or: How I Learned to Stop Loafing and Listen to My Mom
I revisit the city where my life and future were set onto a completely unexpected path.
By MIKEY HIRANO CULROSS
Rafu Staff Writer
A funny thing happened on my way to Finland.
I wound up on the other side of the planet.
What began as an otherwise routine day in Spanish class during my sophomore year of high school opened up a pathway that altered the direction and essentially every aspect of my life, and that’s no exaggeration.
Many of those reading this piece may be familiar with my writing and photography, as I have worked at The Rafu Shimpo for coming up on three decades … wow, really?
Not bad for someone whose introduction to the language, culture and history of Japan and Japanese Americans came most unexpectedly.
This past summer, I revisited the city just south of Mt. Fuji where I was an exchange student in 1986. The genesis of that adventure was an unexpected presentation several years earlier, at Blair High School in Pasadena.
There I was, seated at my desk in second-year Spanish on an October morning, when a special guest arrived. Our teacher, Olaf Liden, was a gentle, progressive man, originally from Sweden, with a great enthusiasm for introducing students to global customs and cultures.
The guest speaker Mr. Liden invited was from an organization then known as AFS – American Field Service. The world’s oldest and largest international student exchange organization has its origins in World War I, when volunteers – mostly college students – stepped up to drive ambulances behind the front lines in France.
The brief talk and handouts we were given introduced us to the prospects of spending an entire year in a foreign country. What? I never imagined such a thing was possible, although I wasn’t completely ignorant of kids like myself in other parts of the world.
At the time, I’d already had a couple of pen pals – you know, folks you only know through the exchange of letters, back when we used to put pen to paper in order to communicate. I long ago lost touch with my two writing partners, but I still clearly remember their names: Geraldine Concepción in the Philippines and Pia Malmberg in Finland.
Pia used to send me photos of her hometown and magazine clippings about pop stars stars she idolized, as well as comic books that today would be considered quite politically incorrect. Hers seemed like a magical, snow-laden country filled with perfectly adjusted, impeccably dressed Europeans.
Naturally, when AFS brought forth the notion of actually going to Finland in person, I was sold.
I filled out the rather succinct application and shoved it into the hands of our classroom guest, and to my surprise a couple of weeks later, I received a letter that marked me as a perfect match for Finland. Eläköön, indeed!
I’m not sure my mother, Betty Ann, had ever seen me quite so excited about anything. I gleefully walked her through the brochures and fliers, and immediately set about completing the extended application. It was Helsinki, Here I Come – until we came upon the cost.
My parents were just a year or so past their divorce when I was a sophomore, and my now-single mother was struggling mightily. Though she never wanted to admit nor accept it, we occasionally took some public assistance. In the financial reality of raising three kids on her drug store clerk’s salary, the $2,400 or so it would cost to send me abroad was simply out of the question. These days, AFS offers a wealth of scholarships for prospective students in such situations, but back then, it was very much an opportunity reserved for those who could afford it.
My mother was crushed. She recognized the joy I held during what for us was the hardest of times, and her eyes filled with tears as she told me such a trip would be impossible. Years later, she admitted to many nights she lay in bed, crying over the matter.
Being among history’s flakiest teenagers, I probably got over the disappointment within the hour. I’m pretty sure that by the next Spanish test, I’d forgotten all about it. Mother never lived it down, though, so when she happened to spot a brief story in the local newspaper several years later, she was energized by a reopening of that earlier door of opportunity.
I’ve been searching in earnest for a print of that article, probably no more than three inches in The Pasadena Star-News in the spring of 1986, but so far no luck.
• • •
I was heading into summer break from USC, and Mom bounced into the living room, newspaper in hand, with a rare electricity in her voice. The Pasadena Sister Cities Committee was in search of students to apply for a summer program abroad, in a handful of countries that included – you guessed it – Finland.
She was over the moon. I’m ashamed to admit that I was mostly indifferent. With more than a gentle prodding – hounding is more like it – she urged me to contact the PSCC immediately. Yeah, okay, I’ll get to it.
As it turned out, the deadline to apply for the Finland program had passed. So too, the application time for Pasadena’s sister city in Germany. Figuring I had satisfied Mom’s urging, another summer of listless lounging in front of our TV was happily ahead.
Then, Betty Ann Culross, bless her soul, noticed a tidbit that went on to have the most impactful influence on my life. “Look here,” she said cautiously, “They also have a sister city in Japan, and the deadline isn’t for another couple of weeks.” We stared blankly at each other for a quick moment.
Japan? Are there even human beings there? At that point, I knew exactly two facts about Nihon: it’s far and our TV came from there. I couldn’t have found Japan on a map if my life had depended on it.
