Letter from Fuji Maru (Parts 1 to 4)

       Fuji Maru on its final Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program's voyage.

Letter from Fuji Maru (PART 1)

December 13, 2012, 6:00 a.m. My phone’s alarm clock woke me up and reminded me of the ‘ceremonial act’ that I had planned to carry out at the end of this journey.The brown stationery, with neatly-written notes, lay on the top rail of the couch. The bottle of wine, with its lip on the carpeted floor and its heel leaning against the sofa’s arm for support, was emptied of whatever was left in it from last night. I hurriedly put on my black suit and grey scarf and went out of the cabin without a sound so as not to disturb my cabinmates who were still asleep.

As I reached the deck and promenaded towards the bow, what greeted me was the biting coldness of early December winter, which confirmed that MS Fuji Maru was already slicing through the waters of Japan. Not far from the ship was the contour of Yokohama and, behind it, the snow-capped Fujiyama that finally separated the sea from the sky after some days. I remember seeing the same picturesque scene when Fuji Maru left Yokohama in November to begin the SSEAYP cruise. As the sky became lighter and scattered a deep blue hue on the waters, I took some time to read again the letter that I had written. After doing so, I rolled the brown stationery, put it inside the bottle, and capped the bottle with its crown. Then, I said a little prayer, kissed the bottle, and carried out a final act: I set adrift a message ensconced in a bottle. My eyes followed the bottle as it plummeted into the waves, surfaced briefly, and then quickly vanished into the vastness of Tokyo Bay.

My thin suit could no longer protect me from the coldness, so I went up the right veranda covered by glass windows. From there, I embarked on a little trip around the ship and carefully examined every nook and detail of it as if simply taking photographs of it was not enough  – the vending machine area, the store, the Emerald Lounge, the elevator, the sun deck, the Sky Lounge, the sports deck, the starboard, the stern, the amidships, the laundry room, the Emerald Lounge, the saloon, the golden stairs, the theater, the Pacific Hall, and finally the dining area where I settled for breakfast. At 11 a.m., Fuji Maru berthed in Tokyo, culminating the 39^th Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program (SSEAYP). It was to be Fuji Maru’s last voyage for the SSEAYP. In June of 2013, it would already be sold to a Hongkong shipping company. Meanwhile, the Nippon Maru, SSEAYP’s old home which alumni often describe as a better-looking cruise ship than Fuji Maru, was said to be the host of the 40th delegation of the program.

Snapshots of the ceremonial act: I set adrift a message ensconced in a bottle. (Video taken by Meikko Jay Forones) 

  Fast forward to February 2013. I wonder where my message in a bottle may now be. From the map of currents which I found on a website, I imagine that the bottle may have been carried by Nihon Kairyu towards other currents going to California or Alaska, become trapped in the North Pacific Gyre not knowing where to go, or have easily settled on a Japanese shore. I am really ignorant of ocean physics, so I can only imagine. For all I know, it may have already been plucked by some fisherman’s net. But wherever it may be today, I hope that the message and the memories ensconced in my heart would sail with the winds and the tides of the world. And, like a journey back home, I hope that it will find me again one day soon.

Dear Sonny,

Tomorrow is the fifty-third and final day of your SSEAYP journey. This should give you some relief as you have often felt seasick while sailing non-stop for almost seven days from Muara, the cruise’s last port-of-call. At one point, when you had to stay in bed for one day because of seasickness, you even wished that this ship could fly to Tokyo instead. But here you are, fighting seasickness as you write this letter while getting ready to sleep one more last night in this cabin. Tomorrow, you will be sleepless as the day shall be filled with farewell ceremonies, parties, and after-parties. After exchanging souvenirs and making promises of seeing each other again very soon, it shall all be over. You shall be going home again after months of having been away from family and work.

It must be difficult for you to put closure to this most exciting episode in your life. Every day of the next few weeks will probably be spent reminiscing your SSEAYP life on board and during country programs while endlessly scanning  the close to 80 gigabytes of pictures and videos taken on your Nikon camera and browsing through photo albums and notes on Facebook on which you were tagged by your new friends from ASEAN and Japan. Each replay of memories that these evoke shall result into mixed emotions within you. It is fortunate that when you go home in Naga, it shall already be Christmas vacation time so you will be able to deal with the ‘hangover’ and the ‘SSEAYP-sickness’ without the intrusion of  the usual Christmas parties or the necessity of meeting your friends whom you are unsure can relate with your stories which, to you, are sacred.   

