Three days after Christmas in 2004, I was on a routine flight from Japan to Los Angeles, where I was headed to spend the New Years holiday with my family. As I found my seat and sat down, I said hello to the college-aged young woman sitting next to me and breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that she seemed sweet. Normal.

Until I noticed she wore men's slippers that were many sizes too big for her, and clothes that looked like they had been worn for days. All of her belongings were thrown into a plastic shopping bag under the seat in front of her. Her American passport was hanging out of the top of the bag, brand new, used just once.

She seemed both dazed and jumpy as she smiled at me nervously, flinching each time the loudspeaker went on. I would learn in less than two minutes that she had survived the Sumatra tsunami just two days before, a disaster that triggered by a magnitude 9.3 earthquake, killing over 200,000 people.

We talked for a bit, but there was little to no emotion in her voice as she spoke of bodies floating by while she clutched onto a third-story level tree. Still in shock, she was trying to get back to her family in the states, but she seemed unaware that she was now safe. For the entire 11-hour flight, she would drift off to sleep, exhausted, and then wake with a start, clutching my arm and looking terrified, not knowing where she was.

I will never forget her.

Last March, I had already signed the lease on my New York apartment, the suitcases were packed, furniture and car sold to the highest bidder, and I was ready to bid farewell to Okinawa, the island that had been my home for nine years. A lot had gone down on the island but that day, the ocean shined more beautifully than ever. Picturesque clouds promised March rain like always, but it would only last a short while before giving way to the most magnificent sunset ever.

Okinawa is a breathtaking island, and I had lived and worked breathlessly for nine years, but my time had come. I had been packing for months, trying to fit all of my small successes and large failures, and vice versa, into a few boxes.

That early spring morning, my partner and I were discussing the future—our future together—in a manner that was serious, when my partner's computer pinged. He had received an email, as he does all day long. While he checked on yet another urgent work message, I poked my nose into my iPhone and glanced at my Twitter stream.

Earthquake. A big one in Tokyo, the epicenter being somewhere farther north. It was 2:50pm. My partner, who is from Tokyo, began getting and making calls to his friends, staff, colleagues and clients. In between calls, his expression turning paler by the minute, he turned to me and said, "Let's turn on the TV."

I had seen that expression somewhere before. I recognized it.


Earthquake. A big one in Tokyo, the epicenter being somewhere farther north.






Outside, the ocean surrounding Okinawa shined brightly still, calm as the night sky. We turned on the television, unprepared for what we were about to see. An enormous tsunami was rolling across the ocean in a live telecast, and the large city of Sendai was just waiting to be hit. We sat on the wooden floor in front of the television screen, forgetting to blink or breathe. I think I was clutching his knee, but I don't recall.

As we watched, horrified, the grandest, most vicious tidal wave pummelled across the screen. There was no Scorsese to yell Cut!, just a panicked NHK newscaster trying to formulate words and then...silence. On screen, cars made frantic u-turns while the ocean began engulfing the city behind them. In another shot, three people stood on a bridge, perhaps trying to recover from the earthquake a few moments before, unaware of what was mere seconds away.

As the helicopter and television camera veered to the right and to the left, trying to avoid showing anything that moved (besides the wave), my partner and I became nauseous and tears welled up in our eyes. I tried thinking about what I was seeing, but like everyone else, I couldn't comprehend it.

Almost one year later, I'm still trying.

I feel guilty at times, like a traitor might, living in the safety of New York City where I can eat vegetables, rice, and meat, drink water, take showers, and brush my teeth without fear of radiation and irreversible harm to my body. I felt guilty boarding the plane to JFK less than a month after the tsunami—at a time when all of the gaijin or foreigners, were fleeing the country for the safety of their own homes, I suddenly felt I should stay. But I kept my plane ticket and got on the plane.

Amid news today of nosebleeds in Tokyo school children 150 miles away from the nuclear reactors, several unexplained deaths of workers at the Fukushima plants, and farmers committing suicide, Japan has turned into something of a warzone, and every day, people live thinking about death.

Kiki, in New York. Photo by YuKi.

Every day I think about Japan, not just because my partner still spends half of his time there and I worry for my relatives, friends, and everyone I met in the nine years I called the country my home, but because it is turning into a country the Japanese have never experienced before. There is still little trust in the media or the government, and the country still experiences gut-wrenching earthquakes everyday. With the Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo recently announcing that an earthquake over the magnitude of 7 is 70% likely to strike Tokyo in the next four years, the stress level of residents is unimaginable.

Before, they used to take deep breaths to find their center and relax. Now, even that is a threat.

Nearly 7,000 miles away, in New York City, as news of the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan are replaced by news of earthquakes, fires, floods and political disorder in other parts of the world, we begin to lose track of what is happening where.


There is still little trust in the media or the government, and the country still experiences gut-wrenching earthquakes everyday.






We also lose track because we're trying to find jobs where we are neither over- nor under-qualified, we're trying every possible means to start a family only to be heartbroken every time our own body rejects our deepest wish, or the man we love and exchanged vows with walks out of the home the two of us created together, unable to keep his word that the two of us would be able to work anything out.

On the one hand, people are in trouble in parts of the world we cannot reach. On the other hand, we are in trouble every single day, fearful of what tomorrow will bring. We're unable to communicate without somebody getting hurt. We're unable to hold onto a personal sense of worth, or believe that we have a place at the table too. We have demons, pasts, ghosts, goblins. And though we are safe and sound we forget, because forgetting is what humans excel most at.

It all becomes too frightening sometimes.

In this context, what do we talk about? What do I write about in this column? My stories of feeling like a teenager with two heads (one Japanese, one American) seems trivial, but until that tsunami, so too were the problems of those in Japan. Perhaps not 'trivial', but not front page news either. When it does become front page news, the only way to care and keep caring, is to hear, picture, and imagine each and every story of those involved.

We can't make anyone care about Japan or Haiti or anywhere else in the world. But when we know, we can care. The possibility is there. When we can hear the voices, and see the pictures and understand the story, we feel the pain. It is in our nature to do so.


And though we are safe and sound we forget, because forgetting is what humans excel most at.






In writing this column, I've learned to see which of my issues are real versus imagined, which stories people understand, and which are my own to comprehend and digest. I've experienced the liberation of speaking honestly, openly about my positives and persistent negatives.

On any given day, I can fall into the trap of helplessness about what so many in the world are enduring, and I wonder more often than not what my storytelling does to help anyone.

Just as I wonder where my seatmate is now, how she's faring and whether she is still experiencing nightmares, I worry about how families are faring in Northern Japan since the earthquake eleven months ago. I know the situation is dire. But I hope, at least, that every person has at least one soul, one person they can talk to. Communicate with.

Because that's what humans do, it's what humans need.

Thank you for joining me on this ride, dear readers. You have taught me more about myself than I ever imagined. Thank you to my editors, and the incredible Schema team for allowing me such a wide open space to explore. I hope to see you again in the very near future. Until then, keep talking to each other. That's what we're here for.