The last day of June. A Real Feel™️ of 42 degrees celsius. Not even summer yet. But things started to settle down this month. We took the kids to Universal Studios Japan. Summer Camp started. Screen time decreased. I went out for coffees with friends, old and new, after a couple months of just being in the house with the kids. There was barely a rainy season and the heat and humidity started to crank up. It was still “crisis mode,” but with a modicum of control.

Yesterday it all changed.

A morning txt and my wife was off on her bike to my father-in-law’s apartment, a five minute ride away. Upon arrival she called the ambulance then messaged me instructions to get the hospital bag. I grabbed the kit and headed out into the sweltering heat, searching frantically for a taxi. It was 11:59 when I arrived at the hospital entrance, only to be told to stay outside. They called it at 12:02.

Done. There. The thing we had come to do, packing up and moving across the ocean to spend the remaining months and moments of his life together — we did it. It is over.

With the cherry blossoms gone and the leaves filling out a bright green, the weather is getting warm and the air is filled with the sounds of preparation for summer.

It is lovely outside, as the humidity has not set in. Yet I have generally been cooped up. The kids don’t have school and are bored. I am working from home. My wife is going back and forth to the hospital. Later this week my father-in-law will undergo surgery. It won’t make him better, but may draw out the decline.

Last week he went back into the hospital, but before that we were able to accomplish two things he wanted to get done: we went on safari, and we interred his wife’s ashes. (Not at the same time, which I hope is obvious.)

Adventure World, a zoo/amusement park/safari park/research lab is associated with the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base in China. It is one of only three locations in Japan with giant pandas. Grampa always wanted to take his grandkids to see the pandas. And so we boarded four hours of trains down the rugged Wakayama coast and did just that. I took a million photos, some of which are linked below.

Just a reminder: this is the monthly newsletter of your friendly belletrist Chad Kohalyk, where I write a personal note with highlights of both my writing and some of the fun/interesting stuff I find on the web. You probably subscribed via my Twitter account or from my blog. If you no longer want to follow along, just click the unsubscribe link in the footer below. Thank you for reading!

In my last newsletter I wrote a surprise note from Kyoto. Just three weeks later I am writing you again from Kyoto, where I arrived in a sorry state of jetlag yesterday. In these recent weeks I returned to Canada with my two daughters, sold my electric car and computer, moved out of our rental in Kelowna, said goodbyes to friends and family, and returned to Kyoto for the foreseeable future as detailed in this month’s only blog post (link below).

These past three years have certainly been mobile for my family, with the “difficulty level” increasingly ratcheting up.

Greetings from Kyoto.

I am writing from our apartment in the western foothills of the city – a “new town” built in the 80s, with curved modern towers separated by green walkways and stands of bamboo. The weather is unseasonably cold and overcast. The cherry blossoms elsewhere in the country are in full bloom, but are still struggling here.

Last week, while in Kelowna, we got a call from an ER in Kyoto. My wife’s father was ambulanced to the hospital in the middle of the night, heart struggling to get oxygen. He has been battling stomach cancer for a few years so this news took us by surprise.

“Is this your first war?“ I asked my daughter, who will be 13 soon, if the invasion of Ukraine is the first war she remembers.

It was at about her age when I became conscious of actual wars being fought in the present, and not just in the history books. For me it was Gulf War 1. I think the first global news event I remember was the coming down of the Berlin Wall. Tiananmen Square? My adult learning about that event have taken over any youthful memories that may have remained.

Asking my daughter about other wars she replied “Afghanistan… ?” Yes, but on further questioning it seemed that war was in the past for her (granted it was started well before her birth). Surprisingly she wasn’t conscious of Syria, even though I was (shortly) involved in the Syrian refugee settlement movement, and we have discussed that (ongoing) war in our household a lot. My kids have long been exposed to politics at the dinner table. I am known to pull out a map at the last minute to explain nearly anything to rolling pre-teen eyes. (“Not the map Dad!”)

Canadians have a geographic privilege to not have to think of war from a young age. Even compared to the US we have political privilege — there it seems everyone knows someone who has been deployed.

🖖,

A new year so I set my goals with the maximum of motivational momentum which of course was instantly derailed because I got sick with covid.

How is your year going so far?

I recently sat down with an organization working on lunar policy. The moon represents a “clean slate” in terms of human governance. It is the ultimate test to figuring out how can we arrange collective human activity, with benefit of all the knowledge of how we have utterly failed on Earth.

Happy New Year!

It is the morning of New Year’s Eve here in western Canada. There is more than a foot of snow on the ground, but the sky is a clear blue. A beautiful last day to a volatile year.

We spent the first months unable to leave Iki Island due to travel restrictions. I made a big breakthrough in my book. We made plans to move to Osaka and put the kids into international school. Then we had to undergo an emergency international move under pandemic conditions. My father passed away suddenly. I think I found my purpose in life. We had to settle into a new house in a new community, new schools and finally a new job.