In solitude, you will begin your reflection. You will feel happy upon realizing that you have fulfilled your dream of being in this program and of representing your country. You had dreamed of joining SSEAYP since your college days. You applied for it after graduation but ended up frustrated. So you promised yourself that you would reapply before your 30^th   birthday, which is the age limit to be accepted into this program. Had you not been selected this time around, you would have lost the opportunity of being part of this forever.  After all your personal preparations, however, there was no doubt that you deserved to be one of the Filipino delegates to this Japan-ASEAN diplomatic and cultural program. You will recall how you managed to jog at the Basilica grounds after office hours and maintain a “no-rice” diet so as to lose your unwanted pounds for four months; how your back suffered due to the “No Slouching Policy;” how you resisted the comfort of the swivel chair and slept while undergoing the pre-departure training because you just had 4 or 5 hours of sleep the night before. You did all these and more just to fit the profile of a true diplomatic and cultural ambassador of the country.

And now that Fuji Maru is almost finished and moving towards the final stretch of its route, you realize as you packed your things this morning that you had bought and received a lot of souvenirs to give and to keep and, because of this, you expect your luggage to exceed the 23-kilo allowance by as much as 20 kilos. From the notes you collected from the message board and the name cards you exchanged, it seems that you had gained new friends with whom you shared this journey. You feel heavy, partly because of the tiredness which you had accumulated over the past months but also because your memory is full of new experiences that you intend to keep for a lifetime.

You cannot describe what you are feeling right now. You do not understand why many of your fellow participants are crying and openly expressing sadness over the thought that the program is about to end while you are not -- at least, not yet.  Maybe, this disposition has something to do with your maturity in handling certain emotions or your immaturity for not recognizing as basic an emotion as sadness and your lack of spontaneity in expressing it when you do. Maybe, too, these experiences touched different layers and aspects of your life in a way that you still need to self-process across a period of time. Still maybe, you may be thinking that there were things that you could have done but did not do or things you did which you should not have done. All these might become clearer as you process your own experiences later on.

Whatever the reason for this lack of feeling at this point, deep inside you, you know that something in you is never the same again. You will draw certain parallelisms in this experience with one of your favorite films, “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.” Towards the end of the film, Frodo, upon his return to the Shire after his successful mission, realized that there is no way to really go back to the Shire. At first you might interpret this as referring to the literal departure from your old place or old work as you might the fact that Frodo decided to leave again the Shire, boarded a ship at The Grey Havens, left the Middle Earth, and never came back. After some thoughtful reflection, you might think of it instead as a recognition if the fact that it is actually you yourself who is never the same again. The experiences that you had had already changed you. Still maybe you would be convinced that both interpretations apply to you. But right now, you are not sure yet.

And as you reflect, you will go back to the experiences of SSEAYP. You will begin by recalling your motivations, how they had changed and found you unchanged at the same time, how they influenced and not influenced your participation and experiences in the program as well as your relationships with fellow participants.  You will then remember the many ‘beginnings’ of this journey – the moment you met the “Bugkos Lahi” [the Philippine delegation] and the first time you had a glimpse of Fuji Maru’s daunting presence in Yokohama, to name a few.

You will try to understand which of your experiences have had impact on you, which aspects of your self have been touched, and what values, perspectives and plans have been changed, affirmed, broadened or challenged. You will realize who have come to truly be your friends and who were just acquaintances, and with whom you would more likely develop a long-lasting friendship. Given these, how would you then draw the new self and distinguish it from your old self? Would you be able to see a more positive self-image and world-view?

After your reflection on the journey’s personal impact, you will then be challenged to continue reflecting on how such personal fruits and the program’s goals would challenge your personal mission-vision and your relationship with the world. After SSEAYP and all its personal benefits to you, what now, Sonny? With all the resources spent on you by the Philippine and Japanese governments, how would the world benefit from you? How would you transfer the technology and share in the challenge of nation-building as the National Youth Commission put it?

