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I made a lot of progress this weekend in researching our trip to Japan.
I went home to visit my parents and sister, whose birthday was earlier this month, and got into a long discussion with my mom about the trip.
She asked me what we are going to do and where we are going to stay. Of course, true to my nature, I still have no clue. I really need to get moving on that. I don't particularly enjoy having every minute of my vacations mapped and scheduled out; I'm a free spirit that way. I generally like to have the big stuff picked out -- maybe some tickets for an event or a dinner scheduled with someone -- and otherwise just go when and where I want to go. But she's right -- I need to choose our base of operations immediately.
She then asked me whether I had any plans to visit her relatives. I said I had thought about it, but I was leaning more toward "no," because (1) they're practically strangers to me, (2) they are complete strangers to Stephen, whom I don't want to make uncomfortable, (3) almost all of them don't speak English and (4) my mom, who could help, wasn't planning to go.
She went into a bit of detail about her relatives, to the point that I wondered if she really did hope for me to go there, for her.
The sister she's closest to, Sachiko (sahtch-koh), lives about 2-3 hours north of Tokyo by Shinkansen, or bullet train, in a city called Haramachi City. I was more than willing to make the trip out there until Sachiko relayed the round-trip price to my mom on the phone: about $150 per person. Gulp. Oh well. How many times am I going to do that in my lifetime? Money is no expense to me, but of course my partner may think otherwise. And since it's his vakay and his money too, I have to respect that. That decision is still in the air.
According to my mom via my aunt, I have at least two relatives who work and live in Tokyo. One is Sachiko's youngest daughter, Kanako. She is in her early to mid-20s. Sachiko gave my mom her cell phone number. She says Kanako unfortunately is a bit shy, so I'm hesitant to cold call her. And she doesn't speak English, either, so that put a damper on things.
The other relative, my mom's first cousin, could be our break. His name is Kaoru (kah-oh-roo), and he speaks, reads and writes English after having attended some college in California. I've actually met him. He lived with our family briefly between school sessions when I was in fourth grade. He must be in his 40s by now. Funny thing is, my mom doesn't like him or his family. She says they're "stingy," whatever that means. He was always personally nice to me. But my mom offered to call him up for me anyway.
Sachiko gave me his e-mail address -- with some difficulty, since being from a rural area, Sachiko wasn't familiar with the terms "AOL," or "@"or ".com" and tripped over them while relaying them over the phone. I was just shocked that Kaoru had such a mundane e-mail address! I was also amused to find that my mom was familiar enough with those terms -- she's a complete technophobe -- to correct Sachiko (I'm paraphrasing here): "No! No! That's A-O-L, Ayyy... Ohhh... Elllluuu... not A-O-Eye! Ellluuu!"
So I have the e-mail address (and phone number if I need it) of a relative who speaks English and lives in Tokyo. Things are starting to get interesting.
This trip has unintentionally turned into a genealogical pilgrimage. I meant to make that family bonding trip someday with my mother -- who could do all of the introductions in addition to helping me with my Japanese that I supposedly had learned to speak -- but because she doesn't want to go, it's like she's just handed over the reins. And I feel guilty about dragging Stephen around a huge city on the other side of the planet just for my own personal reasons.
I can't comprehend why my mom doesn't want to go. I tried and tried this weekend to persuade her, and she paused several times to ponder the possibility. She seemed genuinely eager and excited about working with her sister to help coordinate our trip.
In the end, she thought it just not worth the effort to her to drive to the Japanese consulate in Miami to get her Japanese passport renewed, then make all the arrangements. She hasn't seen her sister or the rest of her family in more than 20 years, fercryinoutloud, but that still wasn't enough to convince her it was worth it. I won't ever understand that. Of course, there are a lot of issues with my mom I will never understand, but that's another story.
She may still change her mind. But time's running out, and she's stubborn like that.