I sat in the front of the car. My hands clamped tightly in my lap. My mother had warned me not to say or do anything that would offend our Japanese visitor. She told me to be polite and when she spoke erroneously not to correct her.
As we approached the station, I began to grow more and more excited. I had never met a person from Japan before. What would she look like? Would she understand me? My mother had explained that she had pretty good English, so she probably would understand the vocabulary of a ten year old. With a final warning of how I was to behave, my mother parked the car and led me into the station. We stood on a platform waiting for her to arrive. My feet grew tired, and I began to complain. My mother shot me a warning look and then said with a smile, “Fumiko, I assume?” Standing in front of me was this tall girl. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years of age. She had the loveliest dark skin and long straight jet black hair. I played with my messy, short, mousy brown hair, and felt diminutive. She smiled at me as my mother introduced us. “Rebecca, this is Fumiko. Fumiko this is my daughter Rebecca.”
“Hello,” I mumbled and stood behind my mother.
“Now,” she said, “you must be hungry?”
“Yes,” the girl (whose name I had forgotten already!) replied eagerly.
“Right, then we’ll have something small to eat in the canteen and then I’ll make something when we get home.”
While we ate she asked us questions about Ireland. She told us that she was interested in learning Irish. She asked if I could teach her some Irish words and then in return she’d teach me some Japanese. I don’t remember exactly why I found this funny but I do remember nearly choking on my milk and my mother giving me yet another warning glance.
When we had eaten we went out to the car park. When we got to the car I made a beeline for the front seat only to be frowned at by my mother. “Oh,” I mumbled and slowly got into the back of the car. While we drove we listened to the radio. Well we intended to listen to the radio. But its sound was drowned out by Fumiko asking questions. The whole way home it was, “And what is the Irish for such and such…” and, “what do he mean when he say…” I had no objections to this interrogation. I was totally absorbed in her funny ways of speaking. I noticed that she always said, “Do” when it should have been “does” and often mistook an expression as an order. When we finally arrived home my mother showed her to her room and told me to go out and play. I decided to go down the road and tell some of my friends about this person who was to stay with us for four whole weeks. Anna was the only one of my friends outside and she suggested we bring up her new tea set that she had got for her birthday to show Fumiko.
We went into the kitchen and found my mother and Fumiko deep in conversation. Fumiko seemed to be embarrassed about something and my mother was trying so hard not to laugh it looked as if she was sucking lemons! Anna proudly produced the tea set and placed it on the table. I could see my mother was thankful for a moment to regain control. My mother smiled and cried out, “Oh how very posh!” in her bad impersonation of an English person. Fumiko began to tell us of the tea that she liked to drink then she ran up the stairs to bring it down to us.
The four of us were all seated around the table with a cup of “tea” in front of us. My mother was brave enough to go first. She took a sip, pulled a face, and announced that it was much too hot. I took a sip, pulled a face, and announced that it tasted like grass. Fumiko began to drink her tea. She slurped loudly while doing so and I wondered why my mother always gave out to me for slurping but let her do so. My mother looked at me and winked and I knew not to say anything.
That night Fumiko went to bed at 7.30, and I asked my mother what was so funny. Suddenly my mother jumped up and ran up the stairs. I followed her silently for fear of being turned around and sent back down the stairs. My mother opened her door and asked her if she was okay. I immediately saw what the problem was. She had absolutely no idea of how to get into the bed! She obviously knew you lay on top of it but the sheets were just too much for her to manage. My mother showed her how to “work” it and sent me downstairs.
When she came down I asked her why Fumiko was here in the first place. She explained to me that the school my mother taught in had done an exchange and she had come to teach the older classes about Japanese culture. My mother told me that the reason she had “gotten away” with slurping her tea was because in Japan it’s considered good manners to slurp.
The next day at dinner I noticed Fumiko having great difficulty with her knife and fork. I asked her why she could not use them and she explained that in Japan they use chopsticks. She happened to have some with her. I agreed to try and eat my food with the chopsticks, as she was trying to use the knife and fork. We spent about half an hour trying to eat our food! Eventually we gave up and swapped our apparatus.
Over the next few weeks she taught me a few words in Japanese and I attempted to teach her some Irish. She found it fascinating. She was constantly asking how to say words in Irish. I found her fascinating. She told me of Japan and how different things were there. We grew very close.
It was too soon when the day came for her to leave. We drove to the train station, Fumiko in the front and me in the back. We had stayed up late the night before. She played the tin whistle for us and gave me loads of charts to practice my Japanese from. My mother had finally told me to go to bed with a promise of waking me up in the morning to come and say goodbye.
Now it was time for the goodbye. She thanked my mother. She bent down and gave me a big hug. As she got on the train, I held my mother’s hand tightly and whispered, “Goodbye.”
I knew that I probably wouldn’t see her again. Japan was just too far away. To me it seemed as if we were from too different worlds; two worlds that had opened up for a brief moment in time allowing both of us to take a peek into the other’s universe. And now…well…now it was time to go home.
