Mojiko: Where the Wind Stops, the Sun Returns

This writing is a direct continuation of last week’s. If missed it, you might want to start with that one. You could also start at the begining of this entire seven-part series on traveling in Kitakyushu. To do that, check out the full series here. Start with A Line, Between the Ocean and the Stars. Otherwise, on we go.

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On the final day in Mojiko, we walk towards the train station with our suitcases. They are heavy. Mostly filled with omiyage — treats for friends back home — along with cups, clothes, and other homewear from secondhand shops and grocery stores. As we walk, we both remember the promise from the other day. It goes unspoken.

Walking down the old shopping street one last time, today the wind is gone, and the sun is out. It shines through the cracks and alleys alongside the street. At the crossroad, we head left, to the old liquor shop to see the owner and say farewell.

I leave our suitcases outside and we enter the doorway. Immediately the big bright eyes and surprised smile of the owner greet us. She looks excited. Though we just met her once, this moment somehow has the atmosphere of both a homecoming and a going away party. The old men against the wall nod and smile. The family comes out from the back stock room. Everyone gathers.

This time, we get a family history talk, learning about the woman who made the clips from the old kimono fabric. She also made cute cat-shaped coasters, also from old kimono fabric. Art and craft runs in the family, as it seems to in many Japanese families we have met, whether they run liquor stores or restaurants or farms.

Suhee buys another package of ochazuke soup mix. We are laden with gifts, posters of art from a local artist, and kimono fabric coasters. I wish we had time for a drink, but it’s not even noon, and we need to catch a train.

We feel happy and yet also overwhelmed with warmth. I don’t know what else to do. How to do thank someone, for making you feel like family when you are just a passing traveler?

As we get ready to depart, we promise to come back next time. I think this time, we feel somewhat certain about it. We take a group photo and shake hands. I hold the hands of the old owner for an unusually long time. She smiles and it is tender. Her eyes are deep, as if in their depths are little pieces of all of the years she has lived. They are glistening, ebbing, and flowing and I stare into them and smile back. She squeezes her eyelids, and I catch a new detail. A few small trickles of moisture. They come from the corners of her eyes, roll down her cheeks.

Suhee sees it too, and we both feel tears well up. But why? In a rational sense, all we did was buy a few packs of soup and share a smile and chat. Usually tears are from sadness or happiness and this I guess, is a bit of both.

In our short time here, we stepped momentarily into a different realm, breaching the wall between different ways of existing. This shop is a business and businesses deal in transactions. Yet nothing about our visits ever feels transactional. This draws us closer, as I am sure it draws in the local crowd.

As Suhee and I continue our walk down the mostly empty shopping street to the train, we talk about how good it felt to be in that shop, even though you might say that in a calculating way, not much at all happened. We talk about how the realms in which we dwell go far beyond that which can be calculated or understood rationally. In this ‘beyond’ place, there seems always something genuine and beautiful that can be coerced into being.

We have many questions for each other, including: why are such connections so rare in our contemporary urban lives? This, we decide, is a good prompt not only as we travel, but also as we return to work and life in our own city, and as we build our studio and shop there.

I think we all know the answers to these kinds of questions, and the solutions too. They are different for each of us and can be found everywhere, even in the busiest, most crowded streets and alleys. Yet perhaps it is actually in the quietest, slowest places, where nothing much at all seems to happen, that the most extraordinary answers are waiting.

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Question: How can our actions — and the places we live and work — support better connections, and the possibility of manifesting something beautiful?

Next Week: What comes next week? I don’t know. Really. This series was a lot for me. But there are many new threads, so I’ll pull on one, and we will see what it is connected to and where it takes us. Maybe we go a bit light on the words, and lean into the art?

Another Story: Much related to what we found on this trip, you can read a short photo essay from 2022. It takes you through a bit of our life in the neighborhood called Kitakagaya, a sort of ‘artist village’ where we lived in Osaka for many years.

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BONUS (if you are in Korea): Suhee and I will give a small talk in Daejeon on Thursday. The topic is on slowness in urban neighborhoods, with a lot of stories from our old Osaka neighborhood. You are welcome to come. Details are here (in Korean): https://bit.ly/4fsSoRv As the venue is small, send a note to me thepossiblecity@substack.com or fill out the participation form: https://bit.ly/4e34FL7 if you want to come.

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Thank you as always for being here with me, and keep sharing The Possible City. Do it like you are throwing wildflower seeds in the wind. We will have a nice natural garden here in no time. See you next week.