Now I live in Japan, Epilogue
The final post from my Japanese Missionary journal
These entries were originally written in a private journal, and were edited and published online in autumn 2024. The whole series can be read here: Now I live in Japan
Around Day 170 of working at Fukuoka Evangelical Free Church, I stopped keeping a daily journal. I wish I had written something better at this point to explain why I had stopped, and I wish I had recorded some of the things I remember that happened the rest of that year. My life became much busier with things that weren't related to the church. I became friends with two British English teachers and started spending time with them in the evenings. I started looking for a job, and the part of me that could quote scripture in a milky, sentimental way started to feel like a performance. I was missing my life in America less and my desire to go home, to go back to my life in college, finally faded. Dan and I were spending less time together. The entries were weeks apart, and short, records of how many kanji I had memorised. And then, in the last two months, I went back to the States for a visit, came back to Fukuoka, and took a job in the north in Niigata and was gone less than a year after I started.
The next year again brought more changes than I had ever experienced. All the joking, the wondering who was flirting with whom, the protection and advice and wisdom with which Hagino san and Sensei had solved every puzzle for us, was gone. There were other translators and helpers, of course, but it was largely just me, and a real paycheque with real expectations. No one believed that I needed to succeed because the gospel needed to succeed. America was not rooting for me anymore.
Just a year after leaving Fukuoka, Yoko and I were dating, and then engaged, and then married. I went from being an adolescent who thought it was funny to talk about dicking around, to having more responsibility than I could have imagined when I was reading Snow White picture books in Japanese and trying to save money on heating. Things became very real, very quickly.
I lost contact with everyone from that year in Fukuoka like I had never known any of them. Dan and I talked to each other only a few times. Hagino san, who was with us almost every day at the beginning, with her yellow car and driving gloves and perfect English, contacted me only when word got to the church that I was engaged to a Japanese woman. She called extremely upset, telling me it was a mistake, that relationships between Americans and Japanese never work out and I needed to not go through with it. I didn’t know how to respond, what I was meant to say, so I laughed it off and told her it was fine, she didn’t need to worry.
After Naomi was born, we travelled to Yoko’s parents by way of Fukuoka, and rode the ferris wheel that I had always seen on my bike rides. I called Miyauchi Sensei and he came out to see us in the city, near our hotel. I wanted to speak to him in Japanese, something I had never been able to do and something I hoped would bring clarity to what had happened. I wanted to apologise, to explain why I needed to leave, but as I sat with him and Yoko and the baby, nothing was any clearer to me. My Japanese had become good enough that it wasn’t good enough, like I had crossed some boundary I shouldn’t have crossed and we left with nothing I wanted to say having been said.
I still had God then, and even though I think I knew the end was coming, I was still telling myself the story of God’s blessing, of marital happiness and hope. We had a baby and future and when we got to the airport to fly north to Osaka, I didn’t regret having left Fukuoka nor having come in the first place. We sat at the gate and I tried to remember that day we had arrived, it had only been four years before, but it felt like four lifetimes. I couldn't remember, really. I remembered trying to memorise a Japanese phrase, to say hello and introduce myself. The rest of it was a blur, just emotions. Yoko and I traded Naomi back and forth until it was time to board. She settled into the sling, sleeping against Yoko’s body and we found our seats on the plane and left again.
Day 245, 6/20, Sunday
I’ve got the feeling that I need to write something. I’m waiting for something brilliant to come upon me, like a flash like something sudden. It will not happen. It’s been a while, I know. I wish I could say that only productive things have happened since I was last here and last through all my early entries hoping to have discovered that I have grown up a little. Things continue to plug along. This time next week I will be twenty two. Yeah, no shit. I don’t know why it always amazes me that I get a year older every year. I should stop caring about it. I grew a beard and I feel like I am a little older — my Japanese teacher Hanaka sensei told me today that I look like I’m older. I want to be older and then when I am older, I will want to be younger. I wanted to be out of college and now that I am out of college, I want to be back in college. It’s a mystery to me this constant lack of contentment in my life. I need to… Well, there it is again. I’ve lost my drive to do anything religious. I don’t know why that is. I’m not interested anymore. I just want to sleep. This is the worst thing that can be said about a person, right? To not be interested in God?
2004 August 06, Friday
I’m on the plane now, just about four hours from Chicago, and I’m been imagining for more than half of the trip that I would pull out my computer and write something down as it seems like I should say something about going home. It’s been a difficult day for me, namely because I wasn’t ready to leave Japan so quickly and I don’t know if I got the Altia Central job I’ve been waiting on. I had to surrender my gaijin card too which was a surprise and bothered me more than it probably should have. It turns out you need a re-entry permit, something I didn't know and didn't manage to get before I left. No one told me. If I didn’t have my Japanese Driver’s license, I wouldn’t have any Japanese ID. That’s a weird thing for me to think about and it like I said, it bothers me. I’m afraid that I won’t be able to come back, that something will prevent me. I will have this feeling until I am settled with my new job somewhere.
Today, as you probably know, is also the anniversary of the US bombing of Hiroshima. They were playing the peace service on the plane from Fukuoka to Osaka and I was surprised at how moving it was. I almost started crying. I don’t know why it touched me so much. The same way I am surprised at how much I love Japan, how Japan is home right now. I've been saying I'm going home, but I’m not really going home. I don't know what home is anymore.