On Belonging: A Story from Japan

by Brenna Holeman

tokyo-japan-15

I met Ai almost exactly one year after I’d moved to Japan. I’m getting ahead of myself, though – I need to go back to the beginning.

In my early 20s, I was addicted to travelling; I had perpetually itchy feet. Travelling had me in its grasp, my wanderlust an uncontrolled entity. And like most addictions, I needed more money to sustain it. At twenty-four years old and jobless, my savings fast running out, I needed to start making money to support my habit. It only made sense that I’d look for a job in a different country; it seemed, in my mind, to be killing two birds with one stone. Soon I was looking up international jobs, researching visas, investigating how much I’d need for the plane ticket. I then did what seemingly every other twenty-something English-speaker with a university degree but no idea how to use it does: I decided to teach English abroad. It was relatively easy to find a job online, and after an interview and a grammar test, it was confirmed. I was going to be a teacher in Japan.

I arrived in Osaka on a humid afternoon in August, my suitcases bulging with light grey office-wear and books by my favourite authors. I stood on the yellow footprints at immigration as I was fingerprinted and photographed, my first encounter with the country’s order and diligence. An airport bus took me to where I’d meet Bruce, an American man sent by my new company. He showed up two hours late, with bleached hair and a sweat-stained polo shirt. He didn’t offer much by way of explanation for his lateness, just a mumble or two about traffic, but I later realised this was a huge faux-pas in Japan. As I’d learn on my first day of work, if you’re on time in Japan, you’re 15 minutes late.

Sumimasen,” he bowed to me, a word I’d later learn means I’m sorry and thank you and excuse me and just about everything one would need to appear polite in Osakan dialect.

Bruce took me to my new home deep in the city centre. We drove for what seemed like hours through winding streets that would suddenly explode in fluorescent lights. I tried to make out the katakana and hiragana symbols that I had studied before arriving, sounding the words out as best I could. Eventually Bruce parked the van, helped me unload my suitcases.

“Your apartment is down this arcade.” He grabbed the handle of one of my bags, wheeling it down the brightly-lit passage. Everything was closing up, but I caught snippets of the shops: rows of unfamiliar vegetables, walls of colourful stationery, the blast of air-conditioning from the open door of what appeared to be a casino, the plink and plonk of slot machines resounding out into the night air. The floor of the arcade was smooth and tiled; it was only for pedestrians and bicycles. I couldn’t see the end of it, could only guess how far it stretched in the distance.

We stopped at an inconspicuous building with a brown door.

“Through here,” Bruce punched in a code, and the door swung open. The hallway smelled of something thick and stifling, like rotting garbage. He pressed the button for the elevator and the doors heaved open. “You’re on the top floor,” he grinned. “Penthouse.”

The apartment was larger than I thought it would be. It was fully furnished, but it felt old and dingy. It had definitely been lived in.

“I bought you some bedding and a couple of towels to get you started,” Bruce said. I looked around, said it was fine. Everything was a slightly different shade of sepia, from the tatami mats, to the bedding, to the bare walls. After Bruce left, I pulled back the beige curtains and stepped onto the balcony. I looked over a sea of low buildings, and for as far as I could see there was the dim of lights. The air felt sticky and flat. It was my first time in Asia.

 

Over the next few weeks I started to find my way around the city. I hadn’t permanently lived anywhere in over two years, as my previous stops of Toronto and Edinburgh had both been temporary bases, and they had never truly felt like home. In Osaka I decided to allow myself to grow attached; it was an easy city to love, anyway. I was immediately enamoured with its combination of energy and tranquility, the fast-paced business world mixing seamlessly with the traditional temples and shrines. There were cat cafés and photo booths and trains that could take you to the other side of the country in a matter of hours. It was a city where every day I saw something that made me pause in fascination or wonder, keeping me active and curious. There was an organised approach to the hustle and bustle of life, an order to the expansive shopping centres, the crowded subways, the throngs of people on every downtown sidewalk. I grew to feed off of the noise and the pulse of the city. This was still before Google Maps told everyone where to go, so every day I clutched my paper map in my hands, willing my brain to make sense of the complex alleyways whose names were written only in Japanese.

