As One Network

Community Saijiki literary calendar

Brother - From the Family Landscape

坂井和貴(Kazuki Sakai)

Early in the morning, I walk toward the Mum's Lunchbox company (the following : the obento company).
It is every Friday.
When I first started going there, I couldn't walk without sunglasses because of the glaring sunlight.

I would always pass an elderly jogger in the same neighborhood. His clothings has changed from short-sleeved half pants to long-sleeved long pants, and this morning, white breath was coming out of his mouth.
What has not changed is the quietness of the city, many houses are still asleep, and the main road leading to the Suzuka Circuit is like an open zone, where I can cross anywhere without worrying about traffic lights.



When I arrived at the obento company about 10 minutes later, I found the kitchen staff working in cramped spaces, and "today's feast" was already lined up on the table in the serving room.
"Good morning," Lucio calls out, "First, put some sauce on the hamburg steaks and get them ready."
The members of today's group gather in groups, one by one. Soon after, Lucio says to us.
"Well, it's time to start serving the lunch boxes..." Lucio's voice urges everyone to gather in front of the serving line.

Kazuki Brother
I've been arranging the obento company's working shift every day.
How about you, Kazusan, once a week?
The hours are from 6:30 to 9:00.
I want you to come in.

It was around the beginning of September when I received this e-mail from Lucio.
I asked him, "What day of the week would you like to work with me?"

Lucio playfully replied, "You can come every day, hehehe."

We ended up exchanging our opinions, and we decided to go on Fridays. I have been going every week since then.



Lucio is his middle name, officially Shogo Lucio Minowa , a second-generation Japanese-Brazilian born and raised in Brazil.
His father, Hosuke, came to Brazil from Saku, Nagano Prefecture, and his mother, Mieko, came to Brazil from Tokyo in the 1930s, and they met in the Japanese community in São Paulo State.
Hosuke's pure and single-minded love for Mieko eventually bore fruit, and the couple eventually tied the knot. Lucio is their fifth son.
I have known Lucio for more than 30 years, but we only met occasionally when he came from Brazil.
I think we were just good friends. The reason why he became my "brother" has a lot to do with the past year.

Last fall, Lucio was still staying in Japan and was also doing supportive things in the community, such as taking the children to and from the house. He was also helping me on my house change and moving.
Then, he decided to settle down here in Japan for a while, in the Suzuka community, and his workplace became a obento company. Lucio has come to accept Academy students and practice program students, not to mention the daily arrangements, and we hear more and more from him about what kind of obento he wants to make and deliver, and what kind of workplace he wants to make the obento company into.

Outside of the workplace, Lucio has also taken on positions that require him to show off his talents, and he has participated in various meetings and opportunities accordingly.
I also began accompanying Lucio, who is not very fluent in Japanese, to banks and public institutions to help him with paperwork and various procedures.

Just around the same time that Lucio started going to the obento company, Lucio's wife, Nanako, started working at the same HUB-department as I did, and we began to work together on the information desk every day.
In addition to that, I became a member of the "Thursday-1 Family", one of the five "families" in the community, which I have mentioned several times in this Saijiki literary calender. We have weekly meetings, are in charge of the dining room, and have more opportunities to get to know each other.




Nanako told us at the family meeting about the time she attended the ScienZ School's camp course for the first time in a long time, as she was feeling much better this year....

She told us that an incident a few years ago had made her think to me, "I never want to work with this person," and that somehow we ended up in the same place of work.
"But after that, you gave me love and affection every day, and we got to know each other, and now you are like a "big brother" to me, but I don't know if that is because you have changed from before or if my feelings have changed. I just felt that if I couldn't really look at the situation I was in when I first got stuck, I would keep doing the same thing over and over again. So..."

Nanako wanted to share with the "family" members what she had noticed and discovered by observing and exploring her own way of seeing and perceiving with that real-life example, not what I was going through.
Looking back on what happened to me, I was so embarrassed that I wanted to crawl in if there was a hole in my heart, because I had a very highly-conscious and proud-sprited mindset that I could not be defeated.
However, even now, I sometimes have such a feeling in my head without being aware of it.
But at such times, Nana-chan, who is standing next to me, would say to me
"Brother~, don't look down on people from your high place on the clouds, come down to the ground!"
I am always saved by Nana-chan's immediate words of encouragement.
The night before I went out to celebrate my mother's 88th birthday, Nana-chan, who lost her mother at the age of 25 and her father at 27, told me, "Please enjoy going and taking care of your parents as much as I did."
This was one of the reasons why the time I spent with my parents changed so much.