Big questions, are they not? But you knew from the start that this would happen.You knew the goals of this program and the desired return of investment (RoI).You will recall the big statements and commitments you made during the interview as well as in the small group discussions and debriefing sessions.You will reflect and even share the burden of contemplating on these questions with your friends and mentors.

Sonny, do you remember the first time that you dropped a message in the bottle into the sea? You set it adrift on Atulayan Bay on your boat ride back to Nato Port, Sagnay. Do you remember the message? It was a hope that someday, you would find your matter of great consequence - what you were created for, your purpose. And it has been a recurrent theme in your previous retreats at the Cenacle House, at the Sacred Heart Novitiate, in Jesuit Mirador Villa, and in many other venues of discernment. It will take you a long and arduous journey to be able to know it, but I hope that you will be patient and mindful of your interior movements and of the meanings behind the events that happen and the people you meet in your life.

Where are you now, Sonny? Where has Fuji Maru led you to be? And from there, where are you going?

I wish you well and I hope that you will find answers -

From

Your  Self

 Letter from Fuji Maru (PART 2)

Tomoko, my Japanese host-mother during the 39th Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program (SSEAYP), sent me a message on Facebook asking me if I had received the package which she had mailed from Japan early February this year. The package carried the earthenware which I had made in a pottery house during my immersion in the Tochigi Prefecture in October last year. My host-father, Wataru had brought me there with another SSEAYP delegate Akimasa Kimoto, a Japanese and the family’s children Rie, Atsushi, and Takashi. He had wanted me to experience one of the family’s hobbies and an important part of the prefecture’s culture.

My host mother was worried when I said that the package had not yet been delivered to me. So she traced its status in their post office. In her second FB message, she said that the package had already reached the Naga City post office. This drove me to visit our post office, which was not my first time to do so this year. In my previous visit in January, I followed up on the post cards that had been sent to me from Fuji Maru and from a few port-of-calls in November and December last year. I discovered that they had sacks of letters still unsorted and undelivered at the post office. Despite the frustrating sight, the postmaster assured me that the letters, however delayed, would reach me.

 True to the postmaster’s promise, all my mail arrived together in March – two postcards featuring indigenous communities from my little host brothers, Zackie and Indera from Jakarta, a New Year greeting card from my host family from Ho Chi Minh City, and Fuji Maru postcards that contained kind words from my fellow youth ambassadors from across Southeast Asia.

The fact that these letters had reached me, however overdue, offered me hope. It sustained my excitement that the earthenware would find its way into my room’s newly fabricated kotatsu (Japanese table). I imagined myself there, sitting seiza-style, pouring green tea on the tea cup that I made myself, which would remind me of my SSEAYP journey and how it began in Japan.

On October 23, 2012, 2:10 p.m., Japanese Airline Flight 746 carried me and twenty-eight other Filipino delegates to Narita, Japan. Outside the airport, we were welcomed by a slight drizzle and cold breeze. The cold felt quite like Baguio weather. I had fancied that there would be snow at this time, albeit prematurely. This was, however, not so. But it was cold enough to numb the body pain and stress that I had accumulated from the month-long pre-departure activities I endured in Manila.

We boarded a bus that transported us to Hotel New Otani. A soft-spoken Japanese, who introduced himself as Jay, collected our passport, distributed to us a booklet, and gave us an initial orientation. My eyes, though, were fixed on the glass window speckled with dew drops that complemented the autumn feel of the place as if recording the first scenes of Japan as they quickly passed by. Amidst the cold and the soft chatter in the background, I felt some relief that I was there in Japan after almost four weeks of preparation and anticipation. I remembered the difficulty of practicing how to bamboo-clap in sync with the Singkil beat patterns, of  memorizing the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” dance routine, and of helping to keep the delegation’s choral rendition in tune to showcase the best of the country’s culture and tradition. I remembered keeping the Secretariat team functional so that we may fulfill our tasks. I remembered the dress-up sessions for the courtesy visits in foreign embassies, the exercises, and the sleepless nights. I remembered my struggles during the adjustment period and the stormy times I had with my fellow delegates of different backgrounds, work orientation, levels of maturity, and perspectives which had to be worked on so that we could give justice to what we called ourselves – “Bugkos Lahi.” All these I endured courageously and happily so that I might contribute meaningfully to the group and represent my beloved Philippines well.

