My beautiful Mayu, December 1998

Serendipity! My dream came true: how I fell in love with and married my Japanese pen pal

February 2023

(Note: This essay complements a previous essay, Greg's Life #127: Memoirs of a painfully shy, lovesick nerd which I wrote in December and have made several updates to since then as more and more memories come to mind. That previous essay provides a lot of backstory to the people involved and events chronicled here, so there is quite a lot of overlap. Additionally, as with the previous essay I've implemented code to prevent search engines from picking up the content of this page for privacy sake.)

Chapters:
Introduction
Pen Pals
When we became girlfriend & boyfriend
The long, difficult year apart
Our engagement
Reflection on a match made in heaven
Epilogue

Introduction
Fortunate are those who are not confronted with having to make difficult decisions in romance, for when there are no choices to be made, consequences travel in one direction and they have it easy. In retrospect, even when God's providence can be clearly seen in a love story such as mine, sometimes difficult decisions have to be made. In my experience, it took faith and courage to make love happen. Unfortunately, pain and tears were a part of the process. Through this story, I was hurt by some I loved, and also perhaps I hurt someone dear to me who loved me. Nothing is easy. This is the story of how I fell in love with my beautiful pen pal in Japan and married her. It's a story of two hearts sending love letters across the ocean. It's also a story of both joy and heartache... of both a wonderful marriage gained and a precious friendship lost.

Japanophile:	"I find that eating French fries with chopsticks to be convenient. I can pick them up easily and don't have to worry about my fingers getting greasy."
Weaboo:	"Like, OHMYGOSH check me out! I'm totally eating French fries with chopsticks! Did you know that people in Japan eat with chopsticks? It's TRUE! I learned this from watching anime. Hey, do you like anime? Check me out. I'm practicing my Naruto running style!"

So I live in Japan, and yes I'm into nerdy stuff like anime. I'll get accused of being a weaboo, but the truth is that most weebs never even make it to Japan. Those who do end up disillusioned. Just think of such a weaboo arriving in Japan. "Attention, citizens of Japan! I'll have you know that I am quite the connoisseur of Japan's fine arts, and by that I mean anime, manga, and video games. Behold, I come to you embracing the sacred tradition of cosplay! I even know a few words of your language which I incessantly use, despite being unable to pronounce any of them properly. You may now accept me into your society and embrace me as one of your own!" Sorry to disappoint them, but it doesn't work like that. Few of them even make it to Japan, and even fewer are those who get a job and last for more than a year here. They learn a hard lesson about Japan not being some Disneyland-style utopia as it will certainly differ from their silly mental image of Japan and its culture. Although I cannot really think of Disneyland as a "utopia." All you do is stand in line all day and pay through the nose for a churro and a bottled water, and everyone gets excited when that stupid mouse devoid of a personality comes out. (Who is probably a pedophile in that crappy mouse suit that probably reeks of body odor inside.) And don't get me started on Donald Duck. That stupid bastard's sole personality trait is that he just gets angry constantly. I can't stand loathsome Disney characters. Anyways, what was I saying?

Yeah... I was not like a weaboo in college. Nevertheless, people didn't understand my fascination about Japan and found me odd. Even friends couldn't relate to me and thought I was weird. I was looking for people who could understand me. It's what prevented me from really feeling included with "normal" people. It wasn't merely my utterly bizarre sense of humor (which should be evident to anyone who has spent time reading these nearly 30 years of essays I've written here). No, it was this "Why the hell can't Greg shut up about Japan anyway? He's getting on my nerves" aspect that kept me from smoother relationships with friends. People didn't understand me. I wanted to connect with like-minded people. Fortunately, I found some via online BBSes (dial-up Bulletin Board Systems, a relic of the pre-internet days).

Here's my Lum shirt I wore often, in hopes that people might start a conversation with me. It didn't happen. (I still have this shirt after all these years.)

While I was in high school, I read an article in Protoculture Addicts Magazine about the chance to live and work in Japan for a year or more as an English teacher, and how the only base requirement is just to have a 4-year degree. That really impressed me. "What an adventure that would be!" I thought. I discussed it with my parents and it became a dream of mine, one that I was almost certain that I would do. More so than any career in America. I kept it in mind as I was now at the end of my first semester of college at GCC. There was a Japanese girl named Harue in my college algebra class my first semester I talked to a bit. She was thoughtful to give me a Christmas present at the end of that semester in '94, which was mostly some spare anime crap that was essentially trash to her, but a treasure to me because a pretty Japanese girl was thoughtful enough to give it to me. She was older than me by a few years, and we sort of became email friends. Eventually she apologized to me for being stand-offish with me, because she was wary of American guys hitting on Japanese girls. She thanked me for not being like that. Actually, she introduced me to the term "yellow cab" and I was so naive I honestly had never heard of that, nor did I understand that attitude. ("Yellow cab" refers to an Asian girl who is easy to sucker into having sex with you, in that they are naive and easy to manipulate as they tend to be less jaded than other girls.) That first semester of Fall '94, aside from some church friends I knew from a weekend coffee house called The Cellar (and two girls from my high school days I was trying to distance myself from), I had just made two friends I could really connect with, Nathan and Galen, whom I'd met from the Anime Archive BBS, local to Phoenix, AZ. As socially inept as I was, they made me seem normal by comparison. These two guys were bigger nerds than I was. I loved them and they became my best friends. That December was the first Anime Archive BBS GT (get-together) and we had a great time. I had the old hand-me-down Cutlass Supreme car. It was battered, old and the AC barely worked, making the hot Phoenix summers terrible. But it symbolized freedom to me.

With that freedom, I could drive to New Tokyo Food Market, a Japanese grocery store in the North Phoenix area. I went there to familiarize myself with Japanese food, bought snacks, and stuff like instant ramen that regular grocery stores did not sell. With my interest in Japan, it was there where I bought an issue of a magazine called Mangajin. It was a magazine on Japanese pop culture and language learning, and it was the only issue of it I ever bought. I bought it because there was an article on Japanese rock bands and I wanted to learn more. I ended up not really looking into too many Japanese bands as they did not interest me much, but I still found the magazine interesting.

In the back of the magazine, in the want-ads, I saw an advertisement for the ALC Correspondence Club. ALC Press is a publisher that makes study materials and such. Incidentally, I have some Japanese language study books published by ALC. The ad promised to match me with three different pen-pals in Japan. I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be cool if I could meet some guy in Japan and we could talk about Macross and Gundam stuff?" So I photocopied the ad, filled out the application, and mailed it. That was in December '94. Months passed and figured that I must have not been matched with anyone because I'm a boring anime nerd. Maybe the people in Japan wanting to be pen pals would rather talk about basketball or snowboarding. You know, normal people stuff. The stuff I cannot even begin to pretend to be interested in. Oh well. I gave up waiting.

I dunno why, but I left the age field blank. That was dumb, but I think my idea was to apply more than once. I'm pretty sure I filled it in before I mailed this application though.

My second semester at GCC began in the winter of 1995. I was getting more used to my new college life. I started to talk to people more, and there were a few girls there I tried to ask out unsuccessfully. One was Hispanic, one was Chinese. Both were very cute. I didn't actually date any girl from GCC until a year later when I met Lisa.

March 8th, 1995. It was my birthday. I had a feeling that something truly wonderful was about to happen to me. I didn't know what it would be, but I just had a feeling that God had something special in store for me. In my journal, I wrote the following:

I feel fairly good now. I have a feeling that I will be blessed my 19th year. Yeah, maybe something good will happen to me. I hope that I might even have a positive experience that will help me have a better outlook on life.

(I swear, I viewed my life as quintessential Morrissey song lyrics, and I thought of myself as a shy, potentially handsome, perpetually heartbroken boy with zero charm and zero luck with girls. Even when I felt something positive, I still had to be pessimistically optimistic about it.)

Then on March 14th, I received a letter of introduction from a Japanese girl named Mayumi. I was euphoric! Oh wow! So it was not a Japanese guy, but a Japanese girl who wrote to me! Her nickname was Mayu. Her birthday is March 4th, and was nearly exactly a year younger than me. She was about to graduate high school. She lived in a small town in Nagano Prefecture, amidst the Chuo Alps. I was supposedly matched with 3 pen pals, but Mayu was the only one who ever wrote to me. I was so elated that I wrote her back right away. Her letter was dated the 10th, so it only took 4 days to arrive. What kind of girl will she turn out to be? What kind of music does she like? What anime does she like? Does she like American boys? Is she pretty? I couldn't wait to learn more about her!

From there, our friendship grew. Keep in mind that in '95, admitting to a girl in America that you watch Japanese animation was a risky ordeal. It's the kind of thing you would perhaps keep a secret. Nowadays, everybody thinks Japanese culture and anime and such are cool, but nearly 30 years ago, it was kind of weird and niche. "Oh... So you like to watch cartoons?" It also had a stigma of being some pornographic fetish thing for some who were in-the-know, thanks to the underground following of titles like Urotsukidoji/Legend of the Overfiend and L.A. Blue Girl. So telling people you like watching Japanese animation could potentially prejudice them into thinking that you get off on watching animation of school girls getting raped by a giant space octopus or something. I'd never even seen that sort of stuff, but some people tended to associate the genre with that crap in America back then. But in Japan, liking anime was no big deal, so I was free to be myself with her. She made me so happy with every letter I got from her.

I shared the letters from Mayu with my family and friends. She was my new treasure. I sent her some pictures of myself. (Here is one.) I was afraid that maybe she would lose interest in writing me if she saw me, because I wasn't sure if she would find me attractive. The first picture of her she sent me was of her, her mom, and her sister... but they were so very small in the photo! It was very zoomed out. It wasn't until later that year that she sent me this photo:

Honest to God, when I first saw this picture, the thought crossed my mind that this would be the girl I would marry someday. It was love at first sight.

January 1996. I was exasperated and frustrated with unsuccessfully asking girls out to no avail. Very few girls ever seemed to interest me, yet none of them ever showed any interest in me. I only seemed to attract girls who insisted we were "just friends" and drove my soul underground with their problems. No girl would ever be romantically interested in me, it seemed. Love seemed forbidden to me and I was resigning myself to being alone. On New Years Day, I wrote this in my journal:

The real significance in my life is not meeting pretty girls. What's important is becoming the best person I can be and letting God shine through me. this year I hope to not concern myself with selfish things like feeling lonely. I shouldn't worry myself with that which I cannot have because such things are trivial.

Note what I said there. I said that love was something I could not have, so therefore it was wrong for me to feel lonely. Because by doing so, I would be assuming that I deserved to have love and female companionship. I wanted to believe that romance should be unimportant to me, that I should consider it trivial. I would often pray, God, please help me stop hoping for love, that which I do not deserve to have... That which is always out of reach... That which makes me always feel so alone that my heart aches. Because all this loneliness that I feel every day just makes me sad and I am tired of wanting that which I cannot have. I hated myself for feeling so lonely, and I felt ashamed because I felt selfish for wanting a girl to love. I was about to turn 20, and I was convincing myself that no girl would ever love me, so it was better for me to give up on that idea.

