From Issue 11
“Sometimes I have to bite my finger to feel that I still exist.”
— The King Bows and Kills, Herta Müller
I took a two-hour train ride from Tokyo to Ibaraki to visit my university friend Fumiko’s hometown. She was the first friend I made at college. We met at the entrance ceremony and walked together from the venue to the campus. Perhaps it was that desperate need for companionship, when we stepped for the first time into such a diverse and tangled social world, and that brought us together. But now, with only a few months left until graduation, I know it wasn’t that fleeting panic that kept us close; it was everything that came after, the things I could never have guessed about her at first sight.
We packed bath towels and small towels into cloth bags, slipped on our Crocs, and walked toward the largest and liveliest sentō in town.
Between the detached houses, the streetlights stood sparse and far apart, barely lighting the sidewalks. I almost stepped several times into ditches full of grass and dirt. I kept trying to find the right adjectives to tell her how different this night felt from Tokyo’s—eerily quiet, strangely familiar. The slope that led the way was just as uneven as these crooked streets, visible only to those who knew them by heart. But the words I spoke out loud fell short, as usual.
I ended up saying, “It’s really desolate here. Why is there no one around? It reminds me of my old high school days; there was literally nothing.” It sounded as if I were implying that this place was inferior to Tokyo, that even the sidewalks were unclear. Fearing misunderstanding—and even more, the urge to explain myself too fast—I swallowed the rest of my thoughts. Instead, I tightened my grip on her arm, occasionally lifting my head to the dark sky and breathing in deeply.
Groups of two or three families passed us—mothers with daughters, elderly women walking together, or young women bathing alone—all carrying small plastic baskets filled with their own toiletries, pink and purple bath sponges shaped like flowers, bottles of body wash decorated with ribbons. They brought their favorite bath goods, perfectly equipped, unlike me: a mere guest borrowing someone’s home for the night, without a single personal toiletry item. I didn’t look like I belonged. There was no body wash I’d carefully chosen to keep my skin from drying, no shampoo that left my scalp fresh in summer. I was naked in the vast public bathhouse, sitting before whatever bottles were placed in front of me, using whatever they contained. This scene reminded me of my first time in this country—the first time I set foot in Japan. Almost as soon as I got off the plane, I still hadn’t realized that the rest of my life was about to unfold in a place I had never been before. As a newcomer, I was assigned to a girls’ dormitory. In a rush to bathe before the water in the communal bath was turned off, I hurried over. A friend and I grabbed the towels we had brought from home and ran to the bathroom, only to find other students already cleaning inside. And my first bath in Japan took place among a group of strangers. As we washed our hair, the bubbles sliding down our faces were immediately hosed away by the girls behind us. They giggled, whispering things I couldn’t understand—perhaps wondering why the new foreign students wrapped themselves in towels, or guessing when we would finish. I never knew what they were saying, and maybe it didn’t matter. Still, every time I recall that moment, a quiet sense of shame creeps up my spine. But, after all, everything has a first time. If you asked me now, I could probably sing and dance in a public bath without fear.
After rinsing myself off with hot water to adjust to the temperature, I rushed with Fumiko toward the steaming bath. If no one had been around, I would have jumped straight in—and screamed from the burning heat—the kind of pain that feels like release. I congratulated her on getting her dream job, hoping she would earn well, at least for now, when we hadn’t yet fully entered society. Getting a decent job at a big company still felt like the first milestone in a long life, maybe even the ultimate goal for some.
“How’s your grad school preparation going?” she asked.
“I’ve already submitted two applications and am waiting for results. There’s one more due next year…”
“If you’re unsure about the Japanese parts, send them to me. I’ll check them for you. But you’ll be fine, I’m sure.”
“You’re so kind. I will. It’s just that the whole timeline feels exhausting—like it’ll never end.”
“True. It’s almost like job hunting. But once you get in, your salary after graduation will be higher than ours!”
“Not by much, haha. I interviewed an 87-year-old professor with my seminar mates the other day, and his first advice was: never go straight to grad school after undergrad—only people who want to escape society do that. I was the only one planning to apply. And he said a lot of words that…I couldn’t understand; maybe he talked too fast…and his Japanese was too old for me to get the meaning. But he knew I was the only one there who was going to grad school.”
“Well, if there’s something you want to study, you should do it. I just don’t like studying that much…” We both laughed, a little bitterly. In our early twenties, we somehow carried a reckless arrogance—a belief that the future must be brighter than the present, even if we had no clear idea what we were chasing. That blind confidence mixed with the faint disappointment we’d inherited from our elders—those who’d already collided with reality headfirst. And yet, every piece of advice I’d ever received from older people never came from trulyunderstanding me—who I am, why I’m here, or why they felt entitled to advise me.
And perhaps because I spoke their language, we never truly shared one. In that brief line of advice, I was never included in the “we” of the conversation.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, lips barely moving.
The steam rising from the bath made me dizzy, and the late-summer wind carried hints of sulfur, disinfectant, and damp soil. The cool gusts alternating with the scorching water kept jolting me awake. The women bathed together on one side, the men on the other, yet I could still hear the faint voices of men, blending with the cicadas, floating over the entire bathhouse.