It was all too much, and we have no space for all the reflection here. So I will close out with some final lists. Apologies as I assume your inbox is already full of year end roundups, so here is another one to throw onto the pile, as we say goodbye to 2021.

Autumn greetings,

T’was a month of floods, sudden snows, electricity outages, and food shortages (due to panic buying). All the while I was looking at the gorgeous fall photos coming out of Japan. Ginkgo trees were in full yellow regalia (seriously, check it out on Twitter!). On FaceTime the other day my father-in-law in told us of how it was getting cooler in Japan. The sun was shining brightly into his Kyoto apartment. He wore a nice fall sweater over a black turtleneck. I looked it up and it was 27 degrees Celsius.

Unfortunately due to border closures we were not able to visit Japan this autumn. Since June our apartment in Kyoto sits waiting to be cleaned out. It will sit longer due to the latest Omicron-inspired Japan border closure. And it looks like we will miss the usual spring visit, leaving us to merely hope that we can make it next summer.

But all is not lost. After 21 months off, I am once again gainfully employed. I started a new, fully remote, job last week. It has been tiring getting used to the pace of working life again after so much time off. However, I am in my element, learning about all sorts of new things (the company is an applied research firm working on internet protocols).

Halloween greetings to you!

Lately we are experiencing the brisk autumn weather. As the sun sets, darkening the cold blue sky, it drops to about 1 degree for All Hallows’ Eve here in western Canada. The neighbourhood is well decorated. Our neighbours harvested the last of their garden before the frost set in, mounding the soil and planting crosses and tombstones with punny names of the dead.

Earlier this month, before the snow fell in the mountain passes, we decided to take a family trip to Vancouver. Since shipping to/from Japan is very limited we can no longer receive the big care packages of food we would usually get each month. So we loaded up the electric car and headed to Richmond BC for a haul of Japanese food to last us through the spring. Luckily the drive was NOT a disaster like the first time. I have included some photos from our trip in the section below.

Today is Canada's first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. I have been home discussing the topic with my children, and remembering the plight of the survivors and those that never came home. So I will not write a full preamble to this month's newsletter. I hope my fellow Canadians are reflecting on our shared history. For those abroad, maybe take a moment to look into Canada's past. But remember that this is part of a global story. Today the Asia Watch newlsetter from the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada featured Indigenous issues from around Asia. The chart below comes from that post, and gives you an idea of the size of indigenous populations are there, many without a proportional voice. It is about time we listened up.

🖋 From the Blog

My year on Ikijima, a remote Japanese island
Big wrap-up piece. I try to capture a year living on Iki, and all the emotion, in a mere 3000 words 🙃

"Home" has been on my mind. How many times have we moved house in the past 18 months? (During a pandemic I might add!). This month we finally settled into our new place in Kelowna after two months of nomadism. This chair goes here, that rug goes there. Should we move the lamp? We keep things pretty minimal for practical reasons. In the meantime, my mother is reconsidering her home situation after the passing of my father.

The local wildfires have taken many people's homes. At the beginning of August it looked like hell outside. With the drop in temperature and recent rains, the smoke has cleared up significantly, but there are still sites in the valley where evacuees from surrounding areas are living out of campers and trailers, waiting to return and/or rebuild.

This month has also seen another dislocating disaster as people (try to) flee Afghanistan. Previously I have written about Dr Nakamura Tetsu who spent 30 years in Afghanistan. In his book (my review here) he scoffs at the coming-and-going of arrogant foreign militaries and NGOs. He was able to accomplish so much on the ground because he was so committed to listening to the needs of the Afghan people. (His attitude and story impressed me so much I travelled to his memorial south of Fukuoka this spring).

Dear reader,

We haven’t settled. Eight weeks ago, after giving away all of our possessions to neighbours and friends, we left the island of Iki. From there to Kyoto for just a few days before running the pandemic gauntlet at YVR and watching the clock tick in a quarantine hotel in Richmond. All shipping had stopped between Japan and Canada in May, so we wheeled all the suitcases and boxes we could take on the plane to a rented isolation house in Kelowna. There we sat for three weeks, only able to travel to the hospital to say goodbye to my father.

Since then it has been a month of back and forth. We asked the kids where they wanted to go for a short holiday once we were out of quarantine. They said Hogwarts. So, I took them to stay in residence at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, my alma mater. After the 45 degree weather in the dry Okanagan, Nitobe Gardens was nice and green. We rode Stanley Park and ate lots of Japanese and Chinese food. We bought a car (more on that below). It was a busy three days.

Since being out of isolation we have been staying with my mother in Armstrong BC, about 60kms north of Kelowna. We have a new house in Kelowna, and have slowly been moving stuff into it. We got our first covid vaccines. My wife and I took a second trip to Vancouver to pick up the new car (more on that below), staying on Granville Island with its lovely night view of the city. Then it was back to Armstrong and back to shuttling stuff to Kelowna in our new car, driving through the hazy valleys of the “Smokanagan.”

Greetings!

