To the Obāsan at the Breakfast Café
I arrived in Kanazawa just in time for the maples to turn scarlet. I walked through the old town, past tatami shops and teahouses, scanning my memory for half-recalled words. Mono no aware: precarious beauty. Kōyō: the vivid pause before the trees are bare.
My trip had begun two weeks earlier in Tokyo, where I moved through the city as part of the crowd. Japan struck me as a generous and lonely place: strangers offered an umbrella in a downpour, a seat at a full izakaya counter, an extra pour of sake. I received each gesture from a respectful distance. In a basement dessert shop, I sat in communal silence around a pot of zenzai, speaking only to say “sumimasen.” Excuse me. The owner said I was a rare foreigner, and I did not ask what he meant. I thought of uchi–soto: the division between in-group and out-group, familiar and foreign, me and you.
I was en route to Suō-Ōshima, the tiny island near Hiroshima where my great-grandparents were born. My family has roots in Japan, but for generations, we have been Nikkeijin: absent sons and daughters. We descend from migrant farmers, people pushed away by famine and pulled toward the promise of work. After leaving Japan in the early 1900s, my great-grandparents landed in Hawai'i and decided to stay.
I grew up on Oahu, speaking English at home and learning Japanese in school. For seven years, I dedicated myself to the language, contorting my mouth into a disciplined shape. I am yonsei—fourth-generation—and hāfu—half-Japanese, half-white. I studied to compensate for those qualifiers, the hyphens that separate me from a homeland.
When my grandparents were alive, we would gather at their house for Sunday dinner—fifteen of us huddled around overflowing plates. We spoke very little, and only about uncomplicated things: “Where did you buy the sashimi?” “The cantaloupe is sweet—is it still on sale?” No one else seemed bothered by the distance between us. Perhaps to them, it felt like relief. But to me, it felt like isolation.
I came to think of our silence as a container, a place to hold decades of loss. It pained me to imagine the grief my grandparents had buried. I knew only fragments: Grandpa’s brother had been murdered while at home with his kids; Grandma’s mother had left, escaping to another island and another life. No one spoke of past generations beyond that, not even in passing. That history was lost somewhere in the 4,000 miles between Hawai'i and Japan.
After my grandparents died, I began digging. I longed for a lineage, a tether to the past. In a box of old photos, I found a family tree, written in my grandfather’s script. Beside his name was a half-sister he’d never mentioned—and a branch of our family that remained in Japan. I could go there, I realized. I could visit the island, the village, the ancestral home.
When I left for Japan, I expected to love it the way I loved my family—quietly, from a distance. I stood on the threshold, asking to be invited inside.
*
“Aite imasu ka?” I called out. Are you open?
I entered your café in Kanazawa with my head bowed. Just the night before, I had been turned away from two empty restaurants, and the rejections still stung. I felt like an intruder, as though my presence alone had broken a rule.
You laughed, sensing my hesitation, and told me to take a seat. You were older than I’d assumed at first – mid-70s, at least – and wearing the pants-and-apron uniform of an obāsan, a grandmother. The only other customer was a woman, about 60, who spoke to you with the ease of an old friend. I listened without translating the words, focusing instead on the sounds volleyed back and forth. Each syllable was an affirmation: I see, I know, I understand.
I ordered breakfast, breaking the spell. The woman scooped up her coat and left. You scurried behind the bar, apologizing for the delay. “Chotto matte,” you called out from the kitchen. Wait just a moment. Your voice, loud and hoarse, surprised me; I learned to speak Japanese demurely, with questions instead of commands. I still mimicked the gentle tones of my sensei and the J-dramas we watched in class.
Maybe you noticed me evaluating you, trying to discern what made you seem different from everyone else I met in Japan. You struck me as exuberant, a bit disorderly—your arms flailed like they might escape the restraints of your jacket. “Japan is stuck in the past,” you said. “But me, I am different. I am always thinking about the future.”
You made everything by hand, one plate at a time. I listened to you chop cabbage, whisk eggs, and fry bacon. “The bread is not ready,” you said, pressing a fresh loaf between your palms. You woke up early to make it, but not early enough. “Daijōbu,” I said—it’s OK—and I may have meant “I'll wait,” or “never mind,” or “cut it anyway.” You laughed and repeated the word back to me. "Daijōbu."