However, later that month two beautiful girls came into my life at about the same time, whom I both met at the Vineyard church I had begun attending about a month or two prior: an aspiring actress named Juliet and a lovely girl from Ireland named Lisa. I dated them both, and I loved them both. I met them through the 18-29 singles group at church. I always had a hard time getting girls to like me, but here I was, with two girls who seemed to like me. I won't spend much time writing about Juliet since I already wrote at length about her and Lisa already in the other essay of how I came of age as a lovesick nerd. I'll just mention here that while I met Lisa first, Juliet pursued me strongly at first. While I did things with both girls at first, I fell for Juliet and she broke my heart within months when I found out she had a boyfriend she was not honest with me about. If she had a boyfriend, then all I wanted was for her to be honest about it. I think she did love me, but her head was in the clouds, as her mom put it, and didn't know what was good for her as she chose to be treated like crap by a "charity project" rather than treated like a princess as I did to her. I wanted to believe that Juliet was a good person, but she was very dishonest, manipulative, and dysfunctional. Within four months, she broke my heart a few times before our relationship fell apart by the end of May '96 and I gave up on her. I do not know what sort of interaction Juliet had with Lisa at our weekly Bible study on Wednesday evenings, but somehow Juliet knew there was some sort of interest between Lisa and I. It's not like I ever really spoke of Lisa to Juliet. For sure Juliet was jealous of Lisa, even though she had lied to me about her boyfriend status and therefore had no right to be jealous---especially since Lisa was not my girlfriend. I hadn't even ever had a girlfriend in my life at this point.

On the other hand, Lisa proved to be a very nice girl and is pertinent to this story due to the positive impact she and her family had on my life. Lisa and I were friends and occasionally, casually dated for the next few years. She went to GCC with me, and I would see her between classes and talk. We did do some things together during the time I spent with Juliet. I liked Lisa a lot, and she seemed mellower and not so elusive. She was more accessible, but a bit more difficult to get to know. So after I'd given up on Juliet by the end of May '96, by then I was really getting along well with Lisa and I was trying to strategize how I could try to win her heart. Most of the time I spent with Lisa was in the company of others, so I never could tell if she was really interested in me or not. (Plus, I was a dense, clueless dork.) She would play tennis with others and I just wanted to sit and watch her, lest I embarrass myself. I didn't want her to know what an unathletic, uncoordinated klutz I am. With Mayu, on the other hand, I was connecting directly to her heart via pen and paper with each letter we exchanged and Mayu became less mysterious and more tangible as time went on. Every letter and postcard I received from her gave me such a surge of joy. Ultimately, over the next few years the level of excitement in my heart for Lisa did not compare to that which I had for Mayu. Yet I was torn. I'll explain more as I go along with this bittersweet love story of mine.

Mayu in February, '96

Valentine's Day, 1996. I sent a fairly neutral Valentine's Day card to Mayu, while I gave a fairly romantic Charlie Brown Valentine to Juliet in which Charlie Brown says, "I'm rather fond of the ground you walk on!" Juliet didn't like chocolate, so I gave her a heart-shaped candle instead. I mentioned this in my letter to Mayu, and said that I wanted to be romantic with her. Mayu's response was, "Good luck with your new girlfriend Juliet! ;) " In my next letter, I told her that she wasn't my girlfriend... at least not yet. Juliet was the first girl to really display an interest in me as more than just a friend, so of course I fell for her. But I caught her in lies and it turned out that she had a boyfriend. (Again, this full story was covered at length in the previous essay.) By May, I wrote to Mayu that my friendship with Juliet was ending and I cautioned Mayu that she must always be honest with boys. Many years later, Mayu told me that she felt disappointed and jealous when I first told her about Juliet. I never told her about Lisa at the time, because I decided not to tell Mayu about anything about other girls unless something actually happened. I had just gotten too excited with Juliet and subsequently was burned badly, so I wanted to take it slow with Lisa.

Masato and me

That summer, we had a man named Masato from Kochi come to visit us through a homestay program called WYVEA: the World Youth Visit Exchange Association. I wrote about this in Greg's Life #6: So what's the big deal about Japan, anyway? That was the first Greg's Life essay in which I mentioned my pen pal Mayu and my interest in Japan. It was then when I learned that there was an outgoing WYVEA homestay group each year, and I was hoping to save up money to go in '97. I had started a job at a telemarketing job, and Lisa was so kind and thoughtful that she gave me a congratulations card (I wish I still had it). Soon after I started, I helped Lisa's friend Margaret get a job there too. Margaret was visiting from Ireland and was looking for a job. Fortunately for me, I received a bonus from the sales she made through the referral program, and with her charming Irish accent she had plenty of luck with sales! Customers couldn't resist her pleasant, Irish voice over the phone. What's interesting is how after living in America for a couple of years, Lisa's accent had already become more subdued. Maybe half the reason why I thought it would be so cool to marry Lisa was just to listen to her talk to me the rest of my life with her beautiful accent. Her friend Margaret kicked everyone's ass at Laser Quest too. She was quite a sharp shooter with a laser gun. But thanks to her, I was receiving bonuses on every sale she made. I believe she only worked during the summer, and I think she had some working holiday visa or something. I can't remember when she returned to Ireland. When I returned to school for the fall semester, I was able to work part time at that telemarketing job, provided I was able to catch training for the different programs.

It seemed for a brief while that Lisa and I were getting along very well and that I had a good shot at winning her heart. But as Kaneda says in the movie Akira, "Just when my coil's reaching the green line..." A guy named Jason joined our 18-29 singles' Bible study in June. So right when it seemed like I had a chance with Lisa and it seemed that she would become my first girlfriend, Jason appeared and showed great interest in her over the next couple of months. I avoided a competition and would rather just see how it played out. By the end of the summer, they were officially going out and they asked for my blessing since they both knew I liked Lisa. I figured I lost my chance with her for good. Jason was a nice guy, and he had become a friend of mine. He was older, confident, had an engineering job, and could play the guitar. I knew a guy like me couldn't compete with him for Lisa's heart. I had a zero jealousy policy, so while I was disappointed, I saw how much more excited Jason was for Lisa and how she welcomed his affections. I stepped back and wished for their happiness. After all, I had gotten involved deeper with Juliet before Lisa, and frankly I was worn out from the effort I'd spent (as well as money I'd spent on both her and her little sister whom she kept dragging along on our dates). I figured that maybe Lisa didn't like me as much as I liked her. Besides, Lisa didn't really seem to understand or appreciate my nerdy, eccentric nature, and as I mentioned in the previous essay, I figured that she wouldn't be so happy with a nerd like me anyway. Looking back, I think Jason did me a favor and he likely spared me from getting my heart broken terribly twice in one year.

Moreover, at one point that summer I found out that Lisa was a vegetarian. This was after she and Jason started going out, I think. That really deflated much of my interest in her because this was one of those glaring problems to me, after having attempted to date a vegan girl named Jenny in futility while I was in high school. Stuff like smoking, listening to rap or heavy metal music, tattoos, and vegetarianism were enough to plummet my interest in girls. At least with Juliet, we could just grab a burger and there'd be no big deal. With Lisa though, I never saw her eat. Although she said she was a vegetarian, she still wouldn't eat anything, even without meat. While I didn't think too much about it at the time, I think my subconscious picked up on it and made me uneasy.

For the remainder of '96, I did not find any girl who really interested me the way Lisa did, so I sort of gave up on girls. Kelli in our church group invited me on a double date with her friend Kristi and her boyfriend Mark to the Arizona State Fair. It was fun, but I felt awkward and shy as always. Kelli was a nice girl, but I knew that I would be too weird for her. And I just wasn't feeling the same way towards her as I did Lisa. For me, there had to be an indescribable spark of some sorts with a girl, just like how I felt that spark when I saw Lisa sitting between her two sisters that first night I met her. Some sort of intuition needed to be involved, something which compelled me and drew me to a girl. It's difficult to explain, but personality tests have described this tendency perfectly for my INFP type. In time, both Kelli and Kristi both showed interest in me, to my bewilderment. While it helped boost my self-esteem, nothing came of it.

That Christmas '96, my cousins Bethany and Shelby came to stay at our home. They had been my cheerleaders rooting for me with Juliet and they knew of my affection for Lisa, but this time I introduced them to Mayu's pictures, letters, plus the audio cassette she had recorded of her voice for one of her letters. They fell in love with Mayu and Bethany told me, "You will just have to marry Mayu someday, Greg!" It sounded like a good idea! But was it just wishful thinking? At the time I still didn't want to get my hopes up too much. For what good would it do to get so invested in a girl I hadn't even met yet? Of course I was hoping to meet her the next year, but despite my infatuation with her, I wanted to be safe, especially since Mayu was not a Christian and I knew that I could not marry a girl who did not share the same faith with me.

Lisa and Jason broke up in early '97, and after some time had passed I began doing stuff with her again. While I was hopeful that I might have a chance with her again, I could never quite figure out how to connect with Lisa's heart. I was also hesitant because of the whole vegetarian thing. Getting involved with a girl and facing the possibility of a lifetime of bickering over what to eat kind of scared me. Maybe she could change, but I wasn't going to invest my heart in a girl under conditions that she'd change to suit my selfish requirements. I was thinking that Lisa and I would only just be friends, since I was uneasy about her being a vegetarian and she probably wouldn't be romantically interested in a nerd like me anyway, since she wasn't a nerdy girl. Mayu was still just an unrealistic fantasy girl to me at this point. If Jason hadn't come along and I was able to eat with Lisa, would I not have put the breaks on my heart with Lisa? If Lisa and I had fallen in love, I wonder if I would have lost sight of my desire to live and work in Japan? It seemed like I was probably ready to discard it for Juliet's sake, so perhaps if I had fallen in love with Lisa, it would have been the same. Suffice it to say, I think God had other plans for me.

Valentine's Day, 1997. Once again, we exchanged cards, and we both signed them with love. Then came our birthdays in March. I was now 21, and Mayu was 20. Mayu was graduating from her college to become a kindergarten teacher and was going to move to Okaya, Nagano Prefecture. For my birthday, she wrote to me,

I am thankful to you, Greg-kun! You have made my school life so happy. You always cheered me up, and you advised me when I was worried about finding my employment.

That made me feel so good to know that I was so special to her. Unfortunately, although I was successful at just barely saving up enough money, the WYVEA trip to Japan for the summer of '97 was canceled. There weren't enough people who wanted to go, and a few had dropped out. I decided that I would just be bold and visit Japan the next year by myself, work out arrangements, and get to see Mayu as much as I could because with the WYVEA trip, it would have been difficult for me to see her, other than for one day in Tokyo at best.

It was by God's providence that Mayu got a job working at a Catholic kindergarten. She would study the Bible daily with the priest in charge of the school, and from him she learned a lot about God's love. Incidentally, one of Mayu's students was a little girl named Uran (宇蘭) and she was so impressed with the kanji that even before we were married, she decided that this is what she would want to name our daughter. The name could translate as "cosmic orchid" or "heavenly orchid" in English. So when our daughter was born in '08, we named her Ulan Kate. She is now 14 years old.

Mayu had become very busy with her new kindergarten job and for a couple of months, I did not receive any letters from her. I was afraid that the time had finally come, that this was when she would stop writing to me. I was afraid I'd lost her. I thought to myself, Maybe she has found a boyfriend in Okaya and decided to stop writing me? Maybe I should just focus on Lisa instead since she's more practical? My family and I were once again a host family for the incoming WYVEA group in July, and a guy named Isao had come to stay with us. He was closer to my age, and we got along well. I told him that I was afraid that Mayu had stopped writing to me, and he encouraged me not to worry, that she was probably just very busy. While he was staying with us, I received a letter from Mayu! I was so happy that in my next letter to her, I wrote this:

Mayu-chan, I am so happy to hear from you again. I was afraid that I had lost you as a friend. The night before I got your card and letter, I went to bed crying because I had thought that I would never hear from you again. I hope you will pardon my foolishness. I am so sorry for doubting your friendship. I was being selfish and insecure. I am glad that you want to be my friend for a long time. I love you very much, and the thought of losing you makes me very sad. You are very precious and important to me. When you go back to work this month, I hope that you will find some time to write me once in a while. I will continue writing you, even if I don't hear from you often.

