Nostalgic Novel of Japanese expat children (2) Those Days in Alabama

 

 

On my very first day of preschool, when I was a three years old, I couldn't understand a single word my teacher was saying.

I was so scared that I clung to my mother's skirt.

Mom and the teacher talked for a while.

Then Mom knelt down, smiled at me, and said in Japanese,

"Go have fun, Yuki."

She gently placed my hand in the teacher's.

The classroom walls were painted a soft pink.

Sunlight poured through the big windows, making everything sparkle.

There was a shelf full of toys in the back.

Children my age were running around, laughing at the tops of their lungs.

Some had blond hair.

Some had dark, curly hair.

Some had sun-tanned skin.

They all came over to talk to me.

I couldn't understand a single thing they were saying.

I was frightened.

I didn't understand anything.

I cried my way through the whole day.

 

The moment Mom picked me up, I threw my arms around her and burst into tears.

I couldn't stop crying.

 

She looked at me with a gentle, worried smile.

"Try saying, 'Hi.'"

"'Hi'?"

"That's right. It means 'hello.'"

"Hi."

Mom smiled.

"Now say, 'I'm Yuki.'"

"I'm Yuki."

 

Little by little, she taught me a few English words.

"Yes."

"No."

"It's fun!"

 

Before I understood what they meant, I learned how they sounded.

 

About two months later, something strange began to happen.

Little by little, I started understanding the people around me.

 

I still couldn't catch every word.

But I could tell whether people were laughing...

...or angry...

...or asking me to come and play.

 

That's how I learned English.

With my ears.

 

"What's your name?"

"Let's play!"

"It's mine!"

 

I didn't know how to pronounce the words properly.

I certainly didn't know how to spell them.

I simply copied the sounds I heard.

And once I started playing, everything became fun.

Before long, I had a few close friends.

Preschool became much more fun .

 

By the time I started elementary school, English had become the language of my everyday life.

Every morning, the yellow school bus stopped in front of our house, and I'd climb aboard with the neighborhood kids.

I'd go to class, bite into an apple at lunch, eat my sandwich, and laugh with my friends.

 

My friends begun inviting me over for sleepovers on the weekends.

We ran around in the backyard.

Took showers before bed.

Curled up with books and snacks.

My English was still clumsy.

But as long as we were laughing together...

...I was happy.

 

I thought life would always be like that.

At home, though, Mom taught me Japanese.

While I was learning my ABCs at school, she had me practice a, i, u, e, o at home.

Whenever I didn't know a word, she'd tell me to look it up in an English-Japanese dictionary.

Over and over again.

But I couldn't understand why.

 

My whole world was Citronelle, Alabama.

 

What did Japan have to do with me?

I spoke English with my little brother.

When I really wanted to say what I was thinking, the words only came out in English.

 

Dad spoke English even better than I did.

But somehow, he talked a little differently.

He always called himself a Nisei.

He'd been born in Los Angeles, he'd tell us.

But he was always busy with work and hardly ever home.

 

When summer came, though, he'd take vacation, and we'd pile into the car for family trips across America.

We visited our relatives in Los Angeles.

New York.

Boston.

Hawaii.

 

But my favorite place of all was still Citronelle.

 

My friends and I built a secret hideout in the loft of an old barn.

We hid our treasures inside the hollow of a huge tree.

In the evenings, we'd sit on my friend's porch, sipping lemonade.

I loved listening to her grandma tell spooky stories while she rocked gently in a wicker chair.

Even now, I can still remember the sound of the cicadas...

...and the smell of the warm, humid air.

 

One day, I asked Mom,

"Why do I have to study Japanese?"

She was quiet for a moment before answering.

"Not Japanese," she said in Japanese. "Nihongo. That's what we call it."

"Because someday we're going back to Japan."

 

Going back.

I didn't understand what she meant.

 

"Isn't this our home?"

To me, home was Citronelle.

I barely remembered Japan at all.

But Dad wasn't going to work in Mobile forever.

Someday, he said, we'd have to move back to Japan.

 

That night, I cried.

I couldn't imagine leaving my friends.

I couldn't imagine leaving this town.

 

1983

The summer I turned thirteen, the day finally came.

We were really leaving for Japan.

I invited all my friends over for a farewell party.

We jumped on the trampoline until we were dripping with sweat, and at the end we all hugged each other.

"Keep in touch."

"I will," I promised.

"I'll write to every one of you."

 

 

The moment we arrived at Narita Airport, I was overwhelmed.

 

Everyone was Japanese.

The trains were packed.

The city looked gray.

 

As we drove toward our apartment in Shirokanedai, I stared out the window and fell silent.

So this is the country where I'm going to live now.

 

At my new school, everything confused me from the very beginning.

 

We changed out of our shoes at the entrance and put them in our cubbies.

Everyone stood up and bowed to the teacher.

The students cleaned the classrooms themselves.

 

But the hardest thing of all was Japanese.

I couldn't read the textbooks.

I didn't even know the kanji for uwabaki, the indoor shoes we had to wear, and I was already being corrected by my teacher on the first day.

Of course, Japanese class was impossible.

But so were math and science, because I couldn't even read the questions.

 

There were other students at school who had also come back from overseas.

"It's like that for everybody at first."

When they laughed it off like that, I felt relieved for the first time.

 

But life in Japan was hard.

I could speak English with my friends, but once I stepped outside, I couldn't hear English anywhere.

There weren't even any English-language programs on television.

Everyone walking down the street was Japanese.

Every sign I saw was written in Japanese.

 

I missed Citronelle so much that I started dreaming, as if I was still in Citronelle..

I wrote letters to my friends back home.

"I'm doing fine. I'm getting used to everything."

I lied.

I was trying so hard to sound strong.

But my longing to go home kept growing, and I needed somewhere for it to go.

Even when I wrote, the replies became fewer and farther between.

When I finally called after a long time, my friends told me about their new school activities.

A new boyfriend.

New friends.

A new school.

Their lives were moving on without me.

Where was the Citronelle I wanted to go home to?

Maybe it wasn't there anymore.

 

Japan lasted only two years.

Just as I was beginning to find my feet, Dad was posted overseas again.

 

The American company he worked for wanted someone who could bridge Japan and the rest of the world. No matter how much he wished we could stay, they kept sending him wherever they needed him.

 

This time, it was Canada.

 

As we drove towards Narita Airport, I stared out of the window without saying very much.

 

I didn't hate Japan.

But I'd never really felt that it was home.

People kept saying we were going back, yet we'd only been here for two years.

 

The moment I stepped onto the aircraft and the English announcements began, I let out a long breath without even realizing I'd been holding it.

It was the first English I'd heard outside home or school in what felt like ages.

 

Then something suddenly struck me.

My clock had never moved on from Citronelle.

 

I had no idea what Canada would be like.

But right then, Alabama was still home.

 

Would that ever change?

 

I listened to the cabin announcements, and the feeling crept over me before I could stop it.

 

I'm back.

Only...

this wasn't a flight to Citronelle.

 

So where was I going now?

 

Maybe...

maybe it was time to start my clock again.

 

Canada was waiting for me.

It would probably be harder than anything I'd faced before.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a place I'd never seen.