We sat across from one another, waiting. You asked if I was born in Japan—a gracious question, given that I was grasping for words. I told you about my family’s emigration to Hawai'i, and about my plans to visit Suō-Ōshima.
“I've heard the island is beautiful,” you said. “I wonder if it will feel like home.”
I nodded. I did not know how to explain in Japanese that I felt adrift—unsure of what I’d find on Suō-Ōshima. When I booked a room in a ryokan on the island, the man who made my reservation said: “I believe you will feel the life of your ancestry here.” I worried it was selfish, as though I’d broken an unspoken pact with my family by unearthing our past.
“It will be good,” you said, sliding into the seat beside me. “It will be a dream come true.”
You asked me about Hawai'i, and I was grateful for the change in subject. What a coincidence that your only child was married on Oahu, minutes from where I live. You recalled the trip, full of warm rain and guava nectar. “Eiju,” you said. “I always wanted eiju.” I did not know the word. You searched on your phone and read the translation: permanence. Later, I looked up the word and understood. Eiju means longevity or eternity. It is also the Japanese term for a green card. Your dream was to live in Hawai'i forever, to make it your home.
I returned to your café the next morning. I saw you through the window, sitting at the empty counter. You looked smaller and more fragile than you did the day before. I realized you had no staff to help you, and no one to talk to when your customers were gone. You greeted me, pointing to a loaf of bread that sat on the counter, ready to slice. You must have woken up early. We talked about small things, like the crows that circle the city this time of year. “Kimochi warui,” you said. “Ghastly, creepy things.”
I asked about your daughter, and you told me she lives far away, near her in-laws in Hokkaido. “Any grandchildren?” I asked. You held up a finger, shaking your head. “Shinimashita. Kodomo no gan.” I hoped that I’d misheard you. “They are gone?” I asked.
You repeated it, this time to your phone, and the horrible robot voice said, “Childhood cancer, childhood cancer,” over and over, like a sick joke.
Your grandchild was seven years old. I knew that if I cried, you would try to comfort me. But you were already leaning over the counter with a napkin. “It’s OK,” you said, first in English, then in Japanese.
How much of your grief, I wondered, did you share with your daughter? How much did you bear alone? I thought of my family’s quiet endurance. There was so much that we would never speak of, not even to say, “It’s OK.”
I left Kanazawa on a Saturday, the only day you open late. You promised to come in early and make me breakfast before my train. I arrived at 10:00 sharp, but the door was locked. I waited 30 minutes before slipping a note beneath your door. We had not exchanged names, but I signed mine anyway.
As I turned to leave, I heard your running footsteps. You yelled apologies, hitting your forehead with the heel of your palm. When you stood beside me, I saw the sprinkle of tiny hairs on your nose and the black dye on your fingertips. I said nothing; it would have been rude to name the reason you were late.
I thought of the times I’ve helped my mom dye her hair—the ritual of rubbing cream into her scalp with plastic gloves, coating every strand. It is the only way she’s ever allowed me to care for her. Who cares for you? I wondered. Who helps you dye the back of your head?
On that last day, you called me by my Japanese name, Mariko, and traced the strokes of the kanji in the air. You told me your name, which means generous child.
I delayed leaving until the moment I was about to miss my train. I felt both grateful and greedy for more. I wanted to know more about your life, about your daughter, about your decision to make Kanazawa your home. When we hugged, I felt your body, tiny and strong. It was like my grandmother's, my mother’s, my own.
*
“It looked like Hawai’i, with its cascading cliffs and godlike mountains, and I was moved by the island’s sleepy beauty.”
I knew very little about Suō-Ōshima, and even less about my family's history there. I carried a small collection of clues: the address of the family home, a description of the village from 1900, and a family tree. My grandfather visited once, just after his 86th birthday. He was not confident speaking Japanese, despite it being his first language, so he brought his Tokyo-born daughter-in-law to translate. They called every Kuriyama in the phone book until they found a relative, a woman whose name I didn’t know. “Not much to do,” was all Grandpa had said about his visit. “They are real farmers there.”
