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Food, family, fun connect local people with Kumamoto
The sister-state relationship that binds Kumamoto and Montana turned into more personal bonds for two Kalispell natives who spent most of the 1990s living in Japan.
By William L. Spence
The Daily Inter Lake
Tim Kluesner and Kim Morisaki, formerly Hansen, went to Kumamoto on separate trips in 1991.
Neither expected to be there for more than a year. Their journeys were just great adventures, opportunities for two recent college graduates to experience a different culture for a short time before coming home.
They turned into different kinds of adventures, though, as each married Kumamoto natives, found jobs and lived there for years.
The Kluesners and Morisakis are two of the several dozen Flathead Valley families who have some kind of direct connection with Montana’s sister state, either through living or working there, or, more commonly, by hosting visitors from Kumamoto.
There also are another dozen or so Montanans currently working in the area. Most are affiliated with the Japan Exchange and Teaching program, which hires recent college graduates to teach English or work in local governments.
Kathy Laubach, for example — whose sister and brother-in-law, Kari and Nate Hammond, live in Bigfork — graduated from Montana State University last year. She is now in Japan with the exchange and teaching program, working as an international relations coordinator for Kumamoto City.
Laubach is from Reedpoint, a small ranching town west of Billings that has a population of about 185 — less than some apartment blocks in Kumamoto.
When she and several other Montanans gathered for dinner in November, the meal included Jello-like cubes of grilled or boiled tofu, pickled vegetables, a very tasty salad — and basashi, the raw, sliced horse meat that’s considered good eating in Kumamoto, if nowhere else in the world.
"When I was growing up, I didn’t know people ate anything but steak and potatoes for dinner," said Laubach, expertly snagging a chunk of tofu with her chopsticks.
Michele Kaney of Anaconda was also at the dinner. She said she realized how long she had been in Kumamoto when, during her last trip home, she watched her father butcher a deer and caught herself thinking about eating it raw.
Kluesner, a product administrator for Merlin Information Services http://www.merlindata.com/ in Kalispell, said food is one of the things he misses most about Kumamoto.
He returned to Kalispell in 2000, after spending nine years in the area. He initially went there on a graduate school scholarship, then taught English in the town of Mifune for three years. He ran Montana’s trade office in Kumamoto City from 1995 to 2000.
"I didn’t know a word of Japanese when I went over," said Kluesner, who now speaks the language fluently. "I had a Japanese roommate and worked as a bartender with a bunch of guys who didn’t speak any English. I learned through the ‘immersion’ method — and by drinking with friends. People learn a lot of the language that way."
Americans typically think Japanese people only eat raw fish, he said, but one visit to a farmers market or grocery store should dispel that misconception. The variety of fruits, vegetables, fish, meats and other items is astounding. Restaurants also feature a wide range of specialties.
"There were wonderful restaurants everywhere," recalled Morisaki, who like Kluesner said she misses the food.
Morisaki, who now works at Artisans Doors, http://www.artisansdoors.com/ initially went to Kumamoto in 1991 as a Japan Exchange and Teaching program teacher. She only intended to stay one year, but signed up for a second year because the culture was so fascinating and there was still so much to learn.
She signed up for a third year after meeting Yuji Morisaki, the Kumamoto teacher she eventually married. She stayed in Kumamoto for 11 years, running her own import business for much of that time, before returning to Kalispell last year.
"Eating and going out to restaurants is a huge part of the social life there," Morisaki said. "It isn’t unusual for friends to go out to three or four restaurants in one night. You order several dishes. Each dish has enough food for one or two bites per person. You share the food, you pour each other’s drinks, you share your feelings. It’s all part of the camaraderie. Those were some of the best times I had there."
Kluesner said you could tell which foreigners would make it in Kumamoto by how they responded to Japanese food: If they refused to try different things, they’d typically go home as quickly as possible; if they were willing to experiment, they’d end up enjoying themselves.
Some Japanese people find American cuisine unsavory, too: One Kumamoto restaurateur and University of Montana graduate said the thought of steak and eggs or cold pizza for breakfast made him ill.
Tom Gilfillan, the owner of Whitefish Pottery, http://www.whitefishpottery.com/index.htm said he enjoyed about 95 percent of the things he ate in Kumamoto.
Gilfillan spent five weeks in Kumamoto earlier this year, working in Fuminori Deguchi’s studio, staying in his home and getting to know his family.
"I made pots, chopped wood and helped fire his kiln," Gilfillan said. "We’d get to his studio at about 9 a.m. and we weren’t getting home until 8 or 8:30. I apologized to his wife one night for bringing Fuminori home so late, but she said he normally didn’t get home until 11 or 12."
Deguchi, whose studio sits high on a mountainside north of Kumamoto, opened his home to Gilfillan after seeing a newspaper story that mentioned his desire to visit and work over there. He hopes to make a reciprocal visit to Whitefish next spring, when Gilfillan will fire his wood-burning kiln.
He’ll hardly be the first "Kumamotonian" to visit the Flathead, though.
For the last 15 years, Carol Daly with the Flathead Economic Policy Center has coordinated home stays here for dozens of Kumamoto school children, business leaders, government officials and cultural groups.
"People here have been great," Daly said. "Over the years, there are probably at least 60 different local families who have provided home stays."
Many of the students come from Takamori, a town of 7,200 located in eastern Kumamoto, inside the ancient Aso volcano caldera.
Takamori has an informal sister-city relationship with Kalispell. When officials there started exploring the relationship, Daly said, the first thing they did was send two high-level municipal employees over here to live for a year.
"It was a major commitment on their part, paying all those costs," she said. "I asked them why they were willing to do that. They said they weren’t sure. They didn’t know if there would be an immediate benefit — but they were sure there would be a benefit. They saw Japan’s relationship with the United States as a long-term thing, and thought it was important for them to try to understand us."
Morisaki said that the longer she lived there, the more she realized how much more there was to understand.
"For the most part, they dress in Western clothes, drive similar cars, live in similar homes," she said. "But the underlying logic, the way they look at things, is different. It isn’t better or worse, just different. Living in Kumamoto, I found myself wondering how we can be so different, yet so similar."
Reporter Bill Spence may be reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail at [email protected]
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