The sun was going down when we got to the hotel. We unloaded and carefully organized our personal suitcases and the delegation’s boxes of props and “what-nots.” Only when our hands and shoulders were freed from the luggage did we realize we had actually already arrived in Japan.

SSEAYP, without yet the speeches and "kampai," began finally. In a small quarter in the hotel, our delegation met for the first time outside the Philippines, where our National Leader Mabel Acosta reminded us for the nth time of our responsibilities as Filipino youth ambassadors, and gently yet emphatically warned us not to put the delegation or the name of the country in an embarrassing situation, or else – a premature going home to the Philippines! When we violated the rules, we would not be named by our last names, but by that of our country, she added.

We were then welcomed by our Japanese rapporteur Sachie, a nurse and again by Jay of the Cabinet Office who distributed to us our ear thermometer for daily checking of our body temperature, a bento box for our dinner, and a thousand yen for our lunch the next day. They were organized and keen on the details of our personal and contingent’s concerns, yet they seemed friendly and accommodating. They were, at least, not like the very serious looking ones that I had seen on our arrival. Before we adjourned, our national leader reiterated what she had always told us during our pre-departure training: Japanese time means being on time, reminding us to be mindful of our punctuality during assemblies.

In my room, I enjoyed the bento box, fascinated by how this container carefully kept several kinds of food apart from each other. Then I plunged into the tub’s warm water and, after an hour, went to bed. I was too tired to even remember the small chitchat I had with my roommate, Ron of Zamboanga City before dozing off.

Our first dinner in Japan in bento box.

The next day, before breakfast, our delegation was supposed to meet for our first photo shoot orientation. Less than half of us were able to make it there on time, however. So Raine and I decided to postpone it until after breakfast.

In the dining area, I met the first few foreign friends – Nicole, Wendy, Oo and Harry of Myanmar, I remember - who joined us at our table. In between enjoying our food and the awkwardness of our first meeting, we shared how well our trips went and what we were expecting to happen in Japan. 

After breakfast, Raine and I oriented the delegation on the different formations, poses, and smiles during group photos and in different situations. We rehearsed doing the formations in ten seconds, and made sure everyone had his or her window.

Our first breakfast and delegation photos at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, Japan

We were given a free half-day.  So a few fellow Filipino delegates (Ry of Benguet, Bri of Cavite, Russ of Cebu City, Phil of Biliran, Meikko of General Santos City and Raine of Quezon City) and I had the chance to roam the hotel from the shopping arcade to the various restaurants to the impressive stone gardens and carp ponds, which I was not sure were part of the hotel’s four century-old traditional garden. Then we found ourselves outside the hotel premises, walking along a clean riverbank covered with fall foliage underneath the shade of red leaves which I imagined would turn into a tunnel of cherry blossoms in springtime.

Photo courtesy of Bri Ambulo

Our first feel of Japan

 Unguided and undeterred by the thought of getting lost, we explored the streets near the hotel, took our first photos of Japan and, more importantly, of ourselves. Apparently, the hotel that spans two buildings connected to each other was located in the quiet side of Tokyo, away from the city center which internet sources would describe as noisy and crowded.

There were not so many people on the sidewalks and the pedestrian lanes. Most of them were grey-haired, maybe in their late 50s or 60s. Many were alone, serious-looking, and walking fast; some were on their bikes. But really, they were old. I wondered where the young people were.

We took our lunch at a small ramen house. There the Japanese customers who were strangers to each other shared tables and finished their food without talking to each other. The only time that they got distracted was when we had our picture-taking, which was done not without some noise, excited as we were on our first lunch meal in Japan.

Outside the restaurant was a long queue of people waiting for seats to be vacated so they could also take their lunch. This prompted us to finish our noodles faster and go back to the hotel.

This was my first feel of Japan: clean, orderly, silent, ‘old’.

Letter from Fuji Maru (PART 3)

After ‘feeling’ Japan for the first time through the shades and fall foliage in the quiet spaces of Tokyo, I was back in Hotel New Otani for the Welcome Assembly of the 39th Ship for Southeast Asian Youth Program (SSEAYP). Everyone in the delegation was quite stiff as we wanted to make a first impression that we were united and disciplined. We all looked confident, although a bit tense maybe, in our green long sleeves. We were in uniform, from head to toe, except for me and Raine who were wearing the Press badge around our left arms and feeling the weight of our DSLR cameras.

