Two worlds - one family

"Would you like to have a cup of milk?", – young smiling women asked.
I gazed at her with no clue what was she saying. I was four years old. A blonde Russian child, speaking only Russian. Looking at the head of Japanese kinder garden in Tokyo. My dad sat by me. Russian too. But he knew the language.
"She asks, if you would like some milk, sweetie", - dad translated quietly, bending towards me.
Some milk didn't sound bad. I nodded.
And by that sign I pulled the invisible trigger of a starting gun. Thus my own little big journey through Japan began.
For three years as a pupil of an ordinary kinder garden.
As the only foreigner in it.

The brightest memory I’ve had from that day was the silence, suddenly breaking on the cantina, as I entered. All children gazing at me with a sight of panic in their eyes. Panic was my feeling too.

Yet despite that fear there was something else. A curiosity. Barely perceived tremble deep in the heart at first, but growing day by day, as I tried to enter the world of unknown. Traditions, customs - all was new to me. I had a poor idea of what was going on around, but I was thrilled to bits to become a part of it.
Language barrier was the biggest challenge.
Gestures were my only way to communicate. I worried that no one would want to have anything in common with a "weird kid". But for my big surprise people around didn’t push me away. In fact from the very first day they were trying to help. Teachers mostly at first. They explained me words with pictures, sounds. The showed me around, they explained me about food, about rules.
“Umai, umai”, - they used to say, when I was good at saying words or doing things. Always smiling.

In two months I managed to get a first friend. It seemed that all this time kids were discovering me the same way I was discovering the world around. Carefully, step by step we brought our two so different worlds closer. They’ve shown me how to catch noodle flowing through a cut bamboo stem on a fair day. How to throw beans on the street to scare evil spirits away. How to see a silhouette of rabbit cooking omoti on a full moon. How to use my Nintendo.
I told them about Russian winters. About children playing in snow in minus 30. They laughed and never believed me.
On the last day at my kinder garden parents told me that we had to leave Japan. On the farewell party my friend Uko made me a picture. “Come back soon” it was said on the back.
I nodded. I would. I knew that I would.