Communicating through a third party was the hardest part of doing business in Japan.

      When I was going back and forth between our home in Springfield, Oregon and Nagasaki Japan between 1979 and 1982 fulfilling custom orders of stained glass for customers in Nagasaki, I only had one order that was not through a third party. And in that case the customer rejected the order when I delivered it. Here is an example of the communication problem.
Jesuit priest Father Aguilar had negotiated a commission with a Catholic Church to replace the imitation station glass with the real thing. The designs were by a famous artist in Nagasaki. What I understood the priest to want was as exact a reproduction of the original designs as possible. We met the ailing artist when the priest ordered the windows. The artist was in the hospital at that time, I understood enough Japanese at that time follow the priest's promise that the replacement windows would follow the original design as faithfully as possible. All I had to go on were photos of the failing imitation windows.
      About six months later I delivered the windows. Father Aguilar was anxious to see them and immediately insisted that I show him what they looked like.
     
      He was anxious to see the windows for Motohara Catholic Church. I was anxious to see if they had traveled safely.
      I lifted the first window out of the box far enough to see it. It was not broken. Father Aguilar blanched. “May we take it all the way out of the box please?” he asked quietly. His entire demeanor suddenly changed.
      I stood the window along the wall in the table tennis room next to the basement garage. I removed window after window, all sixteen of them. The designs were very simple, as if taken directly from a Bible coloring book. I had photographed them in place at the church and had projected them to the correct size so they were as close to the original drawings as physically possible to make them. Facial features were simple. Lines for the nose, mouth and eyes were simple. The faces and hands were done in flesh tones. Robes and backgrounds were earthy reds, bright blues and yellows.
      “I told him that you could make the faces very realistic with many small pieces,” he said almost angrily. “This is not what I described to him.”
      “You neglected to translate exactly what you did promise him then. It was my understanding that he wanted them to be as exactly like the originals as possible.”
      “But the originals are not great art. They are just like a child’s book. It is a waste of the glass!” He said emphatically.
      “Are you saying that you think he will reject them? That he won’t like them?”
      “That is exactly what I am saying. This is not what I promised to him.”
      “But, I thought we had promised Mr. Nagato, the artist, that we would not change his drawings.”
      “But, the imitation glass company did not do a good job of translating his designs,” he said.
      “I never saw the original designs,” I countered.
      “But, I thought that you could improve on what you saw.”
      “When can we show them to him? Can we ask him to come here now?”
      I had a premonition that if Aguilar had a chance to talk with him and set the seed of doubt on the designs, and if he pulled his support from them, I was in real trouble. The sooner the priest saw them and with the fewer pre-conceived doubts, the better.
      “Unfortunately he is not here at this time. He is in retreat and will not be back at the church until Monday. You must wait until that time.”
      “So what are you going to recommend to him, if he asks for your recommendation?” I asked.
      “I must live in Nagasaki. I have a responsibility to my church and my colleagues. I also have an obligation to you as you are my friend. It will be very difficult, but I must recommend that he not install those windows in his church. They are not what I promised.”

      It was a long weekend. On Monday when the priest at Motohara returned we took the sixteen windows to the his church. Father Aguilar insisted I show him at least one window in the parking lot to save us the time of carrying them inside.
     
       If only he had told me all that he had told the priest so that I could have known what to do. This was the real danger in using the go-between because most of the conversations were never translated.
At Motohara Church, after a few minutes of Japanese banter and polite exchanges between the two priests, I got the signal to open one of the boxes. We were still outside in the parking lot. I held my breath and waited. I realized that Aguilar suggested we open the boxes there in the parking lot because he sincerely believed we’d just be loading the boxes back into the car and taking them away after the priest saw them.
      I unscrewed the lid, held my breath, lifted a window out of the box and stood it against the crate. The priest looked at the window and his face broke out into a big smile of relief.
      “Sugoi (great)!” He said. He bowed deeply, “Domo Arigato, gaijin san!” He turned to Aguilar, bowed very deeply and began chattering enthusiastically.
      “Please bring the boxes inside the church where we can take them all out so we can look at them,” he said in Japanese.
      After all sixteen windows stood in a row along the wall he walked down the line, looking at the stained glass and then back at the imitation with the plastic overlay peeling off.
      He beamed at the stained glass. “It is exactly what we wanted in the first place. We were afraid you might change them. As you may know Mr. Nagata died this summer. We had promised him his designs would not be changed,” he said in Japanese.
      “I am surprised,” Aguilar said. “I thought surely he was expecting something completely different.”
      The priest sat down in a pew and stared at the windows until time to put them back into the boxes. Even with no outside light coming through them as they stood against the wall, there was no comparison between the brilliance and color of the glass and the plastic, even though the sun was shining directly through the plastic at that time of day.

