Foreigner
When Grandma sold a painting she said
she knew who she really was. It was dark when Aki landed in Japan.
Leaving the airport by train left her feeling claustrophobic from all
the hours of recycled air. The first step from the platform was like
a reviving for slap. Her face stung with cold and even late in the
evening she was assaulted by the sheer business of Nagoya station. A
dazed jet-lag forced her mind into autopilot as she dragged her
suitcase towards the central area and from there followed the english
signs to the Marriott. She couldn't read the signs otherwise and when
the bright-faced receptionist greeted her in Japanese she managed
only a polite greeting before asking him if he spoke English. Her
American accent surprised him and, she was sure she was just paranoid
from tiredness, offended him too. He lost his smile for only a moment
before switching to a neutral east cost accent. She smiled.
“Where did you go to school?” She
asked. He told her quickly as he tapped in her passport details. The
only other information he gave her was regarding her room. When she
sat on the large bed her mind began racing. The Japanese word for
foreigner better translated as alien and she felt it. It only
surprised her in its familiarity. With the angle of her eyes and her
strange name she had always been different at home but at least that
was expected. Her smile and her all American upbringing challenged
people's assumptions much more positively than this way around. She
looked the same here but there her sympathies ended. Her Grandmother
had done all she could to bring up her son as American. A challenge
to a post-Pearl Harbour immigrant. Or perhaps not. She wouldn't have
had a chance if she'd gone any other way. Aki's grandmother had never
returned to her country, had given up all but a few ties. She kept
one Kimono and wore it only on special family occasions celebrated
within the home. She drank green tea in her art studio but coffee in
any other location, including her own home. And she called Aki by the
fond term chan. That was all.
Aki woke in the middle of the night to
loud rattling sounds. The mirror catching the light from the undrawn
curtains shook and the light fitting swung from side to side. Her
heart was beating heavily and she managed half a breath before the
shaking doubled in intensity. As she forced herself to accept the
panic in the situation the movement stopped. The stillness was hard
to perceive as her body shook from the double shock of being woken
and experiencing her first earthquake. The world was abruptly not at
all what Aki had always believed it to be. She felt the loss of her
grandmother so completely that it was suddenly raw once again. She
curled up this time under the covers and cried to herself until
exhaustion reclaimed her.
