Japan trip took on personal meaning

Most people who write for newspapers dread being part of their stories.

It’s true: journalism, in its most textbook sense, demands we stay out of the story.

But occasionally something happens that requires us to not only write about something, but to experience it.

That is what happened to me earlier this month, and I think it was a good thing.

I was invited to tag along with a group of students as a chaperone through the Kent-Auburn-Tamba Sister Cities Committee. I would be covering their experiences on a cultural exchange trip to Japan.

Caught up in the details of a passport and packing, I looked upon this as a regular assignment, only with a long plane ride. I dreaded the 16-hour time difference, but beyond that, really didn’t think about where I was going. I knew I liked Japanese food, so I wasn’t worried about going hungry.

That was the extent of my anticipation, so caught up was I in the minutia of closing my office for the week.

But the picture started to change when I met the kids in my group. I realized just how much each of them had put into preparing for this trip. Their excitement at the airport was palpable — none of them had been away from their families before. They were worried about making a good impression on their host families, and about not messing up the speeches in Japanese they had prepared. Nobody was cutting an attitude. They were good kids with high expectations.

This was becoming more than just an assignment.

The tide really turned when I met my host family, the Fushidas.

I have no idea what they thought when I lumbered out of the car and into their home at 1 in the morning, Japan time. I suddenly realized I had no actual grasp of Japanese, beyond a cheat sheet and a language book I couldn’t figure out.

It was a daunting moment, sitting in their kitchen at 2 a.m., eating a sandwich, rendered mute.

Fortunately, their English was better than my Japanese, and so began a week of the most patient language instruction I’ve ever received. I think they wondered if I was brain damaged, as the lessons progressed but the student sometimes didn’t. At one point, I started talking in Spanish, I got so confused. But they also were happy to adopt some of my words — including a good all-around Yiddish one: “Oyve!”(It’s a lot like “Uff da!”)

And then there were the slippers.

The Fushidas very kindly produced a pair for me to wear in their house. And as God as my witness, I swear those things would just get up and walk away on their own. But I tried to remember to wear them, and my family obligingly would find them wherever they had hidden themselves.

I realize I’m making light of things. But it was those moments, when we realized what a word meant, or where the slippers had gotten to, that merged two different sorts of people into one.

I liked them. I liked being with them because they laughed — at each other, and at me. For a week they WERE my family. Their youngest daughter, Minako, wasn’t just someone who helped me with my faulty Japanese — she was like a sister. We laughed until our stomachs hurt, language differences rendered meaningless. And her translation skills made my job as a reporter possible, when I needed to speak cohesively with host families and elected officials.

You never want to feel obligated as a reporter — that is the nature of the work. But it’s also important to understand the nature of the things you are covering.

For a week, I had the chance to experience what our local teens did, as they slowly knocked down the walls between two countries and two cultures. I had a first-person window into understanding just how exchange programs work.

And really, there is only one way an exchange program can work: one person at a time.

I feel fortunate to have been one of those people.

Editor’s note: This trip was funded in part by the Kent-Auburn-Tamba Sister Cities Committee, although the Kent Reporter covered some of the editor’s expenses.