In the week before leaving for Japan, I received an email from a quirky-sounding girl named Akiko welcoming me to the school and prepping me on the next steps. For fun, I replied back to the email in Japanese thanking her. For some unknown reason, she replied back to me. This went on for the rest of the week, trading emails and conversations and I even got to hear some of frustrations with some of the other people who arrived early and were giving her problems. I couldn’t wait to meet her finally; I thought I’d get along well with the RA.

I arrive in Japan after a twenty-some-odd hour flight and she’s there to greet me at my building. She leads the way to my room and proceeds to give me the speech that all new students receive: how Japan works. For the next thirty minutes or so she uses a Japanese that, at that time for me, was fast enough to be almost entirely gibberish and explain how extremely important things in Japan are done. Garbage handling, procedures around the building, next few days, etc. I had nothing better to do the next few days so she let me tag along and help her with other arriving students. It wasn’t after a few weeks that I later accidentally heard her speaking English to a student that I realized she understands English, this whole time I had been struggling to communicate with her in Japanese!

Throughout last semester and summer I didn’t see or hang out with Akiko too much though, as we’re all busy with school and other things. I’d bump into her at school or around the building or see her out somewhere. But any time that I needed help with anything, she was there to jump at the chance to resolve the problem for me.

She has a boyfriend in Australia (was it is with these Australians that makes everybody seem to want one…!?) that she’s visited this year shortly and who’s stayed here in Japan late last semester for about a month. They’re a very cute couple alright.

I find out that she’s leaving for Australia to study less than a week ago.

Thursday night at Ohgiya, 備長扇屋, (an izakaya, a Japanese-style pub), we held her farewell party, since she’s leaving Friday. More than forty people turned up. Akiko held well for maybe an hour before she began to cry. As she started, people around the room stood up and gave speeches in their mother language. English, Japanese, Spanish, German, Chinese and Korean were heard. Akiko would listen to these speeches given in other languages and say, while crying, “I don’t understand what you’re saying to me, but thank you.” The entire night, really, was a testament to Akiko and her work over the years helping foreign students adjust to Japan. She got one last chance not only to see the people that love her but to also witness those same people getting along with each other so well, a harmony that she, semester after semester for the last four-and-a-half years, works hard to achieve.

Lee and I told her that since she was there to welcome us to Japan, we’re going to make sure she leaves safely Friday. By the end of the night she was barely able to not cry for a minute, but she insisted that dinner at Ohgiya was enough and does not want to go through the “good-bye.” We insisted of course.

Friday around 4pm we, Lee and I, met up with Akiko in the lobby of the building. There, we found three other students who had arrived in March ― the furui gakusei (old students). We chatted for a bit until the taxi had arrived and then helped her with her bags to the car. We all stood like goons waving bye at her while she waved in the back seat of the car until we could no longer see her.

あっこさん、何でもしたいことに頑張って！！またいつかねっ。