Last week's daily bento menu was "fried young chicken with umami salt".
As usual, Lucio and Koji were carefully preparing a sample of what they wanted to serve today. The side dish should be placed here, the amount of pickles should be about this much, lettuce should be placed here, and three fried chicken pieces should be neatly arranged in a "mountain" on top of the lettuce, etc. I was in charge of arranging the fried chicken and I tried to follow the lines that they had drawn.



We were going to make hundreds of pieces in total, but after the first dozen or so, I thought it would be more beautiful to move the side dish up a little and arrange the three fried pieces in a "river" rather than a "mountain," so that the feathery batter of the fried pieces could be used to its fullest. I asked Lucio to take a look. Lucio looked at it.
Lucio said, "I think the sample is better!"
I thought, "Well, that's good!" I switched back and started working on it again.
But as I was doing it, my hands started to arrange the fried chicken again like a river, and I asked Lucio again, "How about this way?
How about this one?"

What was interesting was that neither Lucio nor I were particularly assertive, and neither of us had the slightest intention of getting our own opinions across. We just said what we thought and listened to each other. I don't think we ever decided that we would do this together. Lucio was the one who checked the fried food I had prepared and closed the lid. When I handed over my role to Sayri, who came after me, Lucio said, " Let's do it this way just like Kazuki-san does That's the most beautiful way..."
I thought, "Wow!" Anyway, the atmosphere was so open that it was as if we were playing together.

At dinner time, as usual, we sat around the round table and said to each other
"Hey, Otou-chan, did he fall asleep again?"
Nana looked up at the wall clock. Lucio, who is an early riser, often falls asleep at this time.
"I'll call him,"
Diego answered.
A few moments later, Lucio appears with a shy smile on his face. As soon as he sits down in his chair, he puts dinner aside and starts talking about obento company with Diego, Hiroya, Takuya, and the rest of the group. Just as they were about to start eating, the Academy students who had come to the dining room came by one after another and exchanged a few words to Lucio. After he finished eating, he settled into round chairs overlooking the dining room, staring at his smartphone as he planned a working shift at the obento company for the next day.
"Otou-chan, even when he is in the dining room, he is always talking about the obento ...,"
Nana-chan laments, but she looks somewhat happy.



"Okay, tomorrow's shift is ready!
By the time Lucio leaves the table with a satisfied look on his face, the dining room, which used to be so crowded, is now sparsely populated. We all head home.

It has been exactly one year since I started writing this Saijiki.
The first entry was titled 【Family Scenery...and More Than Family】
I feel that Lucio and Nana-chan are my brothers and sisters, and that we are becoming a real family. We are no longer strangers to each other, we just live and breathe together.
When I look back over the past year, I feel that we could not have become like this through our own personal efforts and thoughts.
Although the Suzuka community is a small society, we have become a family as we have been swayed by the economic, living, and nurturing aspects of the community, as well as by various other social mechanisms and systems.

If we had not lived in this society, Nana would have said, "I don't want anything to do with this person," and we might never have become"brother and sister. Lucio and I would not have been able to go beyond the realm of close friends.
I picked up Lucio and Nana-chan by chance, but that is nothing special. It is a normal thing here. Everyday everywhere, families are being born and the substance of families is growing.
Perhaps this is a society where anyone can become a real family.
We live in such a society.
Good family - good company - good society
I see this as being demonstrated through us today.
A gift for tomorrow, for the next generation.



“Kazuki, it's time!"
Lucio calls out to me, and I stop.
As I exit the kitchen door of the obento company, I hear the loud voices of children echoing from the Brazilian school across the street. I look at them and am easily charmed by their abundant Body Language.
Then I think of Lucio's boyhood, which he often talks about, and of the land of Brazil, which is enormous in scale.
The main road on the left is full of cars flowing at a brisk pace.
In the parking lot of Mother's obento company facing the road, the day's lunche boxs are beginning to be loaded onto the rows of pink boxcars.

Now, to the mouth and heart of each and every one of them.
Our obentos will be delivered to.