There was a great irony in this. When Murakami first became a big name in Japan, thanks to the runaway success of Norwegian Wood in 1987, critics were quick to point out how un-Japanese he was. Born in 1949, during the postwar Allied Occupation of Japan, Murakami read European and American novels in English while at high school, studied drama at university and ran a jazz bar with his wife in Tokyo before going full-time as a writer. He had little time for Japanese literature, after hearing his parents — both of whom were teachers — go on about it ad nauseam while he was growing up.
Realising that all this had left him unable to write fiction in his native language, Murakami composed his early lines in English and then translated them back into Japanese. His relatively modest English vocabulary compelled him to write in short, simple sentences. A style was born, with which millions of readers around the world would one day become intimately familiar.
3:00 a.m., parked in a public lot across the street from the town beach in Westerly, Rhode Island. Just woke up, sleep evasive. It’s my first week out here. I pour an iced coffee from my cooler. I’m walking around the front of the Toyota I’m now living in when a car pulls into the lot, comes toward me. I see only headlights illuminating my fatigue and the red plastic party cup in my hand. Must be a cop. Someone gets out and approaches. It is a cop, young. I’m not afraid, exactly, but I’m also not yet used to being homeless.
Kamayan (from kamay, “hand,” in Filipino) refers to the pre-colonial tradition of eating without cutlery. Sixteenth-century Italian scholar and explorer Antonio Pigafetta, who documented Philippine history during the Magellan expedition, noted that natives used wooden spoons for serving and cooking—but not for eating.
Nowadays, kamayan is synonymous with a communal feast of rice, grilled or roasted meats, seafood, and fruit, all laid atop a banana leaf-lined table, floor, or ground. The bounty is often enjoyed on beach outings or at home on special occasions such as birthdays. Today, Filipino American chefs are bringing the tradition into their restaurants.