For the spring semester of '97, I took a Japanese 115 class at Phoenix College in the evening. And after class on Thursdays I'd meet up with Richard and Steve at the Coffee Plantation for Therapy Night. Additionally, Lisa's dad had introduced me to a Japanese woman named Reiko who was attending the Vineyard church, and we would tutor each other's language learning efforts at the library at ASU West where I was now a student. (I believe she was a student at the Thunderbird School, if I recall correctly. I mentioned Reiko way back in Greg's Life #6) For the next semester in the fall of '97, JPN 116 was canceled. It was canceled again in the spring sememster of '98, so I had the idea to just have us students use our refund money, pay the teacher and hold the class unofficially. A married couple who were students agreed to host the class at their house.

December 1997. It was the end of the fall semester. I had attended both GCC and ASU West that semester; it was the final semester of GCC and the first semester at ASU West. I went into detail in the previous essay of how Lisa provided nice female companionship for me. She was a dear friend to me. When I wrote about Lisa in my journals, I would often say, "She's so cool and pretty..." She made me happy. While she was never my girlfriend, having a charming girl to be friends with and just being with her had driven away the loneliness that had always haunted my mind. During this time, something was telling me that she wasn't the one I would marry. I felt that as great of a girl as she was, she didn't quite understand me and that we wouldn't be best suited for each other. I struggled with accepting this. Nevertheless, she was a good friend to me, and of course I was so fond of her. On December 23rd, I wrote this in my journal:

I've actually felt kinda lonely lately. I haven't felt lonely in a long while, it seems. I still don't want a girlfriend --- Juliet soured me on the idea of having a girlfriend last year. I guess Mayu has preoccupied me from feeling lonely. She's like a long distance girlfriend, almost. And with her new job, I fuss and fret and feel bad when I haven't received a letter from her in a long time. For Christmas, I bought her a watch that lights up in the dark, and a beautiful music box that plays Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." I made sure she would receive them before Christmas. I still haven't received her gift yet. I start to think that she has forgotten me at times like these, even though she tells me that she is always thinking about our trip next year.

I have this far-fetched hope that Mayu can become Christian so that I can marry her. This is probably unlikely, and if I get my hopes up too much I will end up breaking my own heart. But when I read her letters, I can feel that she has a beautiful personality, and that she is a pure and good girl who has not complicated her life with unnecessary garbage. I have a feeling of such joy whenever I find something from her in the mailbox. She's just a wonderful girl.

I guess I'm just infatuated with her. I guess I shouldn't be... I haven't even met her yet. She's just become the new basis by which I judge other girls. Her and Lisa, I should add.

I remember what was going through my mind when I wrote this, 25 years ago. I'd become convinced that the process of attaining a girlfriend would be a tumultuous process, full of heartbreak and anxiety, which would be an emotional rollercoaster that would certainly interfere with my college studies. I went through that process with Juliet and I unfairly assumed that it would have been the same with Lisa. As much as I loved Lisa, I was unfairly comparing her to Juliet. I had treated Juliet like a princess and all she did was push me away. Why did I assume that Lisa would have treated me like that? I don't know... I just figured that every girl would treat me like that, as though it was my lot in life. I had equated dating girls with heartache and sadness. Moreover, I couldn't feel completely comfortable opening my heart completely to Lisa because I was such a nerd, and because I wasn't able to communicate in writing with her. Earlier that year, I was selfishly happy that Lisa became available again after she and Jason had broken up, so that we could spend more time together again. Her friendship always cheered me up and I wish I had told her how happy she made me. But I felt that I was too nerdy to really connect with her. And not only did she say that she was a vegetarian, I don't think I ever saw her eat anything at all and subconsciously this did not sit well with me. Therefore, over time I had gotten used to the idea that Lisa and I were just friends and nothing more, and that this was likely mutual. This was the reality as I saw it as 1997 was drawing to a close. All that while, Mayu remained some sort of idealistic fantasy, some precious girl across the sea who made her affection known to me. Yet I was telling myself not to get my hopes up, because I was bracing myself for reality to someday disappoint me. And although Mayu was interested in knowing more about God, she wasn't quite there yet. Writing letters to a girl far away seemed to be a way of circumventing the process of anxiety I had associated with falling in love. I pretty much knew how Mayu felt about me, and I figured that Lisa only regarded me as a friend to spend time with because she did not communicate such affection as Mayu did. I remember thinking at the time that I really wanted to skip the dating process and go straight to marriage. In a way, I sort of did accomplish this. Incidentally, it was Lisa's older sister, Tara who helped me out with this. I'll get to that later though.

Valentines Day, 1998. This is the year when the long distance love between Mayu and I really began to grow. The love in my heart became undeniable, and I was becoming more decisive. I wanted nothing more than to win Mayu's heart completely, and the excitement of our upcoming adventure preoccupied my mind that spring semester. Mayu's Valentine gift to me was a set of two spoons: a silver and a gold one, tied together with a red ribbon. How romantic is that? Mayu's Valentine card read as follows:

My dearest Greg-kun!
You are really special to me. Always thinking about you makes me feel so wonderful. And whenever I read your letters, I am filled with happiness. So, I hate my life without you. I wish we could always spend time together. I can't wait to see you. I like you very much.
With love on Valentine's Day,
Mayu

Note that "I like you very much" is a literal translation of daisuki, which is a way of saying "I love you" in subtle Japanese speak. For the card I sent her, it had a pre-written message of wanting to be together on Valentine's Day.

Just a few nice, caring words especially to say, wish that we could be together sharing Valentine's Day. But even though we'll be apart, warm thoughts will keep us near, not only on this special day but every day all year.
Happy Valentine's Day

And I wrote below:

Thank you for being my best friend for the past three years. You are such a darling girl, and I think of you every day. I am looking forward to spending time with you this summer. I love you!
Love,
Greg

For the first half of '98, outside of my school work and my jobs on campus, all of my focus was on my upcoming trip to Japan and saving money for it. I didn't want to spend money, so I declined to go out with friends. My mind was focused on meeting Mayu. I was also distancing myself a bit from my church friends. At ASU West, I had made many Asian friends, and some of my best classmate friends were from Hong Kong. My affinity for Asia had led me to making Asian friends, as well as other friends who had an interest in Asia. None of my church friends could relate to me, so I began preferring to spend my time with my ASU West friends instead. I worked at the library with a Japanese-American girl named Erica, who invited me to the APIA (Asian/Pacific Islanders Association) school club that she was the president of. I actually ended up as president of the club for my final year of school after Erica graduated, even though I really did not want to get that involved to begin with. It's kind of a long, weird story how that happened. Maybe I'll write an essay on that later. (EDIT: Here is my essay #143 on my Memories of my college days at ASU West in which I go into detail about that stuff.)

In '98, I found out about Lisa's anorexia and she was hospitalized. A young maiden's body is sacred, and it was not my place to discuss matters of her eating disorder with Lisa. Thus, I don't think I ever brought the subject up to her. Silently, my heart broke for her. As I mentioned in the previous essay, I'd developed an empathetic bond to her, whether she realized it or not. It was probably only one way, I admit, but I'd connected to her more deeply than I had most other people. She had such a special place in my heart. While it made me sad, I was silent, and Lisa was distant... suffering. Now I know why I felt that she wasn't the right one for me, I said to myself. God was protecting me from getting involved with a girl in this condition. I felt like I'd dodged a bullet by not getting romantic with Lisa. I didn't even write about Lisa in my journal during this time at all, so I now have no memory really of any time spent with her during this time, aside from the camping trip our kinship group went on in May. I remember interacting more with others on that camping trip than with Lisa. Oh, and in the months leading up to my trip. she would sometimes ask me, "So when are you leaving for China?" Assuming she wasn't teasing me, she had no concept of where I was going. I can't fault her, because I admit that I am certainly ignorant between Arabic and Persian cultures, for example. Or the differences between Spain and Portugal. I can't tell the difference between the languages, cultures, etc. I have a friend whom I've pissed off a few times because I can't remember if he's either Danish or Dutch. To me, I have no real understanding of how different those countries are. Lisa just was not remotely interested in what I was passionate for. Perhaps if I had gone out of my way to try to introduce her to that which I was passionate for that she could have maybe learned to share such interests, but I did not get that vibe from her. It ultimately made my choice to pursue Mayu over Lisa easier. If Lisa had shown more of an interest in my hobbies the way Juliet had, then I would have had a more difficult love situation on my hands. As it was, Lisa had become rather withdrawn that year, and I sort of became apathetic towards her, reigning in my empathy and focusing on Mayu completely. So during this time, my heart was set on visiting Japan, meeting Mayu in person, and hopefully to make her my girl.

On June 14th, the month before I left, I wrote this in my journal:

I have been praying for Mayu's salvation for such a long time now -- many years. Even if I never do marry her, I want her to know God, and spend eternity with me in heaven. I pray that God will use me to reach her heart. And I don't want her to become a Christian just to please me. I want her to have a relationship with Christ that is sincere. Oh, please God, save little Mayu. She is my best friend and I care for her very much. I want her to know you, God. She is so precious to me. You love her. Use me in any way to make her know that.

In time, God answered this prayer.

Today I will go to church one last time before I leave. I don't think anyone in my kinship group understands. None of them have truly developed a worldview, except for Dan #2. I think I may get some prayer at church. Maybe not from my group... So many times I want to just share myself with them; to expose them to something new and open their eyes to the things I enjoy. But then I realize that they probably wouldn't care. They'd make excuses, or just make fun of me (especially Tara.) That's why they think they know me when they really don't. That's also why they don't understand why I'm about to fly to Japan for a month tomorrow. Maybe when I come back they might understand.

Last night, Kelli from church asked me if I intend to kiss Mayu. I didn't really tell her anything of my affection for Mayu---she just figured it out. When I told Mom about what Kelli asked me, she said that the notion of flying to a country far away to meet a dear pen pal is very romantic. I didn't tell Kelli this, but I really want to kiss Mayu-chan. I told Kelli that I've never kissed a girl before, except for when I was six years old.

I don't think I had even told anyone that I was in love with Mayu, but Kelli could tell. Feminine intuition. And in this excerpt from that journal entry, this gives you a pretty good idea of how isolated I felt, even among friends. I loved my church friends, but they also drove me nuts. I wanted to share so much about myself with them, but I didn't bother because I know that I'd just get made fun of. I've always been a complex, eccentric person. I resented them for not wanting to get to know me, and it just made me frustrated with myself. There was so much I wanted to share with them, but either they just didn't care or it would be too big of an effort for them to try to understand me, so they didn't bother. It just made me feel alone and misunderstood. Lisa never made fun of me like her sister Tara did, but she still didn't seem willing to give a crap about what I was passionate about. Combining that with her vegetarianism (which was mostly smokescreen for her anorexia), it's pretty apparent why I had lost interest in her well before this point in time. I still had a soft spot for her, but I knew that she wasn't the one for me and I was comfortable with just being friends with her. I couldn't expect a deep, meaningful relationship from anyone, boy or girl, who wouldn't bother to try to understand me. It would exceed my capabilities to try to get anyone like that to truly appreciate me.

So on Monday, July 13th, I flew to Japan for the first time. I was nervous and I couldn't really sleep on the plane much. I flew Korean Air and I was lucky that it was not a full flight. I had a row of three seats all to myself! It was great. I couldn't sleep well though. I remember when I did sleep a bit, I had a dream that I had somehow slept through the landing and takeoff and I woke up in South Korea because the trip to Japan was a layover that connected there. What a silly dream. I had already arranged my itinerary of places to stay, both at youth hostels and at people's homes. The first several days I stayed at a youth hostel. Then the first person's place I stayed at was the apartment of a guy named Jamie, who was teaching evening English classes at the Vineyard church in Tokorozawa. I had contacted the church in advance, and Pastor Araki had arranged to have a woman named Chiho come and meet me at Narita Airport. He had also arranged to have me stay at Jamie's apartment for my first weekend.