Tonight I am writing to you from a rented room tucked amongst the green foliage the religious corner of the campus at the University of British Columbia. Next door is a Catholic college and a seminary. Yes, it is a little weird, but the accommodations are nice and priced very well.

First, I must confess that I was weak and blew off last month’s newsletter. The truth is, I’ve had a hell of a last six weeks (more about that in the link below). And thus we are here on the western edge of Canada at my alma mater (obviously I did not attend the religious schools here).

Happy spring!

April seemed to fly by. At the end of last month we were in Kyoto for spring break. It was such a wonderful opportunity to see the cherry blossoms. On April 1st we left by boat from Kobe, passing through the Setō Inland Sea to Oita on the eastern side of Kyushu. From there we crossed Kyushu to Kumamoto, stopping at a few sights, before taking another ferry over to the Shimabara peninsula for a couple of days of hot spring relaxation. With spring break ending, I drove the family up to the Nagasaki airport so they could fly back to Iki and turned around to spend a few more days on my own doing field research in southern Shimabara.

It was beautiful weather and my arms and neck turned red as I tromped around the ruins of Christian castles. These were destroyed in the 17th Century, sparking the exodus to remote islands and the "Hidden Christian" phenomenon in Japan. It was a fruitful trip, and was to be the first of three this month. Unfortunately, the cherry blossom season at the end of March triggered a flare-up of coronavirus, forcing me to stay put and cancel my trips to Tsushima and the "pirate" base of Hirado.

Spring is here! Greetings from Kyoto.

We are in the old capital as it is Spring Break and the kids are off school. They have now completed one full academic year on Iki (minus a couple weeks of stoppage due to coronavirus last year)! They have done so well and grown so much.

We came to Kyoto this time to mark the one year anniversary of my mother-in-law’s passing. She passed away unexpectedly last March, just a week after our arrival in Japan. March 11th is our one year anniversary of arriving in Japan. We flew into Japan with all our belongings, 4 suitcases and 4 big boxes, under pandemic conditions. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of my leaving work. This month marks many anniversaries, but one of the most significant is the ten year anniversary of the Tōhoku Triple Disaster. I remember where I was when that earthquake caused the giant tsunami which took out the nuclear power plant. (Watch this video with the sound on to get a sense of how big the earthquake was.)

On the 11th of March the entire country stopped in remembrance. At 2:46 in the afternoon my wife and I stood in our kitchen, watching a ceremony in Tokyo on TV, while a siren sounded for one minute on the island emergency broadcast system. Ten years on, Japan is still grappling with the fallout from that day.

Hi, how are you?

One year ago today (well, technically it was Feb 29th but...) we moved out of our house in Kelowna. It would be ten more days before we left Canada for Japan by the skin of our teeth. What a year.

This month was also marks my 15 year wedding anniversary. Gratitude! 🙏

And now that the state of emergency has lifted, and the weather is nice, we can travel again (with precautions of course)! Iki is a lot colder than we thought it would be, so I am very happy to be getting nice weather again.

Are you having a Happy New Year 🎊 so far? I hope you are staying bundled up.

Just a reminder: I am sending this missive to you from a new service (Buttondown). If you no longer want to receive my monthly updates, you can unsubscribe easily.

Iki was shut down for January due to an outbreak of coronavirus. Since Dec 28th we have had 56 people come down with the virus. All but one have healed up, and that person should be out of hospital within days (I hope!).

We spent the month mostly indoors playing chess. Each day my 9 year old daughter and I get on our iPads, fire up Chess.com, play bots and do drills, all in preparation for the evening’s “Immortal Match” in the living room after having a bath. Every night is a new epic battle (and I am not talking about the battle of getting the kids to bed!). It's fun to learn something with your kids. I haven’t touched a chessboard since I was about 14, and she has a good eye. She even offers me cute tactical advice! We even started watching some Chess YouTubers together. I am surprised this new passion has lasted a whole month, but I will ride this fad as long as I can!

Autumn/Winter greetings!

Fall doesn’t come to Ikijima the same way it does for other places in Japan. There is no spectacular changing of the leaves like in Kyoto. The sky is that same perfect blue and the foliage dries out quite a bit, but the dominant colour of the island is still green. A night it can get down to 7 degrees Celsius, and it might only be 12 degrees during the day! Utterly freezing! ⛄ 😜 November was a roller-coaster ride of productivity. The first few days I was glued to the TV and various US news websites, like much of the rest of the world — my productivity was totally shot for about 3 days.

For the first month in a long time, I did not travel. My intention was to spend some autumn days driving around Hirado, the legendary island home of the Japanese pirates who marauded the seas between Japan, Korea and China. That will have to wait until next year.

In the meantime I stayed at home, reading, writing, and thinking about writing and about how to assess art and ideas in a more systematic way. Recently I began contributing book reviews for Books on Asia. One review is linked below, but expect more for them in the coming months. I also have some work in the pipeline for the Literary Review of Canada and some other publications that I hope to share soon.