掲示板 Forums - My Trip to Japan - 2018 story

Hi everyone,

I wrote a piece for uni about my trip to Japan in 2018 and promised to share it here. I've gotten my mark back (very happy with it!) and can now allow others to read it - enjoy!

Copyright: Me, Iona B. (enforced by the Kao-chan demon, lol)

Reading notes:

• Trigger warning: contains references to poor mental health and suicide

• The author uses they/them pronouns
• Written with thanks given to the Japanese learning community and all the teachers that help me on my way to fluency.

一生に一度の旅

(Trip of a Lifetime)

“[…] promise to never forget what it felt like to be 18” - (Everything Real, 2016)

I am 18 years old, and queuing at Amsterdam Schiphol airport. A few hours into my journey, the sheer size of the airport is astounding with its numerous terminals; a plane appears to take off every minute, and the departure board is counting down towards take-off. I am flying to Narita airport in Tokyo to travel Japan for a month, and when the plane leaves, eastward-bound, my heart swoops upwards in sync with the angle of the plane’s nose. The airspace is free from appointments with specialists (I am ‘mature for my age’), and the distance increases every second between me and the edge of the reservoir that I had planned to drown in just a few months earlier.

***

My travels saved my life. There is a privilege in such a statement - that I saved up some money and received the rest from an elderly family member. Conversely, at that time, my life did not feel like an enjoyable privilege. Widely accepted amongst neurodiverse people is the reality that we live with what so-called ‘experts’ describe as ‘suicidal ideation and passive suicidality’. My travels saved my life because I did not have a life. My travel diary, stored in a memory pouch I created, reads that I am ‘[…] amazed that my dream came true’. Sometimes, it still does feel like a dream scribbled on a bucket list. Yet I can open the folder and inhale the metallic tang of the yen coins I kept, see the fading ink on my boarding passes and train tickets, hear the high-pitched chime of the tiny bells on the ‘御守り’ (omamori: good luck charms purchased at shrines) and feel the smoothness of shiny leaflets and silly photos taken at the ‘プリクラ’ (print-club) photo booths. The diary is written mostly in shorthand, frenzied and looping, words joining together without punctuation, revealing a revived excitement for life. More than once, I discovered that ‘crying with happiness’ is not the myth I had thought it was.

A prominent memory from the midpoint of my travels (mid-February 2018) is the ten days I spent in the south of Japan – Kagoshima and Miyazaki prefectures. I visited Ebino and Kirishima, an area designated as a Geopark, a type of national park. I stayed at a small B&B, modelled in the style of a European ‘Pension’. I arrived at what looked to be a ski lodge, five white triangles sheltering five windows, and a fake red brick chimney bookending the building. How many thresholds do we cross in a lifetime? What do we expect as we do so? As I crossed this one, I was greeted in Japanese and asked, ‘do you speak Japanese’. I answered in Japanese, ‘a little’. I began learning ahead of my travels, and I continue to study in the present day. My comment on this front is that understanding and using another language contributes to an improvement in English, such as the ability to distinguish syllables. Japanese, by ear, has sounds that are differentiated clearly due to pitch accent.

The B&B smelled of cooking and cigar smoke, and my host would sit with a hand-rolled cigar filled with tobacco scooped from an ornate-looking wooden storage box. Mr Sagawa lived in and ran the B&B with his wife and one of his daughters. His other daughter lived in Tokyo, and he showed me a video of his grandchildren partaking in the latest viral video trend, singing and dancing to a catchy piece of music. The screen frantically flashed as the lyrics scrolled by, and the digital stickers rotated in time with the beat.

My host offered to take me on a day out to explore the local area, and we set off the next morning in his blue smart car. We toured through the rural area of town, bypassing highlands shrouded in a late winter fog, the colours greyed out. Southern Japan’s landscape consists of coastline, and the highlands are likely to be active or dormant volcanoes or remnants of them. At the centre of Kagoshima lies the crowning glory of the prefecture, ‘桜島’ (Sakurjima), an active volcano that used to sit on an island on its own, now merged with the land. Mr Sagawa and I drove towards ‘霧島神宮’ (Kirishima-Jingu, a local Shinto shrine) that lies amongst parkland, the trees muting the sounds of the town surrounding it. We paid our respects together, going through the motions of rinsing our hands with the icy water and queuing up to ring the bell at the offerings box, hands glowing scarlet as we pulled the rope suspended above the shrine’s door. I purchased an omamori designated to bring fortune and success in education and work. Before my trip, my mental health crisis had prevented me from pursuing an occupation, and I dropped in a few yen coins with the commitment that I would seek to rebuild my life at home.

