Miss Tokyo

I got a fortune in Kyoto during the first week of November of last year. Many would think I am foolish for this, but I fully believe in fate, fortunes, and some general sense of the way. I remember opening my one hundred yen 御神籤 (omikuji) Written Oracle No. 18 as I left 金閣寺 (Konkani-ji), the Golden Temple, in Kyoto. My mother, father, and 姉 (older sister, ane) Reagan, were visiting me– one of the happiest times in my life thus far. However, even surrounded the company I cherish over all else, the part of the fortune that occupied my mind most at that point in time was the section about a expected visitor. The section read:

“Expected visitor: Something is wrong with him. He won’t come.”

Now, in retrospect, I understand why that part of the fortune stuck with me. Being around my family and sharing happy memories with them always makes me think of this one other person I love. Another reason it stuck with me was because right when I read it, I knew it was true.

Fast forward to now. It is January 6, 2017. I am leaving my home in Texas and going to Tokyo for the last time. There are a lot of things that have made me feel like the four months I have had abroad have made me grow. I didn’t stay up last minute packing until the early morning. I prioritized my time at home so that my family came first. I wrote thank you notes without my mom asking me to. Thus far in Tokyo I have not on learned and enormous amount of Japanese, but I have undoubtedly also leaned some responsibility. It feels good. So this time, when I pulled out the Kyoto fortune from the place in my wallet where it always stays, it struck me in a different way.

“At first you may have such troubles as crossing a bridge over the dangerous stream in a valley. But you don’t have to be scared nor puzzled. Everything will go well in the end. Be careful about the trivial matters.”

I will spare you all my deep analysis and relay my abbreviated interpretation: when I first went to Japan it was scary and foreign, but even know, even though I am only 1/3 “over the bridge,” I am calmer and most importantly, more focused on what really matters, so trust and believe in that and it will all be ok. Also, at this point in my life, boys are included as “trivial matters.” So as I take a deep breath and begin my first “last” in my Japan adventure– flying from Houston back to Tokyo– I remember my first blog post. Life favors those in motion, and I still have a lot of ground to cover.

Although I always have it with me, I don’t usually pull it this fortune, nonetheless read it everyday nor every week. But today, for some inexplicable reason, I did. Because of it, I feel validated in my new found strength, but most importantly that my time abroad is changing me in some amazing ways. This tiny slip of paper evolved with me. It made me feel ready for my next 8 months in the foreign land of Japan and the various others that I will explore. I know I am starting 2017 in the right way and I don’t know if many others can say that with certainty.

A “wonder wander” is what I would call my walk from the east to the west side of Tokyo. It started as a joking idea I made to myself after the last day of SILS orientation. My friends and I had gotten tendon 天丼(tendon), which is a traditional Japanese dish of tempura over rice. I was still feeling pretty full at the end of the day. It was getting close to five and I knew my host family would want to eat right when I got home so I decided to at least walk part of the way. I mapped my route, slid my phone onto airplane mode because if it died in the middle of my trek I would be supremely lost. I made sure to not have in my headphones and set off out of the north gate of 早稲田(Waseda). I walked along the 神田川 (Kanda River) for the first part of my journey. I along its banks and then snaking through the tightly packed neighborhood north of it, I experienced my first bit of natural beauty in Tokyo itself. I saw the sky, which has been overwhelmingly gray and weeping, as a awe-inspiring comfort and not a hindrance. It was actually beautiful, and I am learning that is a lot to ask for in many major Asian cities. Sputtered clouds were died pink and orange by the light of the setting sun. It happened so fast and I did not get to enjoy it for long enough. For just a few minutes the utilitarian, sharp-cornered, flat style of many Japanese buildings seemed friendly. For the first time in this city, I could breathe. I snapped some photos and tried to take a snapchat, but ultimately decided this moment was just to be mine for now. 

