"Thank you for everything," I said, holding back tears, "I will never forget the amazing days I spent with you." I stood in front of the security gate in Pittsburgh International Airport. "I'm going to… miss you… so much," I managed to say between sobs. Clear sky, fresh air and a nice smell of morning coffee. Everything was too perfect to say goodbye to Cathy, my host sister.
It wasn't our first goodbye. Last year, Cathy came to my house in Japan as a homestay student. Following a wonderful week, she went back home to Pittsburgh, after which our friendship grew.
Filled with emotions, welling up with tears, I waited for her to say something. Compared to me crying my eyes out, she had a much brighter outlook on our parting. "Yeah," she chirped, "but I can't wait to see you again! Have a safe flight, Anna!"

A quick hug and she gently urged me to go to the gate.

If I am being honest with myself, and you the reader, I was disappointed. I had always believed that it is only polite to follow the Japanese cultural custom of nagori oshimu―saying goodbye reluctantly. I expected her to be just as reluctant. When I was walking into the line of the gate, my head filled with many questions. "Isn't she sad that I'm leaving? Won't she miss me even a little? Did I do something wrong?" I turned to see her face, but she was gone.

But as soon as I touched down, she texted me "I miss you so much already!"

Why now?!

Even after 3 in-flight movies and a long, restless nap on the airplane, I was still thinking about this ordeal. Perhaps she wasn't very moved because she no longer cared about me.

After some research online, I found that many fellow Japanese have been in the same situation. Not only that, but I also read a blog written by an American woman living in Japan introducing her experiences of parting with Japanese friends. What surprised me more was that she felt very awkward when Japanese showed reluctance to leaving. This reminded me of Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory on differences in cultures across countries and how those relate to values and behavior. According to the theory, Japan is a collectivistic country, meaning that people value connections and crave sustained connections with others. This accounts for the nagori oshimu custom: it is a display of our wish to remain together. In contrast, countries like America are individualistic and people value independence.

It might be true that cultural differences lead people to have different values. This past year, my host sister didn't text me as much as my other long-distance friends. Despite this, I neither think she doesn't care about me, nor do I believe people in individualistic countries don't care. When telling her that economics would prevent me from being able to visit her as I had planned, her family agreed to let me stay at her house. She then planned the entire trip for me. She took me to many places and let me try anything I wanted. She stuck by my side and introduced me to her amazing friends. Why would she have done this if she didn't care about me?

Regardless of the culture, everyone has their own life to live and their own sense of values to guide them. Having the exact same sense should not be the thing that maintains a friendship. If what you and your friends value the most is different, even if that changes, the memories of the good times you spent together stay. And that's all you need to stay connected.

I'm sure that I will have various people as my friends, and it may not be easy for me or them to keep in touch. When that time comes, I will remember my experiences throughout each friendship.

And in the end, even if Cathy doesn't cry, you can be sure that I will.

Always worried and embarrassed about what people think of me, I couldn't be friends with the ball.

The sweltering heat in Vietnam distorted the air in the distance. The enemy in front of me. I had to beat him to a pulp somehow. As I had stylishly demonstrated during recess, I straddled the ball a couple of times, got my feet tangled up, and fell over. The rubber chips of the artificial turf bounced off into my mouth, which felt disgusting. I looked up to see my adversary smirking with a thin smile that held a touch of disdain. "Embarrassing," I thought, "I'm done."
I wanted to run away already, so I quit the Japanese football club and joined a team with only Vietnamese players.

I crouched down between the messy protective netting, and it was a small futsal-size court. A red motorbike was perched at the foot of a lamppost outside. It was a large one, carrying what looked like iron bars on either side. A small man with a shaved head was carrying two twins in the red uniform of the Vietnamese national football team on a motorcycle. They were a father and his kids, very Vietnamese. However, the moment the man got off the bike and put his feet on the ground, my eyes were glued to his lower body. I could see the ground where his left leg should be. I realized the man was missing one leg. He was approaching me, flanked by crutches that I had earlier mistaken for iron bars on the bike's decoration. "Nihonjin-desu-ka?" the man asked in Japanese. When I said yes, he smiled and said, "Nakata!"— a Japanese footballer from some time ago.