I remember once after I had spent a day in Akihabara and doing all sorts of nerd shopping, it was evening as I got on the train to go back to my youth hostel. The train was pretty empty. I had noticed before that if I would sit down on a train, usually nobody would sit next to me for some reason. It happens to seemingly everyone who has visited Japan and people are quick to cry "racism" because that is mostly what people think, especially Americans. It's a bit more nuanced than that. But there I was, sitting on a nearly empty train car at night, minding my own business, when this young woman boards at the next stop, spots me, and sits right next to me without saying a word. I was like, What the heck is this about? She has the whole car so why did she have to sit next to me? Nothing happened. I was bored, so I looked into my shopping bag at the neat crap I'd bought in Akihabara. Oh man, I got Layer Section for the Sega Saturn for such a cheap price! This game is so cool. I look forward to playing it when I get back home in Arizona. Oh look, and here is that Legend of the Galactic Heroes soundtrack I bought. It's one of the coolest space operas, I think. The Japanese chick sitting next to me folded her arms and looked exasperated because I wasn't paying attention to her. She hadn't realized what a nerd I was. I think it's obvious that she was wanting me to come onto her or something, like she was desperate for some foreign boyfriend. She didn't say anything to me and at first I didn't know what her angle was. Did she just expect me to start hitting on her? Once she realized I was a shy nerd, she got up and left me alone with my anime crap. Sorry chick, but just coming up to me out of nowhere and parking your ass next to me is a bit weird, especially when you're totally silent like that. At that time, I could barely speak Japanese, so I wasn't going to try to start a conversation with her, especially because I wasn't interested in talking to someone willing to throw herself at some random American on a train at night. Who knows... you start talking to some chick like that, then one thing leads to another, then you wake up in some hotel room in a bathtub full of ice water and two holes in your back where your kidneys used to be. I dunno. I just wanted her to go away. I didn't even see if she was pretty or not, but she had dyed her hair a light brown color, and that sort of thing just looks weird on Japanese girls. Black hair is best. Besides, all I cared about was meeting Mayu that weekend.

So Saturday I rode the Seibu line up to Tokorozawa and had a bit of trouble finding Jamie outside the station. But we spent the day together and that night I joined him for one of his English classes at the church. I told him about Mayu, and showed him the Snoopy doll I had planned to give her. As I mentioned in Greg's Life #127, Jamie had warned me that unless I was serious about loving Mayu, I needed to be careful because once a boy tells a Japanese girl that he likes her and gives her a stuffed doll, she's going to expect an inevitable marriage proposal. He did not want to see me toy with Mayu's affections, and I completely understood and respected that.

On Sunday morning, Mayu left Okaya by bus to Shinjuku, and from there she took the train to Tokorozawa. I waited for her at the train platform and she found me first. I turned and saw her, my dream come true. No other girl had ever captivated me like that, especially in light of 3 1/2 years of anticipation. She approached me, smiling bashfully, greeting me with her soft voice. She was even cuter in-person than her photographs! I couldn't believe she was finally standing in front of me. I wanted to take her picture right then, but I was afraid of seeming like a dork. She took my breath away and melted my heart. This was the girl I had been wanting to meet in person for years. She is the one I had fantasized of marrying someday but at first I would dismiss such ideas as silly, telling myself that I'd probably never even meet her in person let alone marry her. But there she was, just as happy to see me as I was of her. Just as nervous to be with me as I was with her. Just as shy to be with me as I was of her. Just as in love with me as I was in her. And this wasn't like the stupid Star Wars: Episode 1 Phantom Menace in which I had built up so much anticipation that I was afraid to be honest with myself. ("Eh? Midichlorians? A virgin birth? WTF?") For Mayu, the anticipation was fully justified and satisfied. Such a beautiful, charming girl.

We went to church together and had a nice time. I got to hear familiar Vineyard songs in Japanese. I felt the Holy Spirit of God overwhelm me and I began choking on the words of the songs. My eyes started to cry and I was afraid of breaking down in front of Mayu because she might not have understood. During the service, I was sitting next to her and I couldn't believe it. We talked with people after the service and Mayu's brilliant smile made my heart soar. I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. We went to have lunch after the service with Jaime and some others at an Italian restaurant.

After that, Mayu and I went on our first date together. Mayu had the idea of going to the tall Shinjuku city municipal government building to go up to the top floor. She said that there's a lounge up there, and on a clear day like that you can see far away. We hoped to just enjoy the lounge and talk there. However, there was a long line to use the elevators, so we gave up. Instead, we went to the Meiji Shrine in Harajuku, and by the time we got there, we only had about a half hour. We walked and talked, and sat down in the shade next to each other. When I first met her that morning, I didn't know what to say to her. But as the day went by, I could think of more things to say. She was happy to let me hold her hand. Every time I touched her, I felt so excited that I could barely contain myself. She had such beautiful wide, brown eyes, and I loved her brilliant smile.

I took her to the bus station at Shinjuku and bid her farewell. I gave her the stuffed Snoopy doll and kissed her on the forehead. I waved goodbye as her bus left. The day was like a fantasy and I was so much in love. And I was certain that she loved me just as much as I loved her. This petite, beautiful Japanese angel adored me, as I adored her. Plus, I had found a girl who was a nerd like me. Both flowers and flying saucers knocked her out.

There was never, ever any lecture of "look, we're just friends" from her, like I always heard in high school. I knew that I had finally found a girl who loved me as much as I loved her. I had followed the advice that Juliet's mother had given me two years prior, to hold back my love for a girl until I knew that she loved me as much as I loved her. That advice is what helped restrain me from pursuing Lisa's heart. As much as I liked her, even ignoring her eating disorders there was so much about me that I never felt comfortable sharing with her and somehow I knew that we were not meant to be. Lisa couldn't even understand why I wanted to visit Japan to begin with as it did not interest her. Then again, if Lisa was more forward in her affection like Juliet was, restraining myself would have been more difficult because Juliet really made her interest in me obvious. If I had invested my heart in Lisa and it didn't work out, I would have been responsible for exacerbating her anorexia. Lisa was a precious, yet broken girl. And as it became more and more evident that Mayu was indeed the one I wanted to marry, I was relieved that I had avoided a romance that would have hurt both Lisa and myself, which could have possibly put her in the hospital. I loved Lisa enough to not do that to her. She was so cool and pretty that she deserved to be loved with as much intensity as I loved Mayu. I was not the type of guy who would have a girlfriend just for the sake of having a girlfriend. It annoyed me how I had encountered so many girls who just had to have a constant stream of boyfriends and would not allow themselves to be single for more than a week or so. In fact, I had tried asking out a Christian Chinese girl named Cindy back in '95 or so. She went to Glendale Community College (GCC) and worked at the Panda Express at the Metrocenter food court while I worked at the A&W Hot Dogs. We were friends but the one time she was in between boyfriends and she agreed to let me ask her out, she'd already procured another boyfriend before then and cancelled on me. Crazy. She did get married though, I think in my last semester at GCC. I hope she is doing well, wherever she is. She probably doesn't remember me.

Our first date together, standing in front of the Meiji Shrine. (Click to enlarge.)

It was exciting to share a parfait together at one restaurant. Which if you think about it, is a fairly intimate thing. The closest I'd ever come to that with a girl was sharing a cheesecake with Juliet at the Coffee Plantation two years prior. I never did so with Lisa because... of that one unfortunate reason. I even wrote that day in my journal that in light of Lisa being treated for anorexia and how I felt badly for her, I was happy to see that Mayu had such a healthy appetite. With Mayu, we loved the same foods, and here I was, sharing a parfait with her. I've heard young Japanese people consider such activity as an "indirect kiss" of sorts, and I suppose it kinda is. It sure made me happy.

I took this picture of Mayu at the Mt. Fuji Kachoen Flower Garden & Owl Park. There are owls on display in this flower garden as well as live owl performances. (I mean, as opposed to dead owl performances? I mean, what could you do with dead owls, other than just toss and fling them around? Poor owls. What sort of sick-o could even think of doing that to dead owls?)

Beware, Agent Cooper. The owls are not what they seem.

My fourth week was spent staying with Mayu's family in Iijima. During this time, Mayu did not want her family to know that we were in love with each other. I tried not to be overly affectionate with her, but just while sitting on the floor around the Japanese-style table, putting my hand down next to hers and just barely touching her hand with my finger made me happy. As well as doing the same in the back seat of her mom's car, with my fingers atop hers. Her mom took us around Okaya, Mt. Fuji (it was overcast that day and the top was not visible), a flower garden and owl park, a Mormon dinosaur museum (OK, just kidding about that) and some other places. We spent the night once at her grandparents' home (on her mother's side). One evening before dinner, we went for a walk in the traditional garden. We sat down on some rocks and talked. Mayu said that even though she was 21, her parents did not feel she is old enough to have a boyfriend. She wasn't sure how they would feel about her having an American boyfriend, but she said that they really did like me. She told me that she'd never hugged a boy before me, nor had she ever had a boyfriend. We held hands in the garden where nobody could see us. The mosquitoes were out and they bit us as I asked her to be my girfriend. Of course, she said "yes."

This is Mayu in her grandparents' garden where I held her hand and asked her to be my girlfriend.

Later, Mayu had to return to Okaya, and then had to attend the annual Montessori seminar in Tokyo since she was a Montessori teacher. She'd call me at night and we'd talk. During the day, I'd spend time with her sister Yukari. She asked me if I loved Mayu, and I said yes. Again, feminine intuition. She said our secret was safe with her, but it turns out that Mayu's grandparents could tell that I was in love with Mayu too. Oh my. They were also very supportive. Mayu's grandfather was a soldier in China during the war, and his older brother was killed by Americans in the Philippines. Yet he was more gracious to me than the crotchety old American man standing in line at the Phoenix airport when I first embarked on my trip to Japan. He was an American GI during the war, and when his wife asked me where I was heading, he said that he wouldn't mind it if America nuked Japan a third time. Belligerent jerk. I appreciated how supportive Mayu's grandparents were of our relationship.

On August 8th, Mayu's mom drove me to a hotel in Okaya. She asked me if there are flowers in Arizona. I was like, "Yes, of course." Then she said to me, "Mayu likes flowers, OK?" I figured she knew that I loved her daughter. The next day, Mayu and I flew to the USA together. I held her close the entire plane ride to the USA, which probably made the man next to us in the aisle seat uncomfortable. I sat in the middle and Mayu had the window seat. During the time I had spent with Mayu in Japan, I had shared with her about God's love as often as I could. During our flight when it was dark, we opened the window and looked outside. It was a completely cloudless night sky, with the moon shining over the Pacific Ocean. It was such a serene, tranquil, and beautiful moment I will never forget. I prayed to God, "If I can bring her to you as a Christian, please give me this precious girl to love as my wife." I was taking a risk with both of our hearts. I admit that I was a hypocrite. I disapproved of people getting into relationships with the expectation of changing the other person. That was Juliet's folly. It is why I did not give my heart to a girl with an eating disorder, because I did not want to pursue a relationship hinged upon the expectation of overcoming her problem. Yet here I was, investing my love in Mayu, with the expectation of her accepting Christ. Why is it that I was willing to do it for Mayu but not Lisa? Well, I knew that Mayu loved me with the same intensity that I loved her, she was already studying God's Word through her work, I could see how God was moving in her life, and she was asking me questions on how she could become Christian. I could see the inevitable. If she was negative about discussing God from the start, then that would have changed everything. But she was studying the Bible with the priest at her school. I was becoming increasingly convinced that she was the one for me. There was something in my mind telling me this and it was that same, certain something in my mind that had been telling me that Lisa was not the one, as cool and friendly as she was. Moreover, I felt comfortable sharing everything about myself with Mayu. I never had to feel embarrassed about being a nerd with a girl who likes robots, Lupin the 3rd, X-Files, and Back to the Future. Mayu was a nerd too, and I knew she loved me despite being a clumsy, uncoordinated klutz who watched too much anime and played too many video games.