Half-dazed, I blinked slowly, letting my mind empty. Once my
attention started to drift, every sound dissolved into a soft white noise. In a bathhouse, voices stretch longer, echoing through the mist, endlessly circling in your ears. That sensation—of hearing but not truly hearing—I was trapped under an invisible bell jar where language was oxygen. Words were the only way to live. Everyone around me spoke, and I listened with all my might—but heard nothing except the sound of my own breathing. Everything I carried seemed useless here. So, I forced myself to speak less and less.
I rubbed my fingertips. My skin, soaked too long in hot water, had turned pale and wrinkled—like the thin film that forms over heated milk, sticking stubbornly to your upper lip when you drink it. The skin on me was just like that—protective yet fragile, soft yet resilient. But when dismissed or denied, it turned white, shriveled, cracked, and peeled away.
“Hǎo rè a,” I mumbled drowsily, wiping the sweat off my forehead.
“Eh? Nani?” Fumiko’s soft voice replied.
I paused, realizing I had spoken in a language she couldn’t understand.
“Atsui,” I corrected quickly, eyes snapping open, tilting my head toward her like a mischievous child caught red-handed, grinning to see if she noticed.
“The last time you stayed at my place,” Fumiko said, standing up and laughing, “You talked a whole bunch of gibberish in your sleep—I almost recorded it!”
All these years, maybe even now—I’ve lived with my mind wound tight, always alert to what others say, unable to stop listening, even in the most private and relaxing moments like this one. When I close my eyes, I can’t help but listen with intent. Everyone is speaking, but I hear nothing—only my own breath. And I don’t want to admit how exhausting it is—this constant vigilance, this compulsion to make every moment meaningful, to decode every sound, every sight, as if each were an electric signal I must interpret to prove my existence. Isearched my mind for what I should say, or what I could have said—but the words, once spoken, always fell short. Always less than what I meant. Always distant from what I felt.
Tilting my head, I laughed, shook it slightly, and stood up with her, repeating softly,
Atsui, atsui, atsui.
Fumiko’s parents had made a dinner reservation at the only Chinese restaurant in town. The owner was Japanese, and his wife was Chinese.
“We’re having Chinese food tonight,” they said. “We want you to judge whether this place is actually authentic.” Fumiko and I quickly blow-dried our hair while her mother waited for us in the parking lot.
The restaurant looked as though it had been frozen in the 80s or 90s. Through the red wooden window frames, warm yellow light spilled out, illuminating the pitch-black, endless road—this restaurant was the only speck of brightness. When I stepped onto the red carpet, already covered with dark footprints, I felt the sticky grease on the floor resisting each step, requiring a tiny bit of extra force to move my feet, with a duck-like squeak.
Maybe because we had just come back from the sentō, my whole body felt limp, and my stomach felt like a hollow pit that could never be filled—begging to be stuffed immediately. The moment I smelled the mixture of rendered pork fat and garlic hitting hot oil, I was instantly pulled into another world. You couldn’t see many people, but you could hear them—voices from behind the closed kitchen door. Who knew how many people were actually back there?
Fumiko’s dad ordered pan-fried dumplings with beer. I was busy examining the menu, trying to figure out whether the dishes had been modified to suit Japanese tastes or whether they were genuinely Chinese. Fumiko kept asking me what each dish was, and I answered her one by one.
“Oh wow, they even have chicken feet. I’ve only eaten pig trotters before.”
“Your first pig trotter was when we were freshmen, remember? I took you to that Chinese restaurant near campus. Anyway, chicken feet are soft— kinda like tofu skin if they’re braised long enough. The bones slide right out…”
“Do you cook them yourself?”
“Ah, no. You can only buy chicken feet at Gyomu Super or a Chinese grocery store…and prepping them is such a pain. I only ever order them at restaurants.”
“Then do you want to order some?”
“Eh? But only I’ll eat them. Will you eat any?”
“You don’t have to worry about me, you can just order if you want…”
Fumiko’s mom quietly waited for us to decide. By then, Fumiko’s father was already eating the fresh dumplings that had just arrived. The beauty of pan-fried dumplings lies in the golden crisp bottom contrasting with the tender, juicy interior. He bit into one while it was still piping hot, the juice splashing onto his chin. “Atsui, atsui!” he said, then quickly chased it with a sip of beer.
I wanted something substantial.
So, I ordered egg fried rice—the kind of thing you eat at home, never something you order at a restaurant. I don’t even know where this impression came from, but to me, perfect fried rice consists of only three colors: the glistening white grains, the golden edges of lightly browned egg, and the fresh green of chopped scallions. The rice should never clump. The egg should be neither too large nor too finely crumbled. And scallions should be added at the very end, tossed in only by the residual heat to release their fragrance without wilting.Seasoning comes last: salt sprinkled evenly so every bite begins with clarity, followed by the aroma of hot oil rising into your sinuses, then the lingering warmth of egg, the pleasant chew of the rice, and the occasional crunch of scallion.