I knew that I toed the line of local and foreigner, and that perhaps I always would. I would forever stand out on the subway, no matter how many years I lived there or how well I spoke the language. I would forever be blonde and blue-eyed. I would forever be an other. My students drew cartoons of me in class sometimes; the drawings looked like anime characters, the eyes unnaturally large. Despite this, I was determined to feel like I belonged.

I soon fell into a routine at work, learning which convenience store had the best sushi near my office building and how to manage minor earthquakes while stuck on the eighth floor. I made cultural mistakes, of course; my first week, grocery shopping, I bought what I thought to be peanut butter only to discover it was miso. I forgot to take my shoes off in a classroom, I poured my own tea at a dinner with coworkers, I handed money over with one hand – I didn’t know so many of the Japanese customs, but it felt good to learn them, even by trial and error.

I had originally picked my company because one of my friends from university recommended it, having taught there for two years herself. Through her, I landed one of the best roles a foreigner at the company could get: I taught English to high-level adults three days a week. The other two days, I wrote English textbooks and materials to be distributed within the company. In the first week of teaching I had to stop my hand from trembling whenever I wrote on the whiteboard. Most of my students were older than me, and I was sure they’d find out I didn’t quite know what I was doing, but soon even teaching felt natural and fun.

I tried to settle in to my neighbourhood, which was called Nishi-nari-ku, but I never liked my flat; it felt dark and unlovable, a place filled with shadows. To escape, I often took my bicycle out for late-night tours of the neighbouring areas. Most of the streets of Osaka grew quiet by dark save the neon signs for ramen shops and the dull hum of vending machines selling cheap alcoholic drinks and cigarettes. I’d buy a can of beer and cruise for hours, sometimes a portable radio in my bike basket. I had spent many hours like this, minus the beer, in my Canadian youth. I liked how this nostalgia mixed with my new surroundings, mixed with the unfamiliarities that awaited every corner.

 

After a year of living in Nishi-nari-ku I moved to Shin-Fukae, a quiet neighbourhood in the east of Osaka. From what I could tell, I was the only visible foreigner living there. I moved because I wanted a nicer flat, and I found one: one with clean white walls, a big balcony, and panoramic windows in the bedroom that let in lots of light. Sometimes I’d walk home while school was getting out, and I’d be swarmed by students in navy uniforms and straw hats.

“Hello, hello, how are you?” they’d shout and giggle, running away before I could answer. Nearly everyone in the neighbourhood waved at me, or said hello. At night I’d take the train into the city centre to meet friends, both foreign and Japanese, for ramen or chu-hi or a gig to see punk bands, or sometimes, on good nights, for all three. I’d stumble home under the light of the street lamps that lined the road like a string of pearls, happy in my new home, happier than I had ever been.

 

After living in Shin-Fukae for about a month, I heard a woman’s voice call out to me while I was walking toward the subway station, on my way to work. It was a sticky morning, and I could hear the roar of cicadas from the trees in the park, even though it was a few blocks away.

Ohayo gozaimasu!” she yelled. I turned round. She was standing in the doorway of a little izakaya, a Japanese pub. I had noticed it whenever I walked past. Sometimes, at night, I’d hear karaoke from behind its door. I couldn’t tell how old she was; she could have been anywhere from forty to sixty, her face youthful and line-free. She waved a white washcloth at me. “Ohayo!”

Ohayo gozaimasu!” I called back, thankful that I at least understood how to say good morning. Despite studying on and off for a year, my Japanese had never made it past simple phrases. I could talk to kids and taxi drivers, but that was about it. Once the conversation went past the weather, my favourite colour, or the names of my siblings, I was lost. Even though I lived in Japan, my encounters with the Japanese language were somewhat limited: my job required everyone to speak English, and most of my Japanese friends were fairly fluent, too. I probably shouldn’t have felt as proud as I did with each minor interaction in Japanese, but I couldn’t help it. She grinned at me from the door of the pub, and I smiled and kept walking.

