Robin Hattori was awarded the USA Prize in this year’s Kyoto Writing Competition for her moving piece, titled “Conversation with a Ghost”. The judges appreciated how it captures one family’s story in the wider historical picture, and how a search spanning thousands of miles ends in a sweet conversation with one’s beloved grandfather.

Robin is a sansei (third generation Japanese-American).  Originally from St. Louis, she has lived in Japan as a student, English teacher, and a JET Program Coordinator for International Relations, and currently works at Washington University in St. Louis as a research lab manager. She is active in community organizations including the Campus Y at Washington University, Central Institute for the Deaf, and the Japanese American Citizens League. She often provides educational presentations on her family’s incarceration at Rohwer, Arkansas during WWII.  Robin has a background in Asian Studies and Master’s Degree in Non-Profit Management.

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Conversation with a Ghost

Every day after kindergarten my first stop was your room. You let me crank your fancy mechanical bed to a sitting position and munch on senbei from the tin on your nightstand. I would prattle on and show you my drawings. You held up each one reverently, smiled and said “kirei, kirei”.

“No, grandpa!” I would giggle, “You’re holding it upside down!”

This was our routine. Until one day I came home and rushed in only to find that you were gone.

Forty years have passed. I have so many questions I never got to ask: Was it hard leaving Japan? Did you love your picture bride? Could you forgive the U.S. for putting you behind barbed wire? Were your children and grandchildren enough to make you happy?

I have searched for you, but a language barrier and 6500 miles stand in my way. Finally, a cousin remembers that your ashes are interred, “somewhere in Kyoto, close to Maruyama Park.”

I arrive on a drizzly day with a smudged charcoal sky. The first cemetery has no knowledge of our family. Dejected, I trudge onto the next. Higashi Otani Bochi snakes up the hillside like kudzu. I ask the monk if you are here. He hesitates before making a call. At last, he confirms your location.  I thank him with inadequate Japanese and wind my way through the endless warren of polished concrete.

Our ancestor’s grave stands out from the rest. It is a weathered, natural shaped rock with the name of your hometown engraved in the front. I should have brought incense or flowers. Or better yet, one of my drawings.

The rain starts to ebb and the sun warms my face as I kneel down. We have so much to catch up on, Grandpa. How have you been?