They were best friends, then pen pals — until one day, the letters stopped coming | Finding Fukue

JESS: When I was nine, my parents got jobs teaching English and moved us all to Japan for a year. I was a blonde kid, and that made me interesting to all the Japanese because

they

had never seen a blonde-haired person before. (plays piano) JESS: They pointed at me or my sister,

they

touched my hair, they talked to me. I still didn't understand anything. JESS: The day after we arrived I went to school for the first time and it was crazy. JESS: I didn't feel like anyone was interested in getting to know me, except for one person and his name was Fukue, and we became

best

friends

.

JESS: She was very curious about me and that made me very curious about her because she was very different from the others. We walked along dirt roads, exploring the small sanctuaries. We would find frogs in the rice fields. JESS: She was the closest friend she had and she was a beautiful and creative human. After a year in Japan, my family returned to Vancouver. Fukue and I became pen

pals

immediately. And

then

, suddenly, I

stopped

hearing from him. At that time, she was simply asking me if something was stopping her from writing to me or if she left it of her own free will.

JESS: Fukue was my surrogate family at school and I protected her from bullies. Now that we were separated, I was afraid that the bullying had started again. JESS: Years later, when I became a professional musician, I reconnected with koto and it made me think a lot about my time in Japan and Fukue. This song is called 'Lost Friends' and I hope one day to find it. (drum beats) JESS: Scarf. Guitar. Chord. JESS: So, I started looking up Fukue online. There was no record of her name, no social media accounts, no photos. Nothing. Deep down, I was always worried that something bad had happened to him.

So, I'm going back to Japan to see if I can try to find Fukue. The most important thing I can tell you is how much it meant to me, how much it affected my life and showed me some important lessons about humanity. I may not be able to keep track of anything current, but maybe Fukue is still out there. (accordion music) JESS: The place where we ended up living is a small town called Saku. That's why the Japanese refer to Saku as the boonies. Dirt roads, rice fields everywhere, small shrines... We were so outstanding as a family that they asked us to be the protagonists of an educational video to teach English to Japanese children.

But that was, of course, when Saku had absolutely no foreigners and was a small rural village. It is now a normal city of 100,000 people, so

finding

Fukue will be much more difficult than it would have been before. JESS: Wow, that's what it looked like, for sure. This is how everything looked. The first place I'll go is the school Fukue and I went to when we were kids. I have a meeting scheduled with the director and I'm really hoping he can give me some information that will lead us to

finding

her. JESS: The morning of the Halloween party, Fiona and I woke up at 6:10, put away our futon.

We made breakfast and ate it after we had prepared and carved the pumpkin. The children had begun to arrive. Ah Halloween! JESS: Halloween party too. JESS: So when Fukue and I played after school, she always came to my apartment. The only time I really came face to face with that thought was when I was formally invited to go to her house. When I arrived at the place, it was not a house at all; It was basically like a shack. It was poverty. JESS: I remember standing outside the house, not knowing what to do. Before anyone inside saw me, I ran back home.

Just realizing that my

best

friend lived in this kind of situation, and all the things I had heard, turning the corner at school and seeing the kids surrounding her, pointing at her and clearly saying something not nice even though I couldn't hear it. . JESS: What I saw that day has never left my mind. JESS: Is there anything else

coming

up here? I see Iwamurada. JESS: I still speak Japanese like a child, so I brought a translator and guide, Ryo, to help me. JESS: We're looking at the yearbook I picked up from school and it shows the name of each student's father.

So we looked that up online and found a record from the year 2000, which is 11 years later than our closest other record, so it's kind of an improvement. Even if he has passed away and his number is no longer listed, it is possible that his wife still lives there or perhaps his son lives there. Maybe she lives there. I think we should go to the personal residence address listed. RYO: 93 2-10. JESS: Oh. Here we go! It feels good to do detective work, exactly. It's kind of like my childhood dream. All my childhood dreams united in one trip!

JESS: Damn! This is definitely all new. RYO: According to the map, it's probably this house. JESS: Right. Like this. JESS: You know, we probably should have asked those women. JESS: Oh, really! Actually! Wow! JESS: I can't believe that when we got to City Hall there was a full press conference waiting for me. The most important thing about the press being here is that it gives me a lot of hope that we are really going to find Fukue. JESS: Mr. Fukue. I want to find you. (dramatic music) (cell phone rings) RYO: (speaking Japanese) JESS: Okay, great. RYO: (speaking Japanese) JESS: Yes, please.

JESS: So now we have to call her. JESS: I don't think I really thought this would happen. As expected, but... JESS: I always felt like I left Fukue behind, knowing that his life in Saku wasn't easy. She never told me anything about the hard things. She was much stronger for her age. JESS: She could be using her intelligence and her creativity and have a wonderful life. Maybe you have a family, maybe you have achieved all of your goals. But on the other hand, maybe she doesn't have a good life; That would be a crazy slap in the face of reality. (phone ringing) JESS: I was immediately excited when I came to this city because it only existed in my memory and imagination.

And

then

along with that came the idea that those times were a time that I could never access again and that the most important person to me at that time, of course, was Fukue. We got along very well again and with ease. It was so natural. It's just unreal. She has a stable job, a husband who loves her very much and two wonderful children. I think she loves her life and I think she has a wonderful life. I am very happy that even though she had to drop out of elementary school, she was able to get to where she is today.

It's like I definitely renewed my faith in things turning out the right way. JESS: Now that I'm back home, Fukue and I will keep in touch regularly, like we did when we were kids. She went through a very tough childhood and the fact that she is where she is, despite what she had to face, makes me very happy. (dramatic music)