Mayu and I at the Grand Canyon with plenty of jet lag. I fell asleep sitting in a crouch while looking at books at a gift shop even.

When Mayu stayed with me and my family in Arizona, she was relieved that we could express our affection so freely in front of my parents. She was happy that my parents approved of our love. We would take turns kissing each other on the cheek, but she wanted to wait until our final night together to kiss on the lips. We only had essentially 4 1/2 days together in America. We took her to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Montezuma's Castle, and some other places. Dad also rented a car for me to take her around Phoenix just the two of us, and it was a great date day together. Whenever we got back in the car, we would take turns kissing each other on the cheek. She was adorable.

In Oak Creek Canyon, just outside of Sedona.

On our last night in Arizona, we kissed on the lips for at least an hour. That time when I was in the 1st grade with the girl across the street doesn't count. Mayu was my true first kiss. When I flew with her to Los Angeles to escort her to her international flight, the plane was nearly empty, so we kissed most of the way there. We also talked more about God, and I made sure that she knew that she had to make that decision for herself and not for my sake. We spent about two hours sitting in the lounge at LAX and watched planes take off until she needed to board her flight. She was about to fly back to Narita, and I was going to board a small shuttle plane down to San Diego to spend a week with my friend Nathan. Mayu and I had made some beautiful memories together in such a short time, and we were already establishing a shared sense of humor together. I walked her to the international gates entrance and she pulled me aside out of the way from others to kiss me goodbye. We promised each other to not be sad at our parting. As I saw her turn the corner, my heart sank a bit, but I was also so happy. I later learned that the man who sat next to her on her return home was a pastor of a church in Tokyo, and she was able to talk with him about God and the Bible and ask questions. Again, providence. On my flight to San Diego, I fell asleep, dreaming of Mayu's beautiful kiss, feeling her lips on mine.

My parents had us do some professional portraits taken at the Olan Mills studio.

Nathan greeted me at the San Diego airport, took me to his apartment and returned to work. I took a two hour nap, then called my parents. I asked them if I was making the biggest mistake of my life. They said no. They said that she is very cute, and that we are obviously crazy about each other and that I was handling the situation well.

For at least two weeks after Mayu flew back to Japan, every morning I would wake up talking to Mayu, as if she was next to me. I'd wake up hugging my pillow close, thinking it was her. I missed her so much. I thought of her all the time before the trip, but now my thoughts of her had intensified even more. The beauty of her eyes, the softness of her golden skin, the smell of her hair, and the taste of her lips. I was in love, and she loved me. I made her my girlfriend and there were no stupid "girl games" pulled on me. Wanna be my girlfriend? "Yes." Bang. It was that easy. None of that "We're just friends" like I got from Denise and Jenny. None of that "I'm not looking for anything serious" crap I got from Juliet. No "Does she like me? Because I can't tell how she feels about me" like with Lisa (who at least never pulled any crappy "girl games" on me). I was 22 years old and I finally had a girlfriend.

On that trip, I'd had a life-changing experience: a month away from home, away from everything that was familiar, with plenty of solitude and inflection. Meditation on what I wanted to do with my life and the type of person I wanted to be. I'd returned a changed person. I had all my photos developed and I began to show everyone. My first time back with my singles' church kinship group after a month and a half of being gone was disappointing as I shared with them about my life-changing trip. It was the end of August, and Dan asked me to share about my trip to Japan with the group. The response was rather exaspirating. "That street reminds me of New York." Yeah, Tokyo is pretty big. "Is that the hotel you stayed at?" No, that's a famous castle. "Is that the hotel you stayed at?" Uh, no, that's just a teahouse in the middle of a garden. Sheesh. Why the hell did they think I'd take pictures of hotels? I also took pictures of the cramped back streets of Tokyo. Just being there and experiencing such a view, for me, just made me think, "Holy crap, I'm in Japan!" But someone remarked something like, "Oh my gosh, those streets are so narrow! Oh no!" I was rather appalled at the lack of interest and appreciation, but I expected it, even before I embarked on my adventure. I felt like the slave that had escaped from Plato's Cave and was brought back. Telling the other slaves about the green grass and the blue skies, but nobody would listen to him because they were so narrow-minded and all they cared about were the shadows on the cave's wall.

All along, some had made fun of me for my interest in Japan, particularly Lisa's sister Tara and a guy named Matt whom Kelli dated for a while. Insensitive. Tara was always so abrasive, so I had a love/hate relationship with her. I was always willing to forgive her though, particularly due to my fondness for lovely Lisa. (Lisa never made fun of me for being a nerd though, and I appreciated that. She was my friend and even though my heart's compass was pointed towards Japan and it wasn't something she could understand, at least she never made fun of me for it.) I had no idea what Ireland looks like, but I'm sure it is cooler than the picture on the box of the Lucky Charms cereal I never ate as a kid. I would've loved to see where they were from, but I never did. I'd even brought a CD of Vineyard music in Japanese I'd bought at the church there but many weren't interested in listening to it. I don't think Jason cared about Japan, but he was a bit more thoughtful about world travel and all. He was pretty cool. So was Kelli and especially a younger guy named Dan #2 who was quite a world traveler himself, having been all around Europe and South America. I remember Dan #2 told me he once kicked a stupid pigeon on the steps at the Vatican and his friend took a picture of it. He never did show me that picture, but I wanted to see it. Stupid filthy pigeons think they own the place. Dan #2 cracked me up. We had a bit in common as he was into MST3K and he is the one who convinced me to read the Lord of the Rings books before the upcoming movies would be released. (He also knew my friend Richard from Therapy Night because he was a student at Al Collin's School for Graphic Design where Richard taught.) I told him about the JR Rail Pass which let me use the bullet trains as much as I wanted to, and he had a similar experience using the Euro Rail Pass. That's neat. So he was keen on learning about my experiences in Japan. Keep in mind that this was in '98, which wasn't like today when everyone wants to visit Japan. Nowadays, people love to park their ass on Pinterest and Tumblr and look at pictures of cramped, neon-lit back streets of Tokyo like they are visions of Heaven. I suppose I was just ahead of my time. People in the group couldn't appreciate or relate to my experiences. On the other hand, my coworkers at ASU West were very positive. "Oh how beautiful! Hey, which castle is that? Did you get to go inside? WOW, she's pretty! I'd love to go there sometime!" etc. They were more internationally-minded and had more of a worldview. I resonated more with them.

So the nature of my long-distance relationship became a bit polarizing among people. Guys tended to be naysayers and say that long distance relationships tend to not work out. Girls, on the other hand, found the idea of me falling in love with my pen pal and her being my long-distance girlfriend to be rather romantic. Of course there were exceptions to this, but generally this was true. And my friends at ASU West tended to be more accepting of this than my friends at church for some reason. The two notable exceptions at church were Kelli, who was a real cheerleader for my love for Mayu, and Dan #2. When I told my church group that I now had a girlfriend, Kelli was excited, but I believe I made a nervous glance at Lisa. I felt guilty. When I told the group that news, it was met with some disapproval since Mayu was not yet a Christian. Only Kelli was positive about the relationship (Dan #2 wasn't there that night). I believe I made a joke to everyone saying, "Well I have a girlfriend now because that hypnosis class I took at the community college really paid off. How else could a guy like me manage to get a girl to like him? Ha ha." My prayer request to the group for Mayu's salvation was ignored. That really hurt and upset me. I was tired of them, weary of their lack of interest in my life. I was about to start a class at ASU West on Wednesday nights anyway, so that was a good excuse to stop attending the group.

The rest of that year I began withdrawing myself from the singles' kinship group because I felt even more alienated than before. I only spent time with Dan #2. When I saw Kelli at church, she would always ask me in a singsong voice, "How's Mayu doing?" That was cute and she was happy for me. When I was staying in Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture that summer, I'd called my parents from a pay phone at Nagano Station and they told me that Kelli had been diagnosed with MS after she'd had pains in her arms. Oh God, later that day when I was waiting for the internet cafe to open in Matsumoto, I found a bench in a small park and wept as I prayed for Kelli. She'd said that her dream was to get married and have children, and I was afraid for her future. Fortunately, nobody was around to see me crying for dear Kelli. She was always so positive about my relationship with Mayu and I appreciated that.

Whenever I saw Lisa thereafter, she would ask me, "So, how is your woman?" That made me a little mad every time, as well as ashamed because I had once wanted to fall in love with Lisa too. It hurt me that she wouldn't bother to call Mayu by name like at least Kelli did. My mind was filled with only thoughts of Mayu and by that time I figured that maybe Lisa was no longer interested in me. She'd already dated Jason and with my zero jealousy policy, I only wanted her happiness. I didn't think about it at the time, but maybe her happiness could have been focused on having me for herself. Looking back, I think she may have been disappointed that I had a girlfriend. In '96, Mom had told me that Lisa must've really liked me, but due to my low self-esteem I didn't want to believe it. I got angry and argued with her. "She's already going out with Jason, Mom." Mom told me that she must've still liked me, otherwise she wouldn't call me. I got mad at Mom over this, and I shouldn't have allowed my poor self-esteem to rule my emotions like that. I was trying my best not to be jealous, but when Mom said stuff like that, it made it difficult. I thought Mom didn't know what she was talking about, but I've come to realize that parents can see things that their kids can't. Also, Mom had had discussions with Lisa's mom, so she may have known hints about how Lisa felt about me that she never told me. Maybe to Lisa it's possible that the shy, nerdy, unathletic, eccentric boy named Greg who would hint at possibly marrying her while flirting with her is the one whom she felt would have made her happy, but I refused to believe it. Plus there is also the phenomenon among girls with how a boy becomes more attractive when he is in love with another girl. Chicks are like that, I guess. I guess guys can be like that too though, now that I think about it. Maybe her anorexia was driving her to settle for a hopeless nerd like me. Maybe she later got mixed up with that crazy guy because she was frustrated with me. I was too blind, stupid, and inconsiderate to think that she saw me as anything more than just a friend. It didn't dawn on me what was happening until a year later. I guess Mayu wasn't the only girl who thought I was cute and wanted to be with me. Lisa's attention had done so much to lift me out of such a desolation of sadness I felt, but I imagine that anorexia must be the result of a girl's own sadness. While she helped raise my spirits, I wasn't able to do the same for her. Dear Lisa...

For that Fall '98 semester of college, I was taking the shuttle bus to ASU Main Campus in Tempe to take a Japanese 101 class. Just having spent a summer in Japan it turned out to be too easy, and when I learned that the class only coverd the first half of the book, I gave up and dropped out in October when the teacher penalized me for studying at a higher level than the rest of the class. I dropped out and got a partial refund. My Management 301 class ended early because part of the class entailed a work learning trip to Mexico, but I wasn't able to go due to my work schedules. Instead, I had to log 16 hours of study time in the foreign language lab. Naturally, I devoted that time to studying Japanese. Meanwhile, Mayu had begun attending a church in Okaya, as well as taking occasional trips down to visit the Tokorozawa Vineyard church.

You wouldn't tell by looking, but this petite girl has a rather goofy sense of humor.

