Ghana
T he train to Takayama winds along the Shirakawa River and high into the mountains of central Japan. The water of the river flashes turquoise against white rocks, flowing and foaming over the stones. We pass small villages, houses of mud-colored walls with dark tiled roofs. An occasional temple flashes by, and carefully tended bushes I will learn later are tea plants. The train continues to climb higher and higher, up densely wooded mountains until it crests the final ridge and sweeps down into a wide valley filled with farmhouses and rice fields. This is where I've come to live.
Sitting in my train seat by the window, I am nervous. I am 21, just two months out of college, and not entirely sure what I am doing. I know my country is in recession, the job market is grim, and my art history degree qualifies me for exactly nothing. I like to travel and going to Japan—where simply speaking English is a marketable skill—seems smarter than trying to swim in a sea of eager graduates back home, the ink barely dry on our degrees. When friends of friends hear I'm interested in living in Japan, they invite me to stay with them in their home in the Japanese North Alps. The town is called Takayama, which means high mountain.
This is what the announcer calls over the loudspeaker as the train slows to a halt in the largest town we've seen since the trip started: Takayama, Takayama . I gather my bags and stumble onto the platform, feeling uncertain and awkward. Japan always makes me feel this way. I am too big for this country, too clumsy. Everything I do here attracts attention. The word in Japanese for foreigner means “outside person,” and that is what I feel like. An overly large, bumbling outsider. There is no way for me to fit in.
I am to be met by the mother of the family I will be staying with. I don't know what she looks like. I know only her name—Kaoru—a word whose pronunciation leaves me mystified ( ka-o-ru ). I assume she will recognize me, the lone foreigner on the train. When a tall slender woman in her 50s with long hair approaches me and says my name, I smile, bow, and follow her as she walks away from the train station.
Without much conversation Kaoru-san leads me down side streets and over a river that flows through the center of town. Three small bridges cross the river: one painted an orangey red, another green, the last one made of stone. In America they would be pedestrian bridges—they're that narrow—but here they are for car traffic, vehicles much smaller than I am used to. The tiny delivery vans remind me of toy cars. They look like breadboxes on wheels.
At the far side of the bridge we turn down an even narrower street and enter a coffee shop. Kaoru-san orders a peach soda for me and, in a mix of Japanese and halting English, tells me I will be her American daughter. I don't know how to respond to such an announcement. I barely remember my one semester of college Japanese, four years earlier, but I am sure it did not cover spontaneous adoptions. Again, I smile and bow. “ Domo arigato gozaimasu ,” I say. Thank you very much.
When we leave the coffee shop, Kaoru-san leads me through a rabbit warren of small streets lined with traditional low houses made of wood. I can tell this part of town is old. The windows are covered with wooden slats and there is a narrow stone ditch filled with running water on either side of the street—a method of wastewater disposal, presumably, from an era before plumbing. At each entrance, planks of wood bridge this small gap and lead to the door.
Kaoru-san walks up to one of these houses and slides the wood and glass door open. “ Tadaima ,” she says loudly, as she walks into the paved entryway. I know this word. It means, “I have come home,” and is used when a family member returns from wherever they have been. I repeat it quietly after her as I too enter the house. Tadaima: I have come home.