A few days later, returning home, I saw her again.

Konnichiwa!” she called to me with a laugh. She had a soft, round face framed by a bob of black hair.

Konnichiwa,” I smiled back. This time I stopped. “How are you?” I asked in Japanese.

“You speak Japanese!” she cried out. I felt awful that I was about to disappoint her.

“No Japanese. Little. I am from Canada.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say in that moment – my mind went blank – but I just continued to stand there and smile.

“Canada!” she laughed. “It’s too cold in Canada for me!”

“Hot in Japan,” I replied, aware that everything I was saying was riddle with grammatical errors. I mimed fanning myself. She laughed again, and said something I didn’t understand, but I smiled and nodded anyway.

Sayonara,” I said to her, and walked the last block home. When I turned the corner to get to my flat, I looked back, and she was still standing there, watching. She lifted up her washcloth and waved again.

 

Over the next year, I learned a lot about her. I saw her a few times a week, sometimes chatting to other neighbours, sometimes sweeping outside the pub. She always lit up when she saw me, and she introduced me to many others in the neighbourhood. I learned her name was Ai, meaning love. The first time she told me this I got hopelessly confused.

“Ai means love,” she must have been saying to me. She was saying the word love in English, one of the only English words she seemed to know. All I heard was ‘I’ – the pronunciation of Ai – and ‘love’.

“I love you?” I said back to her, and she laughed so hard she bent double.

“I love you!” she laughed back, calling her husband out of the pub to tell him the story, her face contorted in happiness. She was impossible not to like. I eventually visited her pub a few times, sat on one of the rickety little stools at a smooth counter while she poured me a pint of Asahi. During the summer of 2010, nearly two years after I had moved to Japan, I’d sit there with a cold beer and watch World Cup games on the tiny television in the corner. Sometimes, when we couldn’t understand each other, she’d painstakingly look through my Japanese-English dictionary to write out a note on a scrap of paper, her writing neat. ‘Today you are beautiful Brenna-chan,’ she’d write to me. Adding ‘chan’ to the end of my name was a sign of my youth and our familiarity; I added ‘san’ to the end of hers to show respect for my elder.

Arigato, Ai-san, arigato gozaimasu,” I’d reply. “And you, too! You are beautiful!” and she’d hide her face in her hands and laugh.

 

Somewhere amongst all that was so unfamiliar, down a sleepy little street in Shin-Fukae, I started to come into my own. I had a rewarding job, a comfortable flat, a great social group, and a sense of community. I learned new words, new alphabets. I made friends. I loved my job, and my students, who were all engaged and intelligent. I grew used to the bombardment of questions: where I was from, what I did, what my favourite Japanese food was, if I liked Osaka, if I had a boyfriend, if my curly hair was real. My neighbours and friends and students were curious, and surely the greatest compliment is to be found interesting. I didn’t mind the impromptu interviews, and memorised my answers: Canada, taught conversation classes and wrote English textbooks, okonomiyaki, yes, no, yes. Osaka felt like home, sometimes even more so than my previous homes of Halifax, Toronto, or Edinburgh. In some ways it felt like home even more than my hometown of Winnipeg – perhaps because it was the first time I had truly carved my own path in a place. I showed up with nothing and nobody, but I left feeling like I had made a home for myself. I left feeling like I had belonged.

 

One rainy summer day, when I had first moved to Japan, I exited the supermarket and walked toward my bicycle. Arranging my bags in the front basket, I noticed an elderly woman waving at me from under the awning. She was saying something to me I did not understand – she was speaking too quickly for my rudimentary Japanese. She pointed to the handkerchief in her hand, and then to my bicycle, over and over again. I smiled, still not understanding, saying the only word I could think of: “Sumimasen.” Unrelenting in her mission, she left her dry spot and walked toward me in the drizzle. With one quick swoop she wiped my bicycle seat off and motioned for me to sit down – she had wanted to make sure that my seat was dry. The incident was not isolated, and I was often granted random acts of kindness by strangers.

