From the Judges:
“Nascent love is the theme of this vignette. In the end we find out where this love took the writer, and the reader can appreciate how the memory is cherished years later in a home away from Japan. Each sense of place blends into the other, creating a whole. Kyoto is a city in which one catches a glimpse of many couples. “A Foreign Visitor” speaks to the romance of the city and its gentle whispers of love and serendipity. Well-envisioned and communicating lovely images, the mood is simple and flowing, with the couple’s budding affection embraced by Kyoto’s atmosphere.”

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A Foreign Visitor

It was the end of September. I wandered with my new friend who was visiting Japan from Ireland, inside the Higashi Honganji – simply because it was the nearest temple to the Kyoto station.

The late-summer light slanted my friend’s shadow across the stone pavement, as he purified his hands with a ladle of water. It was the moment before good-bye; we did not know when we would meet again. We went up the stairs into an open balcony, opposite the main temple, and sat down on a low wooden railing – four feet apart. I took a photo of my friend. An old man, possibly a janitor, shuffled by. “You’ll fall if you are not careful”, he warned. I smiled at him thinking it might mean “fall in love” and pressed the shutter button again, balancing my bottom on the railing. As the warm wind brushed my bare toes, I had a feeling of being watched.

I remember the calm in the air, the people sitting on the tatami praying in silence, my soles touching the wooden floor, my friend’s openness; a visitor in a foreign land. The clock ticked steadily towards the time of the last airport bus. As we reached the exit gate, a couple stopped us. With a lovely smile, the woman said she had taken our photo.

Five years later, the photo sits over our fireplace in Dublin, like a foreign visitor; round roof tiles like fish scales, horizontal balcony like a solemn procession, upright wooden pillars, calligraphy framed on the wall and me photographing my husband – both of us captured in that moment of uncertainty.

Photo Credit: Haruka Ota

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Mai Ishikawa is a Japanese theatre translator. She has lived in three different countries; US, Japan and now Ireland. The plays she has translated include “Necessary Targets” by Eve Ensler, “Cyprus Avenue” by David Ireland, “Dublin by Lamplight” by Michael West in collaboration with the Corn Exchange and “Once Upon a Bridge” by Sonya Kelly. She is currently writing her own play with the support of bursaries and the Arts Council. 

For the full list of this year’s competition winners, click here.
For the original competition notice (with prize details), click here.