Throwback Thursday: Tween Adventures in Nagoya, Tokyo, and Kyoto Japan

I’m starting a new lecture series today, Throwback Thursday, where I reflect back on past travels. There’s a cruise from Seattle to Japan this summer that I’m dying to take and it has me thinking of my first trip there at age 12. So hop in the DeLorean and hold on as I set the dial to “1990.” Hope you brought sunglasses, there’s going to be a lot of neon.

Representing America in Style!

My suburban Salt Lake City elementary school had an exchange program with a school in Nagoya, Japan.  Each summer a group of fifth and sixth grade students would be hosted by families of children at the school.  Although this would be my first big international trip, we were a family of seasoned travelers.  Plus we were fortunate in that we could afford it and it seemed like a rare opportunity to be fully embedded in another culture.  So I hit the health department for the required shots, the dollar store for a cache of small gifts, and packed my suitcase full of neon and t-shirt rings.  I was ready to represent America in style. 

The only thing I remember about the flight to Nagoya was the hot green tea, which I was pretty sure was illegal in Utah, but I drank anyway.  We were greeted at the airport by our host families and when I saw Kelli – the Brooke Shields looking popular girl whose skin and hair and dress I spent weekends and evenings at my childhood mall which is now a giant pit in the ground (my high school is scheduled for the wrecking ball next) and in front of the mirror trying to imitate and who had ignored me on the tether ball court for a solid nine months – broke down into tears with a bout of homesickness in front of everyone, I knew it was going to be a great trip. 

A Japanese Family to Call My Own

I was poised and confident – if blindingly bright – as I was introduced to my Japanese family: Tomiko, my mom, Tomoko, my sister, plus two younger brothers Yuichi and Ryo and a dad, but I can’t remember his name.  They were warm and welcoming and we loaded up my suitcase into the trunk of their Toyota, squished four kids – each trying to politely make more room for the others despite the language barrier – into the back seat, and dad adjusted his rear view mirror and enthusiastically proclaimed, “we go home now!”     

A Place to Call Home

One of the items included on our pre-trip “don’t be surprised if” list, distributed in a packet of paperwork we received after our check had already been cashed was: living quarters in Japan may be much smaller than what you’re accustomed to in America.  The list looked like it was printed from a travel guide, but whoever wrote it was likely picturing our exact brand of suburban private school brats who were “accustomed to” a house on a sweeping lot with a separate bedroom for each kid, plus a playroom, study, formal and informal eating areas, and a family room and living room, both necessary because one had a TV and a wood burning fireplace and one welcomed guests with a gas burning fireplace.  And if you were lucky, a finished basement and a three car garage on top of all that.  

As for me, I had everything but the finished basement.  Although one time I tried to convince a casual friend from school that I had a sister by taping some carpet scrapes together in a corner of our unfinished basement, throwing an old lamp, pillow, and sleeping bag down and referring to it as “Sasha’s room.”  So I guess technically it was partially finished. 

During my stay in Nagoya I visited several of Tomoko’s friends in their tight living quarters, most in high rise apartment buildings with laundry hanging out of the windows, one of which I recall smelling strongly of frying fish.  But all be damned, when Japanese dad pulled into the driveway, yes driveway, of our house, it looked like Nagoya’s equivalent of something you’d find in my neighborhood in Sandy.   It was a white stucco two story with a dark gray tiled roof with broad eves.  We entered through the front door into the genken (traditional Japanese entry room) where we removed our shoes, placing them on a mat, and stepped up into the family room.  The interior of the house was clean and simple and featured natural wood beams, trim, and doors and straw matting (tatami) on the floors.  My bedroom upstairs had a bunk bead, which I had to myself, and a window overlooking the next-door neighbors’ yard overflowing with hundreds of exquisitely pruned bonsai trees which I imagined full of fairies when I closed my eyes at night. 

Robot Toilet

My bathroom had a tub and toilet that illuminated why America imported so many radios and televisions from Japan.  They were so technologically advanced that still today, nearly 30 years later, no one in my neighborhood has a commode with two-dozen different buttons on it.                 

Had Instagram existed back then I would have captioned a photo of my first pee in the bowl of the futuristic toilet with “cool, but how do I flush it?”  Instead, I tried to explain, in the three words of Japanese I knew how to speak and the few dozen English words my Japanese mom understood, that I didn’t know the character for “flush.”  Finally I just led her into the bathroom and, slightly embarrassed, pointed.  “Okay, okay!” she laughed and demonstrated the appropriate procedure for #1 and then mimed taking a poop and explained a separate procedure for #2.  I’m pretty sure the buttons for #2 resulted in a robotic voice offering encouragement, “Ōkī mono!” followed by serene music and a puff of air freshener, but it’s possible I’m projecting.  She also explained the tub, although I never could figure out how to get the water hot.  Dumb cold American. 

Fine Japanese Cuisine

Each morning I would start the day with a small bowl of sticky rice cooked al dente and sculpted into a dome shape, which to this day I have not been able to replicate any closer than a gummy blob, cereal with soy milk, and grapes.  And although I had been prepared to “expect food foreign to the American palate,” I would point to the picture of spaghetti with red sauce every time we ate at a restaurant, except for one day toward the conclusion of my visit when I was feeling notably brave and sampled the vegetable tempura and regretted having not added it to the rotation earlier.   

