Preview: “An Unexpected Belonging”

“We’re lost.”

My boyfriend and I had been in Japan for nine hours and almost all of those hours could be described as ‘lost.’ We were lost as we navigated our way from Kansai International Airport into Osaka, a coastal metropolis surrounded by lush green mountains. We were lost as we deciphered subway maps in the dizzying blur of rush hour. We were lost as we rolled our luggage through the alleyways of our new neighborhood, searching for the guest house where we rented an apartment for the next three months. 

This was how we learned houses in Japan were not numbered chronologically, but assigned a number once it was built, leaving addresses scattered throughout a neighborhood. 

“It takes the postman years to learn his route!” our new landlord told us and laughed.

We smiled weakly, not entirely ready to joke about our sojourn, and signed the lease. Then I asked, “Where should we go to get some dinner?”

—which was how we ended up reading a print-out map in the glow of a street corner vending machine, trying to find a restaurant—“The best yakitori in the city!”—in our new neighborhood. Abeno was a twenty minute train ride from downtown Osaka, and quiet. We were nestled away from the florescent lights and busy sidewalks that framed Abeno’s border. The night was silent, families tucked into their homes. The houses were all narrow, some three-stories others four, with tidy brick driveways and bonsai gardens. There were few landmarks for us to distinguish one corner from the next, making us feel like we were walking through a maze. 

It didn’t help that Kyle had a notoriously poor sense of direction. Back in Boston, I was the one to navigate. But I didn’t know Japanese, leaving it up to him to read the map while I stood by, lost in translation. 

After we decided to move to Osaka, I started practicing Japanese, writing the looping hirigana and matching, angular katakana in repeated rows the same way I studied Mandarin, which shared the same traditional characters as Japanese kanji. I learned basic phrases, pronouncing the sharp staccato of Japanese and wondering if it would undo the years I spent trying to study Chinese. I wondered, how much would knowing Chinese help us in Osaka? I wondered how much being Chinese would help? Or would it hurt? I prepared quick answers to the question I hoped no one would ask: Why was I, a half-Chinese girl, moving to Japan? 

For a second-generation American, this was a break in protocol. If we’re going to relocate halfway around the globe, to the continent of our parent’s and ancestor’s origin, we’re supposed to go back to our family’s home country. 

Growing up, my friends would travel for extended visits to their relatives abroad, or were threatened to be sent to the old country if they misbehaved. All of my immediate relatives had immigrated to the U.S. or Canada—there was no one for me to visit or to whom I could be banished. 

I imagined what it would be like to travel across southern China and Hong Kong and Taipei, visiting the places I heard about in stories—my great-grandfather’s estate or the hotel where my grandparents worked or the military housing where my father was raised, playing soccer, zu qiu, in the streets. 

This return to the country of origin was a right of passage for many (not all) children of immigrants. We’d acquire a proficiency in a language we recognized as part of home, even if we didn’t understand it. We’d taste more of the flavors, experience more of the culture. We’d discover a part of ourselves that is inaccessible in America. 

So what was I hoping to find, standing in the dark of a maze-like neighborhood in Osaka, searching for a place to eat dinner?

I was following my heart.

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