Soon after, Mayu was making plans to visit me for New Years. Her plan was to come visit me for eight days, but her overly-controlling mother said that she could only visit for five days or else she wouldn't be allowed at all. Ugh. This sucks because it's only really about 4 1/2 days, since the last day is essentially just getting her to the airport. Anyhow, she was able to come for a few days at least. Dad and I to drove out to San Diego, spent a night at my friend Nathan's condo, then drove up to LAX to greet Mayu as she arrived. We took her to Ports O' Call, Hollywood, Mann's Chinese Theatre, the Griffith Observatory Planetarium, and Little Tokyo before heading south. Whenever we were in the car, Mayu and I were in the back seat, our lips locked together. I knew I was annoying my friend and my dad in the front seat, but... "absence makes the heart grow fonder," as the proverb says. As we made our way down south, taking the Pacific Coast Highway, we enjoyed the drive, stopping at the famous mission in San Juan Capistrano along the way. We'd made out in the back seat of Dad's car so much that I ached. That night when we arrived in San Diego, we visited Mission Beach and took a walk along the boardwalk. We ate dinner at Luigi's, a great Italian restaurant by the beach. It was just what I did with Lisa, Dan, Scott, and the others the summer of '96.

At Scripps Institute of Oceanography, overlooking the pier there.

The next day, we took Mayu to the aquarium at Scripp's Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla. Then we went to the San Diego Museum of Art where there was both an M.C. Escher and a Dr. Seuss Exhibit! After that, we said goodbye to Nathan and headed to Arizona. Dad made sure that Mayu sat in the front seat so that he could talk to her. At dusk, we reached the sand dunes of Yuma where Return of the Jedi had been filmed, and she had never visited such a desert before. We went to a New Year's Eve party at church and I got to introduce Mayu to my friends there. Several had said that they were interested in meeting Mayu, but when they did nobody had anything really to say to her. I guess they felt awkward and didn't know what to say to someone from Japan. I remember I introduced her to Kelli, my friend Lee, and Lisa's older sister Tara at the party. The idea was to take it easy this time and let Mom and Dad get to spend time slowly with Mayu, so that I would not hog her all to myself. The one big thing we did together was to take her to the Scottsdale art gallery district, where Lisa and I had gone on a date together the year before, in September '97. We also took her to church for a Sunday evening service. On our final night together, I took Mayu to see the new movie The Prince of Egypt, which was animated by the short-lived Dreamworks animation studio in Phoenix. She loved the story of Moses.

On the last day, I flew with Mayu to LAX, to escort her to her flight home. It was January 3rd, 1999. At the Tom Bradley International Terminal, we once again sat in the lounge and watched planes take off. This time, however, we only had 45 minutes together before she had to get going. We promised each other that we would not be sad when the time came to say farewell. I kissed her goodbye, and she gave me a letter before entering the security checkpoint and waving goodbye. I watched her plane in the lounge until it left. In her letter, she said that she had learned more about God during that vacation, and that she loves God and will dedicate herself to knowing more about Him, studying the Bible, and going to church. She said that she loves me so much, and that she will make me happy forever. When I read this in the lounge, I started crying. I was breaking our promise to not be sad, but I was sure she was probably breaking the promise too on her plane.

I walked back to the domestic terminal and there I had a bit of a run-in with one of Los Angeles's many token weirdos infesting the domestic terminals. This was pre-9/11, when all sorts of people were allowed to hang by the gates. Most were deaf and would put cheap junk on your lap with a note that says, "Hi, I'm too deaf to be a productive member of society. Please buy my useless crap. Thanks." And there were weird religious types too. Just like in the old comedy movie, Airplane, hanging around and getting in people's way. This one guy I had recognized from my trip to LA back in '96, he was a French guy with a book full of weird, blue Hindu people. I had flown to LA with my martial artist friend Daniel for Spring Break, and mentioned this in my lonely nerd story essay. Daniel told this Frenchman, "Hey, I'm Christian, so I don't really follow Hindu stuff." And the French guy turned to some page in the book that featured a blue Jesus and said that Christ was part of the Hindu pantheon somehow. Oh God, whatever. Just leave me alone. So this same goofball came right up to me as I got back to the domestic terminal, right as I was sad and lonely and just wanted to get on my flight back to Phoenix, and he came up to me and asked me my name and where I was from. I thought to myself, Oh God, not this guy again! I had just said goodbye to my precious girlfriend from Japan and figured I wouldn't see her for at least another year, and I really didn't want to hear this guy prattle on about his religious crap. This guy was just depressing me, so I just said, "Look, Jesus isn't blue, alright?" He then told me that my pants zipper was down in the worst way. I remember I was wearing black jeans (back when I used to wear jeans) and I remember I was wearing these ill-fitting white boxer shorts that Mom had given me. Oh crap! So not only was my fly down, but my friend down there was probably visible and catching a breeze I hadn't noticed until then, hair and all on display. Oh crap, how embarrassing! So after I clumsily turned away and zipped up, not caring how bad I looked, and after I thanked him for the warning, this guy accused me of not being a "good Christian" for not being interested in listening to him go on about his stupid cult or whatever. Okay, fine. Fair enough. I just went to go buy some juice. On my way back, I had to walk by the crazy French guy and he started loudly chanting, "Neetai, neetai!" as I passed by him. Oh my cow. Not only did it suck that I had to say goodbye to Mayu and this bizarre guy was chanting some weird Hindu curse at me or something, but the day didn't start off right because Dad insisted on waking up at 5:30 rather than 4:30 as I had suggested. Mayu and I barely made it to our flight on time in Phoenix before it left. That day, I was totally sad and lonely and just wanted to go back home and do nothing. I felt like crap.

That night, I cried hard. I wanted to hold Mayu in my arms so badly, and I felt bad for taking it for granted during the short time we were together again. I talked with my parents for a long time. They were happy with me for keeping a level head, and said that God would bless me for it. I felt embarrassed that I was crying so much, but Dad said that if it was easy to see her go, our relationship wouldn't mean anything. He was right. I hadn't thought of it that way. During that week, my friend Lee called and said that when several from our kinship group at church went out for lunch after church service, he heard people wondering if I had married Mayu. Like we had somehow eloped. I laughed. I told him it wasn't true and it just goes to show that they didn't know me as well as I thought they did.

The long, difficult year apart
So, it was now January 1999. That month I began my final year of school at ASU West. I bought a new Siamese betta fish for my 10 gallon fish tank and named him Steve. I was faced with the reality that I would not be able to see Mayu for at least a year. By the end of the month, Mayu had accepted Christ into her heart while visiting the Tokorozawa Vineyard. I then had no doubt that I was doing the right thing by loving her. In my journal on Monday, February 1st, I wrote the following:

Oh God, thank you for giving me such a wonderful girl to love! And thank you for choosing me to be a part of her life and to show her your love through me. Now that I know she is a Christian, I feel comfortable even more about her, and I feel comfortable about marrying her. I am pretty certain that she is right for me. All I need to do now is court her for a while, once I get a job in her country and date her. When I have spent more time with her on a regular basis, I will know that she is certainly the one for me. We have talked only a little bit about this, but I know we both want to marry each other. I want her to be my happy, pretty wife. She is my dream come true.

Note how wishy-washy I still was, still hesitant to commit to marrying her, thinking it best to give it more time before I proposed. We were discussing marriage, but I had yet to propose. It took someone special to knock sense into me and kick my butt in gear to propose to Mayu, but I'll get back to this later. My goal was to graduate in December of that year, take a class or two for the first semester of 2000 in order to continue working my two jobs on campus, and secure a teaching job in Japan that year. Then I would be free to start planning to marry Mayu. But one problem I saw was Mayu's mother. She had obviously developed an unhealthy, dependent relationship with Mayu. During her visit, Mayu explained to me how much her mom felt outnumbered and trapped in her own marriage, being stuck living with a husband with a severe mother complex and his two parents who made her life miserable. With Mayu living in Okaya, her mom would spend the weekends with her at her small, 1DK apartment. Mayu was a source of refuge to escape to, and I knew that if I was to marry her, that I would be perceived as a threat. She was already proving to be overbearing to Mayu. It's part of why Mayu was trying to keep our love a secret. I was opposed to this secretive policy and was afraid that it could spell disaster. Compounding that was the sorrow of seeing her precious daughter becoming an adult, her fleeting youth and dependence on her parents simultaneously vanishing... I can only imagine how difficult this must have felt for her mother.

Valentine's Day, 1999. In Mayu's card to me, she said that she could feel God close to her now, and that her life and mind had changed. She pledged her eternal love for me. I had no doubt that she was the right one for me. The only problem I foresaw was how her parents would oppose our marriage, faced with the big possibility that we would live in America someday. International marriage is not something to be taken lightly. I had already told her that if she were to ever decide to stop loving me, that I would understand. But I told her that since she was an adult, she should not ask them permission and instead she should be telling her parents what her decisions are. To be more assertive. I was afraid that her parents would ruin our chances to be married. Mayu explained that until children start their own families, it is customary to still seek their parents' advice in Japanese culture.

My schoolwork trudged on. My international business degree had a focus in marketing, and I'd written an 11 page report on Scope mouthwash. BORING! Mayu would write letters to me about how she was growing in her faith in God. We wrote to each other of how lonely we were, how we wished we could be together. I confessed that it just made me happy to pretend that she was next to me when I would go places, which made our long distance love feel closer. This year was a test of our commitment to each other, and I saw that it was just not feasible for me to visit Japan during that summer of '99. But this one year span of not seeing each other proved to not be the biggest challenge for our love. That came later, when I saw her again a year later.

I took a freelance photography class that was only three Saturdays in March of '99. The teacher saw that I had an eye for night photography, and I took this picture of myself on ASU West campus using a tripod, timer, and using slide film. The student next to me was the vice provost of some department on campus and said he wanted to use my pictures for future brochures for the school. I really wanted to have Lisa as a model because it's nicer to have a pretty girl as a subject (even though she didn't attend that school) because she was home from Berkeley for Spring Break that week, but Dad was discouraging me from spending time with her. I never had taken any pictures of Lisa, and I know she would have looked so beautiful in the dim lights, with her lovely, curly black hair. It makes me sad.

I had mentioned this in

Summertime. I took a Mexican history summer class in order to lighten the load of my upcoming final semester at ASU West. The Matrix and Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace were in theaters. One was a great SF movie, the other I saw multiple times in the theater to try to convince myself that I liked it. What a crappy movie Phatom Menace was, but I wouldn't accept that fact until many years later. After the many long years of anticipation and emotional investment, I lacked the intellectual honesty that some of my friends had who said that it did not live up to expectations. On the other hand, Mayu certainly did live up to my expectations when I saw her in-person for the first time, a year earlier.

It was June, 1999. I had often seen Lisa's father at ASU West because he was getting a degree in education. Since my job was working at the student computer lab, I had seen him often and had helped him out. I'd even helped him out with his own computer at home. I took Lisa's two younger brothers to see Phantom Menace. Her youngest brother, Steve, looked up to me and I would spend time with him on Sunday afternoons after church, taking him to comic book stores, exposing him to Japanese anime, and just enjoyed being a mentor to him. I adored Steve. This pleased Lisa. Keep in mind that I'd flippantly even named my pet betta fish after him back in '96, after spending time at Lisa's family's home, and subsequently I named this website after that fish. (I named all my betta fish "Steve" thereafter, and the longest-living one I'd had was about a year.) So in June, Lisa's father had invited me to attend a Bible study at their home, and Lisa was back home from Berkeley for the summer. Afterwards, he dropped a big hint that he'd like to have me marry Lisa by saying that she would make a good wife someday. I don't know if she heard this. For a long while, I had looked to him as a potential father-in-law. I loved spending time with not only Lisa but her family. I knew that Lisa would certainly make a good wife. Of course I knew it! But I think he (and probably Lisa too) were thinking that my long-distance relationship with Mayu wasn't serious and that it wouldn't work out. If so, they weren't the only ones. I'm sure he didn't mean anything hurtful by his comment; he obviously saw that I had a heart for God and that he knew that Lisa needed a good husband like me. Nevertheless, it put me in an uncomfortable position.

