おめでとう誕生日育美さん！！

The Nakata family

Ikumi is my Japanese host mother. I used "is" because she has sort of "adopted me" into the family. She jokingly suggested that I should take the Nakata surname as well! We were choosing between Aruden Nakata or Nakata Yap. Somehow, we never got passed that before I left. I will just keep it that way for now so that when we meet again, we can continue our conversation from where we left off.

Today is Ikumi's birthday. I feel very glad that I still have somebody to keep in touch with in Japan. I don't know about my other classmates but I have stayed in contact with my host family even though we are now as far apart as I am with my family in Malaysia! Three things will always make me smile when I think about the Nakata family;

The three children showing off their junkfood

1. My first day in homestay. The three children bought loads of junkfood - the craziest Japanese junkfood you can think of e.g "mouth explosives"; beans that pop/explode in your mouth when they get in contact with the saliva! They divided the junkfood equally among themselves. Then I saw them whispering among themselves and re-arranged their junk food. The youngest came to me and said, "Aruden, this is yours!", as he handed me my share of junk food! Cute!

Unexpected appearance at the public presentation

2. My Japanese public presentation was filled with jitters. Ikumi and her children emerged from the crowd and surprised me. She said, "We are here to support you! Ganbatte ne!" They traveled 60km to do that and my presentation lasted only 20minutes or less. I am still very touched by that.

3. My last day in Japan. I was already in the bullet train waiting for it to depart. Then Ikumi and her children emerged from the escalator and were running frantically on the platform. Obviously they were looking for me. Imagine trying to look for someone in one of the platforms in King's Cross. You don't know which coach, which train and which platform. But they were lucky, I spotted them instead. I waved to get their attention and the eldest son spotted me. Then I stepped out to greet them. I looked at the overhead clock; 1 minute to departure. Ikumi apologised profusely that she was late even though she didn't need to. We didn't even plan to meet! "The kids couldn't wake up. That's why we were late. We came to see you off and wanted wish you a safe trip back to Malaysia," she said.

"You didn't have to do that. You could have just called," I said this to Ikumi while ruffling the children's hair. I was overwhelmed with guilt especially when I saw them panting and gasping for breath. The kids were still in a daze. Obviously they were. It was 6am for goodness sake, and it must have taken at least an hour to reach the train station. I would have cursed and sworn if someone dragged me out of bed at 5am to see someone off for a minute! The train was about to leave in less than a minute.". Ikumi said, "It's okay, don't worry about it. Even for one minute, it's worth it." I stepped back into the coach when the final boarding announcement came. The train departed and as I looked out the window, the kids were running and waving goodbye until they could no longer match the speed of the train. It was a touching finale.

It's easy to lose touch when you're no longer living in the country-now I don't talk, speak or read the language anymore. If there's any indicator to tell, my Japanese is getting from bad to worse. I have even forgotten the appropriate verbs to use when I wrote an email to Ikumi recently. It used to take 5 minutes getting a simple email across. Now it takes 15 minutes and most of the time were spent on deciphering the right verbs and words to use. More time are spent if I needed to check with the dictionary. Saying the wrong things to an old friend is the last thing you would want, especially if this old friend is also your host mother! That's why I go the extra mile to counter-check every verb I use when sending a Japanese email to her. For example, I nearly missed out on the verb "sending" an email or "submitting" an email. But that's not as serious as "doing" something and "dying" now, which I nearly made yesterday! It would have been a grave mistake to send an email like this on a birthday, wouldn't it!

I dedicate this page to Ikumi Nakata and wish you a very Happy Birthday!