by Sarah Kuhn
“Ah, but you look like you fit in, ne?” Akira says, smiling “Because you are Japanese.”
“Just in a different way,” I say, laughing and thinking of my dad. “An Auntie did ask me for directions when I was walking to the train station this morning. She was extremely disappointed when she realized I didn’t speak Japanese. I think Aunties are the same everywhere.”
Akira laughs. “This, I believe, is true. And are you often surrounded by disapproving Aunties in the States?”
“Sometimes.” I smile. “I mean, LA is so big and sprawling, it has basically every kind of person. I feel lucky to live in a place where I can be surrounded by Aunties if I want to be. Because there are plenty of other places in the States—or even pockets in and around LA—where I could be surrounded by people shocked that I can speak English or asking me where I’m from or telling me how much they love anime.”
Akira’s brow crinkles. “Do you love anime?”
“I’ve barely watched any!” I exclaim. “That’s more my friend Bex’s thing. But being Asian American means you don’t fit some people’s idea of what an ‘American’ looks like.”
“That is odd,” Akira says, studying me intently. “You seem very American to me. But there is no one way to be anything, ne? I have never experienced people thinking I’m not Japanese—but according to my parents, I also stand out.” He gestures to his loud sneakers.
I smile, thinking that to me, he would stand out anywhere.
“Have you ever wanted to learn Japanese?” he says. “You know, to make the Aunties on both sides of the ocean more approving.”
“Being here kind of makes me want to learn,” I say, glancing around at all the signs I can’t read.
“You know there are several things to learn—very complicated,” Akira says, his eyes twinkling. “Hiragana, katakana, kanji. Perhaps you could start with some wasei-eigo?”
“I’ve heard that term,” I say, nodding. “It’s Japanese that’s based on English words, right?”
“English made in Japan,” he says. “Words made up of English pieces, but they may not make immediate sense to you. And we also use gairaigo—loan words. There is quite a bit of Japanese-style English. So you might hear things that sound sort of familiar. Like pepa-tesuto—paper test—to mean ‘exam.’ Or noto pasokon for ‘notebook personal computer.’ Like a laptop.” He grins at me. “They are close, but not quite English? Somewhere in between. Perhaps that makes everything more confusing? Maybe you should go straight to kanji.”
“My mom taught me a few kanji when I was younger—I had this little watercolor set and she showed me how to write the characters on paper. But I never quite had the patience or the focus to learn more than that.”
Akira leans forward, resting his hands on his knees. “Ano … your mother is your superhero,” he says slowly. “But when you talk about her, you also look …” He pulls a sad face. “Like you are thinking very hard about something.”
“I …” I gnaw at my lower lip. Is this really something I want to talk to him about? I guess, in a way, I already am—by bringing Mom up so much. I must be very … stimulated. I can practically feel Atsuko smirking from all the way across the ocean. “There’s a reason my trip was so last-minute. My mom and I had a huge fight about what I’m doing—or not doing—with my life and I felt like I needed to get away from … well, everything. For a bit.”
I recap the whole sordid saga for him—Mom and Liu Academy and how I just couldn’t bring myself to commit to painting forever.
“Ah,” he says, nodding thoughtfully when I’m done. “Then our quest to discover your passion and what you will be doing with your future is especially important. We must commit ourselves to it one hundred percent.”
He looks so serious—that intensity brewing in his expression again. I have a feeling he commits to everything one hundred percent. I find this both extremely attractive and extremely touching, and for a moment, I get wrapped up in being totally confused by my feelings—yet again.
“Are you in?” he says, meeting my eyes and giving me the full force of that ultra-serious look. “We will figure this out and make both your mother—and the Aunties—proud.”
“I’m not sure anything will make the Aunties proud,” I say, laughing. “But I am in. One hundred percent.”
“Look behind you,” he says, nodding. “These are those patterns and bright colors you like, ne? Perhaps this is a sign?”
I whip around to see that we’re sitting next to a tall pole with a beautiful floral print: vibrant purple with pops of orange and sunshine yellow.
“That’s … that’s a kimono print, isn’t it?” I exclaim, my eyes widening.
