When the first full week in Japan started up full-swing, power suits and all, I wasn’t sure how well I would fare in the coming month. Had the Kawamura fellowship committee perhaps made a mistake in allowing me to be a part of their program? At each factory visit or meeting, I seemed to make more and more of a fool of myself. We were shown through amazing facilities where cars, digital cameras, even missiles were built, and though I’d be in awe of the sheer magnitude of the operation, when it came time for question-and-answer, I’d never sound well-informed. Some would even say I bordered on sounding moronic. At Toyota, after a brief silence, I jumped in: “So, like, what is Toyota’s plan with this whole hybrid thing? Like, man-power-wise? Anyone? Thoughts?” or at Mitsubishi heavy industries, where, instead of asking our guide about the technology behind missile-building, or the path of research-and-development that Mitsubishi had opted to take, I decided to go with “So, if I wanted to, like, buy a missile? Could I? Could you ship it to me? Or is it, like, supremely heavy and stuff?” Back in bed at night after these whirlwind tours, I would decompress and soon came to understand why it was that I felt so comfortable asking these questions: my hosts, no matter where I was, no matter what position they held, no matter how uninformed my questions really were, treated both me and my questions with a humble respect that I soon realized would characterize the rest of my visit to this country.

Being able to enter directly into a group of well-informed Japanese people who were kind enough and open enough to show us around as if we had been their friends for years certainly made this experience unlike any other I could have had. It was, simply put, a wonderful and unique introduction to this country. I didn’t have to lift a finger to be able to be witness the insides of factories, meet with Japanese people who ran the gamut from kindergarten school-child or NGO intern to famed ceramic artist or chairman of a newspaper, or be taken to wonderful meals where I quickly learned that one quick gulp of sake would settle my stomach and ready it for course number nineteen. I will forever be indebted to the Kawamura community for being so giving of themselves as to take time out of their summers to show me a country they love.

Perhaps the most intimate glimpse of Japan I was allowed came during my two home-stay visits. I will always remember talking with Mrs. Fujii in Nagoya while she taught me how to cook gyoza after helping her with her 12-year-old English students (though the particular piece she asked me to read — a poetic children’s story about a tree who witnesses the death of a young son and mother from nuclear burns at Hiroshima — made the experience of hearing her students repeat each sentence after me, well, memorable to say the least). And, of course, there’s Cha-Cha, the family’s pug who at no more than 13 pounds managed to consume twice her weight, every night, in leftovers from dinner and whose snuffly snorts and snoring seeping through the floorboards at night will be sorely missed back in the states.