Sunteindo Garasu: Stained Glass by Kenneth Fenter Second Edition will be available on Amazon.com by Dec. 1, and at http://www.createspace.com/3869898 on Nov. 25, 2014. The Second edition is in Full Color.

The atmosphere Stained Glass created in the chapel of the Nagai Center, Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass by Kenneth Fenter

      The reason I learned the art and craft of stained glass was what light passing through colored glass does to the atmosphere of a room. It was in a small chapel at Kispiox, British Colombia, that I first experiences this on a drizzly afternoon.

6' x 6' window designed by Barboa.
Stained glass by Ken Fenter

      The following excerpt from my non-fiction book Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass is one of those moments after a grey, concrete walled room is turned into a warm tranquil space.    

      Aguilar’s prayers apparently carried some weight though, as finally about nine p.m. the last panel was in place and miraculously none of the panels or the people handling them had been dropped, broken or crippled. While the glassman applied the final putty on the lily window, the rest of us picked a pew and sat down to let the tension drain.
      Pancho turned off the lights and the windows glowed from the city lights outside. Aguilar turned and looked at the twelve Stations of the Cross that had been installed earlier. He crossed himself and silently prayed. Before the stained glass was installed the grey concrete walls and overhead florescent lights were harsh and cold. Now the large amount of opalescent glass caught the incidental light from the city and reflected amber light into the room, bathing it in a soft warm glow. No more would the chapel be grey and cold feeling. 

6' x 8' window designed by Barboa
Stained glass by Ken Fenter

      A solitary recessed spotlight shone on the crucifix and a replica of a fumie behind the altar. Relief sculpture on the concrete columns in the center of the chapel and along the walls showed clearly in the dim amber light. No one spoke. We sat, each with our own thoughts.
      After a while, we filed silently down the stairs to the kitchen off the sitting room. Pancho fixed real perked coffee in an old automatic coffeemaker someone had donated to the Center. The garasu ya san, who spoke no English, excused himself and returned to his home. We pulled chairs around the kitchen table, and the four women, Aguilar, Pancho and I relaxed. The windows were in place and in time for Easter and the rash of spring weddings that were scheduled. A gust of wind rattled the kitchen windows and it began to rain as the storm front hit.

5' x 10 window designed by Barboa
Stained glass by Ken Fenter

      “I have waited for this moment for many years,” Aguilar said happily as we sipped our coffee. “I think this calls for a toast. And, by happy coincidence I have here some fine wine presented to the Center by one of our visitors this past month. Unfortunately I cannot join you as this is still, my period of abstinence, but I can join the rest of you in a toast. He went to one of his cabinets and took out two bottles of French wine. Pancho produced six glasses.
      We clicked our glasses together in “Kampai!” The four women were missionary teachers who were teaching at private schools in the Osaka and Kyoto area. As with most of the missionary teachers I’d met at the Center, they were pleasant, soft spoken, open, and sincere.

Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass Second Edition

by Kenneth Fenter will be available soon with full color photos on Amazon.com

Available now: Gaijin! Gaijin! and MoIchido: Once More by Kenneth Fenter

Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass by Ken Fenter Review by Ronalee Ramsay Kincaid

          At long last the second edition of Suteindo Garasu: Stained Glass is nearing release. Over the last year I've scanned and run the original text through optical character recognition (OCR) cleaned the file, and re-scanned all the photos in color to produce a second edition copy. This edition will be printed in full color fitting the stained glass windows. Some of the color photos have lost their original brilliance, unfortunately, but most are still close to the original. Unfortunately the full color book is more expensive but that is the nature of color printing. I held the price down by printing the volume in a larger 8.5 x 11 format. Text is in two columns for readability. The e-book will also be in full color. This will make it viewable in color on the Kindle Fire and I believe it will be viewed in color if read on tablets such as the IPad. I haven't tested it that way yet. 
      I'm proud of this book although it did not have nearly the circulation that Gaijin and MoIchido had. When I released it in 1990, I was back in the classroom full time and had little time to market it. Even now, 29 years after the release of the first edition of Gaijin, it is the best selling of all my books. I encourage readers of it and MoIchido to read Stained Glass to see how the saga concluded for me.
Ken Fenter.