I continued my walk and hit places I definitely want to go back to. It is funny how when you know nothing about a city and cannot read the storefront or restaurant signs easily, it seems like every small shop, bakery or bar you pass feels like your secret treasure—each one must be one of those locals only establishments that has incredible prices and handmade soba noodles and such. During my walk I dropped at least 6 pins, sure at each moment, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I had happened upon “Tokyo’s best kept secret.” I feel like such a kid here and I love it. I am perpetually trying to touch, look, taste, read, and understand. Everything is new which is exciting, but unfortunately, it also means it can be very lonely. 

On my journey, I passed through heavy residential neighborhoods, huge enshrinements, bustling commercial districts, the University of Tokyo, many train tracks, and countless people on bikes. The most interesting of the things I walked through was a district of love hotels. It was not until there that I knew what a real secret of the city, or rather the culture, was definitely not my discrete restaurant list. A “love hotel” is what I would think a new concept to many western-freedom enjoying Americans, or at least it was to me. The love hotel market emerged in Osaka around 1968. It was catalyzed by a battle between propriety and unyielding passionate desires. By Wikipedia definition, a love hotel is “a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy for sexual activities…” On my walk, I deduced two reasons to why this market thrives: 1.) Most young people in Japan live with their parents for a very long time—the city is very expensive so it is not uncommon to live with parents well into your thirties. 2.) The subway trains only run from around 4:30AM to around 11:30PM. For a normal day these hours seem reasonable, but on the weekends and on the odd weekday, when you go for a fun night out you either have to be back on that last train home, pay for an incredibly expensive cab (even to a New Yorker), party all night so you can take the first train until the first train, or, very commonly, head to a love hotel. Love hotel’s function as both crash pads for party-going friends, or a place where lovers can enjoy each other’s company. They are usually themed, in walking distance from most nightlife hotspots, and mark up their prices as a result of solid and ever reliable demand. 

A typhoon, Typhoon #16, swept up the Japanese coast and through Tokyo two nights ago, but in its wake it dragged in what looks to be another solid week of rain. Today, two days after the storm passed, was the most inconveniently rainy day I have experienced. So instead of starting my day off with a run and heading to the Ueno zoo to see Giant Pandas, I sat inside for a while until my　お父さん (host father)　recommended I visit the Edo-Tokyo Museum. My お母さん　(host mother) happily offered to accompany me. 

The museum was fantastic. through of combination of miniature models, displayed artifacts, interactive features and life-sized models I was ushered through the Meji Period starting with the Takugawa Shogunate all the way to modern Japan. It was a fantastic journey, however, I got derailed around 1944. 

I have gotten my World War II information via three avenues throughout my life: the popular media, my United States formal education, and my grandmother, Mums’ personal experience as a German Jew living in Hamburg, Germany during the Holocaust. However, standing in the Edo Museum, next to my incredibly magnanimous, understanding and patient host mother, I was uncomfortably bombarded with a reality my other sources seldom focused on. The first plaque I came across pertaining to WWII read as such:

“With the fall of Saipan in 1944, the U.S. forces began its full-fledged air raid on the Japanese mainland, and Tokyo and other cities became battlefields. beginning in 1945, the Tokyo air raid by the newly invented strategic bomber B29 became extremely rigorous night and day, reducing Tokyo to ashes. More than 50% of the urban area was burned, the number of victims amounted to almost 3,000,000, and deaths resulting from air raids and fire counted more than 110,000. The population of central Tokyo, which was 7,000,000 at the time when the Pacific War began, had radically decreased to 2,400,000 by the end of the war.” 

I immediately got tears in my eyes. I am still trying to understand all the emotions I felt and still feel. I felt disgust for war, upset that this kind of destruction created during WWII was not a deterrent enough to keep mankind from engaging in horrendous wars and civil wars still today. I felt that the USA, a country I love, had taught me a history thick with bias and a western gaze that minimized our repeated and total ruination throughout Japan and instead heavily focused on USA deployment of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was surprised and confused on how my お母さん, who was born in 1947, could open her home to me, when my country most likely destroyed hers during the war. I was worried she would see the tears welling in my eyes and ask me why I was upset and I would not have the words to explain. The last feeling I can remember was being mesmerized in the resiliency of this country and appreciative of the next year I am able to spend here. 