With a bit more – okay, a whole lot more – badgering, I applied and was set up for an interview about a week later. Wearing a tan suit I had borrowed from a schoolmate, I’m certain I looked completely out of my element during the discussion with some of the oldest people I’d ever met. But they were kind, energetic and obviously very motivated.
I later learned that there had been some issues with students who had participated in the exchange in the two or three years prior. I won’t go into that now, but let’s say the events ranged from the curious and mysterious to the downright salacious. Thus, the published outreach to a wider pool of applicants.
Quite certain they would never accept someone like me into their program, I returned from the interview, told my mother it went well enough, returned the borrowed suit, and headed back to the sofa. To my great surprise, I didn’t flunk the interview, and barely a month later, I was standing in a rice field in Mishima, Shizuoka, Japan.
Can you imagine making all travel arrangements, including obtaining a passport, within a month? Since I’d never done such a thing before, it all seemed like the way it’s always done.
I was correct: Japan is far. When the plane made a stop in Honolulu, I was grabbing my bag to jump off the aircraft when the stewardess (yeah, that’s what they were still called back then) informed me we were only about halfway there. Half??? Are we circumnavigating the globe?
In early July, Mishima was hot, with a level of humidity this California boy had never thought possible. I couldn’t read anything, the cars all looked like toys, and much of the food wasn’t even cooked. In every sense of the word, I was lost.
But as the old adage goes, sometimes you need to get lost to find yourself.
• • •
My first homestay was with Manabu and Keiko Ishii, and their daughter, Reika, who must have been around six years old. They were decidedly middle class, with Dad putting on a shirt and tie every morning and heading to his real estate office in a tiny Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback.
The first morning in the Ishii house was the turning point. Keiko gently tapped on my door with a broken “guddo moningu.” She beckoned me to a breakfast I’ll never forget.
Having never met an American, she had no idea what us folks eat in the morning. As such, she had taken a train to a market an hour or so away, to be certain I had a breakfast fit for Uncle Sam himself. That day’s breakfast: hot dogs, cold, with ketchup.
Amused at first, I soon realized the effort and care she had put into this meal. She knew almost nothing about me, yet she went out of her way to ensure I felt welcomed. Did I ever.
It was far beyond mere politeness. It was reaching out to a young stranger from the other side of the world to say, “We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’re happy to join us.”
If anyone has had an outsized impact on my experiences during and since my first trip to Mishima, it’s Yasushi Sekino, who was sort of the point man for my initial visit. I get the sense that his English ability was the key to his position within the city’s efforts.
“I became interested in sister-city relations from traveling overseas, where foreign language and culture fascinated me,” Sekino told me this past summer, revealing that his English ability is, for the most part, self-taught.
Sekino joined the all-volunteer Mishima Sister City Committee established by the city in 1977, with the main purpose of promoting its exchange program with Pasadena. After establishing a sister-city relationship with New Plymouth in New Zealand in 1991, the committee reorganized into what is now the Mishima International Relations Association. Sekino was the first chief of that office and remained intimately involved with the city’s international exchanges until his retirement in 1999.
“I think that deepening mutual understanding is the key benefit of private exchange through sister-city relations, and that concept is what drives personal and official group visits between cities,” he explained. “Relations between Japan and the USA can cover a variety of fields that include economics and politics, and it sometimes creates conflicts of interest, but I believe the civilian-based, grassroots activities like this are priceless and necessary to fill the gaps and lead to close understanding.”
Over the years, I’ve had a few chances to reunite with Mr. Sekino, even for the briefest of visits – during one trip to Japan before we were married, my wife and I were able to say hello to him at Mishima Station, where he waited to greet us on the Shinkansen platform during the 30-second stop, before the doors closed and we continued on to Tokyo.
At a dinner with current MIRA members this past July, that dear man, now 77, and I had more time to reminisce about our exchanges over the years. I reminded him of the impact he’s had in my life, and he remembered me as being quite unlike any of the foreigners he’d met before.
He recalled me joining a local baseball team’s practice back in 1986, something I had completely forgotten. As a souvenir, I brought him a Dodgers cap and a baseball that Shohei Ohtani had fouled off during a game this season. He called that ball takaramono – a “treasure.”
To me, Mr. Sekino will always be a treasured gift.
The rest of that summer was filled with similar experiences and more. My second host family operated the Izu Rice Center, a company that is now in its third generation of family ownership. Masaki Endo, the son of the founder, was about 10 years my senior and he took me on like a younger brother, showing me his favorite sights around town and always quick with a hearty laugh while puffing a Mild Seven cigarette.
The family business – back then, they supplied precooked rice to the many hotels and resorts in the region – was handsomely successful, so they had the means to show a visitor around at leisure. They even sprang for a wonderful trip to Kyoto for Masaki and me.