I believe it was that summer, after I had driven Steve home after an afternoon of fun, we were sitting in my car and before he went inside, he asked me how I felt about his sister. Maybe she had prompted him to ask me. I'll never know. All I know is that she was such a stellar girl, despite her eating disorders. She was a good Christian girl, and we'd been in the same kinship group for years together. Just being with her made me proud to know such a nice girl, and the attention she'd given me had helped me to break out of my shell. I told Steve that I could only be her friend because despite how much I liked her, our lives were heading in different directions. She was so kind, so it was natural that God placed a desire for her to go into medicine to help others. And God had placed Japan in my heart. There is no way that we could have been happy together without one of us giving up on his/her dream. And I knew it definitely would have been me to make that sacrifice.

It was this time when I really started to question where my heart was going. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, as the proverb says. I had given up on pursuing dear Lisa's heart long before then. What if I were to propose to Mayu and her parents forbade us to get married? By this time, I had heard stories of Japanese girls being disowned by their parents for marrying foreigners, and I later even met such couples. I had already told Mayu that the choice would be hers to love me or not, and if her parents were to ultimately reject our love, I would understand if she would respect their decision rather than risk losing their love. What if I were to lose Mayu? Lisa was so cool and pretty and kind, plus her family was great. I was bonding with Steve and I would have been happy for him to be my little brother-in-law. I felt better about Lisa's family than Mayu's, because after what her dad had hinted at, I definitely knew that I would've been welcome into Lisa's family, whereas I faced the possible scorn of Mayu's parents if they perceived me as stealing their daughter and taking her to America. What if I would give up on my dream to work in Japan, stay in Arizona, and make Lisa my happy bride? Oh crap. This is where I started to lose it. I really cannot remember if I had started crying in front of her brother Steve, or if it was after he went inside his house. All I do remember was that the tears in my eyes were making the road difficult to see as I drove home. Tears for dear Lisa were pouring from my eyes. Fortunately, her family's home was only a few miles south from my family's house. It hurt to think that I was passing up something good, in favor of a future that could possibly become disastrous. I was praying to God, "Please let me know if I am making a mistake and giving up on something good." But no. I wasn't doubting my love for Mayu, nor Mayu's love for me, but rather Mayu's ability to break free from her parents' selfish expectations. And I already had the opportunity to take Lisa's hand and not let go back in '96, and then again in '97 after she'd broken up with Jason and I thought I might still have another chance with her. But I didn't. I wasn't in love with her the way I was in love with Mayu, but I was breaking down crying in the car. I was crying because Lisa deserved to have a boy love her with the same intensity as I loved Mayu. I was crying because I knew that I was not the one who would provide her with that love. I was crying because I cared so much for her that I did not want her to be lonely and that she deserved love. I was crying because I was passing on what could have been another beautiful story of international romance, and that there was no going back. I was crying because this charming girl's kindness had lifted me out of a dreary cloud of loneliness and sadness, but I was unable to reciprocate and save her from her own problems. And I was crying because I was starting to realize that I had been making her sad, and possibly breaking her heart in the process.

I cannot remember if this incident was before or after Lisa's father had dropped the hint about Lisa making a good wife someday. But that summer I realized that my friendship with Lisa was pretty much over. I felt that I did not deserve to be her friend. I let it essentially end, but looking back I really wish I had not. I just did not feel comfortable being her friend at that point. I felt guilty and ashamed. It hurt me inside. As I wrote in the previous essay, Lisa deserved to be more than my backup plan. I was faced with the reality that I was hurting her. I wish that I could have just talked with her about the situation, but I didn't. I was a coward. I'd wanted to be friends with her forever, but now I felt like crap and I wanted to avoid her. I felt like such a jerk. In just a few short years, I had gone from thinking that I could never find any girl who would love me to finding myself caught in a love triangle. If in the summer of '96 I had learned that Lisa loved me, I would have been so happy. But here in the summer of '99, I felt terrible and guilty.

It just makes this point more tragic because I know that she made some poor decisions after this, and she was hurt from bad relationships. And again as I had mentioned in my previous essay, it was years later when I learned that while I was enjoying my mid-20s in a happy, young marriage, dear Lisa was physically abused in a bad relationship and my heart broke for her. It felt unfair, and I've often blamed myself for this over the years because if I had pledged to provide her a lifetime of happiness by marrying her that she would have been spared from such hurt. But rationally I know that she was responsible for making her own bad decisions. Girls fall for bad boys because they exude confidence, which was never one of my strong points. Maybe she was looking for that quality which I lacked. I felt like it was my fault. I've worried over Lisa for two decades as a result. It's because she will always be dear to me. I can never forget the friendship I had with her; the kindness she showed to me. And if she'd loved me as I not-so-secretly loved her, it makes Lisa even more special to me. Personality tests I've taken will show that aside from deep empathy I feel towards those I love, when I care deeply for such people, those friendships are eternal in my heart. She will always remain the second most important girl in my life, next to my wife.

Meanwhile that summer, Mayu's family situation was deteriorating. Her mom was having problems. The positive side to that summer was that after my crappy jury duty ended, I was free to stay at Nathan's place in San Diego for a couple of weeks. We attended the San Diego Comic Con together. I was then ready to begin my final semester of college and then finally graduate.

My final semester at ASU West was a breeze. One of my classes was a media class, in which I made a multimedia, interactive CD of photos of my trip to Japan in '98, set to piano music. In September, I applied for the JET Program in hopes of being hired as an ALT teaching English in Japan, which had been my dream since high school. I put Okaya as my top placement preference on the application, naturally. Sometime in October, I began making plans to visit Mayu after I graduated. Now this is something I am surprised that I did not commit to writing down in my journal, so I am not exactly sure when this transpired. But probably one evening in November with my young adult church kinship group, I believe I had said that I was planning to visit Japan again, after I graduated. Lisa's sister Tara asked me when I was planning to propose to Mayu. Lisa wasn't there, since I believe she was still in Berkeley attending school there. (I would've been shy about discussing marriage to Mayu if she had been there. Honestly, I always felt guilty about discussing Mayu around Lisa.) I gave a wishy-washy answer about wanting to get a job in Japan first, then take the time to court her for a while and then propose. The conversation went something like this (you've gotta imagine an Irish accent involved to make this work better in your mind):

Her: "Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to marry her?"
Me: "Well, no. She is a Christian, and we love each other very much. I know she is the one I want to marry."
Her: "And are you sure she wants to marry you?"
Me: "Yes, I am certain."
Her: "Well then what are you waiting for, lad? Lordy! Don't make the girl wait. Just propose to her already!"

December 1999. I graduated. Then my car died in a blaze of glory. My plan was to just take a fitness class so that I could remain technically a student at ASU West. That way I would be able to continue working my campus jobs and save up money for my inevitable life in Japan. I decided that without my car, I would just ride my bicycle to my jobs on campus. It was only a couple of miles away or so.

I took this picture of Mayu after I proposed.

Our date in Matsumoto.

During the week, Mayu's grandparents told her father that we wanted to get married. He was fine with it. Then on Wednesday, we had to discuss it with her mother. Oh God, it was not a pleasant evening. Her mom hated her own life, her own marriage, her in-laws, and regretted her marriage to Mayu's father. She warned Mayu that I was no different than any other man, and accused me of essentially being a traditionally Japanese man: unfeeling, inconsiderate, and selfish. She was projecting everything she hated about her husband onto me. Back then, my Japanese ability wasn't so good, but I could just hear the bitterness in her mom's voice. Mayu's father is the typical Japanese husband, and she figured that all men were like that. Everything was about her happiness, not her daughter's. She demanded that I live in Japan my entire life to make her happy, and I said that I could not promise that. I told her that once I am married to Mayu, my purpose in life will be to make her happy, not my parents. With that, she left the room and refused to speak. Mayu assured me that she will marry me, with or without her mother's approval. The next morning, Mayu and I affirmed our love for each other and vowed that it should be a happy time, not a sad time. She was nearly 23, and I was nearly 24. But from that point on, her mother began staying at her own parents' house. (She lived there until her mother finally passed away, over 10 years later.) Starting Thursday, I was alone without Mayu as she had work duties. I just stayed at home with her father, her sister Yukari, and her grandparents. I asked to see photographs of Mayu when she was a little girl. So cute! We went shopping and I got Mayu some gifts for an early Valentine's Day because I would have to return before the 14th.

Celebrating Valentine's Day early.

My plane ride home was not pleasant. I had Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama but I had a hard time reading it because my mind was just a maelstrom of thoughts, a yin and yang tumult of happiness for my new engagement with Mayu and bitterness towards her mother. I was unable to sleep at all on the plane ride back to America. Actually, just as I was finally dozing off towards the end of the flight, the obnoxious stewardess asked, "Would you like some wine?" and woke me up. I think I must've flashed her a hateful look. Landing in Los Angeles, it was rather warm, so I had taken off my gray sweater, leaving me with my black shirt, black pants, and black trench coat. Uh oh. Keep in mind that The Matrix had just been in the theaters not even a year prior to this, and with the whole Columbine shooting, people were rather sensitive about the whole black trenchcoat. So as I was exiting the plane, I was asked to step aside and I was questioned a bit. I told the man that I was just in a lousy mood because I had flown to Japan to propose to my girlfriend, only to be rejected by her mother. The guy was sympathetic and after they determined that I only had nerd crap in my suitcase and nothing dangerous, I was free to go.

In February, I had an interview for the JET Program to teach in Japan as an ALT in Tucson, Arizona. The interview didn't go well. It was a panel interview with people who thought so highly of themselves because they had taught English in Japan. Not at all like the JET recruiters I had met at social functions before, who all said that I would be perfect for the job. One guy who was originally supposed to interview me turned out to be someone I already knew, so they couldn't allow him to interview me. He told me that if I didn't get accepted, I could always try for the Phoenix Sister Cities ALT program. So that spring when I got my letter of rejection months later, I applied for the Phoenix program and got hired there. After a summer of goodbyes, I moved to Himeji in August.

I've already written about my experiences in Himeji in Greg's Life #10. I was a rather lousy ALT then and did not know what I was doing. I really sucked and all I wanted was just to experience Japan. It wasn't until the very last school I worked at that I began to appreciate the actual work I was doing rather than simply looking at it as a way to live in Japan. I did not develop a heart for teaching until after I worked for corporate America and was disillusioned. Anyhow, once a month I took the shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo, meet Mayu for the weekend as we stayed at the Yoyogi Youth Hostel. With the first floor for male guests and the second floor for female, Mayu's parents were pleased that there was nothing naughty going on. Mayu and I would have a date on Saturday, stay the night at the youth hostel, then attend service at the Tokorozawa Vineyard. After service, we would do pre-marital counseling with the pastor.

Mayu and I stayed at her family's house that fall to have a discussion with her parents about our future. Everything was about what they wanted for our marriage, with zero consideration as to what we wanted for our marriage. It was very troubling. As time went on however, especially after we were married, Mayu's mother began to soften her heart towards me. She could see how much I truly loved her daughter, and how wonderfully I treated her. She was happy for Mayu that she had found a boy who would love her so greatly. She was sad that she never experienced such love in her own marriage. And she was jealous too, because she was never treated as well as the way I treated her daughter. She could understand why so many Japanese girls, including her daughter, wanted to marry a Western boy who is romantic, freely expresses his love and adoration for her, and would put his wife before himself. It makes me sad that she has lived a life of such emptiness. All of the anger she displayed towards me after I proposed to Mayu was her fear and hurt that had tormented her heart for decades. Her heart was full of sadness and her two daughters were her only joy in life. I was taking her eldest daughter from her and she was scared. To this day, she still rejects God in her heart. She does not know true peace.