I’m at Gate A29 waiting to fly from Houston to Dallas to Tokyo. My head if stuffy from my incredibly inconveniently timed cold and my voice is thick in my nose. Yet, surprisingly, very little is going through my usually reeling mind. Instead, my focus is on how amazing my family is and how much I will miss them. Ever since I ended my summer internship I have spent every waking moment surrounded by them– with exception of one weekend I spent with my friend Beatrice whom is basically family too. The memories I am taking with me are concentrated in Cape Cod, Houston and Austin with addition to many special weekends with my oldest sister Tinsley in downtown New York.

I am taking a lot of happiness with me, but it is the last 24 hours that have me speechless. 父 (chichi, dad)、ママ (mama, mom), and レガン (Reagan) my おねさん (onesan, older sister) have made me feel so taken care of, valued and limitlessly loved. My morning started with and easy 7AM wake up to “Can’t Keep My Eyes Off of You” by Franki Valli and he Four Seasons followed by Sinatra and Louis Armstrong as Reagan drove me around Houston so I could create a donut sampler of Shipley’s and Christy’s while they were still hot and fresh. She sat with me while I gobbled up donut holes and a strawberry iced with sprinkles until I was full and happy. I remember looking at her and asking what she had planned for today. She furrowed her brow, pulled up her top lip and cocked her head to the side a little bit as she paused in confusion. “I mean, I thought I’d just kinda spend the whole day with you” was what escaped from her tiny bow-shaped mouth. So we did and with mom too.

Mom was the real trooper. She always makes sure I am all set up with clean laundry, printed copies of anything and everything having to do with study abroad process, triple checking my flights and remembering everything I forgot. She even took time to sit with me in the living room and chat with me for over an hour as I sewed a new belly patch on my favorite stuffed animal/ companion Peanuts. She was here exactly in the way I needed her to be. It was in the second she had to go run an errand that Dad showed up.

He drove home from work as fast as he could so that we could catch the last train ride through Houston’s Herman Park. The old train is a tradition started when began leaving home for long periods of time to attend boarding school. We ride together and he tells me the same stories about how he used to have birthday parties at the picnic and grilling area when he was a kid growing up in Houston. The land developer in him will also throw in a few comments on park layout, the Miller Outdoor Theatre hill refurbishment and some comments about mulching. Unfortunately, traffic kept us from the last train ride leaving at 6:00pm. We pulled up to theatrically see the train disappearing into a tree-line curve yelping a sweet “choo choo.” We walked for a second and he put his heavy arm around my shoulders and said thank you for going with him to try.

We all joined back together for dinner at my favorite restaurant, Brennan’s, and everyone found an excuse to be in my room with me as I stressed, packed and in typical Corbett packing fashion, stayed up almost all night.

They were all there with me until the end when we went to bed at the same time. My parents even humored me by tucking in their 21 year old with a hug and a kiss just has I requested.

Fast forward to now and I am crying on a plane with the letters they all wrote me piled next to the bag of my favorite childhood snack foods (ex. Goldfish and marshmallow trail mix) that Reagan surprised me with all leaning against my lap. I am really scared to leave for the year. I have to take a couple deep breaths every time I think about it. Life in Houston is so fulfilling and the familiarity of returning to New England for school is so alluring. The realization sounds like a “no duh,” but it was sitting in James Turrell’s Twilight Serenade skyspace taking in this past Tuesday’s sunset, not wanting to let go of the peace found in rituals and normalcy that I realized sunsets in the skyspace, my house on Tangley, the wonton soup at Fu’s Garden and all the things that feel like they are mine were once new too. Although the newness associated with those things is so far in the past it took me this whole summer to grasp it, they all happen because I took a chance.

The chance I am taking now is much bigger than any other of my past. What is making this all okay, what is making me excited for life is Tokyo is belief that somehow a string of unpredictable happenings known as my abroad experience over the next year will insight gentle transition from the completely unknown into the eventual comfort of normalcy.

So here is to landing in 16 hours and trying everything to see what sticks– to see what becomes mine.