The man's name was Duc. He was one half of a conjoined twin, so he had only one leg. He became famous after undergoing surgery in Japan, which is why he could speak Japanese. When I was surprised by this unexpected encounter, he asked me to practice passing together.
"Nakata! Pass!" he laughed.
He stood confidently in front of the goal on crutches, and when I hesitantly kicked a soft pass to him, he slapped me with a powerful pass, as if to kick away my hesitation. I responded with a strong ball this time. As we exchanged passes, his face came alive. His passes were inevitably rough, but he didn't care about that—he simply loved the game. Seeing him happy made me feel ashamed of having been reserved toward him. Before he is disabled, he is just a man.

He bounced around on crutches, gamely chasing the ball and passing to me. His honest, powerful passes seemed to inspire me to be myself. I felt the impact of the ball through my ankles and across my body and thought, "I love football."
When we finished practicing passes, he said, "I haven't had this much fun playing football in a long time, Nakata!" He then got on his bike and dashed back home with the twins.
Outside, where thousands of power lines were tangled, a horde of motorcycles roared in disorder, and he was among them. He was able to bring his children to this futsal court because, despite his missing leg, he was allowed to drive a motorcycle. In Japan, people are protected by regulations. But in Vietnam, this free-spiritedness allows people like Duc to live freely.
From that day on, we played football together every week.

Six years later, I'm in Japan now. I have retired from football, just as Nakata did. I have found something new that I like. You're the one who taught me to love something. Just the other day, I saw you again on the cinema screen in a film about your life. So, I'm writing this now because I can't help the memories from pouring out of me. You look a little older now, but you're smiling like you did then. Your twins, Fuji and Sakura, are much taller now. They grew up fine, didn't they? You must be a good dad.
Well, even in the cinema, you're still just a man to me. But hey, because of you, I can walk on these two legs today, Duc.

My cousin’s arms are her mouth. Her hands and arms move, willed in all directions ― this is her way of communicating. Rarely do I spend time without complicated feelings when people look at her with strange eyes.

Two years ago in May, I enjoyed a sunny day at the park with my cousins and my sisters. We played on the playground for three or four hours. Then my mother called me and said, “It’s lunch time, so come home.” I thought I had to begin working hard. I told everyone “Let’s go home,” but only one person didn’t nod. It was my cute cousin. She has Down’s syndrome. She is an elementary school student who is very good at dancing and is not very good at talking.

I had known that she was fond of the park. At that time, first she pronounced “Ya!” or “N!” She could only say those few words. However, we had talked a lot by that point, so I understood what she meant by saying those unclear words and using her arms and hands.

She didn’t want to go home. First, she said only “Ya!” Then she continued with some unclear words and gestures. Her statement was long, and there were a lot of phrases and gestures that I had never seen before. Then, a boy who was playing in the same park looked at us curiously. His eyes looked as if we had been doing something strange. Moreover, another child saw the unusual communication that is our style. I thought we had to hurry home. However, my strongest feeling was that of being embarrassed, being in the line of sight of those children. In order to get home early, I badly pretended to understand her claim. But she didn’t move. She knew I didn’t understand or listen to her, really. The more I pretended to understand, the harder her gestures and her unclear words became. A few minutes later, I realized that I had to understand the content of her argument. First, I looked into her eyes. And I observed her gestures. Also, I remembered what she liked and the memories I had with her. She was circling her arms around her ― and alternating between them. Her face looked down. She repeated this movement over and over. Then, it came to me. It was ‘a pool’. I remembered she liked swimming. Then I asked her “Do you want to go swimming?” A big smile appeared on her face. I felt the moment our hearts connected.

Once, at a station, I was asked about the train by someone who seemed to be a foreign tourist. The language they spoke was neither Japanese nor English. We conversed with maximum gestures and few proper nouns. At first, I didn’t understand what they were saying, and I was scared by their expressions. However, the one moment when we understood each other, smiles appeared on their faces. ― It was the same with my cousin’s case.

Some people say they cannot understand someone else because the other person speaks in English. It’s true that the language barrier is huge. However, just because you have a conversation in Japanese, it doesn’t necessarily mean you can understand everything other people are thinking. I believe that the key to successful communication is not the language you use, but how much consideration you have for the other person. Different backgrounds may lead different forms of communication. However, putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and being considerate enable you to communicate with them. Therefore, I think that talking with someone who speaks another language and talking with a person with a disability are the same. When our hearts connect, a smile appears. Also, the harder it is to communicate and the longer it takes to reach heart-to-heart, the bigger this smile will become.

In recent years, Japan and the world have become rich in diversity, with an increasing number of people with disabilities and immigrants. Therefore, we need to communicate with various people with different backgrounds.

I also want to use this experience to communicate with a wide variety of people and be of help to someone.