal with my father.

My mother and I went shopping to replace my clothes and other things, and she chose my obi saying, “It is from the same maker as the one your father instructed me to buy.” I had great difficulty keeping my wa as it cost not a quarter of my father’s yearly income but more than a full year’s income. In turn my mother had difficulty keeping hers when I insisted on buying her a silk kimono. She has never said, but she has never had a new one, the two she has are cotton and inherited. I made sure she chose the one she truly wanted.

Her choice surprised me as although it was elegantly printed with a traditional design depicting the lotus in all its phases of growth the motifs were modern not classical. I don’t understand how she does it, but it was perfect, and could have been created with her in mind. I requested she leave till I had paid. She did so because she knew that I would not be comfortable if she felt obligated to me as a result of knowing what it cost. Her kimono was carefully folded in the intricate and exacting traditional manner by a young assistant, I have never seen anyone do it so skilfully nor so quickly, and then it was wrapped in the three layers of tissue and put back into its box.

I said to my mother with great formality, “Now, Okaasan, we only need to choose one for Otoosan and then we could visit a tea house if you would like?”

At the best men’s kimono creator my mother’s glance barely slowed at a very expensive one I knew would match my father’s dignity, the darker shades of red with the threads of gold metal would be much admired by his friends, and I knew he would enjoy being able to tell them, very casually of course, ‘Yoshi gave it to me,’ which would properly be attributed to his excellence as a father. I nodded to her and said, “You have such good taste, Okaasan. I think Otoosan will like it.” Without me asking my mother walked away before I paid for it. The kimono creator’s elderly assistant told me I was a dutiful daughter and my parents must be proud of me. I smiled and said, “I hope so. It is important that all should maintain family wa.”

It was a warm autumn day, the clear blue sky had just a few out of season cherry blossom clouds drifting across the sky like benevolent kami ensuring that all went well for us. The okami-san at the tea house recognised my mother and to our surprise she explained that her wonderful garden was one created and looked after by my father. The tea house was so tranquil, it was a delight to the spirit. The almost noiseless sound of the water as it found its way through the stones having to gently fall over some added to its peace rather than intruded on the awareness. The huge, silent, silver koi indistinguishable from their reflections drew the eyes away from the moving water as they ghosted past in the crystal clear, deep water to disappear under the lotus blossoms. I could have contemplated the calmness of it for ever. My mother rarely had been able to afford such an experience, and to be treated as an honoured guest, and then attended by the okami-san herself was a little too much for her harmony. With moist eyes she put her hand on mine. We didn’t speak, there was no need.

My father was gruff when I presented him with the kimono, but that I knew was the only way he could maintain his harmony. A little while later he appeared wearing it and announced, “I am going to the shrine. I may be some time.” He never even glanced at me, and that was as it should be, but he said to my mother, “I should like something special to eat this evening, let Yoshi chan choose.” He hadn’t called me Yoshi chan since I was a little girl. My father has great presence and he always says the right things at the right times. I suppose to be able to create the spiritual peace of a zen garden requires someone like that, but to honour me so with the choice of a special meal and to call me his little girl at the same time made me very proud to be his daughter.