From the clashing sounds of the wok and metal spatula, I knew this fried rice required real effort. Small batches don’t turn out well—you need a massive amount of work and intense heat to get it right.
Fumiko ordered dandan noodles and chicken feet, saying I’d probably want some. Her mom ordered dumplings and beer.
As her mom spoke to the server, I noticed how similar Fumiko’s nose was to hers—she looked more like her mother than her father.
“Fumiko’s nose looks exactly like yours…” I whispered. Her dad overheard and chuckled.
“Right? Everyone says that.” Her mom laughed, gently pinching Fumiko’s nose.
Under warm lighting, everything becomes softer. Maybe that’s why bakeries, cafés, and restaurants all use warm yellow bulbs—food looks richer, and people’s faces no longer appear cold under stark white light.
The owner’s wife brought over the chicken feet, looking surprised. “These don’t sell well. Customers are scared to order them,” she said. She was Chinese—her eyebrows were semi-permanent makeup, slightly too dark and sharp; she had high cheekbones and a tall, defined nose; her hair was pulled tightly into a bun that revealed her bright forehead. When she smiled, even her gums showed. “Long time no see! We brought our daughter’s university friend today. She’s Chinese too,” she said. Then she turned to me, eyes widening. “It must’ve been you who ordered the chicken feet, right? I knew it. Want some chili sauce? They can’t handle spicy food.”
In that moment, our worlds aligned—this dish, capable of revealing identity in a second, and the playful teasing in a language no one else here understood became a tiny, shared joy in a foreign land.
“Thank you, thank you,” I said with a grin.
Fumiko repeated after me with her beginner’s Chinese: “Thank you, thank you.”
Her parents followed: “Thank you, thank you.”
Humans are humans. In the end, everyone returns to the table. Everyone needs to eat.
“Does this suit your taste?” her dad asked. “We don’t really know what counts as authentic. We need you to judge.”
“Mm-hmm, it’s really good. The chicken feet with this chili sauce are amazing.” They watched me expertly debone the braised chicken feet, spitting out each clean little bone and dipping the meat into the deep red chili sauce speckled with seeds. For a moment, the air went quiet.
I kept my head down, continuing my work—no one here knew better than me how this should be eaten, what should be eaten, or whether it was good. “As long as you like it! But wow, that sauce looks way too spicy for us,” her mom said, laughing.
“Yeah, of course, too spicy for you, not for me,” I said it right away. I was trying to say something that would make people wonder or feel embarrassed, and ended up saying, “I am just joking! Hahahahah!”
In my mind, the stereotypical image of a Chinese restaurant kept
surfacing: a Chinese couple, or a Northeastern wife married to a Japanese man running the place; red lanterns hanging outside, red as in Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern, filling the foreign landscape with a familiar color. And in this color, I felt comfort. Temporary comfort, yes—but food is never a shallow pleasure. It satisfies hunger, but it also lets me receive something without needing to perform or adjust myself to others’ expectations.
My taste buds don’t lie. Food that enters my stomach doesn’t change its meaning the way language does. Language can betray me. Food cannot. The flavors I swallow are processed internally, safely. But the words I swallow become distorted—they make me inarticulate, they devour my original tongue, they turn my own body into something scrutinized from the outside. Suppose my stomach ever adapts so completely to a new cuisine that it replaces the foods I loved the most. In that case, the reason might be convenience, availability, orsomething more unsettling: my inability to distinguish what was originally mine. These thoughts tangled together as I ate the chili sauce-reddened chicken feet beneath the glowing lanterns. I couldn’t objectively say whether the food was truly delicious; perhaps it was simply that my stomach understood it intimately—more intimately than anything else.
That night, Fumiko and I made futons in the living room and slept there. I slept through the morning without waking. She never told me whether I talked in my sleep. Perhaps I did, and she didn’t hear. Or perhaps I said nothing at all.
If words could emerge without needing trimming or disguise; if words could flow between us without requiring one side to risk being misunderstood, swallowed, or silenced; if there existed a universal scale untethered to “us” versus “them”; if a speaker could also be their own listener; then maybe silence would lose its power. But full language mastery is measured by the standards of one’s mother tongue, while the world measures you by everything else: your hair, your height, your skin, your eyes, your diploma, the unchangeable things you’re born with, and the things you can never earn. If you live under someone else’s measurement, even if you blend in, even if you move through the same spaces with the same entry ticket, you know—deep down—you may be expelled at any moment. And so, you question whether the performance is worth it. Does their measurement allow for ordinariness? Does it allow for silence? Does it care whether our languages truly meet?
When I taste, I fear that I have forgotten my own particular sense of flavor, because truly authentic tastes exist only in the mind. When I speak, I fear that no one truly hears me, because the most essential things cannot be spoken—and the impulse to speak is so often replaced by fear and silence.
The tongue tastes food, and words spring from between it; the tongue senses sourness, sweetness, bitterness, and spice, and through curling and stretching, it produces different sounds and languages.
Angles 