Tadaima!

For as much as Chennai has become our home, I am reminded that we came to India after living in Japan for over one year. During that time, this country really became familiar to me (as someone told me before leaving the US for Japan, traveling in a place and living in a place are two completely different things) and it feels like home. Of course, indiamama and Kaia and both Japanese citizens, but as is the case with many Nikkei, finding familiarity with Japan was not a given for me. I had been to Japan probably five or six times on trips varying from two weeks to six months, but 2004-2005 was really a different experience for me. Coming with a child, having to negotiate things like bank accounts and health insurance, opening domestic accounts, driving a car—all done in a foreign language and all things that force you to move deeper into the day-to-day that (for me) is the most interesting thing about being in a place different than the culture in which you grew up.


Coming through Japan was a really great idea. Not as a bracket to make the India experience parenthetical (how could the subcontinent EVER be that), but as a reminder of how our notion of home has been permanently expanded. It is kind of odd to think that, for Kaia, there are many more comfortable places that he can call home than the US. He was here for a significant part of his development—here he started to talk and walk—and there are some activities which are certainly embedded in his persona already: taking a Japanese bath and onsen, eating onigiri (Japanese rice balls), and the Tomica (see photo).


We arrived in Narita extremely tired, but feeling good to be in very familiar territory. Kaia was still coughing profusely, but after getting him a All Nippon Airways diecast airplane set, he was in good spirits. As well, the fresh onigiri and bottled teas available in any combi (convenience store) brought a jump to my step. Nothing like food to make me happy. So we activated our Japan Rail Passes and headed off on the Narita Express and Shinkansen to our hot spring resort in Atami. Expectedly, Kaia was in heaven on the trains and it did not seem like long ago that we were headed in the opposite direction, making our way TO Chennai, full of anticipation. Many things have changed since then…

Why I Love this Time: A time for reflection.