From the hotel lobby, we entered the assembly room in two rows with the ladies’ arms locked into the gentlemen’s own (We call this position "ankla".). This scene fascinated the guests at the hotel, the foreign delegations and even the serious-looking Japanese officials and staff who were seated at the stage.

The emcee then requested each delegation to perform group cheers as a way to open the program. The Philippine delegation was unaware of that part of the program, so our orderly formation was disturbed in an instant. Well, maybe except for me, who began to assume my Press duties or, shall I say, found comfort in the task given to me because I owned a DSLR. This meant that I only had to document the presentation and not be part of it.

The contingent which gave the finale somehow pulled off a happy one by doing a “follow-the-leader” type of cheer where the delegation just had to follow the chant and actions of Bri. We all felt at that time that ours was not the best that we had wanted people to witness from us.

The Philippine delegation's first cheer.

The ship administrator, Mr. Toshio Kozuma, declared the SSEAYP officially opened. Then after some speeches and introduction of the Ship staff, we were ushered into a dining area. This time we added to our uniform the black coat, black slim tie for the gentlemen and silver fabric brooch for the ladies. Upon“kampai” or toast, the entire delegation shared a grand buffet of Asian cuisine with the Cabinet Office of Japan.

Toshio Kozuma, the ship administrator, declares the 39th SSEAYP officially open.

The Bugkos Lahi raise their glasses in the 39th SSEAYP's welcome dinner at Hotel New Otani in Tokyo, Japan.

Back in our rooms, I was relieved to be freed from the tightness of my suit as I changed into my bathrobe. I then finished reorganizing my small luggage for the next four days’ country program in Tochigi Prefecture. After this, since the night was still young, I did some room-hopping for a little noodle party despite the strict monitoring of our national leader. A few minutes after I had returned to my room, however, at around 11:30 p.m., the phone rang. It was our national leader! She was asking me if another delegate happened to be in our room as he was reported to be hopping from one room to another (as I had been doing but this, she did not know!). A bit worried, she appealed to me to help her monitor some delegates. After the phone call, I felt like, “Oh well, what can I say?  I just got lucky that I had not been caught.” Then suddenly, I also found myself challenged with a sense of responsibility. This seemed ironic. But I thought that the national leader must have considered my age and my work background in trusting me to help her.

On our Day 3 in Japan, Mae and I met our Solidarity Group (SG) mates for the first time. We were cliquish, sitting beside each other on the bus going to the Tokyo Station and on the Shingkansen going to Tochigi Prefecture. We talked with each other most of the time, mostly about our impressions about our SG mates, and helped each other as we tried to have our pictures taken in every interesting place we visited.

I met my first foreign roommate, Ong of Singapore. He invited me to join him and a few other delegates for a walk and some drinks. It could have been my first night out with non-Filipino delegates. But I politely refused the invitation and decided to just organize my luggage, take a long shower, and  write my first note in my new red journal, and rest after a long day. Later on, he would tell me in a postcard that he had felt bad about my having turned down his invitation.

 In the morning, Mae and I were early birds in the café. We took our breakfast together and visited the traditional garden outside.

One of the institutions we visited was the Utsunomiya University. There, we joined two English classes. The teacher, Dr. Barbara Morrison asked us to help her students improve their composition writing. Minh of Vietnam and I were paired with Aimi, who was quite shy in sharing her essay. She wrote about her junior high school teacher who inspired her to study hard and dream. In another class, I had conversations with an aspiring musician, Reika and an International Relations student, Natsuki in a small group with fellow SSEAYP delegate Aya of Indonesia.All of us were asked to write about our hopes for the youth of Fukushima. We were warned, though, to be sensitive about the Great East Japan Earthquake that triggered powerful tsunamis and meltdowns in Fukushima nuclear plants. They considered these tragedies to be their most difficult times after the Second World War.  These, along with the country’s economic recession, were said to have caused loneliness and triggered suicides among many of the Japanese. 

With Minh (left), Vietnamese delegate,  and Aimi (center), student of Utsunomiya University.

