Returning Home (again)
So after a two-week visit to my homeland, I'm back in Japan. I arrived last night.
The trip "home" to Japan took the better part of three days to complete, aided of course by the net loss of 13 hours. And I made the journey completely alone, at least in terms of familiar human companionship.
I have two things to say about my journey home--small things to note really, principles and not really that impressively broad spectrum of banalities that some people (generally females) typically hope to learn regarding such a wearisome event.
First of all, this was my first time to ever fly across an ocean without a friend beside me on an airplane. My initial reaction to having to fly to Japan alone was one of disappointment and maybe even a slight feeling of intimidation, but I eventually found respite from any subtle worries in the realization that traveling alone has its own unique benefits--especially its penchant for character-building and presenting uncommon opportunities to meet new people. I won't be foolish enough to comment on the first of those benefits, but I will say I think I certainly cashed in on the second. I met a very interesting, intelligent man on my flight across the Pacific. He's a marriage and family therapist employed as a civilian on a US military base here in Japan. Not only did he give me a lot of good advice about grad school and career options in the counseling field, but we also had about the best conversation on psychology and faith that I have ever had. Like me, he is a person of faith (though we didn't discuss his precise background), and the insight and the experience he was able to share regarding the interaction between faith and the various counseling theories was priceless. He helped me brush up on some of the better things I learned about my field while in college, but he also introduced me to a few things that were new. And it was enjoyable conversation too! (though I imagine any eavesdropper, even one whose native tongue was English, would've found our words arcane, if not downright boring).
The second thing I want to comment on was also unexpected, but the surprise came not from the situation in which I found myself--but from the very me that should be supposed to be doing any finding. When I arrived in LAX after a peaceful night at a hotel, I immediately found myself among a group of Japanese tourists composed mainly of teenagers. Here's when the shock came: Seeing those young faces, hearing those jaunting, lively voices, I was struck by a sense of pleasant familiarity that nothing else in that particular segment of my American homeland (i.e. LAX) had even a smidgeon of enough power to evoke. Their little "sumimasen"s and "onegaishimasu"s were music to my ears! Not only did they ring out and strike in me a deep chord of familiarity, but I immediately found something within vibrating also with a shocking sense of rightness, a feeling of deep solace--something so inexplicably compelling I cannot deny it a share in the word "home." Falling in among those faces, those familiar but new voices, that language--all Japanese, all "foreign"--in the midst of the cosmopolitan, sprawling, impersonal LAX, I found myself to be in the last place I would have imagined possible--I found myself brushing against the edge of the garment of home. And indeed, I have returned home, again.
Now, lest my mother read this and find her heart stopping in its tracks--Japan is not my home, and it never will be. I am forever, indelibly "gaijin," and Japan is with equal, insurmountable force, "gaikoku" to me. Now, I may seem to have overstated my case early: All I meant to say was that Japan, and the beautiful, hilarious, indecipherable people who comprise her, now in some small way has earned a share in the word "home," for me. Has Japan stolen my heart? Will I live here forever? No. America is my native soil. And though both have varying share in my own version of "home," neither has a jots-worth of claim on my real, abiding, insuperable Home. And in that Home my true citizenship also lies.
God bless.
The trip "home" to Japan took the better part of three days to complete, aided of course by the net loss of 13 hours. And I made the journey completely alone, at least in terms of familiar human companionship.
I have two things to say about my journey home--small things to note really, principles and not really that impressively broad spectrum of banalities that some people (generally females) typically hope to learn regarding such a wearisome event.
First of all, this was my first time to ever fly across an ocean without a friend beside me on an airplane. My initial reaction to having to fly to Japan alone was one of disappointment and maybe even a slight feeling of intimidation, but I eventually found respite from any subtle worries in the realization that traveling alone has its own unique benefits--especially its penchant for character-building and presenting uncommon opportunities to meet new people. I won't be foolish enough to comment on the first of those benefits, but I will say I think I certainly cashed in on the second. I met a very interesting, intelligent man on my flight across the Pacific. He's a marriage and family therapist employed as a civilian on a US military base here in Japan. Not only did he give me a lot of good advice about grad school and career options in the counseling field, but we also had about the best conversation on psychology and faith that I have ever had. Like me, he is a person of faith (though we didn't discuss his precise background), and the insight and the experience he was able to share regarding the interaction between faith and the various counseling theories was priceless. He helped me brush up on some of the better things I learned about my field while in college, but he also introduced me to a few things that were new. And it was enjoyable conversation too! (though I imagine any eavesdropper, even one whose native tongue was English, would've found our words arcane, if not downright boring).
The second thing I want to comment on was also unexpected, but the surprise came not from the situation in which I found myself--but from the very me that should be supposed to be doing any finding. When I arrived in LAX after a peaceful night at a hotel, I immediately found myself among a group of Japanese tourists composed mainly of teenagers. Here's when the shock came: Seeing those young faces, hearing those jaunting, lively voices, I was struck by a sense of pleasant familiarity that nothing else in that particular segment of my American homeland (i.e. LAX) had even a smidgeon of enough power to evoke. Their little "sumimasen"s and "onegaishimasu"s were music to my ears! Not only did they ring out and strike in me a deep chord of familiarity, but I immediately found something within vibrating also with a shocking sense of rightness, a feeling of deep solace--something so inexplicably compelling I cannot deny it a share in the word "home." Falling in among those faces, those familiar but new voices, that language--all Japanese, all "foreign"--in the midst of the cosmopolitan, sprawling, impersonal LAX, I found myself to be in the last place I would have imagined possible--I found myself brushing against the edge of the garment of home. And indeed, I have returned home, again.
Now, lest my mother read this and find her heart stopping in its tracks--Japan is not my home, and it never will be. I am forever, indelibly "gaijin," and Japan is with equal, insurmountable force, "gaikoku" to me. Now, I may seem to have overstated my case early: All I meant to say was that Japan, and the beautiful, hilarious, indecipherable people who comprise her, now in some small way has earned a share in the word "home," for me. Has Japan stolen my heart? Will I live here forever? No. America is my native soil. And though both have varying share in my own version of "home," neither has a jots-worth of claim on my real, abiding, insuperable Home. And in that Home my true citizenship also lies.
God bless.
posted by Peter Rice at 7:31 AM
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