by Rebecca Fureigh
Soft footsteps pad through the
wooden hallway, pausing at every door to lean
in and announce, “Ohayou gozaimasu.”
Sleepy chorus of “ohayou gozaimasu”
are mumbled in return, and the footsteps continue.
The small groups of teenagers inhale deeply and
roll over on their futon mats, folding their beds
in half and preparing themselves for the day to
come. It is the start of another day in Japan.
In May, 1998, two brave souls
experienced Japan, as they had on so many times
before, with a new group of middle schoolers.
This was a different trip in many respects: they
were traveling under a different name, there was
a native Japanese speaker in their midst for the
second year in a row, and the seventh graders,
instead of spending a week in Yosemite, as was
the custom, had joined Steve Smuin, Lee Shult
and the eighth graders to embark upon their journey.
It was a fable trip; we had all heard graduates
proclaim that we would be changed when we came
back, but they never specified how. As we stepped
onto the plane, I puzzled over how Japan would
affect me.
Can you imagine living in an
unfamiliar setting where almost nobody speaks
your language with twenty-two companions for three
weeks? The scenario sounds harrowing, but it taught
us what our community was made of. We shed our
layers of self-consciousness in the public baths,
as you can’t afford to have hang-ups when
you’re running late and an old lady you’ve
never met before politely requests that you wash
her back. We survived the day-to-day cultural
differences that we wouldn’t have normally
noticed: oddly configured toilets, that fact that
although we knew two Japanese written languages,
we could still only read a tiny fraction of the
signs, the entire country’s precision, learning
that you can buy everything you could ever possibly
need in a Japanese convenience store, and so on.
There were people ranging from
kind strangers who walked miles out of their way
to guide us to train stations, insisting all the
way that they needed to go there anyway, to teenage
girls smitten by our blonde-haired friend Nikolai,
to small children who threw rocks at us while
yelling, “Stupid foreigners!” One
of the most crucial skills that I honed in Japan
was the ability to walk up to someone I’ve
never seen before in my life and introduce myself.
Our research project demanded that we interview
at least ten people per day, a requirement that
forced us to take a proactive stance, realizing
that nobody will walk up and start the conversation
for you. This skills has proved to serve me well
in my post-graduation days, resulting in a broader
sense of the community. After all, you can’t
know somebody until you meet her.
Most differences were environmental,
like the multiple chimes that announced a train’s
departure and arrival, but some were introspective.
At times, members of the group became irritable
and closed themselves off from the world around
them, resorting to gossip and sometimes astonishing
cruelty. Scuffles and trauma broke out amongst
us, as they always do. Some of us were having
the time of our lives and others were depressed
by the relative lack of privacy and prevalent
stress. As a group, we committed ourselves to
adapting our community to support those who needed
help -- and we, individually, grew in that process.
Sometimes we were horribly misguided.
Not everyone grasped the idea that the Japanese
culture is base on respect. One day, in a wayward
effort to proclaim peace, members of the Odyssey
group hurled the clapper of the Hiroshima Peace
Bell as if it were a battering ram, producing
a thunderous ringing. Despite the misunderstandings,
it was clear that even the reluctant were affected
by Hiroshima. Just as everyone thinks differently,
everyone perceived the massacre in their own way.
Through discussions with a few friends, I learned
that some people had immediately thought of the
force required. Others had imagined what life
would be like if an atomic bomb struck the Bay
Area. Hiroshima wasn’t the most optimistic
part of the trip, but it was an enlightening look
into how honestly we could allow ourselves to
be touched by the experience. As my Japan journal
records, “I fell silent as I hurried along,
deeply chilled by the ease with which I could
imagine the surroundings in ashes an ruins...
it’s one thing to read a book and struggle
not to perceive it as fiction, to insure that
the characters remain in your mind as real human
beings, and entirely another to stand out in the
open air with the wind whipping at you slightly,
gazing around with a mixture of horror, fascination,
and wonder. Impressions of Hiroshima became rather
graphic.
Light, humorous memories balanced
the serious ones. Leigh and I collapsed with laughter
as Polina conversed with her food, which appeared
to be moving. Odyssey laughed together at a Fujinomori
welcoming party as we struggled to learn folk
dances that involved complicated hopping patterns.
The singing trio attempted to sing with Kitagawa-san,
a famous television personality, and soon discovered
that the only songs we all knew were from “Aladdin”
and “Pocahontas.”
The Japan trip forced us to grapple
with our identities and solidify our community.
The experiences we shared and the connections
we forged with each other continue to influence
our daily lives. In no other school would we have
developed tolerance, responsibility, and confidence
alongside math, humanities, and Japanese. Despite
the struggle and the challenges, or perhaps because
of them, I wouldn’t revoke a day of the
trip for the world.
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