Since Japan, I’ve moved to London, where I quickly felt even more at home than I ever have; a little corner of the East End of the city suddenly became my whole world, the epicentre of my work, my friendships, my life. I quickly got to know my neighbourhood and my neighbours, and it’s rare for me to leave my flat and not wave hello to one or two people: the woman who works at the flower shop, the local from the pub, the barista from the corner café. Japan taught me how to do that – how to find my place in a neighbourhood – and I think about Ai sometimes, wonder if she still runs the little pub in Shin-Fukae. I think about the kindness and generosity I was granted in that community in Osaka. And I think about how much better the world could be if only we all stopped and said hello to one another, or waved at our neighbours, or fumbled through foreign languages together just to share a laugh.

I learned a great many things during my two and a half years living in Japan, but that – the power of a simple hello, the strength of one moment of kindness, the rush you get when you feel you might finally fit in – is perhaps what stuck with me more than anything.

Fashion in Japan

On my very last day in Japan, 2010

If parts of this story seem vaguely familiar, I wrote Navigating Home: A Story From Japan almost four years ago. 

Have you ever lived in another country? Did it ever truly feel like home?

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53 comments

rachael February 28, 2017 - 3:16 am

Loved this post. I think that Japan is such a unique place. I worked for NOVA in Japan from 2007-2008 and it was one of the best times in my life. I’m now back in Japan in Okinawa, but this time I came with my family, and it feels so different. Honestly I miss the mainland everyday.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:09 pm

Thank you so much – I’m so glad you liked the post! And I hope you get lots of visits in while you’re in Okinawa 😀

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Cate February 28, 2017 - 3:25 am

I loved this post Brenna! Your narratives are the best, they make my day. I lived in Peru for a month last summer, and absolutely fell in love with the people and country. I totally get the language stumbling- sometimes hand signals are all you have to work with! I would love to visit Japan one day, but I feel Japanese would me so hard to learn! Kudos to you for trying. Glad you love London, it just shows how easy it can be to assimilate to a new country and feel welcomed

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:10 pm

Aw, thank you very much, Cate – so glad that you liked the story! Peru sounds amazing, I too fell in love with the country when I visited. 🙂

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Andrea Anastasiou February 28, 2017 - 12:45 pm

Oh I LOVED reading this, Brenna. I totally agree about the power of hello or a simple smile. I’ve noticed that when I make the effort to smile, people are more willing to have conversations with you. Your story has also made me lust after Japan even more – it’s been my dream destination for the longest time and I’m really hoping I make it there this October!

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:11 pm

Thank you so much, Andrea… and WOW that’s so exciting that you’ll hopefully be there in October!

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Katie February 28, 2017 - 1:28 pm

It has always been my dream to live in another country. The closest I got was 3 months in Costa Rica, but I don’t think that’s long enough to count. It never occurred to me that my husband’s job would *not* take us overseas — most of my friends have gone — but that’s looking less and less likely for us. However, the more that I think beyond the initial bitterness I feel about it, it would probably better (albeit harder) to make that move on our own one day, and not as part of the U.S. Military. Especially not now. It would be better to go to a country and say, “I choose to be here” rather than what being with the military can often imply.

This story made me smile.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:20 pm

I think that counts! That’s still a ton of time to get to know a place. And yes – choosing to be somewhere is infinitely better than being forced to be there/not choosing it, I’d imagine…

Thanks for your comment, Katie, glad you liked the piece!

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Katie March 2, 2017 - 12:00 am

Oops I don’t mean being forced to be there (most places are pretty great), but I’m not sure how the citizens of those countries often view the U.S. military presence… especially under the current administration.

