A Sweeping Moment in Tokyo

I took the same route to school every morning while studying abroad in Tokyo. It was an opportunity that kind of abruptly fell in my lap with a phone call from my dad asking me if I wanted to go to school in Japan. As a history professor, my dad had been teaching semesters between St. John’s University in Minnesota and at Bunkyo-Gaukin University in Tokyo for a number of years when he learned of an international Asian Studies program at Sophia University just a bit further south in the Chiyoda prefecture. I didn’t hesitate to say yes and left two weeks later full of excitement for what the next few months would bring. I absolutely fell in love with Tokyo the first time I was there and could not wait to explore all that I was unable to see on my first trip.

It was the summer of 1998 and it was HOT. The concrete jungle of Tokyo made the heat swelter and the cicadas sing in the refuge of a shaded coy pond where my stepmom and I would meet each morning before class to smoke our cigarettes. I always stopped at one of the various vending machines that lined the streets along the way offering choices of tea, coffee, soda, or beer and got myself a small can of hot coffee. For the first month or so, while we waited for our guest house near Bunkyo University to be ready, we were each staying with the families of students my dad had brought to the United States as part of his exchange program. I stayed in Adachi City in northern Tokyo with one family and she stayed in Edogawa City to the east with the other. Such a big city, to have cities within it, it was all simply awe-inspiring to 19-year-old me.

The train lines ran everywhere, crossing and circling around this vibrant city full of lights and commotion with crosswalks as wide as some US city streets. On my morning ride, which was the busiest time of day, the trains would be crammed full of uniformed students and what seemed like legions of businessmen in suits and ties on their way into the office for one day of their 80-hour week. I was lucky to get on the train at its first stop sometimes and quickly learned that my personal bubble did not exist while commuting simply because there wasn’t room for it. The trains stopped running at midnight, but the bars and clubs were open all night, so if you missed that last train and didn’t have oodles of cash for a taxi across town, you better plan on being out all night. In the wee hours of the morning, you could find those morning businessmen now burnt-out in a drunk comatose on the street while crowds of people still gallivanted around like they never needed to sleep. Simply put, Tokyo was a lively and energetic city constantly pulsating with life and vivacity… and I was in my element.

My route from Adachi City to school in the Chiyoda district required me to walk about 10 minutes to the train station each morning. Truthfully, I enjoyed the walk and took in every bit of the magnificent culture that I now found myself immersed in. Pachinko parlors offering gambling on machines much like our slot machines, 7-Elevens everywhere, and the traditional restaurants that opened to the street made me hungry for ramen and gyoza. I could see the illumination of lanterns and light-up signs for as long down as the roads would go. There were even soaplands & “image” or “fashion health” clubs, which I eventually learned were essentially brothels that operated in such a way to avoid the prostitution laws in Japan. My destination, Kitasenju Station, was always bustling. It was full of shops selling everything from shoes and clothes to periodicals, and unique to Japan knick-knacks.

I eventually found the fastest route for my morning walk, which led me down one of the many quaint and narrow residential streets. Even though most of the homes in Tokyo had been modernized, there was a traditional element and I enjoyed the contrast of these little streets while probably looking a bit out of place as I walked through. A tall, American female with spiky black hair and tattoos who belonged in Harajuku with all the young, idiosyncratic folk. Truth be told, Harajuku became my favorite of all the districts with its quirky charisma and eccentric trends that would one day come to be known as an iconic lifestyle and creative subculture. On my morning walk, however, I embraced the authentic and long-established feel of the time-honored wood structures and homes that butted up right against each other on the edge of the alleyway.

One of the last houses I would pass before walking into the overflowing rush of Kitasenju was a rather ordinary house with all the classic exterior characteristics of Japanese homes guarded against the street by a half wall and gate that hid a small “yard” or garden area before entering the home. But it wasn’t the home that demanded me to look in that direction every morning. Rather, it was an elderly woman who was outside sweeping her stoop. Her stature was small and her skin wrinkled from her time here on earth. My memory cannot truly recall her attire each morning, but she always dressed in a traditional manner with a handkerchief on her head. A dark hue of purple comes to mind when trying to recollect detailed visual memories of her, but what I do remember vividly were her eyes and the unassuming smile I received every morning while she bowed her head in my direction. Already understanding it was a customary greeting to bow in the Japanese culture as was respect for elders, I would return the modest smile and humble bow.

Each day went on relatively the same. My commute into the heart of Tokyo for morning classes, generally followed by a night out with some of the other students in my program. They were from all over the world. Iceland, Scotland, Germany, and various states across the US. We would frequent Shinjuku, a special ward that boasted nightlife full of clubs and karaoke bars. Known for its skyscrapers, the most in Tokyo, it was also a hub for government administration, cultural centers, and the red light district of Tokyo. It drew in artists, musicians, and creative folk with its diverse array of bars and restaurants. It wasn’t uncommon for me to almost miss that midnight train home. And each day, no matter how tired I was, what side of the bed I woke up on, or what mood I happened to be in that day as I walked to Kitasenju Station, my soft, quiet elderly sweeper would greet me as I prepared to enter the controlled chaos of daily life in Tokyo. This one fleeting moment every morning ended up teaching me more than any school or night out with friends ever did because it taught me contrast and perspective even though we never spoke a word.

Implicit knowledge, unspoken, yet shared through each muted exchange of acknowledgment, expressed with a smile and a bow. Her eyes spoke resilience with grace, dignified with her place in the world, her small portion of a huge city kept clean with each proud swish of her broom. I knew nothing about her life, but could sense that she had lived ritualistically with values long handed down in her ancestry. I pictured her running to the bakery each morning before her family woke up making sure they were fed with traditional breakfast pastries while she tended to the putting away of tatami mats from the night before. She would then visit the fish market for a fresh catch dinner and spend her days attending to the house and children. I could have been completely wrong in my convictions, but Japan still held rather defined gender roles at that time and it didn’t matter anyways, to me, she was poised and radiant in her own way.

Her eyes, under her now droopy eyelids, still held a brilliance that spoke to me about a life fulfilled and here I was, walking through her little world in a big city each morning, young, carefree, still discerning my place in life. She accepted me there in her little space, unassuming and unbiased to my being. I didn’t really have a “dream” to chase yet and I wondered what hers had been at my age and if she had the chance to chase hers. Did she marry the man she fell in love with or the man who would simply take care of her? And did he? Or did he treat her poorly? I wondered how old she actually was, where and how she survived the Tokyo air raids during WWII, and how it changed her life. Did she struggle with the Japanese ideal of feminine beauty? How did she remain seemingly so virtuous and gentle through the perils of life? I felt there had to be so many experiences in her life that were vastly different than I would ever have and it opened my own eyes to a world of not only diverging cultures, but a true appreciation for the miracle of life that has been given each of us. Billions of people all with unique thoughts, beliefs, desires, and sentiments based on cultural history and personal experiences in an ever-changing world that not one of us can control. Each transition of generations presents new perspectives on life and unfamiliar ways of living to the generations past.

It didn’t take a big city to show me how small each of us is in the world, it took a small woman to show me how big you can be in a world that sometimes seems small. I left Japan with a completely different outlook on the world and myself along with the hope that someday, I could change someone's perspective or life with the mere act of something simple like sweeping.