I met Georandel Gimenez Kato, the only Filipino studying in the University, who incidentally recognized me and Mae speaking in Filipino outside the school canteen. After our meeting, he immediately emailed me and Mae that he was glad to see a “kababayan” in the University.

Mae (first from the right) and I meet Georandel Gimenez Kato (second to the right), the only Filipino studying in Utsunomiya University.

It was already late afternoon when we went to a traditional Japanese tea house. We were all thrilled to be there, including the Japanese who, to my surprise, were just about to experience the traditional tea ceremony for the first time. We removed our shoes when we entered a furniture-free tatami-floored room. On one side of the room was an alcove decorated by two hanging scrolls that exhibited calligraphy. We were politely requested by ladies in kimono to be seated seiza-style in one row. Then in a ritual, the host ceremoniously prepared the thick tea in one corner. Thereafter bows were exchanged between the host and the delegates receiving the rice cake on a piece of Japanese paper and the tea. When it was my turn, following the example, I bowed to the host, raised the bowl in a gesture of respect to the host, took a sip and rotated the bowl to admire its design, then returned it to the host.

Tea ceremony

After the tea ceremony, in a banquet in a hotel, we were formally received in Tochigi by community leaders and our host families. There was a part in the program where Mae and I rendered a harana, with me singing Apo Hiking Society’s Ewan. Our performance ended with me giving Mae flower, an act which elicited giggles from the audience. When we came down the stage, a grey-haired Japanese in his kimono, whom I remember to be present during the tea ceremony, approached me and asked me to sing the classic Filipino love song Dahil Sa’yo for him. Right there and then, I sang few stanzas of the song with pride and joy upon realizing that he knew a Filipino song.

Mae and I perform a harana during the welcome activity in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. (Photos from Mae Ballena)

Letter from Fuji Maru (PART 4)

I met my Japanese host family, the Sakurai family, and my buddy for the immersion, Akimasa. When we introduced each other, I realized the first challenge for me: only the parents can speak English. Aki served as our translator, and reassured me that he will help me communicate with the family. He encouraged me, however, to try to relate with the children no matter how difficult it may be for me.

My Japanese host family

I first attempted at building rapport with them while on the car going to their home. I talked about happy things that I know about Japanese: Voltes V, Doraemon, Dragonball and Ghostfighter. They were so amazed that I knew these Japanese shows, so I explained to them how popular anime has been in the Philippines as far back as my childhood days in the 80s and 90s.

The Sakurai family has a semi-traditional house: wood and paper, with concrete exteriors, sloped ropes and a garden. That was the time that I tried to remember what were taught during our pre-departure orientation about Do’s and Don’t’s in Japan. Before entering the house, I removed my shoes at the house’s genkan (entrance) and turned them so that they faced the outside of the house. Tomoko offered me slippers for the tatami-covered floor.

We were ushered first to our room with wood and paper sliding screens as door, and unloaded our luggage. Except for the two mattresses on the floor, the room contained nothing else. Then we gathered at the round kotatsu, a low wooden table covered by what seemed a blanket. They placed their feet under the table, so I followed them and felt some warmth in there. For a while, my host parents and Aki were the ones speaking, in Japanese. Several times, Aki responded with “Arigato gozaimasu” which I understood to be words of gratitude. Wataru plotted a map of Tochigi on the table, and planned the places we were going the next two days. Among them, he said about a pottery house, and showed us some of the figurines and dishes that he made himself.

I woke up the next day at 6 a.m. Aki was still sound asleep, so I took the opportunity to use the only bathroom in the house. I remember Wataru telling me before we went to sleep that we can already use the ofuro (bath tub), that we did not have to follow the order that the eldest male in the house should use it first. If it were, the order would have been: Wataru first, then me, Aki, Atsushi, Takasi, Rie and Tomoko. Aki explained to me that I had to shower first before soaking myself into the tub, and I must never drain the tub as it will still be used by the other family members.

We had a traditional Japanese breakfast – rice, miso soup, pickles, vegetables in broth, and tea. Aki told me to say “Itadakimasu” or, literally, “I humbly receive it” with both hands together in front of my chest before eating to compliment the host for the food arrangement at the table. Wataru told us again our itinerary for he day. Tomoko, a nurse, could not join us, as she had to work at a school hospital. 