And of course your writing is always lovely — still waiting for that book to come out! 🙂

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Emily February 28, 2017 - 3:28 pm

I love the post, and the constant of Ai always being there! So cute.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:09 pm

Thank you, Emily! 😀

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Safia February 28, 2017 - 6:55 pm

Beautifully written. Enjoyed your post.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:08 pm

Thank you so much! 😀

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Ella February 28, 2017 - 8:16 pm

Beautifully written post as always! It’s my wish to find a place in the world where I belong, whether that’s in my current corner of the world or in a corner that I have yet to encounter. I think feeling you belong really comes down to the community around you and their acceptance of you, or even creating a community of sorts for yourself. It’s so beautiful that even when we’re far from ‘home’, we can find one wherever we are and that the feeling of belonging starts when you share a smile with a local and have positive interactions with the people and surroundings around you 🙂

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Kathi February 28, 2017 - 8:49 pm

I really, really enjoy your writing a lot these days. It is so nice if you’re spending more time in a place it starts becoming more and more familiar, you go to the same places, you meet the same people. This post definitely brought back a few similar memories of my own.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:08 pm

Aw, thank you so much, Kathi! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the blog. 🙂

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Jack February 28, 2017 - 8:54 pm

I love your stories!! Your picture at the end reminds me of Zooey Deschanel 🙂

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:06 pm

Thank you so much! And I was definitely going through a “cute” phase of dressing then… 😀

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Heather February 28, 2017 - 11:26 pm

I absolutely loved this post. I just returned from Japan a few weeks ago, though I was only there as a visitor. Even in the short time I was there, I found I have a deep fondness for Japan and the Japanese people. There’s just something about them and their beautiful, intriguing country that draws you in and doesn’t let go. Thank you for this story. It was beautiful.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:07 pm

Aw, thank you very much, Heather! I’m so glad that you had such a great time in Japan. 🙂

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Ursa March 1, 2017 - 12:35 pm

Great post, loved your little incident with Ai! How cute!
Although I’ve never lived there, I often get homesick for London. The city I can’t stop coming back to and feels like home to me.

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Brenna Holeman March 1, 2017 - 8:07 pm

I can definitely see why you’d feel that about London… 😉 Thanks for your comment, Ursa!

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Nikita March 2, 2017 - 2:27 am

When I first decided to stay in Prague, I had such an unexpected feeling of relief… It was the first time in a long time that I didn’t know when I was leaving a place, that I didn’t feel like I had one foot out the door. I didn’t even love the city yet, but I loved the idea of making it feel like home.

I also grew to have a love affair with my little corner of Zizkov. It’s the little things, like being a regular at the pub around the corner, or saying hello to so many people on the streets that it feels like a small town you’ve been in forever. And Prague is such a great city to feel familiar in, because it never stops being beautiful.

I remember the exact layouts of most of the streets, and I walk them in my mind sometimes. It always makes my heart hurt a little. Nowhere has ever felt like home in that way. I don’t think I’ve ever been so consciously present somewhere. Except maybe Galway, but knowing that I was leaving after four months made everything feel more urgent. Not that that was a bad thing… My memories from Galway are all intense and epic. I miss it every day, and would happily call it home again.

I recently moved to Kaohsiung, and have been trying to recapture that feeling, but haven’t quite found it. Maybe because the air quality makes long walks less enjoyable, maybe my flat is too central, maybe I just haven’t found my tribe yet… Maybe it will take time. Maybe it’s knowing that I’m so far from my family that this could never become a permanent home, and so I won’t let myself get too attached.

Probably this is just a different kind of home. Either way it will be a part of me forever, and that’s something special.

Beautiful post… Clearly, it’s made me reflect on some things! 🙂

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:32 pm

Aw, thank you so much for sharing your stories here, Nikita! I totally agree with you that there are different kinds of home.

