assignment#11a

In the village of Mukaira, he tried to be as inconspicuous-as Japanese-as he could. He sometimes wore Japanese clothes. Not wanting to seem high-living, he never bought meat in the local market, but sometimes he smuggled some out from the city. A Japanese priest who occasionally came to see him, father Hasegawa, admired his efforts to carry his naturalization through to perfection but found him in many ways unshakably German. He had a tendency when he was rebuffed in an undertaking to stubbornly push all the harder straight for it, whereas a Japanese would more tactfully look for some way around. Father Hasegawa noticed that when Father Takakura was hospitalized, he rigidly respected the hospital’s visiting hours, and if people came, even from far away, to see him, outside proper hours, he refused to receive them. Once, eating with his friend, Father Hasegawa declined his host’s offer of a bowl of rice; he was full. But then delicious pickles appeared, which caused a Japanese palate to cry out for rice, and he decide to have a bowl after all. Father Takakura was outraged (i.e. , in his guest’s view, German ): how could he eat rice plus pickle when he had been too full to eat rice alone?p.114