A Lesson in Dignity

In his post on "Keeping warm by hibachi," Abraham Lincoln describes the way some Japanese people recycled cigarettes shortly after the war's end. It reminded me of an occurrence while we were living in Okinawa.

My mother and I were shopping for fabric (see I come by it honestly!) in one of the small shops "in town." When we were there, "town" consisted of some tin-roofed shanties set up just outside the gates of Kadena AFB. They seemed to specialize in various things and I loved to wander through them. As my mother bargained with the shop keeper, I watched. Another customer entered the store while extracting a cigarette from her purse. The cigarette fell to the ground. She carefully picked it up, placed it on a stack of nearby stones, and announced to no one in general, "I am sure the shop owner will throw this away for me."

The shop keeper was silent, but the look in his eyes still haunts me. I believe he was hurt and offended by the woman's condescension. His cultural training would never have allowed him to say anything to her......a foreign woman....victorious from a war only 10 years ago.....publicly offering him a dirty cigarette.....but I wonder what he would like to have said. I wonder what he would say if he knew how much the episode has affected me over all these years. I wonder and I wonder.....