Grumpy Old Manchild

My father is 76. He has never left Japan. He is the quietest man I know. He has hugged exactly one person in his life (me, once) and one dog (practice). My friend from Texas invited him to stay with his parents in Texas for ten days. My father refused three times. My mother packed his suitcase. He agreed to send me one message a day. He signs every single one. Here they are. DAY 1 Arrived. The airport is the size of our prefecture. A man in a hat called me "partner." We have no partnership. I accepted anyway. That is all. — Father DAY 2 Breakfast. The mother asked how I want my eggs. In Japan, the egg decides. In Texas, the man decides. I said "over easy." I do not know what it means. It was correct. That is all. — Father DAY 2 (again) The refrigerator has a door that gives ice. You press, and ice falls. I pressed many times. I am not proud. That is all. — Father DAY 3 I have been assigned the seat called "shotgun." There is no shotgun. I checked. That is all. — Father DAY 4 At the gas station, a stranger asked where I am from. I said Japan. He said, "Well, welcome to Texas," and shook my hand for eleven seconds. I have never been welcomed by a gas station before. That is all. — Father DAY 5 Friday. The entire town went to a high school football game. Six thousand people. For children. There was a band. There were fireworks. A man beside me had painted his chest. He is a dentist. That is all. — Father DAY 6 Church. Afterward, a lunch where every woman brings one dish and stands near it, watching who takes some. I took some of everything, to insult no one. I have eaten four kinds of potato salad. Each woman told me hers was "the good one." They were all the good one. That is all. — Father DAY 7 The mother of the house calls me "sweetie." I am 76. I am the eldest son of a rice merchant. I am sweetie now. That is all. — Father DAY 8 The father of the house woke at 4 a.m. to cook meat. It took fourteen hours. He sat beside the fire in a chair all day, like a man guarding a sleeping child. I sat beside him. We did not speak. It was the best conversation I have had in years. That is all. — Father DAY 9 I have been hugged 43 times. I am counting. I hug back now. Correctly. Tell the dog. That is all. — Father DAY 10 The grandchildren asked me to throw a football. I threw it. It went sideways into a bush. They cheered anyway. In America, they cheer because you tried. I have been trying for 76 years. Nobody ever cheered. They cheered. That is all. — Father DAY 11 Home. The father of the house gave me his old hat at the airport. He said, "You're a Texan now." I am wearing it. Your mother has not stopped laughing for two hours. I am keeping the hat. That is all. — Father He wears the hat to the convenience store now. He says "Howdy" to the young man at the register. Last week, the young man said "Howdy" back. My father came home and sent me one more message. "It is spreading." That is all. — Father

My wife has taught high school in Tokyo for twenty years. Every year, a few of her students spend a year living with a family in America. When they come home, she asks each of them one question. "What do you miss?" She expects hamburgers. She almost never gets hamburgers. And these aren't old stories. Most of these kids came home in the last two years. "Every time I left the house, my host mom said, 'Text me when you get there.' In Japan, nobody needs to know where I am. In Ohio, somebody always did." (Mina, 17, Ohio) "If you walk toward a door, an American will hold it open. Even if you are very far away. So you have to run. I ran to so many doors." (Itsuki, 16, Georgia) "My host brother screamed on the floor of a grocery store. A stranger walked by and said to my host mom, 'You're doing great, Mama.' She almost cried. I didn't know strangers were allowed to say that." (Aoi, 17, Texas) "We went away for the weekend and left our trash can at the curb. When we got back, it was by the garage. Nobody said who. My host dad said if it had been there one more day, the neighbor would have knocked." (Haruto, 16, Minnesota) "A car got stuck in the snow in front of our house. Four men came out of four houses. Nobody called them. They pushed, the car drove away, and they went back inside without saying their names." (Ren, 17, Michigan) "Every American has jumper cables. Maybe half of them know which clip goes where. The other half help anyway." (Shin, 16, Montana) "In July, my host family put a cooler on the porch. Cold water, snacks, and a sign: 'For our delivery drivers. Thank you!' I asked if they knew the drivers. They said no." (Nanami, 16, Arizona) "Downtown, there are banners on the lampposts. Photos of soldiers from the town. Some old, some very young. My host grandpa walked me down the street and told me every name." (Yuna, 16, Iowa) "I got a C-plus on my first test. My host dad said, 'I'm proud of you,' and put it on the fridge. In Japan, nobody is proud of a C-plus." (Takeru, 17, Pennsylvania) Then the quietest girl in the class raised her hand. Sora. Seventeen. Missouri. "Nobody asks me 'home safe?' anymore," she said. She was wrong. In September, there was a typhoon warning for Tokyo. At 2 a.m., Sora's phone lit up. It was her host mom. In Missouri. Watching the weather in a country she had never been to. "Saw the storm. You home safe?" Sora told my wife she cried for a long time. Then she typed the answer she had typed a hundred times, from football games and friends' driveways. "Home safe." Her host mom wrote back one line. "Good. That's all I needed." My wife has asked that question for twenty years. Not one kid has ever said they missed how big America is. They miss how America says goodbye. And how it checks that you got home. So, America. You think you've lost something. You haven't. It's on a porch in Arizona. It's pushing a car in Michigan. It's awake at 2 a.m. in Missouri, watching our weather. You don't remember doing any of it. A kid in Tokyo will never forget.

