Nirayama HS Visit

Last week I hosted two students (I have declined to put their names here as I am a little unclear on the privacy situation) from Nirayama High School in Japan. Our first stop after school was the supermarket to buy supplies for dinner. I told them to pick what they wanted to eat, and they slowly became more open about their preferences and opinions if only because they had to make the choices. Conveniently, they picked exactly what I wanted; the first moment of connection. At the end, they were surprised to find Hi-Chew in the checkout aisle, and we had a brief debate over the relative merits of the Strawberry and Green Apple flavors.

Back home, Sami, the students, my parents, and I ate dinner and some ice cream and then we kids went into the hot tub. The students were visibly more relaxed, reflected in their improved speaking or willingness to work around words they did not know. Personally, I enjoy jumping in the cold pool and quickly migrating back to the hot tub. It gives you a lovely tingly feeling and might even be good for you. For Sami and our two students on the other hand, this was not the highlight of the exchange, though perhaps some bonding occurred over the poor decision it was to follow me. I decided to push the envelope a little on the verbal communication front and asked them to tell a story they heard as children in Japan. While the question took a few tries to translate, their response was immediate. They clearly had stories just as culturally ubiquitous as ours.

They told us two stories. The first was about Momotaro or Peach Boy (named for the giant peach inside which he was found), who, along with a dog, a monkey, and a bird, defeated a goblin and claimed its treasure. The second, known as The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, was about an old man who cut open some bamboo one day to find a girl inside. She grew up quickly, and one day people from the moon and took her back there. It turned out she was a princess from the moon who was sent to Earth as punishment for a crime she committed, as Earth was considered a "dirty" place. I guess they thought she had done her time, maybe. I was a little unclear on that part, but the narrative made sense; their articulation was an impressive exercise in the expression of complexity simply.

I had a chance to share over dinner, when we talked about the UN, its history, Model UN, and the current crises abroad. They were familiar with the UN and a lot of the vocabulary necessary to have a conversation about world power in Japanese, but not their English equivalents. Here, google translate was a useful tool. Sami and I would listen to a word, learn it, and next time incorporate it into our English sentence. An example would be: "The Kokuren (United Nations) can place seisai (sanctions) on the Isuramu Kokka (Islamic State) but not on Russia because Russia has a kyohi-ken (veto power)." While difficult, that exercise was fun for both parties but also allowed us to talk about more sophisticated things than food and homework (though we talked about those too).

I had talked a lot beforehand about this exchange being an opportunity to really connect with people who on the surface might seem totally distinct from you. When they got here, it became apparent that I had underestimated the sheer depth of understanding and connection that could be squeezed out of a single evening. Too some extent, the feeling is inexplicable, but I find it so meaningful to see myself in others. That is the definition of sympathy. In this sense, last week was quite a roller coaster. On Wednesday, I found my faith in the world lifted by an experience that reinforced my belief in universal commonality. On Friday, I was appalled by just how strongly some feel divides between themselves and their fellow human beings and just how much they will do to further divide the world. But on Saturday, my faith in humanity was reaffirmed by the stories of fareless taxi rides and the #PorteOuverte movement in Paris the evening of the attack. In a sense, I was reassured that the attempts to divide us are futile. Temporarily, we may close ourselves off to the world. Our government might pass laws that limit our freedom in the name of protecting it. We might commit to yet another violent conflict aimed at treating the symptoms of a problem and not its causes. But somewhere deep inside humanity there is an ingrained belief in compassion that can be suppressed but never conquered. And you know what, in a world where nothing seems certain, that's a pretty great thing to be certain about.