Masaki’s mother was a vivacious spark of woman, cheerfully directing affairs in family and business. It was her brilliant idea to put me into a company uniform and send me out on regularly-scheduled deliveries of rice with a driver named Iga, to give me a taste of the normal workaday world in Japan.
We made stops at several resorts in nearby Atami, garnering puzzled looks from hotel staffs. I even joined in a shouting match between Iga and a rival rush-hour driver, hurling a well-timed “Your mama!” that brought the argument to a hilarious halt.
My third host family was named Maejima. They were deeply involved with Mishima Taisha, the local shrine that dates back as far as the 800s. In addition to some local sightseeing around the Izu Peninsula, Mr. Maejima included me in the crew that pulled the enormous mikoshi in the shrine’s summer festival that happens every Aug. 16. In the sweltering heat, pulling that enormous wooden structure to chants of “wasshoi” was an exhausting joy.
So now, here I am, some 40 years after the fact. In addition to working at The Rafu, I have a Japanese wife, half-Japanese child and I use the language on a daily basis.
While I never went abroad with AFS, I remain regularly involved. For some 25 years up until the pandemic, I chaperoned an extensive annual road trip through the American Southwest for students from all over the world who are spending a year in Southern California. It’s an inspiring excursion, with generations of former students still calling that the highlight of their yearlong stays.
More recently, I’ve been a member of the L.A. area travel staff, charged mostly with wrangling students at LAX, incoming or outgoing, to make sure they all get onto connecting flights and to their destinations. This June, I was offered the chance to accompany 22 American kids on their flight to Tokyo, the beginning of a summer immersion program in Japan.
After the orientation, the students continued to their respective host families, and I was free to travel around for a couple of weeks. Before making my way to Mie Prefecture to spend time in my wife’s hometown, she and my son joined me for a few days in Mishima, where I was able to introduce my family to some of the places and people who had treated me so well those many decades ago.
My memory of streets and locations around Mishima was surprisingly accurate. From the station to City Hall to Mishima Taisha, we found our way around with little trouble. As some of you know, this summer was brutally hot across Japan, and walking about the town was a real challenge. Now that I think about it, why didn’t we rent some bicycles?
Many of the businesses in Shibamotocho, around the entrance to Rakujuen Park, have been there for generations. The real estate office run by the Ishii family is no longer there, and the Showa-era community center has been replaced by a gleaming, four-story Chamber of Commerce building.
I stopped into the Koudensha Kakimbu pet store, to have a look around – and get out of the heat for a moment. Yoshiyuki Nagasawa is a third-generation owner of the store that opened for business some 80 years ago. A Mishima native, he said the store has survived times lean and robust, and that the city in recent years has put great care into public facilities, services and the local aesthetic.
“It’s much cleaner these days, and for visitors, I think it’s very attractive,” said Nagasawa, speaking with a yellow-crested cockatiel perched on this right hand. “Especially around the area of the [Shirataki] park, there are a lot of flowers, and many of the power lines and telephone wires that used to hang overhead have been moved underground.”
He explained that the city has a dedicated corps of volunteers who work to keep Mishima an attractive destination for tourists, both domestic and foreign.
A little further down the street is Eiraku, a real Showa-era mom-and-pop ramen shop like those you see these days featured in dramas about “real life” in Japan.
One of the activities I joined while in Mishima back in 1986 was the city’s English conversation classes at the community center. I was essentially a speaking model for the students, from elementary kids to high school students to working adults. Shizuka Nakayama was a middle-schooler at the time, and she and I have remained friends ever since.
These days, Nakayama is an official with MIRA, the branch of the city government that handles cultural exchanges, including the sister cities program. This summer, she took the time to give my family and me a quick tour of some locations I’d visited as a teenager. Now 53, she reminisced about joining those conversation classes.
“I thought it would be really cool to be able to have conversations with Americans, so when I heard about the classes, I was very interested,” she said. Her family ran a local flower shop for more than 50 years, and couldn’t afford to pay for many after-school activities, making the free English program at the community center all the more attractive.
“Sometimes a foreigner would come into the store for flowers, and I always wanted to speak to them in English,” Nakayama recalled. “In kindergarten, I had learned how to say ‘This is a flower’ in English, and the customers’ reactions and smiles to this kid speaking English made me happy and I wanted to learn more.”
By the time she reached junior high school, Nakayama had realized that pronunciation was the key to effective English communication. So when I showed up in the community class with my native diction, she was all the more inspired to master practical speaking.
She went on to study Japanese literature as well as English and Chinese language at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, further bolstering her international and interpersonal skills. After returning to Mishima from college, she went on to become a popular radio personality in the Mishima area.
