Fragments EN

Driving along a narrow mountain road in northern Hokkaido, I spotted a piece of wood half-hidden in the bamboo grass along the shoulder, scrawled with “ROTEN →.”

Back then, I was drifting through Central America without internet or a phone. I’d been visiting countries like filling in blanks on a map, and finally washed up in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. The corruption and violence that Hollywood loves to dramatize…

Last summer, I returned to Toyotomi in northern Hokkaido after decades away.

The driver in the taxi I’d hailed in San Jose was an Asian man, probably in his early forties. Shortly after we pulled away from the curb, his phone rang. The conversation started in English, then quickly switched to a language I didn’t recognize.

I sometimes visit a university library. Not as a student, alumnus, or faculty member, but as a neighborhood resident granted access through a community program.

Wherever I’ve traveled in the world, Chinese food has been my salvation.

I had a few hours to kill between trains at JR Asahikawa Station. There was no rush. My ticket allowed stopovers. Even a brief walk around the station and town would make the journey more worthwhile.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, I was living in a Tokyo apartment and commuting once a week to Urawa in Saitama Prefecture to teach English conversation.

It’s been years since I paddled for the first time through the wetlands of eastern Hokkaido, but I’ve never forgotten the sensation of gliding slowly across those marshes. I’d been meaning to get back on the water, to drift down one of Hokkaido’s rivers.

Physics was my worst subject, but I liked the teacher.