Looking Through the Hole in the Floor

Street view of the Panama Hotel cafe sign.

Today I made a pilgrimage on foot through downtown Seattle to the International District in search of The Panama Hotel to see the hole in the floor. Many wrong turns later and after asking directions of and chatting with the engaging proprietor of the boutique Momo, I arrived at the Panama's front door, amused at how long it had taken to find it and uneasy about seeing the hole in the floor.

Perched on the hill at Main and 6th Street, the Panama was built in 1910 by a well known architect of the region, Sabro Ozasa. A gathering place for a once thriving Japanese American community, it survived the internment of the Japanese community (7,628 from Washington State; 120,000 from the West Coast) in "relocation camps" surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers across the United States during World War II. In 1942, President FDR signed Executive Order 9066, ordering all persons of Japanese ancestry to dispose of their belongings and property in several days and to pack one suitcase and report to Union Station for mass evacuation.

Takashi Hori and Jan Johnson.

In 1985, aging owners Takashi and Lily Hori sold the Panama Hotel, not to the highest bidder, but to the person with the most empathy for its history, Jan Johnson. The Horis had tried for many years to find the owners of the belongings in the basement, but without success. They offered to dispose of them for the new owner. "No," she replied, "Leave it." And she cut a hole in the cafe floor, covered it with a sturdy glass panel that allows one to peer down into the basement.

I ordered a matcha latte, the strong powdered Japanese green tea of the tea ceremony, and sat at a table next to the hole in the floor.  And there, deep down in the basement sixty-nine years later, are the unclaimed, hastily packed belongings of so many Japanese families, bearing witness to the once thriving life of a unique community and to the gross governmental misconduct against them.

The hole in the floor.

I seek solace in the bracing warmth of the matcha latte, in its verdant life-giving color because, I tell you, it was disquieting to sit next to the hole in the floor and peer down at a tiny section of belongings: the abandoned coat with the fur collar, books, men's socks and what have you. And peering down, I hear the searing wail of shikataganai ("it can't be helped") and gaman ("endure the unbearable with dignity") arising through the walls of silence, shame, and injustice. These deeply ingrained values of Japanese culture, shikataganai and gaman, shaped the response of the Japanese community not only during the war, but also wrapped its voice and self-image in barbed wire for so many years following.

View through the hole.

This silence finds a voice through the hole in the floor, just as Jan Johnson intended.

I look forward to touring the basement on my next visit.

"I Survived the Killing Fields."

With Sam, who is wearing a tee shirt with photos of his family.
He says his tee shirt was printed in Cambodia.

Last weekend I met Sam, Seng Kok Ung, in person having read about him in the Northwest Asian Weekly while sipping a chai tea latte at Tully's coffee house. We exchanged smiles and hellos, he with sparkling eyes and a beautiful smile. "I want to read your book, " I greeted Sam, the book being "I Survived the Killing Fields: The True Life Story of a Cambodian Refugee."

Nothing, not the steady dose of news stories or imaginings, can ever prepare one for violence, or the heinous depths to which a human being can descend, or the mind-blowing resourcefulness and strength of human beings to survive the madness of The Killing Fields. And meeting Sam, having dinner at his delightful Phnom Penh Noodle House, and seeing his exquisite decorative edible fruit art, it is difficult to grasp the suffering, starvation, torture, and terror that he and his family and so many others experienced for four long years at the depraved hands of the Khmer Rouge and the Thai army and the hellish aftermath of the Khmer Rouge collapse.

Sam's edible fruit art: birds frolicking in flowers.

"Please let me know what you think of my book," Sam said. "I thought writing it would free me, but actually it has really stirred up all the memories. It's hard." Until the book came out, his three adult children were unaware of what he had lived through: the unrelenting diligence it took to stay alive; the unrelenting diligence it has taken to start life anew in Seattle and become part of the American success story. It is one thing to bear witness to the skulls stacked from floor to ceiling in Cambodian temples; quite another to meet a smiling and humble man who endured that hell; and still another to bear witness by reading his life story, the telling of which emerged through a long-lasting friendship.

Serene apple swans by Sam, a Garde Manger Chef.

About three years ago, Sam and his neighbor Tom McElroy began a journey to give voice to Sam's story. Sam had always wanted to tell this life story so that present and future generations would know what happened to him and fellow Cambodians, the events of which were largely overshadowed by the Vietnam War. Sam worked incredibly hard, long 20-hour days, to provide for his family. He worked not only to survive, but also because work kept the memories at bay. But the dreams of that mad time kept surfacing, and he asked Tom to help him write his life story with the wish that his history would change Tom's life. For years, they met every Wednesday, Sam's only day off from the noodle house; Sam crying and giving voice to a Cambodian community still terrorized by The Killing Fields; Tom giving space for this unfolding and being altered with each telling.

Sam's offering.

Bearing witness is being open, and all solid sense of who "I" am is emptied and altered. I like to say, "Go to the altar and be altered." Sam's voice is a living altar on which appears over 3.5 million lives lost, the mad world in which this happened, and the need to express what so many others, living and dead, cannot do. In an interview by Northwest Asian Weekly, Sam says, "A lot of people believe that since these events are in the past, it doesn't need to be brought up again. It has passed, but it stays inside." When our tortured dreams are allowed to come forth and be given new life by taking a new form that informs others, what alters? When we can receive these life stories of so-called others, what alters? When we can cry together, what alters?

When Sam's first daughter was born, his heart opened with love at the first sight of her. He knew then that he had to let go of the defenses that he had built around his heart to survive The Killing Fields. When I read this, I reflected that "to let go of the defenses around one's heart and mind" is the best definition I have heard of Not-Knowing. It strengthened my resolve to live life in this way.

This coming weekend, Sam will be signing his book at The Wing Luke Museum. He has already signed my copy, but I am looking forward to seeing him again.