Christmas 2000 didn't feel like Christmas. It was my first Christmas away from my family. No tree. Nothing of the sort. I did spend the day with Mayu at her family's home though. We exchanged gifts and just spent the day talking, kissing and touching. Then she had to leave me there for a few days, and I was so bored out of my mind without her. Only her sister was there to help pass the time. I helped her with her English homework. On December 29th, Mayu and I flew to Arizona to spend some time with my family.

At church, we encountered Tara and her two younger brothers. I was happy to see them, but I noticed that Lisa was not with them. After all this time, I at least wanted to introduce her to Mayu. So I asked Tara, Where's Lisa? Her reply was, "You're too late for that, lad." ...Oh. I couldn't understand what she meant at first. It wasn't until later that I understood what she meant. It was too late for Lisa's heart. I think she knew all along that I loved her sister, and I'm pretty certain that Lisa loved me too, to some extent, at least. I think what Tara meant was that I now had Mayu, and it was too late to be thinking about Lisa. Tara is the one who motivated me to propose to Mayu, so she will always have our gratitude. (I dunno... maybe Tara just wanted me to hurry up and get rejected so that I could come back to Lisa? I'll never know.) That was the last time I ever saw Tara and her brothers. I cannot clearly recall the last time I ever saw Lisa. Perhaps, as I wrote before, it was that evening in Tara's back yard as we had sat around the pool. Nevertheless, I will always cherish dear Lisa's friendship, the wonderful times I spent with her, and how happy she made me. As I mentioned in the previous essay, both she and Mayu had rescued me from a dreary, overwhelming loneliness. Lisa's kindness healed my lonely heart and provided a precious female friendship I needed, which helped guide me to finding my inner peace. Of course marrying Mayu was my dream come true, but the sad part is that I had to relinquish my love for Lisa to do so. I've shed so many tears over Lisa because of this, just as I am now, as I write this. Lisa meant so much to me, but I will likely never see her again in my lifetime.

Although obviously Lisa is not the one whose hand I asked for in marriage, I pray that I will hold her hand someday in the sky, when we are all called to be with the Lord on that Final Day when our fates merge with eternity. On that day, we will all be reunited with an embrace... my mom who died in 2012, just weeks after we moved back to Japan... my friend Blake in Canada who was killed in a head-on collision on Christmas Eve of 2012, leaving his precious, adorable 2 year old daughter Hinako behind with a broken arm and only fragments of memories of her father who loved her more than anything... and my own child who died after only four weeks of life in Mayu's womb in 2016. I had decided that if a girl, I would have named her Violet. Oh God, we wanted another daughter so badly! I miss her so much, and I never even knew her! I will hold them all in my arms and celebrate at our reunion in the ethereal with our Savior. And on that day, I will hold Lisa's hand high and thank her for being my precious friend for those college years I knew her, and the healing she provided for my lonely soul.

On Monday January 1st, We had an open house party for Mayu, which was essentially just a party for friends and family to meet Mayu. There were people I hadn't seen in a long time, and I think many people I never saw again since. My cousins were there from my dad's side of the family, and that was the last time I ever saw them. Even my crazy, shut-in grandparents from Mom's side of the family came. My friend Galen was there, too. We had a wonderful time, and Mayu was the center of attention and everyone's adoration. She was like a princess that day, and everyone loved her and showered her with affection. It was a beautiful day.

The next day, We bought a wedding dress at David's Bridal store because it was actually cheaper to just buy a wedding dress in America than to rent one in Japan! Mayu fell in love with the first dress she picked out. I didn't get to see her wearing the dress, because as tradition goes it is to be a surprise for the groom to see his bride wearing her wedding dress on the day of the wedding, not before. We even drove up to Prescott to visit my grandfather on Dad's side of the family in the VA hospital there. My grandfather's eyes lit up when he saw Mayu. "Ooh, she's pretty," he said. He was infatuated with her! Grandpa was a tank mechanic under Patton during the invasion of France in World War II. So many stories he had told. He made it through the war, dodging Nazi bullets while repairing tanks, only to find out that his pistol wouldn't fire after he was discharged from service. By the grace of God, he'd made it through the war without having to use it; without having to take another man's life. He didn't know at what point the gun had stopped working! German tanks were vastly superior, and Grandpa told stories of night raids to steal gas from the Germans. Once Germany lost North Africa, it was a war of attrition and without gas, those unrivaled German tanks were rendered useless. I wished I had known him better. Grandpa was so excited to have such a pretty Japanese girl marry into his family. He said that Mayu was "a real doll," and I am glad that he got to meet her before he died.

There isn't much else to say after this. It was just pre-marital counseling and wedding preparations until the big day. We were married March 24th, 2001 in Tokorozawa. I wrote about all of this a long time ago in Greg's Life #11: Greg gets married. I'd had the idea of turning our wedding ceremony into a puppet show. But although we had a Kermit the Frog puppet, we didn't have a Ms. Piggy puppet, so we just had a normal wedding after all.

Reflection on a match made in heaven
Being randomly matched together via the pen pal service with Mayu was like winning a global lottery. It's the quintessential story of serendipity. I tell people of how my wife and I had met through being pen pals and the story is so incredible to them. There is no way possible for two random hearts to have connected across the ocean the way we did, if it was not for the ALC correspondence program. After we were married, Mayu wrote a thank-you letter to ALC to tell them how we were married thanks to their service. We never received an acknowledgment, unfortunately.

Mayu and I met at a time just before the internet exploded in popularity. Mayu and I exchanged letters in an analog age of when we hand-wrote letters, pouring our hearts out with pen and paper, then sending our letters in the mail, waiting for the delivery to take about a week, and then waiting at least one more week to receive a response. It was a time before there was Skype to vidchat with each other. So about the same time I proposed to Mayu in January 2000, Mayu finally did get internet access with her own email. Although we emailed each other for that half year until I moved to Japan that August, we still wrote hand-written email, swearing our love to each other with pen and paper.

People have tried to emulate our story, believe me. There was a guy in San Diego who thought he'd fallen in love with Mayu's sister Yukari, and would send her jibungous textwall email letters on a daily basis that she struggled to translate each night with her lower English level. The guy even flew to Japan to sit at the Jonathan's restaurant she was waitressing at just to gaze at her, but came across more like a creepy stalker. When she couldn't respond to his long-ass emails with the efficiency he expected from her, he grew impatient and told her off. Then later he emailed me and groveled in apology. What a turdbasket. I did not reply. That relationship, obviously, did not work out.

Mom wrote this on the back of this photo: My favorite picture of a very pretty and happy Mayumi wading in Oak Creek, Sedona, AZ. August 2001. Mom loved Mayu so much. I miss you, Mom. Rest in peace. (Click to enlarge.)

I could have been matched with anybody. I wonder how much thought was put into matching me with Mayu? Was it an ALC employee or a computer? Again, I was not looking for love. I was just hoping that I would have been matched with a Japanese guy with whom I could talk about Macross and video games. But when it turned out that it was a charming girl, I was so excited. And believe me when I said that the first time I saw her picture, I had the idea that she would be the girl I would marry someday. As far-fetched and ridiculous as it seemed to me, I had the idea in the back of my mind that I would someday fall in love with Mayu and marry her. I would try not to get my hopes up, but I still had this idea and I carried it with me in my heart. Meanwhile, all along, Mayu was thinking of someday marrying me, too. And she was more convinced of it earlier than I was.

It must have been God's providence. I've gone through my journals I kept as well as the letters we exchanged to write this essay. I can see how God had His hand on our lives, steering us towards each other. God took a shy boy with no confidence like me and gave me the courage to do what most people could hardly even think to do. At the most, people might come to work in Japan for a year, then return to their home countries and not look back. Both interracial and international marriages can be difficult. I could have stayed in America, married a girl there and have her parents immediately love me. Looking back, there was such an exact situation to tempt me. Love can be difficult, and my marriage has certainly had its share of heart aches. But soon we'll celebrate our 22nd anniversary, all thanks to Mayu writing me a simple letter of introduction 28 years ago.

It's amazing what can happen just from simply writing letters to someone overseas and how it can affect one's life. My mom told me that she once had a pen pal in Japan for a while, back in the '50s or so. While Mayu was my only pen pal, she had a few. We actually got to meet another pen pal of hers, a Taiwanese woman named Louisa who lived in Australia for a while, teaching Japanese language. She visited us in Japan once, close to 20 years ago.

Not many American guys can say that their wife has an Ultraman kaiju sofubi figure collection, but I can. She has an insane collection of officially licensed Mr. Bean Teddy Bears too. She loves Chucky the killer doll, the Back to the Future trilogy, and the Indiana Jones trilogy. (Yes, I said trilogy, so shut up.) There are things I've never done with Mayu that I had with other girls. Mayu has never really appreciated a sensual slow dance because it's just not her culture. I've never once seen her in a bathing suit, unforunately. She may never understand why listening to Joy Division is cool, nor understand most of the jokes in Mystery Science Theater 3000, but over the years we have become inseparable. Just as the Bible says, "the two shall become one flesh." We've set out to experience new things together. We've grown to love spicy foods together, which neither of us really cared for before we met each other. Many other different foods as well. We've explored places in both Japan and America that neither of us had ever visited before. Mayu is the one who encouraged me to get back into the plastic modeling hobby when she came home with an AMT Imperial AT-AT from Star Wars and asked me to build her a "doggy horse" because she knew I had once built models like that. We've watched anime together and have just shared so many beautiful experiences together. Like just driving country roads in Japan without knowing or caring where we were going. Like when we were newlyweds, we'd go up to the top floor of our apartment building and blow bubbles to see if they'd land on the passing cars, or how we'd chase each other around that building with squirt guns. Or just lying in bed together as the sunlight filtered through the tree outside and through the blinds of the window, the breeze causing the leaves' shadows to dance across us as we lay embraced, the sound of birdsongs and passing cars coming in through the window, lulling us to sleep on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Just simple, beautiful moments like that. Sure, she has never been keen on video games, but I still married a girl who encouraged me to enjoy my nerdy hobbies and has even participated in them with me.

Mayu built a Gundam model together with me as well as some other kits. She was pregnant with Ulan at the time.

And above all else, Mayu is a crazy girl with a goofy sense of humor. You might not know it from looking at her. In high school when I was smitten with that girl Denise, I had written in my journal that I wanted the girl I'd marry someday to act crazy and have fun with. I've told Mayu many times that the number one reason why I married her was because she has a Kermit the Frog puppet. I mean, they weren't that easy to find at the time, and I figured that if I married her then it would be my puppet too. Good thing we'll never divorce, lest Kermit be entwined in a vicious custody battle.

Till death do us part. And when I die, I want my body shot out of a cannon. Maybe fire me through a hoop on fire or something. That'd be pretty cool, I think. A helmet wouldn't be necessary either because I'd be dead, and that would save some money on the arrangements too.

And I should point out that, in case you are wondering, I get along very well with my mother-in-law. We call her "Kan-chan." She always thought I was cute and she knew that I loved her daughter, but she was going through a bit of a mid-life crisis at the time, and the reality of "losing" her daughter really hit her hard at a time when she was anguishing over her own life. Over the years, I've really bonded with her, and she loves Lord of the Rings and all sorts of neat stuff.

Next: more thoughts on interracial marriage

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Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your path straight. ---Proverbs 3:5&6

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