“Sou da ne. These poles are all over the station,” he says, a smile breaking through his serious expression. “In all different prints. It’s an art installation—a kimono forest, like the bamboo forest. There is a whole row of them all together up ahead, it is very striking—”
“What?!” I pop the last bite of takoyaki in my mouth and jump to my feet.
“You did not notice when you first came here?” he says, laughing.
“I was distracted,” I say. “But I’m not anymore. I want to see this.”
“Then let’s go,” he says, his smile widening.
As we approach the beautiful rows of the kimono forest and I see their bright prints standing side by side, my heart surges.
“Are you ready for this?” Akira says, giving me a concerned look. “I do not want you to become upset again.”
“I’m ready,” I say defiantly. And I realize I’m not just talking about the kimono forest.
I will discover my passion. I am in one hundred percent.
And I feel more determined than I have in a long time.
My ojiisan is sitting at his table again, assembling one of his model trains. I wonder how many times he’s put this one back together.
“Kimiko-chan,” he says, beaming at me as I let myself into the house. “Another day, another adventure. Come tell me about it.”
I slip off my shoes and cross the room. I’m feeling energized after my bamboo grove jaunt with Akira. Having someone volunteer to accompany me on my journey of self-discovery feels reassuring—especially someone who takes it so seriously. It makes the whole thing feel more solid, somehow, like we’re going to take actual steps to figure out my future instead of just wandering cluelessly around Japan. Which was basically as far as I’d gotten when it came to making a “plan.”
And it doesn’t hurt that the individual who wants to accompany me on this illustrious quest is so freaking cute.
I settle myself next to Grandpa and peer out the window. Grandma is out in her garden again, doing some ferocious weed-digging. Hmm. I seem to have settled into ping-ponging between calling them “Ojiisan and Obaasan” and “Grandpa and Grandma.” The second feels less formal than the first, but not quite as intimate as Ojiichan and Obaachan. I can’t quite get there.
My eyes wander back to the table and I notice an addition to the scattered model train parts: candy wrappers.
“Those are from my snack stash,” Grandpa says. “They are special, the limited-edition Snickers—made with oats. I believe you can only get them in Japan.”
“Oh, amazing,” I say, and he passes me my own fancy limited-edition Snickers bar. “Thank you.”
“Don’t tell your grandmother we are eating these so close to dinner.” He gives me a conspiratorial smile.
“My lips are sealed,” I say, peeling off the wrapper. I realize then that I’m starving. After wandering through the kimono forest, Akira and I ate the most delicious ramen I’ve ever had—salty, brothy, hearty—then somehow, we ended up talking for another two hours. I texted Bex and Atsuko, but they haven’t responded yet. Our time zones must be off.
I munch on the candy bar and reach into my bag, pulling out my sketchbook.
“Do you mind if I sketch while we talk, Ojiisan?” I say.
“Please do,” Grandpa says. “Ah,
that used to be your mother, too—sketching everywhere. She even tried to bring her sketchbook to the dinner table, but your grandmother put a very quick stop to that.”
“Mom’s told me she always wanted to be an artist,” I say, flipping open the sketchbook. I start roughing out long, flowing lines that mimic the sweep of the bamboo stalks I saw today. “But she doesn’t talk very much about, like, how she first started. What made her start?”
“Hmm,” my grandfather says, shifting around his model train pieces. His brow furrows as he thinks it over. “I believe it was when … hmm, eto … She saw a photograph of an animal in a textbook. Or maybe it was an encyclopedia. A tanuki?”
“A tanuki?!” I exclaim, my voice twisting up at the end in a little squeak. Tanukis are really determined to make themselves a part of my whole Japan experience.
“Yes.” My grandfather gives me a puzzled look. “She saw that photo and she could not stop looking at it, talking about it. She was fascinated. ‘He is so creepy and so cute at the same time, Papa,’ she’d say. ‘How is that possible?’ ”
As he talks, I start sketching the tanuki in different outfits—an elaborate haori and a dignified blazer and a snazzy jumpsuit, inspired by the flowing lines of the bamboo stalks. Hmm, that jumpsuit is actually pretty cool. I sketch a human-sized version for myself in the margins.
