Traveling in Japan felt like a dance performance: lining up to board the train, joining the rush of bodies in a crosswalk, exchanging bows. Sometimes I knew the choreography but mostly not. Best to follow the crowd.
What a relief, to be part of the ensemble. What a novelty, to take up little space.Â
The first few days were dizzying. We stayed in Shinjuku, under the neon glow of Pachinko parlors and seven-story karaoke bars blasting J-Pop.
I texted a friend about how wild it felt to be back. She and I are both half-Japanese, but she grew up in Tokyo.
There's much peace and much pride to be found there, she wrote. There's just as much shame and guttural guttural loneliness. There's fear and there's freedom.
I found all of that and more. Joy and grief and longing, often all at once. I felt welcomed, even adored—but almost always as an outsider looking in.
It’s easy to feel connected to Japan and to mistake that connection for understanding. Even before we arrived in Tokyo, I spotted a white man in a yukata with a ponytail. I may not be that dude, but I am a tourist.
I will never fully understand Japan—not because it's inscrutable, but because understanding requires real experience, real sacrifice.
More than anything, I wanted to learn about my family's history. (How do you say 'roots' in Japanese? I asked someone at a bar. Ruutsu, he said, straight-faced.)Â
My great-grandparents emigrated from an island called Suo-Oshima, not far from Hiroshima. In the late 1800s, sugar companies in Hawaii recruited laborers from Japan; 10% of them came from this small island.Â
Crossing the bridge feels like entering a portal to another time. Suo-Oshima is still home to farmers and fishermen, and its sleepy beauty matches the vibe. Mountains seem to rise straight from the sea, overlooking old wooden houses where curious grandmas peered out into the street.Â
Within an hour of arriving I met the mayor, an energetic man who was determined to help. He recognized my family's name, Kuriyama, and volunteered to drive me to our family’s ohaka, or grave site. It’s at the local temple, which his father runs.Â
We paid our respects and walked to my family's old home, at an address I'd found among my grandparents' old papers. I didn't expect the house to still be standing over 100 years later, but there it was, at the end of a driveway overlooking the valley, with its tiled roof intact.
We stood outside—me, Tucker, the mayor and his wife, their five-year-old son and four-year-old twin daughters, and our guide. A man and woman, maybe 70 or 75, came to the door. The mayor apologized for the intrusion and the kids jumping around. They spoke in rapid Japanese and I only caught a few words.
This is Kuriyama-san, the mayor said to me.Â
I bowed, Kuriyama-san bowed, I tried to express my shock at meeting a relative, the kids kept jumping up and down.
I read the names of family members I knew to be from the island: my great-grandfather and his first wife, their daughter, her seven children. Kuriyama-san nodded solemnly after each one. Shouichi, one of the seven kids, was his father. We share a great-grandfather; he once lived in this house, which our great-great-grandfather built.Â
Someone suggested a photo. Kuriyama-san removed his mask. I recognized my grandpa's grin and jawline, the tan that comes easily to everyone in my family but me. In the picture, we stand side by side, my smile too big, his face impassive. (My grandpa didn’t smile in photos either, unless we caught him laughing.)
Kazoku da nee, the mayor said. Family.
That night, Tucker and I stayed on the island, at a ryokan set into the mountains. A hundred years old, original cedar beams. It was clear enough that night to see the Milky Way. I woke up around five a.m. to a ringing gong somewhere in the distance, like the bon-sho bell I'd rung at the temple. I read that the sacred bon-sho carries a message of peace, a call to pray, a sound of blessing.
In my Notes app, I wrote an incomplete list of things to remember:Â
trees dripping with persimmons and mikan, clouds of mochi floating in red bean, shiso and ume and the good furikake;
people stitching tatami, sweeping the steps of shrines, slicing daikon with care;
the bartender in Kanazawa who offered us her only umbrella in a downpour;
the group of sixth graders who handed us a pamphlet they made about Japanese culture, saying, as they bowed, will you accept it?;
the owner of a cafe where we became regulars, who spoke about her life's hilarities and tragedies and dreams, who opened her shop just for us on our last day, who held my hand in hers as we said goodbye.
I don't know what makes a trip a homecoming. I'm hesitant to call it that. But I found things everywhere that felt like home: clothes that fit, sounds that soothed. Artistry and diligence and perfectionism, shame and trust, responsibility and discomfort, guilt and pain and courage.Â
What a gift, to be recognized and to recognize yourself.Â
What a surprise, to begin to understand.Â
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Lauren, I liked this piece very much. I know well the complexity of both feeling a connection to Japan and at the same time realizing the gulf that separates me from truly knowing Japan. You captured it perfectly. My family came from the same village as yours in Japan. I have known your mother and your uncles and aunts for ever.
Dear Lauren - This piece is as beautiful as you are. It makes total sense that you and Anam are connected so deeply. I remember the sculpted trees in and around Tokyo. I remember the order and aesthetics in every thing Japanese. Japan is as much your home as Hawaii is. In fact Mather Earth is all yours to call home, for you are a generous, loving spirit not confined by boundaries.