50 and beyond

At my last holiday to Japan last year, I blogged about how my three days at Kamikochi was the highlight of my trip.

In my recent trip to Japan, where Hubby, Younger Son and I went to Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, I think the highlight of my trip was the day I went to explore my mother’s hometown.

Apart from knowing my mother was from Osaka, I know no details. So, I asked.

Mom said she had forgotten the actual address, but gave me some general address of her hometown during primary school and secondary school. She lived in Daitocho, which is at the northen suburbs of Osaka city.

So, off we went on a Monday. The first location, where she lived during her primary school, was not far from Osaka city centre. The train ride from Namba Station at Osaka was only about 20min and the bus-ride another 10min.

Although just a few kilometres in the outskirts of Osaka city, we found ourselves in a rather remote area where the buses didn’t have English interpretation and the few people we spoke with knew hardly any English.

We first went to the first address my mom gave me. This was a residential district. There were lots of small houses, a bit like Chip Bee Gardens in Singapore Holland Village area. We discovered that in the suburb, it seems normal for people to display their names on their mailbox/door posts.

We couldn’t find the actual address my mom gave me. It didn’t seem to exist. That was what she had suspected anyway. We walked around aimlessly until Hubby told me to just walk up to a random stranger and ask her about the address. I felt awkward but plucked up my courage and walked up to an elderly woman who came walking by.

I explained my story to her in broken Japanese. And I said I wanted to see if I could find my mom’s old residence. She was very friendly. First, she looked at the address that my mother gave me and told me that the street does not exist. There is no chome 4. She didn’t know if my mom got it wrong, or if the street had disappeared during redevelopment.

Then, she told us to wait while she retrieved something from her house, which was just a stone’s throw away. Moments later, she came out with what seemed to be a district map. She said all the residents in the neighbourhood have this. The map listed the names of all the people living there. She pored over it, but she couldn’t find my mom’s family name. She told me that the family name Hata was a very unique one and she would have been very sure if there was a Hata living in the family.

And that was the end of part one of our adventure. We thanked her, turn the corner and found a very old stall selling croquette. We had a few and they were so delicious that we got a second batch.

I chatted up the store owner of the croquette shop and found out that the stall had been there since the war. So, I told my story again. Nope, they had not heard of the family name Hata.

Next, we took a bus to the second address my mom gave me, which was where her family stayed during her high school years. Again, all she gave me was a street. We ambled around the area and saw that the houses were all rather new looking. Occasionally, we would pass by a really dilapidated house and my imagination would go wild thinking that perhaps she lived in that house when she was young.

We then made our way to the school that my mom said she studied at.

The school looked big and modern. It was clearly rebuilt. I took some photos of it.

And that was that. Our adventure was over. We were tired from walking and walked into a random shop to have a snack. Then, we made our way back to our hotel.

I showed my mom some of the photos I took as well as the district map with the names. She appeared aloof and did not comment much. Instead of asking me questions or looking at the photos, she just told me a few stories of her siblings and commented that they would likely all have passed away by now.

I felt like it was a bit of an anti-climax, but I mean, what was I expecting? To really chance upon some members of the Hata lineage? In any case, it seems odd that my mom did not keep in touch with her family over the years. She used to travel to Japan every few years to meet with some friends and I don’t recall her ever meeting with any siblings then either. I always suspected that she ran away from home and her country. Perhaps so.

And that was that. I thought Young Son was bored with the half day we spent exploring the area but he’s so sweet. He told me that he enjoyed the adventure, the walking around aimlessly and discovering the neighborhood. I think the croquettes he ate made his day.

And so, that’s the end of it.