“She found scrap paper and a pencil and drew thousands of tanuki,” my grandfather says, smiling faintly. “He became like her own little cartoon character she would put in funny situations. He would steal taiyaki and eat too many, or spill tea all over the floor and blame it on his friend who was not there for some reason.”
“Wow, the tanuki was a real troublemaker.” I shade in parts of my cool jumpsuit and then smudge the pencil with my thumb, giving it a pattern like the sun blinking its way through the bamboo grove. “It’s weird to think of Mom drawing something so … cute.”
“Why?” my grandfather says, helping himself to another limited-edition Snickers.
“It’s so unlike her work now,” I say. “She does abstract painting with all these cool, bold shapes.” I pull out my phone and scroll to a photo I took of some of Mom’s more recent paintings displayed in her studio. “Like this,” I continue, holding out the phone to my grandfather. “Amazing, isn’t it?”
He takes it from me and squints at it over his spectacles. “Sou da ne,” he says, a slow smile creeping over his face. “That’s very nice. So interesting. It reminds me of her in a way—like I can almost see her speaking when I look at this. It has something of her stubbornness. The headstrong way she has about her.”
“She’s never sent you pictures of any of her work?” I say as he passes the phone back to me. “Her new work, I mean—the post-tanuki period?”
“No,” he says, his smile taking on a tinge of sadness. “Ano … We do not speak much—and when we do, it is not with ease. I believe the time for us being able to do that has passed.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Grandpa,” I say eagerly. He suddenly looks so sad and I want to say something, anything, to make it better. “I know Mom can be stubborn and hard to talk to sometimes, but …” I trail off, fiddling with my pencil.
But … what, Kimi? Have you forgotten that you and your mom are currently very much not on speaking terms? That you can’t figure out how to talk to her after living with her for the past seventeen years? Why do you think your poor grandfather’s going to fare any better?
“Do you want to see more of her art?” I say, latching on to the only thing I can think of.
“Hai,” he says, giving a tentative smile. “Yes, I would.”
We spend the next half hour looking through Mom’s paintings on my phone and I do my best to explain the origin behind each one, what inspired her various works. He listens raptly, munching his Snickers. We’re so engrossed in our virtual art tour, we barely look up when Grandma comes back inside.
“I am going to start dinner,” she says, surveying the scene and zeroing in on the empty wrappers scattered across the table. “I hope you did not fill up on too much candy.”
“I will help you,” my grandfather says, sweeping the candy wrappers into one pile and his model train parts into another. Grandma nods at him and heads to the kitchen.
“Grandpa,” I whisper, leaning closer to him. “Did I do something wrong?”
“What could you have done wrong, Kimiko-chan?” he says, confusion passing over his face.
“I … I don’t know. It’s just, Obaasan … Grandma barely looks at me. And whenever I try to talk to her, it seems to go wrong. Like the other day, I wanted to tell her how nice her garden is, but she didn’t seem too interested in discussion on that front. Or any front.”
“Ah.” My grandfather gives me a considering look. “So you were trying to say to her—what is the word?—something that spoke well of what she was doing?”
“You mean, was I trying to give her a compliment? Yes, I guess I was.”
“Mmm.” My grandfather looks like he’s trying to suppress his burgeoning grin, but can’t quite get there. “Did your mother ever talk to you about how, ah, ‘compliments’ are handled in Japan, Kimiko-chan? It is seen as boastful to accept—if you agree with the person complimenting you, you are bragging about yourself.”
“Ohhhhh,” I breathe out. Now my grandmother’s dismissal of both my misguided garden comments and my praise of her outfit at the train station makes more sense.
“I also think …” Ojiisan hesitates, his smile fading. “You look so much like your mother, Kimiko-chan. You look like her when she … left us. I do not think your grandmother thought of how that might feel. Try to give her some time.”
He gives my arm a little pat, then sweeps the candy wrappers off the table and rises, heading to meet Obaasan in the kitchen.
