The Samurai's Garden By Gail Tsukiyama

Family structure builds a foundation for one’s life. Without a healthy, supportive relationship, an individual can fall apart and lose all passion in life. In Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden expresses the importance of family and how new bonds can be obtained. Stephen, a Chinese Native, is a young man who is diagnosed with tuberculosis in autumn of 1937. After his health worsens, his family decides to send him overseas to his father in Kobe, Japan. He resides in his family’s vacation house in Tarumi, due to harsh weather conditions in Kobe. While resting in Tarumi, he meets kind individuals like Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo. Stephen finds love and gains wisdom from Sachi and Matsu that his broken family could not provide.

Stephen’s family falls apart from distance and his

father’s affair with another woman. Stephen’s parents, split by the sea, find other ways to find happiness without a complete family: “I have always known that there might be someone else … A man can’t be so far from his family without seeking comfort elsewhere” (Tsukiyama 50). Stephen’s father attempts to replace his lonely lifestyle with another woman. He hopes to find comfort and love that has gone missing since his job in Kobe, Japan, keeps him away from his family in China. His mother craves the truth, and believes Stephen is old enough to understand and figure out who the mystery woman was: “My father had returned to his other life in Kobe, and I knew I’d failed both of my parents. I wasn’t able to accept my father’s mistress, yet I couldn’t make her disappear from our lives as my mother wanted” (86). His broken family causes confusion, loneliness, and rage all at the same time. He understands his family will never be the same; the family he once loved and cared deeply for has fallen into pieces. Stephen’s family was his core, and without that, he struggled with isolation until meeting a new ‘family’.

Matsu provides strength, advice, and support for Stephen while he battles isolation and family issues.

As Stephen grows apart from his father after he finds out about his mistress, he begins to view Matsu, the caretaker of his grandfather’s house in Tarumi, as a father figure. Matsu is filled with wisdom and knowledge, is often silent with his words: “With Matsu, everything is in what he does not say” (59). Sachi, a friend of Matsu for over 40 years, notices his quiet personality and informs Stephen. As Stephen talks to Matsu more, he sees Matsu as more of a father figure than a friend because of his knowledge and openness. He sees Matsu as the father he had once had. Much like a father, Matsu gives advice with kind words to Stephen: “Whether you see Keiko-san or not anymore won’t take away from your having known her. If she is important, she will stay with you” (193). Like any father should, Matsu converses with Stephen through the rough times, and pushes him to do well. Stephen is attracted to a young Japanese girl from Tarumi, Matsu notices and takes action to guide him through confusion. Matsu helps Stephen with his words and actions, and sees Stephen as a son instead of a

family-friend.

Sachi shows motherly instincts as she nurtures Stephen back to health, while giving him a new observation of beauty and its true value. Sachi, a wise woman who was diagnosed with leprosy in her early years, has grown up with Matsu and sees Stephen as the son they never had. "I breathed in the pleasure of having her so close by, knowing it was the first time she had left Yamaguchi in forty years" (54). Sachi lives in a nearby village named Yamiguchi that is filled with others who were diagnosed with her disease. An old Tarumi native, she never visited the town since she left. After she knows that Tarumi was hit by a storm, she comes down the mountain to visit both Stephen and Matsu. She cares for Stephen, much like a mother for a child, and brings him back to health. As their bond strengthens, Sachi soon reveals an experience to Stephen that has been a secret. Matsu and Sachi attempt to have a child, but lost it in childbirth: "You have given us the one thing we've lacked. [...] You have been the musuko we lost so many years ago" (205). Sachi sees Stephen as a son, and provides him with the nurturing love that any mother provides. Stephen, still connected to his own mother in Canton, China, grows to love and appreciate both Sachi’s beauty and love. Sachi and Stephen share a love for beauty, and Sachi shows Sachi the true value of beauty and who it beholds.

Stephen appreciates the bonds built through love that was given to him by Sachi and Matsu. A family was created, through isolation and struggles, for Stephen and saw a couple as parents. The time spent with both Matsu and Sachi allowed Stephen to grow, despite his own family issues, into a more wise and appreciative young man.