After breakfast, Wataru brought us to a river nearby to fish. He taught us first the procedures on how to cast net on land. Seeing Wataru’s demonstration, I thought that it was easy, but when it was my turn to practice, the edges of the net did not open to spread across the land. After some attempts, Wataru declared that Aki and I were ready for the river. We each caught three small fish after some awkward throwing of the net that did not fully spread out to the water. It was my first time to fish, which was weird as I had not tried it in my archipelago-country.

Day 1 activities of my homestay in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

Wataru then drove us to a convenience store to buy some bread, then drove us further to a picnic place where we ate the bread as our lunch. In the car, Wataru played old Japanese songs. One them was Sukiyaki, which Aki and other Japanese delegates sang during the welcome dinner in Tochigi. I asked Aki to write down the lyrics for me, and tried to memorize the lyrics and hummed as Wataru and the children intently listened to me, amazed at my interest in the song.

Wataru brought us to an old house of mashikoyaki. It was not the first time for me to be in a traditional pottery house outside the Philippines. The first was in Hanoi, Vietnam, at a seven-century-old ceramics village, Ba Trang. But it was my first to be a potter.  Shaping dishes out of clay on a wheel by hand was not easy. It took me two failed attempts before I could form the soil into a small cup, with help from the real potter in the house. At the end of the session, I finished three dishes – a tea cup, tea mug and a bowl.  Wataru promised me that he will send them to me once they were dried and glazed with traditional patterns of my choice.

For the day’s final stop, we found ourselves in a train station, but we had no idea whether we would board the train or meet someone from there. Few minutes later, we heard a loud roar from a train. And as it approached and stopped at the station, we saw a C12-model steam locomotive, the first that I have seen in my life, which kind of resembled the Hogwart’s Express in the movie Harry Potter. After unloading and loading some passengers, I was uplifted to see the train’s smoke stack discharging huge cloud of white smoke and its wheels with connecting rods running along the Cotton Way.

Shaping dishes in an old house of mashikoyaki in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

A steam locomotive still running along the Cotton Way, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan.

We went home, tired yet I was happy for the firsts that I experienced that day.  Aki and the kids unreservedly lay on the floor as they watched Japanese anime. I scanned my camera to review the pictures of the day, but I realized that the card was already full, and the battery exhausted.  I tried to transfer my memory card photos to my laptop, and then deleted the files. But to my shock, the download had failed! That meant I would lose all my pictures from Day 1 in Japan. So I tried to research how to retrieve deleted files on memory card, and found out that there was hope. In the course of salvaging my photos, I lost about two hours of interaction with my host family.

Tomoko arrived in the house, and started preparing our dinner. She asked me to help her and Rie prepare the dumplings. An old gracious woman, whom Wataru introduced as her mother, came to the house and brought us fried fish, the ones that we actually netted from the river.  She lived near Wataru’s house. She could not speak English, so Aki was translating for us. She said that I was the first Filipino that she met in her life. 

After dinner, Wataru offered me and Aki canned Yebisu malt beer - my first taste of beer in Japan and SSEAYP. Wataru gave each of us a box neatly tied by a ribbon. When I opened the box, I was delighted to see two elephant figurines which he said he had bought from a store near the mashikoyaki house. I carefully inspected the intricate details of the figurines, and thanked Wataru for the gift. Aki and I each presented our gifts for our host family. I handed them a table runner, which I explained to them was made of abaca from Bicol. I opened my laptop, and showed them pictures of the tourist spots in the Philippines that I have been to – the terraces and caves of Sagada, the subterranean river of Puerto Princesa, the windmills of Ilocos Norte, and the beaches in Bicol, among others. I gave them a postcard featuring Mayon, which they said resembles the Fujiyama. The family shared that the they have a plan to go to the Philippines, and may take the Tokyo-Manila or Tokyo-Cebu as entry point to the country. They wanted to go to Boracay.