Nakayama said her volunteer work with MIRA and her passion for cross-cultural communication were given a turbo boost by attending the classes where she and I first met. Strangers or neighbors, she believes that meeting in person, face-to-face, lets us realize how much we have in common.
“I’m a human, you’re a human. It doesn’t matter which country you’re from. We’re all the same.”
As for those “oldest people” I mentioned earlier, it turns out they weren’t terribly aged at the time; I was just young and impudent. Among the Pasadena Sister Cities Committee members present for my interview back then was Bob Aronoff, who likely holds the longest tenure in the organization since Pasadena and Mishima established their partnership in 1957.
Now age 91, Aronoff can be found most evenings taking his daily walk with friends. He said his initial impressions of teenaged me were about as accurate as my first assessment of the committee.
“I misjudged you, knowing now who you went on to become,” he told me as we circled the track at South Pasadena High School. “I thought, ‘What’s this guy going to Japan for, he doesn’t even know how to say ‘thank you.’”
Having served in a variety of capacities, including treasurer, for the Mishima subcommittee, Aronoff said the greatest value in a sister-city relationship is the focus on individual relationships, rather than business or politics.
“People meet people without too much interference from government. That’s the best part,” he said. “There’s a lot of people on both sides who over the years have sought to get a financial advantage, or sell something to Japan, or get a leg up.
“In people like you, and the experience you had in Mishima, we see how the pure cultural exchange is the most important focus.”
• • •
Before I made that first trip to Mishima in 1986, I had the chance to meet Sumi Sakamoto (now Sasabe), who was visiting Pasadena as an ambassador of the Mishima committee. She had graduated from Tsuda Women’s University in Tokyo, which specializes in English and foreign relations, then returned to Mishima to raise a family.
“When I visited Pasadena back then, it was my first time in a foreign country,” she said in a phone conversation she and I had in August. “In high school, I realized that English was important, and that my ability was better than most Japanese people, especially when my teacher asked me for help with English.”
Now a retired high school teacher at age 69, Sasabe stressed the importance of opening the world of cultures to young people, who tend to absorb ideas and concepts more quickly.
“No one can predict what kind of life will come,” she said. “But many young people are interested in communicating in English, and through that, the world becomes smaller. That’s a happy thing.”
Over the years, Pasadena has added several sister cities and now enjoys six such partnerships: Ludwigshafen, Germany (1948); Mishima, Japan (1957); Jarvenpaa, Finland (1983); Vanazdor, Armenia (1991); Xicheng, China (1999); and Dakar-Plateau, Senegal (2018).
A similar organization has branched off from the Mishima subcommittee – the Pasadena-Mishima Friendship Youth Exchange Program, headed by Pasadena native Bryan Takeda. A longtime member of the Pasadena Japanese Cultural Institute, he recently founded a cultural and language academy in nearby Sierra Madre.
In 2022, Takeda was presented with a special kunshō – commendation – by the Japanese government, in recognition of his work to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Japan. At the ceremony, he recalled his first visit to his father’s home in Wakayama Prefecture, one that opened his eyes to his heritage.
“Since that moment, I’ve always felt a true connection to Japan. It was part of me. It was part of my family, and it was my home,” he said. “It was with that feeling in my heart I’ve always pursued every opportunity to connect with Japan and the Nikkei community.
“And it is with this love and passion that I continue to do what I can to help others connect, to make new friends, to strengthen relationships, and to pursue opportunities.”
• • •
I suppose it’s relatively easy to look back on a life and pick out the points where things took a turn, and to recognize a fulcrum upon which events pivoted. For me, it was the simple act of my mother reading through the evening paper. Had she dozed off or opted for the comics page, you’d not be reading this now.
I’m especially grateful that my mother was able to travel to Japan in 2003, to join Maki and I for our wedding. Maki’s family all live in Mie, but we carved out some time to visit Mishima and show Mom the town to where her efforts and encouragement had led me. I introduced her to Mr. Sekino, we prayed at Mishima Taisha, and Masaki Endo gave us a brief tour of his company. Meeting Mrs. Maejima in the front garden of their home, Mom bowed and tearfully thanked my former host for everything her family – and her city – had done for me. It never took much to make Betty Ann cry.
Is there a lesson here, as this piece was composed for a Rafu special issue titled “Education”? Who knows? What I can explain for certain is how international and cross-cultural relationships have shaped my life (in fact, I come from a multiracial family) and how that has become a defining characteristic of my existence.
One point I have repeatedly emphasized to exchange students over the years is how their decision to take part in their respective programs shapes not only their lives, but also the lives of their families and their communities, and – into the future – their own children. Telling that to teenagers always draws a puzzled laugh. In my case, it all began with interest in something as simple as having a pen pal.
And for the record, I still haven’t been to Finland.