My friend Yumi has been a tour guide in Kyoto for nineteen years. Almost all of her groups are American. Every December, Kyoto's tour guides have a year-end party. There is one tradition. Everyone stands up and tells the story of their favorite American of the year. Then they vote. The winner gets a can of beer. This year, Yumi wrote them all down for me. "A man from Texas asked me what time the Imperial Palace closes. Then he asked if the Emperor was home. Then he asked if we could knock. He had brought a gift. Beef jerky. He said, 'You can't show up to a man's house empty-handed.'" (22 years guiding) "We don't accept tips in Japan. Americans cannot accept this. They hide money in my coat pocket. In my bag. One woman hid it in my hat while I was wearing it. This year, a man hid forty dollars inside my folded umbrella. On Tuesday it rained. Money fell on my head. I bought lunch for my whole office. We call it 'American rain' now." (17 years) "There are almost no public trash cans in Kyoto. A man from Michigan carried one candy wrapper in his pocket for three days, 'out of respect.' He apologized to me about the trash cans. As if it was his fault. On the last day, he handed me the wrapper. As a gift. I still have it." (9 years) "An old woman dropped a bag of oranges on the train platform. Eleven Americans got down on their knees and chased oranges across the station. The train left without them. The old woman missed her train too, because she stayed to direct them. She is now pen pals with a man from Alabama." (31 years) "At a temple garden, the monk asked for silence. Thirty Americans were completely silent for twenty minutes. I have never seen Americans be silent for twenty minutes. Then a grandmother from Iowa whispered, 'This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,' and all thirty of them started crying. Then the monk started crying. Monks are not supposed to cry. He said it was pollen." (14 years) "On the second day, a woman from Kentucky asked my children's names. I thought she was being polite. On the last day, she gave me an envelope with all three of their names in her handwriting, and a two-dollar bill for each one. 'For luck,' she said. My daughter is fourteen. She keeps hers in her phone case. She refuses to spend it. She says it's from America." (11 years) "A seven-year-old boy asked me if I was sad, because my job is saying goodbye to people every week. I said yes, a little. He reached into his backpack and gave me his rarest Pokémon card. His mother tried to give it back. He said, 'No. She needs it more.'" (6 years) "At the airport, my whole group of forty sang 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' to me in the arrivals hall. Loudly. Badly. Security came over. Then the security guard started clapping." (26 years) Then the oldest guide in the room stood up. Mr. Okada. 78. Fifty years of guiding. He never speaks at these. Yumi said the whole room went quiet. "In 1964, I was sixteen. Tokyo had the Olympics. My father told me I would never amount to anything. My English teacher sent me to the station to help foreign visitors, mostly to get me out of the house. The first person I ever helped was an American man. I was supposed to take him to his train. It took two hours. I got lost twice. He never got angry. He just laughed and said, 'Lead the way, partner.' On the platform, he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I said I didn't know. Nobody had ever asked me. He shook my hand and said, 'Well, whatever it is, you're going to be great at it. I can tell.' I never saw him again. I don't know his name. For fifty years, every American I have guided, I have been trying to say thank you to that one man." Yumi said nobody clapped for a long time. Then everybody did. And they gave him the beer. So if you have ever been to Kyoto, and a tiny old man with a flag treated you like the most important person in the world, now you know why. He was saying thank you. It might have been to your grandfather. That's the thing about you, America. You say something kind to a lost kid in two minutes, and you forget it by dinner. And somewhere in Japan, someone is still carrying it. Fifty years later. So keep saying it.