          Stained Glass the third of Ken Fenter’s books about Japan, continues the stories begun In the first two, (Gaijn! Gaijin! and Mo Ichido: Once More) but adds a new dimension. The Fenter family re-enters life in the United States, but life has changed. Although their readjustment seems smooth, Fenter himself has some unfinished business in Japan, both practical and emotional. During the next three years he attempts to set up a business, making stained glass windows and lamps, which would allow him to move back and forth between two cultures. The book is an examination of the differences in those cultures, particularly in their business dealings, an insight into the working of an artistic mind, and a frank, personal view of a man in transition.
          Fenter’s returning to Japan as a businessman instead of a teacher is a bit like Dorothy returning to Oz as an entrepreneur. Some of the magic and wonder is gone: reality is more apparent, but there is the possibility for really understanding the culture in more of its subtleties as he works his way through the system.
          Stained Glass adds a new dimension to the other books in its emphasis on the actual process of producing fine works of art. Beginning with the interviews with the customers to discover what they have in mind, mulling over design possibilities, settling on a final plan, making drawing, presenting them for approval, putting together glass and lead, and finally installing windows or lamps in less than ideal circumstances, Fenter lets us see the complexity of each step. It is a rare analysis of the creative mind at work presented humbly and introspectively. His book is worth reading for that alone.
We learn more about Japan and Japanese customs in this book, but we also learn more about our own culture. For awhile Fenter is “gaijin” foreigner in both cultures and he applies his observation skills to both cultures, trying to find his place in one or both of them. The search is often frustrating and leads the reader to think how each of us receives value in our culture and what we might be willing to risk in another.
          Like the other two books, this is an adventure, a search, an initiation. It moves from the light-hearted to the poignant, from elation to frustration, to despondency and back with a sure voice. Wide-eyed absorption is gone; realistic evaluation takes its place. Any reader’s understanding will be broadened as Fenter takes us through the maze of culture, artistic endeavor, and personal growth.
         Ronalee Ramsay Kincaid

Snowshoe the Lynx, May he rest in peace

      For a short time from 2006 to 2008, I had the pleasure of volunteering as a photographer at the High Desert Museum south of Bend, Oregon. In the beginning I had access to the animals and their trainers. Several of the animals were trained to meet the public other than just behind wire and glass.
One beautiful predator was still new to the museum but was being trained and I had access. He was in an enclosure where I could photograph him without shooting through wire.
      He posed like a seasoned model. Some of those photos are still on display at the museum.
After a few years Snowshoe was moved to the atrium behind glass for patrons to observe and there he lived out his life. In today's Bend Bulletin that life is chronicled. It was a hard bitter life that of a wild creature raised in captivity and released to die with inadequate tools to survive.
      The full story can be downloaded on the Nov. 13, Bend Bulletin website. They estimate Snowshoe lived to 20 years old.
      Here are two of my favorite photos of Shoeshoe. One in the enclosure in 2006, the other during winter with his full winter coat, in the atrium.
      Rest in peace.
      Kenneth Fenter

 

In Incessant Expectations, by Kenneth Fenter, Jim has two women interested in him, and he has no idea what to do about it.

      Jim continued deepening his friendship with Hattie and Mary. Each morning, he ate breakfast at the Sportsman, and each evening, he ate dinner at the Fisherman Hideaway. 
      As the summer wore on, Hattie at the Sportsman Café grew fonder of the young man from Colorado. She sensed the loneliness Jim felt at being so far from home for the first time, and she was pleased at what he was doing for Charlie. She loved the old man, and worried about him. When Charlie came in alone, she heard him telling her dad, and the other fishermen about Jim. He praised the boy’s progress and his natural fishing abilities. 
      Charlie was obviously very impressed. 
      As Hattie became more interested in Jim, she had mixed emotions about it. On the one hand, she wished he wasn’t becoming quite so involved in fishing. She was afraid that he would become obsessed with buying a boat, and give up on returning to college. She had seen it happen too many times. In their conversations, Jim never wavered from his goal of starting back to school in the fall, however.


