RAPE THWARTED: JAPANESE WISDOM

She was a college freshman, full of promise and purpose, prepared - as she’d ever be - to give an oral presentation in front of her acting class that day. Walking through Central Park, she began to realize that she was quite alone in a rather secluded area, when SUDDENLY, out of nowhere, a man appeared and wrapped his arm around her waist. Panic set in along with one single word, “God…” She sized up the situation in a millisecond, took a deep breath and began to babble like a lunatic! “You didn’t have to startle me,” she admonished him; and he responded by tightening his grip on her waist as they continued walking. “If you wanted to walk with me, you could have just asked me without startling me” she cooed with amazing self-composure. When she became cognizant of her own lack of fear in the face of an ever-increasingly dangerous situation, she had one thought in mind as they rounded the corner near the lake "keep babbling!" "Where are the ducks? There were always ducks here, you remember? This is the duck pond and I remember I used to always feed the ducks. I don't even know if it was allowed but I fed them 'cuz they were so cute, so where are they?" Around the corner she noticed a steep staircase leading up and out of the park. She knew he had noticed it too by the tightening of his grip, which prompted her to BABBLE MORE: "Ducks ...are... strange... animals ... well ... I ... don't ... know ... if ... they ... qualify ... as ... animals...." His grip relaxed, she DARTED up the stairs, taking two at a time, until she heard the sweetest sound emanating from below "YOU B.I.I.I.I.I.I.T...!! She had reached a safe distance from her would-be attacker. (I can vouch for the veracity of this account as I was the "She" in question.)

Some years later, as I was helping a Japanese student of mine, the famous actress, Eri Ishida, prepare her lines for an upcoming performance, as English practice, I told her this story in broken Japanese and she translated it back to English. Then, rather dismissively I confessed that I had been taking a course in acting at the time and it wasn't really myself who was so calm, cool and collected in the face of an inevitable rape and very possible murder. Eri very forcefully countered this argument asserting that "THAT WAS THE REAL YOU, TOO" and added that this part of my be-ing was under the surface but very present. "As a matter of fact it's the 'you' that surfaces whenever there's an emergency." my loving student advised her teacher!

 

Sequel to “Rape Thwarted: Japanese Wisdom”

Many of my students and friends said “Oh, I could never do what you did. Where did you get the courage?” I had been keenly aware that my very life was in immanent danger and instantaneously turned to God where I got the directive to ‘babble’. For another person, it might be to run or swim or I don’t know what; but God chose to instill in me the gift of ‘babble’ to distract and quell an otherwise horrific threat.