The Right Choice
By Masako Yamada
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正しい選択
大学院が始まるまでの休みを利用して日本に来た雅子さん。3週間の滞在中にできるだけ多くの旧友や親戚と会いたいと、忙しく駆け回りました。今回の滞在は、「なぜ日本ではなくアメリカを生活の地に選んだのか」などと考える機会にもなったようです。
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I spent the first four months of my life at my grandparents' house in
Kumamoto. That is where my mother grew up. When I visited there this
summer and walked around the neighborhood, I couldn't help wondering what kind of person I would
have been if I had grown up there too.
My grandfather keeps a beautiful
garden of pine trees and bonsai. My grandmother pickles dozens of
jars of ume-boshi from her garden every year. There are cows, melon
fields, and rice paddies all around the town.
It even has its own hot spring, complete with
a little hotel. The town is really rural.
So my mother is no city girl, by any means. I doubt she had any idea, when she married my
father, that she'd end up living abroad for
more than 20 years, and in the bustling New
York metropolitan area at that. But my father's career and Japan's internationally expanding economy made it happen.
Now, even though my parents
tried as much as possible to raise their children
in the Japanese way, there are many, many cultural details that make me realize I'm not really a native Japanese. I have tried to keep on top of the latest trends by reading
Japanese popular magazines and all, but it's not enough. Perhaps I was just
not prepared to return and live in Japan for
good.
There's really no use in thinking of
the "what ifs." It was probably inevitable for me to make my home in America.
After all, when my parents brought me here, I was only four months old. What
cry could I have raised? Now I also have three younger brothers, all born in
the States. Having so many children would have been much more difficult for
my parents if we lived in Japan. But a large family also makes it more
expensive to travel back to Japan regularly,
so that made us even
more isolated from the home country.
It's also true that now, as an
adult, I have voluntarily chosen to live in Boston.
This decision has to do with my educational
goals in studying physics. The sense of personal independence I feel in the States and
the rich multi-cultural communities I have come to know also influenced my choice. So if I haven't pursued all
the opportunities I had to return to Japan, all I can say at this point is that things have turned out for the best.
When I do
come to Japan, I feel like a guest from abroad. It's nice being a guest ― especially when so many kind and eager hosts are welcoming me and pampering me ― but I have to keep reminding myself that a three-week trip is
different from a longterm stay. I am almost
like a foreign tourist in Japan.
During this summer's visit I rushed around to see as many of my friends and
relatives as possible, but I could only see each of them for a few hours or
at most a few days. There is no way such short visits can make me feel at home or make me feel I belong
in Japan. This is especially unfortunate in the case of my grandparents, since
they are not getting any younger.
Of course, nothing is worse than not being able to be with the
people you've been yearning to see for so long. I don't like talking on the
phone, but I've ended up having some long phone conversations with the people
I couldn't get to see this time. I also had to just leave messages on some answering machines.
Late one night, one of
my friends from elementary school called me back after I'd left her a
message, and we reminisced about talks we
had years ago which we still remember and which still affect us. We never talked much even as
classmates, and we've had less contact
since, but I think we've always taken each other's
words to heart. Although we couldn't express
ourselves adequately over the phone, I knew that we'd always keep in touch, somehow.
She kept on
telling me and reassuring me that my choice
to stay in the United States was the right one for me. Given the circumstances and my own goals and dreams, I
know she is right.
As much as I've enjoyed myself this summer _ going to
cafes in Chicago, walking around to see the sights, and visiting old friends in
Tokyo _ and as much as I regret that I
couldn't spend more time with my loved ones, I still have much hope and eagerness as I begin the new school year.
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