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Touristing

On the weekends, we would hit cultural and historical sights.  In Nagoya we visited the Nagoya castle and Hisaya Ōdori Park, featuring the famous TV tower, an Eiffel-like structure, which must have been rebuilt after it was violently destroyed in Mothra vs. Godzilla in 1964, but before it would be ripped down again in 1992 in Godzilla vs. Mothra.  I’m not sure if they bothered to rebuild for a second time – brobdingnagian monsters seemed to have it in for the place.   One Saturday we boarded the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto where we saw The Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) and various temples and shrines where I tried to be respectful, but where my mere presence lighting incense and banging on gongs may have been sacrilegious.  If intention in such matters, matters though, mine were sincere and I was deeply moved and inspired by the beauty of those places.

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Fifteen Minutes of Fame

In the evenings we sometimes lit fireworks or visited a festival.  One night we attended a bon-odori, a dance to welcome the spirits of deceased ancestors, performed during Obon festivals.  I was presented with a traditional kimono for the occasion – an exquisite garment, white with blue and red Kikus (chrysanthemums) and a wide, ornate red and white obi (belt).  The kimono, or perhaps the whitest person ever seen in Japan who was wearing it, was featured in dozens of strangers’ photographs.  I felt like an Osmond, but I think it made Tomoko a wee bit jealous.

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Japanese School

Even though it was summer, on weekdays Tomoko was in school, which explains why the Japanese are inventing robot toilets.  So to keep me busy Tomiko enrolled me in shodō, Japanese calligraphy class where my elderly sensei, Mr. Muneta, who wore white undershirts tucked into his belted slacks, taught me one word, Sarah, which is the only word most Americans know in another language anyway (well, their own name, not mine, unless they were born between 1978 and 1985 in which case their name is probably also Sarah).  I was also signed up for a YMCA camp.

Camp Bon Jovi

So after being untethered from both my American family and my Japanese family, I boarded a bus bound for Toyko along with a few dozen Japanese girls, two fifth graders from Challenger Elementary, and two other Americans from San Jose.  I knew precisely nothing about San Jose except that it was probably just like Beverly Hills, so naturally I was enamored with those California girls and surmised they lived in gated mansions with a car service and live-in nanny.  Before we arrived at camp for three days of not really roughing it, we made a stop at Tokyo Disneyland –because one should always visit Disneyland to get the truly authentic experience of another country.  We all wore matching white shirts with “YMCA CAMP” in red and yellow print around which five out of the five Americans buckled sporty neon fanny packs. Gucci for the California girls (I mean, I can only assume) and mine was orange, like tang, a nice neutral color that goes with everything. 

I remember only two details about camp.  First, our counselor called himself “The Japanese Bon Jovi,” or just “Bon Jovi” for short, and he was, in fact, a rock star to his dozens of ten to twelve year-old campers – I’m surprised they hired counselors that hot at a Christian joint.  There was hours of high-pitched but muffled gossip about Bon Jovi spilling from our cabins well after lights out each night, but I don’t recall any of the particulars except for the California girls speculating that he might be gay.  And I figured that since they were from California they probably knew these things and proceeded to act heartbroken.   “Well who am I going to marry now?” 

Second, I remember frequently violating camp rules to sneak off the grounds to get ice cream at a nearby convenience store.  Don’t worry, it’s not like we were conspicuous with our blond side ponytails and eight-inch bangs teased and sprayed to have the give of cement and resistant to six different brands of shampoo.  Asian desserts are worth any potential non-monetary price you might have to pay for them and tempt me to this day.  I even like the green pea and corn flavored ice cream bars I hassled my students to buy in China.  “Well, if you don’t want it…”

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Beach Day

After a brief stop at the Tokyo zoo to break up a long bus ride back to Nagoya, I was reunited with my Japanese family and concluded my trip with a beach day along the scenic Chita peninsula where I wore a bathing suit that was technically a one-piece, conforming to my mom’s no bikini rule, but had the entire stomach cut out with the bottom and top halves a different bold pattern so that it appeared very much like a bikini.  But because at the tender age of twelve I had already been well socialized to hate my body, I wore a long white “Guess Jeans” tee shirt over it, including in the water where it would turn completely transparent revealing to all of Japan my sexy suit but also my “I’m sooooooo fat” physique.  How was I not even a teenager yet?

Welcome Home!

It was pre September 11th back at the airport in the U.S. of A. so I was greeted right at the gate by my parents and grandparents and, knowing them, they were probably holding a well intentioned but humiliating welcome home sign decorated with cherry blossom trees, koi fish, and the flag of Japan with some taped on balloons.  Luckily there would be a huge crowd waiting for Elder Grant and Elder Johnson, returning Mormon missionaries who had been away for two years instead of two weeks, so barely anyone would notice my family’s understated by comparison display and subdued cheers.  Then we likely stopped at The Spaghetti Factory, the restaurant that always hosted our celebratory dinners, where I would order the same spaghetti with red sauce I’d been eating for the past two weeks, before heading south back to Sandy. 

Back home, I would share the photos my Japanese mom, who was equally kind and thoughtful as my American mom, had developed and labeled for me prior to my departure and for which no one back home had seen because Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet yet.  I would spend the next few weeks recovering from jetlag and writing letters to Tomoko – on paper so thin it was almost transparent, folded in threes, and sealed around the lick-able edges making it cheaper to mail because it was so light and didn’t require an envelope – before starting Jr. High.  Which was infinitely more terrifying than what turned out to be an extraordinary trip across the Pacific.

Have You Seen Her?

Tomoko and I remained pen pals for a year or two before eventually losing touch.  I’d love to get back in contact if anyone knows her.  Sadly, there are probably as many Tomoko’s in Japan as Sarah’s in America so don’t write me unless you’re absolutely certain it’s the Tomoko with the robot toilet and box of cheap knick-knacks purchased long ago from a dollar store in Sandy and gifted to her by her American sister with the radioactive fanny pack.

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