100% malt beer

Next morning, I woke up very early when everyone else seemed still asleep. I wrote a letter to our host family and planned to give it to the family before I bid them goodbye at noon. After writing, I silently went out of the house, and I felt it was colder than my first day in Japan. There was still no sign of snow,however. I followed a path walk of pebbles that led me to the backyard, where orange marigolds, pink daisies and red camellas thrived against the plain grey fence. On the left corner of the house was a hill-like formation covered with cosmos and further it a green house. I went inside a wooden structure that housed a pool of koi. Wataru was there, feeding the fish. “Ohayou gozaimasu,” I greeted him. He pointed at a white koi, and told me it was the biggest in his collection. He shared that while he farms, serves a community organization, does pottery, maintains his garden and does a lot more things, he still finds time for his koi. Interestingly, he said that koi are symbols of friendship in Japan and a homophone for the word love in Japanese. He led me back to the garden, where he shared his plan to construct a pond of koi around the house and place big rocks to complete his Japanese garden. He wanted a forest,mountains and sea in his garden.

 Wataru announced at breakfast that we will do apple-picking in the morning. I was surprised because I thought apple farms were only found in the Aomori Prefecture. It took us a fifteen-minute drive to get to the orchard. We were each given a basket where we placed the Fuji apples, which undoubtedly were the biggest I have seen in my life. The branches of the trees lay low, so the picking was easy. The apples were sweet and crispy, but I hardly finished one because of its size.

Apple picking in a Tochigi orchard

When we went home for the last time, I had to rearrange my luggage to make space for three kilos of apples. Wataru took our ‘family’ portrait outside the house,then drove us to a restaurant where we had early lunch. Inside the bento box on the kotatsu was unagi or freshwater eel on top of steamed rice. Unlike the eel cooked with vinegar, salt and spices that I had once tried in the Philippines,the unagi was filleted, deboned and glaze-grilled.  It tasted sweet and, oh, what better word can I describe it than oishi!

On our way to the Shinkansen station, nobody tried to speak as we listened or not listened to some J-Pop music from the car’s stereo, until I opened the Fiesta-themed stationery which I had bought from a souvenir shop in Intramuros. I announced that I have a letter to the host family, and I wanted to read it to them. Wataru immediately shut off the music. Aki offered to translate.

October 28, 2012

Dear Wataru, Tomoko, Aki, Atsushi, Takasi and Rie:

Thank you for welcoming me to your beautiful home, and treating me kindly as a member of your family. I feel so lucky to have you as my Japanese host, and to be here in Tochigi.

In two days that I spent with you, I experienced your hospitality and love. I enjoyed every moment of my homestay: the food, the fishing, the tougay, the koi watching, the conversations and many more. I only have meaningful and happy memories of your family and Tochigi to bring home and share in the Philippines.

I hope I can stay longer but I could not. But I promise to remember you always,and to connect with you for a long time.

Continue to love and take care of each other. I wish that Rie, Atsushi and Takashi will do well in school, achieve their dreams and become happy.

See you again. Arigatou! Salamat!

Sincerely,

Sonny

Family picture before leaving Tochigi Prefecture

Awkwardness ran though me after reading the letter, realizing how ‘corny’ the letter had probably sounded. Aki, in his usual comic way of making situations light,started humming the Sukiyaki which I filled with words as much as I remembered  "Ue o muite arukou/ Namida ga kobore naiyouni..."

Aki told me that the song is actually a sad goodbye song, yet even if they understood the lyrics and I did not, they sang it with the same glee as I did. "...Omoidasu, haru no hi / Hitoribotchi no yoru."

We said our sayonara. Wataru assured me again that he would send me and Aki the earthenware we crafted, to which we gratefully responded, “Domo arigatou gozaimasu”. From the car, I unloaded my luggage, three kilos heavier because of the apples. This and the weight that dangled from around my neck, I carried back to Tokyo. Both carried things which would remind me of take me back to the prefecture – the net fishing, the steam engine, the orchard, the unagi and Sakuyaki. But more than the souvenirs and the potential Facebook cover photos,my immersion in Tochigi gave me new, more meaningful perspective about the Japanese far better than my first impressions I had made in Tokyo. I gained such new eyes through the Wataru family. They made me experience a different kind of hospitality, one with depth, respect, and gentle sincerity. As a foreigner, they introduced me Japan beyond tourism and tokens. They were not very expressive and wordy as, in fact, they were typically silent, reserved and did know many English words to tell me, yet every part of their home  - the genkan, the kotatsu, the garden – and their lived traditions spoke to me. And they told me about how they love their country and family, how they work hard for their family, how they value peace, and how they pursue happiness.

(To be continued)