      On the other hand, she wished he would show more interest in her than he did. She was afraid to express that to him, because she had vowed not to get involved with someone involved in the very career and interests she was trying so hard to break free of. 
      Nevertheless, she watched for things she could do to please him, such as packing an extra free apple or a Hershey bar in his lunch. She began putting notes in his lunch box each day, wishing him well, or wishing him luck in his fishing. 
      Unfortunately, through gossip in the close-knit community of Winchester Bay, she learned that Jim usually ate dinner at the Fisherman Hideaway flirting with the bartender Mary, a shapely, gorgeous, blond woman. Rumor had it, Jim was sweet on her, and from the amount of time that Mary spent visiting with him, the feelings were reciprocal. There was even a rumor that she had invited him up to her apartment, something that she had never done with any other patron to the tavern. Jim had never asked Hattie out, or even for her phone number. How could she compete with that? 

      On those few occasions when the weather forced the Madilin and its crew to return to the shelter of Salmon Harbor, Charlie and Jim would drop by the Fisherman Hideaway for dinner and a beer for Charlie and iced-tea for Jim. Jim also introduced Charlie to Mary’s cream-pies. There they could relax, have a good meal before Charlie retired to the boat, and Jim found a place to park the pickup camper for the night. On his own, he had started going to the Hideaway to eat dinner and visit with Mary, rather than buy groceries and cook for himself. It was more expensive, but since he slept in the pickup, the only other expense he had, was an occasional tank of gas, and feeding coin in the washer and dryer at Windy Cove Campground. 

      It was on one such late Friday afternoon at the end of July that Charlie and Jim dropped by the Hideaway before splitting up for the weekend.
      Mary, the bartender, looked forward to greeting them with a smile. Charlie’s had been a familiar face for the past three years she had worked there, and she had been fond him from the start. But, now, she looked forward to him coming in because of his partner, Jim. It was an awareness in her that she had never felt for any of the men close to her own age before. Jim likes my pie and my laugh. He doesn’t try to grab me, or undress me with his eyes. I can almost believe he likes me for myself, not my body. He comes in to eat, visits, makes me laugh, and does all that sober.
      She put Pabst Blue Ribbon in front of Charlie and iced-tea in front of Jim. By now she could place Jim’s dinner order without asking. He seemed to enjoy her surprising him. She hadn’t picked anything he didn’t like yet. She always picked something simple, inexpensive and nutritious. 
      She went to the kitchen and came back with a large bowl of clam chowder and fresh baked bread for Charlie. It would take longer for Jim’s dinner.
      She leaned against the bar to eagerly hear how their day had gone while Charlie ate. “You taking care of yourself Charlie? Is Jim working you too hard?” she asked. She smiled at Jim.
      “I’m beginning to catch up on my rest,” Charlie said between spoonfuls of chowder. “Chuck is running the boat by himself these days and making money for me while I doze and enjoy the ride.”
      “I’m glad to hear that, Charlie,” Mary said. “I warned him to take care of you, or he would have to answer to me.”
      Mary realized that Charlie had called him Chuck and looked at Jim. Jim winked at her and nodded slightly. Mary automatically picked up one of Jim’s hands and checked his callouses while Charlie finished his chowder. Her soft hands cupped around his cracked and chapped right hand. Her hands felt warm. Jim looked up into her face. The only time she ever touched him was to apply salve to his hands. They had many conversations since he had been at Winchester Bay and the evening he had dined with her. As she had done before, she put his hand down, went to the other end of the bar, got her little jar of salve and returned to Charlie and Jim. She gently began to knead salve into the chapped knuckles of his right hand, then his left and worked it into the cuts and callouses of his palms. 
      Charlie had finished his chowder and sat back. “Okay, Charlie, give me your hand,” Mary said. She scooped a little of the waxy substance and rubbed it into his palm, just as she had Jim’s. 
      Is this her version of holding hands? Maybe she feels safe in here, but not out when we are alone, Jim wondered. 
      She picked up Jim’s hand again when she finished with Charlie’s, and held it for a moment tightly in hers. A floor waitress tapped on the bar with an order. Mary laid his hand down and moved down the bar to fill the order.

Autographed copies of Incessant Expectations by Kenneth Fenter available at Arborwood Press or order from Amazon.com

Photos from Dreamstime.com