Thank you for your beautiful comment 🙂

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Bre Buxton March 2, 2017 - 8:01 am

Ah! This post relates to me so much! I just turned 25 and I am looking into teaching English abroad in South America or Spain this upcoming year for the same reasons you mentioned.

When I was in high school I lived in Costa Rica for a summer as a foreign exchange student, and cried when I had to come back to the States. Costa Rican families are very close, and I always felt embraced and loved by the locals I spent time with. The culture was just full of warmth and liveliness (“Pura Vida!”).

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:33 pm

Isn’t that so wonderful? To have that experience somewhere else in the world?? Thank you for your comment, Bre! 🙂

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Lucas Rodrigues March 5, 2017 - 7:50 am

What a great read, I’ve never lived abroad but this post inspired me to do so and to visit Japan as well… Been in Goa for almost 2 months now, but it’s definitely not the place for me.

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:33 pm

Thank you, Lucas! I have never been to Goa, but I’d like to go one day…

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Lucas Rodrigues March 5, 2017 - 7:53 am

I’ve never lived abroad but it’s something I definitely want to do. Thank you for the inspiration and maybe I’ll even visit Japan this year!

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Mimi Rose March 5, 2017 - 3:21 pm

Great post Brenna, you really brought Japan to life for me. It’s a country that I’m still hoping to see at some point soon. My move to Sydney, Australia when I didn’t know anyone was probably one of the times I felt most at home living abroad…and mostly that was because of the connections and friends I made during my time there. It really does make all the difference when you take the time to get to know locals and say a simple hello to the people around you.

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:36 pm

Yes, I totally agree! It makes a huge difference. Thank you for your comment, Mimi! 🙂

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Oneika March 5, 2017 - 5:14 pm

So beautifully written, as always. It’s the longer term travels: the ones where you dig in, stay for a period of time, and establish a life in a foreign place (until the unfamiliar becomes familiar) that I love the best.

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:34 pm

Thank you, Oneika! And yes, I can imagine you’ve felt this a lot in all of your long-term travels/living abroad, too. 🙂 x

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Ashley March 5, 2017 - 6:09 pm

Beautifully written, as always, Brenna! This is such a lovely story – it made me smile reading it! I’m already obsessed with the idea of visiting Japan, but this post only makes me want to visit more!

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:35 pm

Aw, thank you, Ashley! It’s such a beautiful country, I can’t wait to go back. 🙂

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sheloveslondon March 6, 2017 - 11:40 am

I loved this. I’d love to live and work somewhere else for a bit. I went to Japan to visit a friend for the first time last year, and everything about your experience just rang so true there. There were some incredibly kind people willing to chat and help. In Osaka, an old man on his bike saw me and my friend staring at a map (looking confused, probably) and motioned for us to follow him – he took us all the way to the market riding along in front of us on his bike just motioning with his hands, then just rode off when we arrived. Heh.

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:38 pm

Oh wow, isn’t that amazing? I really felt so much kindness in Japan. Thank you for sharing your story here! 🙂

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Stefania - the italian backpacker March 7, 2017 - 4:55 pm

I’ve lived in a foreign country on and off for the past 10 years. It’s hard to feel at home in a new neighborhood, especially in a big city. In London I’ve never felt like I belonged in the city, but it’s different here in Barcelona. I loved how you described the kindness of Japanese people and the feeling that everything is different. Even the simplest thing in a country like Japan must be so different! I’d really love to visit…

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chewy March 15, 2017 - 9:04 pm

I never felt like I belonged in London either! I also didn’t feel like I belonged in Singapore. :-\

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:39 pm

I hope you get to Japan soon, Stefania! I can understand that about London… it can be hard to connect in big cities sometimes. I’m glad that you feel so at home in Barcelona! 🙂

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Travel Writing Round Up [March 2017] - Caroline in the City Travel Blog March 10, 2017 - 3:03 pm

[…] On Belonging: A Story from Japan, This Battered Suitcase– As someone who has lived abroad, this story resonated with me. It’s about the moment you feel like you’ll never fit in versus the moment you realize you don’t want your old life back. […]

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chewy March 15, 2017 - 7:45 pm

I have never lived in Japan, but I’ve thought about it many times (and visited). I always feel sad thinking about people that I’ll never see again, but it’s those acts of genuine kindness that make it worthwhile! I’m always surprised when it happens, but maybe I should try to be the one to initiate it more often.

