POP! The fork pierced through the tray’s plastic film. Pasta slipped down my throat, my tongue searching for stragglers between my gums. Dammit. Even the airplane food was good.
With just ten hours left, I was desperate to find something to hate about my trip. The fifty-second elevator ride at Skytree was twenty seconds too long. Sensō-ji Temple photographed well, but a brighter red would have popped more. The hoards of Sonny Angels they had were dirt cheap, but I only got three. Nothing. I found absolutely nothing.
It had been over a decade since I’d last visited my family in Japan—and despite being born in Yokosuka, a coastal city just south of Tokyo—I hardly remembered my childhood there. I was a toddler. I waddled about life without much care, food smeared across my cheeks and glue stuck between my thumbs. In many ways, this trip would be the first time I’d get to experience Japan in its entirety. I’d finally be able to reconnect with my family and culture after years of separation. I was excited, but I shouldn’t have been.
My grandfather was dead. The news spread in hushed waves throughout my household, first to my mother and quickly trickling down the line. When word of his passing reached me, I was initially shocked, taken aback by the first real loss our family had had. But the more I sat with my emotions, the less sure I was about them. In many ways, my grandfather and I were complete strangers.
“What am I supposed to say?” I’d groan as my mom urged me to take hold of the landline.
To my mother’s dismay, I always declined to speak to my grandparents. And with language and physical barriers only making communication even more difficult to coordinate, I struggled to reach out to my family in Japan. The last time my grandfather and I spoke, I was still that springy, uncoordinated child he’d last held in his arms; and the last time I saw him I never thought it would be my last.
When my mother announced our trip the following month to “celebrate” my emergence into adulthood, my stomach churned.
“We’ll also go to your grandfather’s burial while we’re there,” she squeezed into her spiel.
The trip was a clash of emotions. One day I was frolicking in a kimono and the next I was burying my grandfather’s bones. At the ceremony, surrounded by those who knew him the best, I felt completely out of place. Though I might have followed the ceremony’s procedures, listened to the sutras, and sprinkled incense into the flames, nothing could hide the fact that I was an imposter. I did everything family members would have done, and yet, I felt more like an observer, a tourist at my own grandpa’s funeral than I did a participant. What was wrong with me?
My search for something wrong with my trip was a desperate attempt to belittle my experience and rationalize the disconnect between myself and my Japanese heritage. I thought maybe if I hated Japan, if I went out of my way to find fault, I could justify the years I’d spent carelessly ignoring my family overseas. But it didn’t work. No matter how hard I tried, I enjoyed my trip. The guilt of my current disposition and the regret of my past decisions settled in.
As my time in Japan neared its end, the new year was just about to begin. On New Year’s Eve, my grandmother set out a stack of instant soba noodles before leaving the house.
“Eat long noodles for a long life,” my mom told me. It was a New Year’s tradition, she assured.
POP! My chopsticks pierced through the styrofoam package. Noodles slipped down my throat, each one faster than the last. Heading out toward the airport, I took one last look at my grandparent’s home. Where one life ended, another had just begun.
The intercom buzzed, “We’ll be landing in the next few minutes. Make sure to fasten your seatbelts and remain seated.”
Dammit. I was back in LA.
Visual Credit: Nancy My Tran, Design Intern