I thought of Fujino, Grandpa’s half-sister, as I made the hour-long trip from Hiroshima on the bullet train. She represented an alternate reality, a timeline in which our family had left Japan and then returned. I wondered if Grandpa ever thought of his sister during the war. He was 23 when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and lived close enough to hear the explosions. Fujino was 45 when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima. In Suō-Ōshima, she would have been close enough to see the black rain.
I wanted to meet Fujino’s descendants, to compare notes about our family’s quirks and pathos. But I worried that I would find nothing, or worse, that I would prove myself to be an outsider, a clumsy foreigner.
I had hired a translator, and he was waiting for me at the station. When we crossed the bridge to Suō-Ōshima, he welcomed me home. It looked like Hawai'i, with its cascading cliffs and godlike mountains, and I was moved by the island’s sleepy beauty. Shopkeepers peered out from open windows and doorways; men stood on the seawalls, fishing with one hand and smoking with the other. I could see why my great-grandparents decided to stay in Hawai'i. Perhaps they found comfort in the rugged landscape, the humid air, the mountains that stretched toward the sky.
We drove the island’s perimeter, snaking past bamboo forests, rice fields, and beaches lined with palm trees. The translator brought me to meet his friend, the mayor, a young man who spoke in rapid Japanese. He looked after the village temple, the place where my ancestors once worshiped. “Zehi,” he said. Absolutely. “Of course, I know your family's name.”
I felt a tilt in my stomach—excitement I’d been trying to contain. The mayor seemed hopeful, and as he ushered me into his van, I allowed myself to feel hopeful, too.
“But familiarity isn’t the same as belonging, just as recognizing a place doesn’t mean you’ve come home. ”
The temple sits at the back of the valley, overlooking a river that runs all the way to the sea. The mayor invited me to ring the bonshō, the ancient bell. I struck it the way he showed me, drawing back the wooden beam and letting go. At the ohaka, my family’s grave site, we lit incense and prayed.
The mayor asked if I was ready to walk to the family home, a property where my relatives might still live. I felt unprepared, still absorbing the stillness of the temple, imagining my ancestors there. I followed the mayor down a country road, admiring every wildflower along the way.
We waited outside a wooden house until a man, 75 or 80, came to the door. The mayor introduced him by my mother’s maiden name: Kuriyama. If Kuriyama-san was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it, and I tried to subdue my eager grin. The house, Kuriyama-san confirmed, was our family home, still standing. He was born and raised there, like the three generations before him. His father, he said, was Fujino’s son.
I felt porous, my mind open but absent of thoughts. I committed the scene to memory: autumn sunlight on the red tiled roof, Kuriyama-san’s threadbare t-shirt. When the mayor suggested a photo, Kuriyama-san removed his face mask to reveal familiar features. In the picture, he is straight-faced, wearing an expression I know well—Grandpa never smiled for the camera either. Afterwards, Kuriyama-san and I stood at the end of the driveway. We did not make small talk or promise to see each other again. We bowed, over and over, until it was time for me to go.
That night, I ate at one of the island's oldest restaurants. They served a famous local dish called mikan nabe: broth bubbling with cabbage, pork, and mandarin rind. I thought of you, cooking alone in the café, and imagined sharing this meal with you. I wanted to tell you that Suō-Ōshima had felt and sounded and smelled familiar, so much so that my body couldn’t help but relax. But familiarity isn’t the same as belonging, just as recognizing a place doesn’t mean you’ve come home.
“Mariko-san,” I imagined you saying. “It’s OK.”
At the table beside me, a family slurped from steaming bowls. They paused only to lift their glasses, offering each other a wordless toast. I recognized their faces, stoic and sun-softened. They looked like my relatives, if not quite like me.
About the Author
Lauren Mariko Scherr is a writer based in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. She has been featured as an emerging writer by Roxane Gay, nominated for Best of the Net, and published in ANMLY, The Audacity, and SixByEight Press. In 2022 Lauren left her career in science and technology communications to travel and write. She's still traveling, writing, and publishing a newsletter, yasumi, about rest and creativity. Read and subscribe at yasumi.substack.com. You can also find her on Instagram (@laurenmariko) and occasionally on Twitter (@lauren_scherr).
Read Lauren’s “Behind the Essay” interview in our newsletter.
Header photo by Atul Vinayak.
Edited by Aube Rey Lescure.