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:37 pm

Yes, those moments are so memorable, aren’t they? Thank you for your comment, Chewy!

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Zalie Holeman March 20, 2017 - 5:00 pm

What a beautiful story of belonging! You experienced such a unique culture living in Japan and I’m happy that some of the lessons you learned living there have followed you 🙂

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Brenna Holeman March 20, 2017 - 8:36 pm

Thank you, sister xoxo I’m so glad you got to visit me there! 🙂

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Nina Lee: Nina's Sweet Adventures March 24, 2017 - 5:14 pm

Thanks for sharing such a sweet story. Makes me pine for a big move again, but I’m in the midst of creating a new home here in Spain. In a few months I will be moving down to Cordoba and moving in with the boyfriend! I’m hoping that it will soon feel like home. I definitely feel more at home in Spain than I do in New York, haha! Though to be honest the only time I’ve felt that I truly belonged was when I lived in Costa Rica…I felt truly embraced by everyone I came across.

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Kim March 26, 2017 - 8:00 pm

I just love this. You’ve so perfectly captured the poignance of these moments when living abroad, in another language, in another culture. I completely related when you said there were times you felt more at home in Osaka than in your other homes. There’s something truly beautiful about those moments when you perfectly embody “local” and “foreigner” – something that helps people feel more comfortable with you while also opening up to you in a way they might not with other strangers they meet. I most recently lived long-term in northern Chile, and even though I knew it wasn’t my forever home, I loved those moments towards the end of my stay where the vendor at the farmer’s market knew my favorite olives, the woman at the cafe asked where I’d been, the bus attendants recognized me and joked around with me. Thank you, once again, for inspiring me with your words!

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Dee March 31, 2017 - 11:01 am

Awww I love this. I moved to the Us from Nigeria at 16 and remember when it started to feel like home, when I built community – my own little village away from home and the birth of most of my best friends .

Now I moved to Edinburgh for 2.5 years on a secondment and for some reason it hasn’t been as easy to build community perhaps for my focus on work and leaving little time/effort to connect. I have just over a year left and I am sitting here in the Philippines resolved to be intentional about connecting and then I read this.

It’s all coming together. Thank you ??

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Mo April 3, 2017 - 2:25 pm

Great read Brenna! I moved to Japan four months ago, so this story really resonates with me. I struggle with belonging, but I’m enjoying the journey so far. I’ve never really lived on my own before, so discovering that and where and how I find belonging is still a process for me.

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Diane November 26, 2017 - 1:49 pm

Love this post. Japan is the home of my heart, since my first visit as a teen many years ago, through living there for several years during uni days, to lengthy and not so lengthy visits over years to the present. Even now, living in Hong Kong, those with whom I am the closest are Japanese 🙂

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Pusat Jagaan October 8, 2018 - 11:47 pm

Brillaint article. Japan 🙂

Bookmarked and will be back.

Have a nice day.

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Douglas F March 13, 2020 - 4:42 am

Wonderfully written post about bonding and connecting! I’ve lived in 2 Asian countries for extended periods (8 years and 5 years), so your description of belonging and the neighborhood ‘map’ really spoke to me.
Thanks for this inspiring story!
Douglas of Rails, Whales and Tales

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Candace Elms-Smith May 4, 2020 - 2:56 am

I absolutely loved this story. It captivated me all the way through to the end! I have always wanted to visit Japan and have heard so many wonderful things about their hospitality. Though your reminiscent account has made me want to pack my bags and leave right away! I am looking forward to reading more of your stories.

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