I stare down at my sketchbook and the images of the tanuki in his many dapper outfits stare back at me. I never imagined that Mom started out her illustrious abstract art career drawing cute, badly behaved raccoon dogs. I think again of my mother telling me she doesn’t know me at all.
Apparently, there are some things I don’t know about her, either.
I can’t sleep.
There are so many thoughts whirling around in my brain and none of them will hold still long enough for me to grab on to them. So, I’m just lying here, clutching Meiko to my chest and staring at the ceiling. I probably look like one of those freaky, saucer-eyed children in a J-horror movie.
(Actually, when I was like twelve, this sour-faced white boy started calling me “Ring Girl,” referencing this Japanese movie that was later remade in the US and featured a little girl with hopelessly messy, tangled black hair and a permanent death stare. Atsuko snarled at him for being an ignorant racist, and he probably was—but to be honest, I could sort of see the resemblance?)
I’m thinking about the near silent dinner I had with my grandparents, wherein Grandma still wouldn’t look at me and Grandpa tried to pretend like he had a big appetite, even though he’d clearly filled up on candy. I’m also thinking about Akira’s promise to help me with my quest, how he wants to make it a great detective case worthy of a crime procedural. And I’m pondering tanukis and my mother. I’ve always said my mother understands me better than anyone—she always seems to pick up on things I’m feeling and thinking before I’ve even had a chance to vocalize them. At least, she used to. I think of us as being so close … but did our connection only exist in painting, in the passion she thought we shared? I remember how happy she always was when we’d paint side by side, our brushes stroking in different but complementary rhythms on canvas. Maybe that’s all we had.
Maybe we don’t know each other at all.
I want to talk to Atsuko and Bex, but I can’t remember what time it is over there. Although …
I sit up in bed, toying with Meiko’s chewed-up paw. My mom is a way tougher customer than my friends. But maybe I could try to reach her the same way?
I grab my laptop from the side t
able, open it, and hit “compose message.” Then I stare at the cursor, a persistent blink against the bright white background. I feel like it’s mocking me. I gnaw at my lower lip, trying to put my thoughts in order. What do I even want to say to her? I suppose, like my ojiisan, I can get my feelings out and then maybe not send it? I kind of want to snap the laptop shut and try to go to sleep, but for some reason, I’m convinced this is an important step in my journey of self-discovery. I need to do it now or I won’t do it ever.
My gaze wanders the darkened room, finally settling on the shadowy shape of my blue-and-red-checked coat, draped over my suitcase. Hmm.
I take a deep breath, settle my fingertips on the keyboard, and start typing.
Dear Mom,
Before I left, you said you don’t know me at all, and I can’t stop thinking about that. It’s weird not to talk to you. I keep wondering what you’re doing: if you’re in your studio or taking a meeting with clients or laughing with Dad over leftovers he’s brought home from the restaurant. I’m having an interesting time in Japan and I hope I’ll get to tell you all about it sometime.
But for now, I want to tell you about something else.
I don’t know how you felt when Grandma—Dad’s mom—died. I mean, I know you were probably sad. But most of what I remember is what a powerhouse you were, making all the arrangements and helping Dad and Auntie Aileen with everything and inviting people back to Dad’s restaurant after.
It was my first real experience with death, and even though I was thirteen, I feel like I didn’t totally get it. I didn’t understand she was really gone and I’d never be able to talk to her again until the funeral.
If there was one thing Grandma could do, it was talk. She used to chatter my ear off about everything, and I loved every second. I remember how bubbly and funny and animated she was when she described, like, a week’s worth of episodes of her favorite soap. She talked about those characters in obsessive detail, like they were real people—like they were her friends and she really, really wanted me to be friends with them, too. But she could also turn serious—she’s the one who first talked to me about Japanese American internment, how her parents had gone through it during World War II. How she felt like there were pieces of her own history that were missing or lost forever, blank spots in her familial memory, because her parents had to give up so much when they were forced into the camps and—understandably—never wanted to talk about it. She didn’t want me to feel like I had missing pieces. She wanted me to know everything she could tell me about her side of the family’s past.
