Furusato – What Is That?
A while ago, someone asked me what my furusato was.
I didn't have an answer.
The English translation is usually "hometown", but that didn't feel quite right. I wasn't born in Ikebukuro, and technically I didn't even live there. So how could it be my hometown?
Yet every time I return to Japan, it is one of the first places I want to visit. It is where I take my children. It is where memories seem to appear around every corner.
The more I thought about it, the more obvious the answer became.
My furusato is Ikebukuro.
My family has been connected to Ikebukuro for generations. My great-grandparents came there from a farming village in Saitama. My great-grandfather became a carpenter, and over the years more relatives settled in the neighbourhood.
On a shopping street stood the family diner run by one branch of the family. Across the road, my grandparents had an noodle factory. Relatives lived nearby. Family stories happened there.
When I transferred from America to elementary school in Japan, I attended Ikebukuro Daiyon Shōgakkō (池袋第四小学校, Ikebukuro 4th Primary School). More than ten members of my family went there before me. Although the school closed in 2005, the building is still there as a community centre. The playground remains too.
Years later, my nephew played baseball there. During one summer visit, my son was even allowed to join a practice session. Watching him run across the same school grounds felt strangely special.
As children, we used to play baseball in what we simply called harappa "the field". Only later did I realise it was what is now Ikebukuro West Gate Park. Today it looks completely different, with a concert hall, theatre and modern facilities, but when I walk through it, I still see the place from my childhood.
Another favourite place was the long park built over the former Tabata River. My grandmother called it ankyo (暗渠), a covered river. Every time I returned to Japan, I would take my own children there to play, passing on a small piece of my childhood.
And then there is Bic Camera.
Anyone who has visited Japan probably knows the song:
♪ Fushigi na fushigi na Ikebukuro
Higashi ga Seibu de nishi Tōbu
Takaku sobieru Sunshine
Bikku Bikku Bikku Bic Camera ♪
♪ Mysterious, mysterious Ikebukuro
To the east is Seibu, to the west is Tobu
Towering high is Sunshine City
Bic, Bic, Bic, Bic Camera ♪
It is a simple advertising jingle, but every time I hear it, I am immediately transported back.
The department stores. Sunshine City. The station. The people.
An entire place contained in a few lines of music.
There is a famous line by the poet Muro Saisei:
「ふるさとは遠きにありて思ふもの」
"Furusato is something you think of when you are far away."
Now that I live in the Netherlands, I understand those words much better.
Furusato is not necessarily where you were born. It is the place that shaped you. The place where your family stories live. The place you return to, even when years have passed and everything has changed.
For me, that place is Ikebukuro. Five generations of memories are waiting there.
