One Heart,

Two Homelands

By Essen Skabelund

Inhaling the salty air, breathing deep and scanning the ground, I gasp and point to an orange crab the size of my arm span, squatting in the tide of the bay. The Japanese spider crab grows to a span of 13 feet across… it lives 100 years. It started its evolutionary crawl about 100 million years ago – long before present-day Japanese culture, of course. I meander through the wildly green landscape to my grandmother’s house. I peel and eat succulent loquats that my grandfather had pulled off of neighbors’ trees. Now I’m sitting on the tatami floor, listening to my grandmother tell war (and ghost) stories, all while she folds paper cranes to help sharpen her mind (bundles of thousands of paper cranes hang near us: symbols of good fortune and long life).

Growing up bilingual and bicultural in America, I feel lucky to visit Japan every three years: however, in retrospect, this simply isn’t enough time. Between our visits and the family shipping Japanese snacks and videos to us, I gather an idea of Japanese people and culture, romanticizing “the motherland.” My mother doesn’t raise me to achieve a prestigious career, as is stereotyped by the “Tiger Mom” trope in American media, but with an expectation that I possess good character.

In Japanese culture, this translates to collectivist values of consideration for how people around me are affected by my behavior as well as focus on the quality and commitment in my actions.

Collectivism is embedded in the contextual nature of the language itself, not only how people form orderly lines for walking and standing on the escalator or at the train. A common saying in Japan is “kuuki o yomu” which translates to “read the air” or, in my own words, “understand the meaning of what people are not saying.” You can read hints of context from body language and speech. Even a Japanese person saying one word, “chotto…” (“it’s a little…”) can communicate, “no, I’d rather you not ask me to attend this event again,” or “yes, please clean your mess.”

Internal culture clashes are part of growing up with a collectivist mindset in a hyper-individualistic society like America’s. And I’m feeling this conflict this year, my first time being the sole translator as I visit Japan after five years away. In America I feel Japanese, but in Japan I ironically feel all American. 

How Japanese am I — and how Japanese do I want to be? The question lingers in my mind as I experience the craftsmanship of Kamakura, the shirasu dishes and ocean sights of Enoshima, the metropolitan center of Shibuya (rivaling NYC’s Time Square), and the sea port of Yokohama. The question follows me as I visit family in Osaka, the “spiritual home” of Japanese comedy, okonomiyaki, and takoyaki.

As I peruse the fashion district of Harajuku, I admire the painstaking quality and commitment in clothing production and, yes, I even fan-girl over the meticulously crafted “total looks” of street style everywhere. As I visit the Meiji Jingu shrine, I witness a pilgrimage site built for enjoying “forest bathing” and Shinto, a spirituality so uniquely Japanese that it defines the very spirit of collectivism: everything around you is a god/spirit, so respect everything. And as I laugh with my Japanese family’s jokes, I feel unmistakably different, but at home.

How Japanese am I? Exactly half. How Japanese do I want to be? The truth is I want to embrace my spiritual roots and the beliefs that ground me, to build upon the eclectic Japanese style that has influenced me since a child. I want to be grateful for all that is around me. And I am coming to peace with being a little different — and a little bit of both homelands.