Missing Moka-shi

I just finished watching the 2008 Japanese film Departures. I did not see it when it first came out, which was a source of much embarrassment to me since, as I was living in Japan and as I have many hip friends in the States who watch a lot of foreign films, I felt even more than usually out of sync with the trends of the times when folks back home would ask, "Oh! Did you see that Japanese movie that won the Academy Award for best foreign film?"

Well, enough about me and my social insecurities. I thought Departures (おくりびと) was lovely. The story line was so well crafted, it was humorous in all the right parts, and best of all, the film demonstrated in both its form and function the acute attention to aesthetic detail that is so much a part of Japanese life and society. Even the ritual of preparing a dead body for burial, in its care and precision, is imbued with meaning and beauty.


I miss Japan so much. The feeling hit me hard and out of nowhere yesterday as I was walking down the street, on my way home from the mailbox. I felt sad and cried a lot the last few weeks that I was in Moka, but yesterday was really the first time since coming back to California that I truly felt the pain of loss. Japan is a marvelous country, and I really didn't start to grasp just how special a place it is until I was no longer living there.

I don't really feel remorseful or depressed about it. My job there wasn't great; often it was terrible. And I have a lot more friends in America than I ever did in Japan. But Japanese culture and society found a permanent place in my heart. I'm grateful that I can continue to learn about Japan and about myself in the context of my association with that nation, even when I'm in the States. And I'm grateful that when I do go back some day, to visit or maybe even to live, it will already be my home.