A traditional meal welcomed in and bade farewell to each day at the B&B, made vegan by my accommodating hosts. I felt awkward bringing it up, not wanting to impose. I was presented with a spread of food arranged into multiple thin-lipped bowls: firm, fluffy tofu; rice flavoured with black sesame seeds; spongy, savoury mochi; and vegetable tempura, so lightly fried the batter dissolved instantly in my mouth. A cup of tea attended meals, and my love affair with tea likely emerged here. Particularly, my daily ritual of drinking green tea. Japanese green tea is known for its ‘旨み’ (umami) notes, a fifth taste sensation invoking savouriness and sweetness (think of miso soup, seaweed, and mushrooms). Umami green teas unfurl at the back of the throat, reminiscent of grass mixed with hints of the ocean. They are silky in texture and never dry; black teas often leave a dry aftertaste. Vending machines – a ubiquitous sight in urban Japan – even sell bottled green tea in two varieties; cold for summer and hot for winter. Inspired, I visited a nearby shop to buy a beautiful Japanese teacup, smooth and round like a glass marble from my childhood toy box. I can cradle the tiny being, most convincing when it’s filled with hot tea. At its centre, a design of a stem bearing red fruit blooms and trails up the side. On the way out, the shopkeeper hands me an oblong wrapped in brown paper. I thank him, no explanation given, and head back outdoors. I sit down on a bench and unwrap the mysterious gift. It contains a cooked Okinawan purple sweet potato. I had never laid eyes on a purple potato, and the sound I make, landing between a laugh and surprise, evaporates in the chilly country air as I tuck into the sweet, warm filling.

On my last evening, I stayed down at the bar of the restaurant after dinner. Two visiting businessmen from Saitama sat sipping alcoholic drinks after work - changed into casual clothing. It had grown dark outside, and the room was gently lit, soft spotlights hanging above the artwork for sale around the edges of the restaurant. I appeared to be of interest because of my red hair, and we were soon engaged in a cultural exchange with the aid of Google translate. I presented photos of Edinburgh and the Scottish countryside, and they told me they travelled around for work. They came to this B&B because it was so homely. The care taken to the food gave an ease to the evenings, allowing the demands of the workday to slip away into the vapours of the drinks and cigar smoke and out of the window, open a crack to prevent condensation. I stayed downstairs until I was too weighted with food, drink, and sleepiness to talk any more.

I wrote in my diary on the train: ‘I feel like my presence matters, that I can join in; I am suitable enough […].’ The Japanese word ‘おもてなし’ (omotenashi) captures the concept of good hospitality. To look after guests with your whole heart without expecting anything in return. My hosts charged me less than the advertised price, refusing to accept more money when I tried to pay the full amount. The experience had infused me with a warmth that extended to each chamber of my heart, the heat pumping into every atom of my soul. Mr Sagawa treated me like another child, commenting that ‘your parents will be worrying about you every day while you are so far away; children are precious.’ I came back to Scotland filled with an energy I had thought I had grown out of, considered it cast off in the realm of childhood.

Perhaps my younger self conveys it best. I described Tokyo Bay, as I stood in Odaiba the day before I returned, in a paragraph of longhand (edited for clarity): ‘The view was like a wall canvas, the kind you’d place in your living room, a cityscape of somewhere you’d never been but seen a thousand times as you ate breakfast. Skyscrapers; Rainbow Bridge lit up as it grew dark; offices and the Tokyo Skytree; boats. It was overwhelming. As I clung onto the bridge in front of me, I felt myself well up; the smell of the food from nearby eateries and the sea in front of me; the noise of people around me and music - accompanied by the lapping water. So many windows on the buildings! A true testament to human enthusiasm and moving forwards. I’ll never forget, I never want to forget that view; I’ll carry this feeling home.’ Have I carried it home? As I write this narrative five years later, the tinkling bell of an omamori charm hung on my bag chimes in tune with my memories.