From Rejection to Restoration: My 20-year Rambling Journey Home to Japan

Hey there, dear friends. My name is Nori. Twenty years ago, I fled my motherland Japan as an angry 19-year-old, determined never to look back.

Now, I’m finally ready to return home—at least in spirit.

Leaving Japan Behind

When I was growing up in Tokyo during 90s and 00s, I despised it all: the media-controlled masses, the twisted modern culture, the passive-aggressive social dance, the depressed youth, the dazzling neon billboards, the drunk salarymen stumbling home in wrinkled suits, and the constant noise of city chaos and traffic…I wanted to get out. I just wanted to scream and run into a vast open space and wilderness. So I did. I managed to flee Tokyo and landed in America, the state of Wyoming to be exact to live and study abroad as an international student. Wyoming has the lowest population in the entire United States. Going from one of the biggest and most populated city in the world to the least populated place in America with thousands of acres of untouched wilderness was quite a shock and it was also extremely exhilarating and liberating.

I was rockclimbing, hiking, studying, learning to communicate in English and engineering a whole new life for myself. I finally got my freedom! Except, not…

Picking up the fragments of myself in America

It all started to shift when I began the integration work of my childhood traumas. My perfectly engineered happy life (looking from the outside) was coming apart at the seams. I started to see my dysfunctional emotional and behavioral tendencies that I was completely unaware of. When we get that one special person in your life and become a mother (or a father of course), life with our own budding family shines the bright light on the shadowy blind spots, especially on those areas of our ancestral lineages. This sounds awesome and glorious on writing, but actually, it feels like death, for our fragile little egos that we make up anyway.

Every culture, family, and person carries some burden in this seemingly brutal human world. Some might be from his or her own family of origin, some collective and cultural, and others ancestral. Or all of the above. I thought that if I ran from my Japanese culture and traditions to another continent thousands of miles away, they couldn’t haunt me with all of that stuff. Well, it turns out that I was obviously kidding myself. You know as well as I do now, don’t you? That “stuff” I carry on my DNA, the cellular memory carved into my bones and soul, my Japanese heritage will never leave me alone. It lives in me as every beat of my little Japanese heart. Changing the cultural identity and story on the surface won’t change the fundamental truth about ourselves.

The Call of My Ancestors and Motherland

After much of some digging, scrubbing, getting triggered, breaking down, kicking and punching stuff, hurting others, hurting myself, crying, hating myself and forgiving myself, again and again for years (oh I know it’s brutal), it just hit me.

I don’t know much about the story of my ancestors and my country, Japan.

As a child growing up in Japan, I was way too depressed and carried away with my dark clouds of emotions all the time that I was not able to see so much of the beauty and the light that Japanese culture truly was surrounding me. The land, nature, the true cultural identity that was broken by the brutal wars and modernization…all that was lost to me for the last 20 years of my adult life, and pretty much most of my entire life.

I just spent the last 20 years of my life hating my culture and country and running away from them. I estranged myself from my family and Japanese culture as a whole. Little did I know that what I was running away from my most powerful source of healing.

That realization finally came to me when I faced and intentionally communicated with my deceased mother, her sister (my favorite aunt) and her mother (my grandma) and some brutal traumas that they went through living in Tokyo during WWII. I know some people might think I’m completely losing my marbles talking to dead people and yeah I thought so too, but talking to these women in my maternal lineage, I realized that they and our Motherland were calling me to come home this whole time so that I can heal. Not just myself, but generations back and forward. That is exactly what I wanted. I want to become whole and with that want to do the same for my kiddos and their kiddos and all my dead and living ancestors. And maybe possibly, my whole country and culture too? How about the whole world then?

Reconnecting with my roots and soul

Today, I am officially out and away from my home longer than I was there from the moment of my birth until I left. It’s official. Wow. It is time that I make a quest back to Japan in search of the true connection that is all covered up like a dirty oven window glass that needs scrubbing real real bad in order to be able to see through again. I was just doing my annual end-of-year cleaning, a big Japanese tradition, and realizing the analogy here as I scrubbed this dirty oven glass that had grease and crud caked on. As I scrubbed hard I was able to start seeing the clear glass again which let the light through into the wonder of rising sourdough loaves.

So here I am. This is why I decided to write. I want to dig and know everything about this beautiful country of mine; history, culture, nature, what really happened during the horrible wars, even beyond the modern times and reflection of what traumas we really carry as Japanese persons, resilience, mythology, and ancestral treasures….so that I can pass on this legacy of loving my Motherland to my kiddos and other youngsters for generations. Is that crazy? If it is, it’s alright. I’m doing it anyway.

I’ve come to realize that everyone else has always loved Japan. That’s what many people in America have always told me anyway. I thank you all for loving Japan and continuing to do so even when I was having a hard time to do so. If any of my blogging and healing journey here on Japan Ramble creates even a little bit of value for any of you out there in the world, I would be beyond elated and grateful. Thank you for taking your time to read my writing and joining on this soul quest. I invite you to join me on this journey of rediscovery. Whether you’re a fellow Japanese person wrestling with your identity, or simply someone fascinated by Japanese culture, let’s explore together what it means to truly know and love one’s homeland, how’s that sound?

Now, let’s go~

P.S. What are your own experiences with cultural identity? Which aspect of Japanese culture interests you most? Leave a comment and let’s connect. I am so excited to hear your voices! Let’s stay in touch…I will be here writing about my healing journey and everything Japan. Thanks for reading and following my blog.

Cheers, kanpai!