❶A letter from a Japanese woman-Days in Geogia around 2001

©︎Shiho Niimi @sviesosdaina

To Sakiko

To answer your question, I hope you understand that my explanation would go back and forth between 2001 to 2020… 

While I was in the middle of working on the video for the song, the Great East Japan Earthquake happened on March 11, 2011 (hereinafter referred to as "3.11") 

I was worried about the rolling blackouts, the radiation coming into my house, all kinds of other information, and in a whirlpool of sadness and anger from the huge amount of random people.

But then I suddenly realized what happened on 9.11 (when I was studying abroad in Georgia). To me, as reflecting both days, it was more than a coincidence that the day was also on the 11th.

Well, rather than the day itself  9/11, I was more struck by the changes in my friends (in Georgia) and what I learned from the war in Iraq since 9/11.

I was in Georgia for only one year, and then ever since then, every six months or year I have kept revisiting to see my friends.

Honestly, what I am going to tell you is that I hadn't been able to talk to anyone for years at that time.

When I look back on Georgia, I have to mention the experiences in a city that was a bit unsafe back then with a host mother.  

The host mother was in her fifties who lived alone.

She provided me with a bed and food at first, but after a week, she stopped doing so.  Because, in her words, "You're Japanese, so from now on you'll sleep on the floor instead of in the bed. “ 

Soon after that happened, she stopped to provide food for me as well.

That was the as same reason. 

I was supposed to eat only rice.

Because I was Japanese. 

But there was no rice for me to eat.  

I slept on the floor. 

I bought my food, locked it in my trunk, and hid it,

and ate it when she was not around.

I was told not to go out alone even in the daytime because the area was unsafe. 

In the middle of the night, however, she demanded I go walk the dog.

As her saying that she often went to see her boyfriend and wouldn't come home until morning.

One day, there was a shooting in the middle of the night in the parking lot across the yard from my house.

I heard a bang and looked out the window to check what was going on.  

A man was lying down on the ground.

As soon as I noticed that, about four people were looking at me at once. 

One of them pointed a gun at me.

A police car must have been sounding faintly in the distance. They disappeared just before the police arrived.  

I only can assume so, because I was not able to hear anything back at the moment, filled with the jolt. 

What I could do was just sitting down on the floor for a while. 

And finally, I felt the fear and started to perspire a lot.

After that?

I do not remember anything.

A few days later, I found out that my host mother was a bit mentally ill, and the person she called her boyfriend was not a boifirend and had his own family.

Thanks to his generous help, I was able to go through various procedures and move to a new host family‘s house in a different town. 

---

It took me about five years that I was able to confess to people what happened to me that night.

Fortunately, I got along with the new host family, and soon after I started going to school.

Then 9/11 happened.

I remember it was a psychology class. 

Everyone in the class was listening to the radio, that the teacher just had turned on.

None of us said a single word.  

Only I was the one who couldn't understand what was going on because of my English level.  

After I came home from school, TV news and messages from friends from Japan made me realize something really scary was happening.  

Friends in Japan asked me if I was okay with anthrax but I could not get it well. 

New York was way far away from a small town where I was in Georgia. 

I was feeling that people were talking about the accident in a different country.  

In the town where I was in,

there were no single Japanese people, and I was discriminated against as a Pearl Harbor.

The school was a private Christian school, and it was all white people besides me and one more person. 

The person was only a black boy in my grade.

One day, he pulled over me just before leaving school then said.  

"You're the only one who can call me Negro “

I remember the moment when he said that very well, in quite vivid images.

We had never spoken to each other before, but I guess he was waiting for me just to tell me that.....

Maybe he wanted to tell me that I was one of him.

Maybe he heard the name "Pearl Harbor" and was concerned about me.

I still don’t know his deep feeling behind the word, but I do know we understand each other, sort of. 

Because we exchanged a nice high five after that. 

You know, still, I wondered how he felt when he was in the school ...... and as thinking about that made me realized that I was just like him in that place.

While I was getting to know almost all-white classmates, I thought nobody was mean, and rather, they were very friendly and supportive for me, even though they called me once Peal Harbor. 

For instance, this is one of many examples though, I remember that when I lost my credit card, immediately the classmates created a donation box in the cafeteria for me that raised money. 

---

At the school, we used a history textbook that began with the explanation that God created the world.

As I recall, in a class, some classmates questioned me by “what[religieon] do you believe in?” 

“ The theory of Evolution “ My answer made everyone surprised, which also surprised me.

I didn't go to a school because I was a Christian, For reference, I only went because the school that accepted me to study abroad happened to be Christian.

Once, I have asked my friends during the days in Georgia,

"Did you choose to become a Christian?” 

Proudly, they all said "Yes, I did! “ 

But I was very suspicious about it.

They went to Christian schools, went to church on Sundays, and met with friends once a week for bible study. That was their life of routine. 

So, how could they choose to be anything other than Christians? 

They were good friends who welcomed me even though I wasn't a Christian and were very open to answering such questions[that could have been perhaps rude to them......].

They were more than honest to me about what and why they believed in. 

I am still grateful for those.

—-

Every time I came back to Georgia. after I returned to Japan, I would often ask my friends about something that had been bothering me like their beliefs or political concerns. It was more like a personal document than interviews.

 When my friends became college students, things started to change drastically.

First of all,

They were no longer Christians.

These friends moved into the dormitory for the colleges. 

When I went to see them around that time, they told me excitedly

“ a revolution happened, Shiho! ” 

“I understood what you meant when you said “The Theory of Evolution”

It must have been their first exposure for them to the rest of the world.

They confessed that they realized for the first time that they didn't have a choice until then. 

On the other hand, as a view of a Japanese coming from the country, where 70% of the population has no religion,

being a Christian would be very important, especially in such a rural town in Georgia.

Being in a Christian community is like being a life preserver.

In addition, in the U.S., the health insurance system may have changed and is a little better now, I hope, but they don't have universal health care (like Japan), right?

When something happens to you, you can help each other by being in the community. 

For instance, when my friend's father was diagnosed with cancer, they were asking for donations. That's how I learned that the people who gather at the church help each other like a big family. I'm sure there are many such communities out there, but I think one of them is the Christian community like the one I was in.

It's a very good thing to be able to live together and help each other, and on the other hand, it could become a closed world.

When you're only in that community until you get out (or in the case of my friends, until they get out when they enter college), you don't know what other options are out there, and you don't even know if it was really “You” 've chosen to become a Christian. 

There are also lots of people who do not realize that they are in an environment where they have no other choice.

But also, spending time together with them, I realized that believing in something is the salvation of each person.