By Bill Fonda
It does not take much to make Chihiro Suzuki’s face light up, as I quickly learned the other day at Furnace Brook Middle School when I met her and her American host, Furnace Brook Principal Al Makein.
Makein was on the phone when I got there, so we were just chatting in the office when she noted that Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka was a major star in their homeland of Japan. When I mentioned how I’ve heard that his wife Tomoyo was also a celebrity in Japan — in case you’ve forgotten from the endless Dice-K hype a few years back or are angry as his performance this year, she’s a TV personality — she broke into a huge smile to tell me that I was correct.
Suzuki was so impressed that later on, she asked if I had ever been to Japan (I haven’t), maybe because she couldn’t have imagined someone knowing that factoid without having been there. Obviously, one thing Makein hasn’t taught her about America is that if you live near Boston, you’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about each of the Red Sox players, and probably a fair amount you don’t.
Over the course of the 20- to 30-minute interview with Suzuki and Makein, what stood out in my mind was not that Suzuki is a delightful young woman (although she is) or that she and the Makein family are quite fond of one another (although they are). No, what jumped out at me was Suzuki’s sense of wonder and amazement about everything.
I’ve never been to Makein’s house in Wareham, and I’m sure it’s quite nice, but to Suzuki, it was like a hotel. Going to the grocery store probably doesn’t elicit much of a reaction from us these days, but to someone used to small stores with expensive items like Suzuki, it was amazing.
And given how excited she was about less-expensive American cosmetics, I’m guessing that shopping with Suzuki was quite the experience.
It took the chat with Makein and Suzuki to realize just how much we lose our sense of wonder as adults. Think about it. When are people most amazed? When they’re small children or spending time in a strange place, because everything is new and different and wonderful. Plop me down in Tokyo or Suzuki’s hometown of Senmaya, and I’ll probably be walking around half the time with that slack-jawed, mouth-wide-open look that screams “tourist!”
So how do we get the ability to be amazed back in our everyday lives? To be honest, I’m not really sure, although I bet getting it back would make life a lot more fun.
Bill Fonda 