To Biwa Lake
Daniel Xu (Princeton University)
Summer was nearing the end of its stay in Kyoto, and so was I. From where I sat at a table in the
second-floor kitchen of the Kyoto Sangyo University International House I could see the verdant willow
branches through the glass balcony door that somebody had forgotten to close, allowing the cacophonous
chirping of the cicadas resting on those branches to waft in on the simmering August air: tsuku-tsuku-boshi,
tsuku-tsuku-boshi! I smiled as I remembered my disbelief when my co-worker at the lab had described to
me the sound made by the cicadas that emerged after the end of the rainy season. “You’ll see,” she had told
me, “You’ll see! They sound just like that.” And she had been right.

I finished my morning tea and washed the mug out in the sink, placing it underneath the sign that
brightly reminded all residents to respect the health and well-being of the dorm community by cleaning up
after themselves. I had grown used to the communal sort of lifestyle in the International House, and it gave
me an odd sort of feeling to think that in a week’s time I would be gone from there forever.

In the stairwell, on the way back to my room, I ran into two other residents of the I-House, Henri the
German and Pae the Korean. They had knapsacks on their backs and full bottles of water stuffed into the
pockets of their shorts, and looked to all the world as if they were about to embark on some sort of
expedition. “Daniel,” Henri said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Want to come with us on a fantastic adventure?
We are going to Biwa Lake in Shiga prefecture, maybe forty kilos away. Only a three-hour bike ride—both
ways!” I guess it was a testament to how little thought goes into my decision-making process that I agreed
to come along. And so I hurried downstairs to the overpriced vending machine in the lobby and purchased
two chilled bottles of water for the equivalent of five American dollars. Within moments they were jostling
around in the wicker basket between my handlebars as I pedaled alongside Henri and Pae north toward
Shiga prefecture. The tires on my bicycle were slightly flat, so I had to pedal just a little bit harder than my
companions to ride at the same pace.

As a child, my introduction to the land of the rising sun had not been through the conventional
cultural vehicles of Hello Kitty or Dragon Ball but rather through weekends spent with my father and
brother watching patriotic Chinese World War II dramas in which the portrayal of the Japanese were
resigned almost universally to the role of the relentless enemy. And so as an eight-year old I harbored a
slightly irrational and misguided dislike for anything Japanese, and naively equated the entire nation of
Japan with the one-dimensional villains I observed on television locked in gory combat with Chinese
resistance. I look ahead at Pae, who is pedaling a few feet in front of me, joking with Henri about
something, and wonder if his childhood experience with Japan had been of a similar nature—after all,
Korea had also been an enemy of Japan during the war. I wondered what had brought him later in life to
choose to study in Japan.

For me it was a number of things. Even as an eight-year-old, my initial impressions of Japan
evaporated almost immediately when I was introduced arguably the cleverest diplomatic tool ever
conceived, the Nintendo Gameboy Color. How could the nation that had put Pokemon into my pocket be
anything but a benevolent presence on the Earth? And as I got older, experiences like learning to play the
game of I-go, reading introspective Japanese haiku in school, and the afternoons spent quietly folding
origami with the Japanese lady whose son took his piano lessons before mine further taught me to
appreciate the subtlety and beauty of Japanese culture. I was interested enough to study a year of
introductory Japanese during my freshman year at university, and I fell in love with that small sampling of
the Japanese world, and decided I must spend a summer in Japan to see the rest of it for myself.

Part of it also had to do with my parents. Having completed their graduate school studies in Japan
during the 80’s, they often told me about their experiences, and in fact it was actually one of their former
professors who had offered me an internship working under him during the summer. Before I left my
parents gave me some parting advice. “Especially observe the Japanese work ethic,” my mother had said.

“Everyone gives their absolute best effort to any job they do, no matter how large or small. It’s a
philosophy of hard work shared by everyone in Japan. And it wouldn’t hurt to have you learn some of those
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