Bridge for Passing

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I REMEMBER THE DAY when I decided to make the picture in Japan, an April day a year ago, a day like this one upon which I begin the story of my return to Asia. I have always known that the return was inevitable, not a permanent return, for I am too happy in my country to live elsewhere, but a return, nevertheless. One does not live half a life in Asia without return. When it would be I did not know, nor even where it would be, or for what cause. In our changing world nothing changes more than geography. The friendly country of China, the home of my childhood and youth, is for the time being forbidden country. I refuse to call it enemy country. The people in my memory are too kind and the land too beautiful.

China is not the whole of Asia, however, in spite of being most of it. There are other countries to which I could return — Japan, India, Korea and all the rest. Japan, I suppose, is the one I know best after China. Logically, the return would be there, but when? I am not a tourist. I do not enjoy visiting a country merely to see the sights. Nor do I enjoy visiting as a special person. When I return to Japan, I told myself, it will be for a project, a piece of work, something interesting to do, something that will explain why I cannot accept all the dinner invitations, weekends, entertainments which hospitable people offer to friends. But what project? A new question was added to my where and when.

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