Dusk was descending when we reached Tokyo. The moment I spotted Tokyo Tower drenched in rain, my previous imagination about this country became true. My a priori impressions of Japan came from artworks by Japanese masters: a black train traversing the endless snowy wilderness as described by novelist Yasunari Kawabata, a bay window with a white curtain in a film directed by filmmaker Shunji Iwai, a melancholy but warm summer romanticized in a piano melody composed by Joe Hisaishi. When I was in Japan, I witnessed the extraordinary in the ordinary.

During our brief stay in Tokyo, I loved visiting convenience shops whenever I had time to spare. These small shops touched my heart. They were like lamps that keep penetrating darkness around. Such a small space gave me a subtle sense of warmth and comfort. In this sense, Tokyo resembles other megacities. The presence of these small shops testifies to a life of hustle and bustle and suggests a full range of engagements and activities. Tokyo, a city of small convenience shops, looked both amicable and unknown.

My impressions of Shizuoka, a prefecture twinned with Zhejiang as a sister province many years ago, were fragmentary. They were all from the books I had read and films I had watched. For example, The Dancing Girl of Izu by Yasunari Kawabata is set in Shizuoka and it is the birthplace of Momoko Sakura, a young girl in a famous manga series. The visit to Shizuoka fleshed out my impressions: we saw the Mount Fuji from afar; we heard an urban legend about dreaming of the mount and good luck at the beginning of a year explained to us on the bus; we visited Shiraito Waterfall flanked by trees in reds; we visited two gardens in Kakegawa City.

At the Mount Fuji World Heritage Center, the guide asked us a rhetorical question: why is Mount Fuji a world heritage site? The answer is neither the physical mount nor the landscape. We learned that Mount Fuji is a unique cultural symbol that signifies Japan in many ways. Fortunately, we had many opportunities to see the mount from afar. In Tokyo, we cheered when first spotting Fuji above the city’s skyline. We directed our phone cameras at the mount on our bus tour to Shizuoka. We marveled at the sight of the mount on our flights to and from Tokyo.

It was in Shizuoka that we each planted a pine sapling that belongs to respective individuals. The bus stopped at a spot on the shoreline. The stop was unscheduled. We climbed onto a tall seawall and took a panoramic view of the sea. It was a winter day, but the sea did not look cold thanks to the subtropical monsoon climate. Someone was surfing. Listening to the waves, I felt peace and serenity which I had never felt so intimately and closely before.

There were many emotional moments in my visit to Japan, especially when I waved goodbye to friends I had just met. We had a class with Japanese students on the campus of Juntendo University and had lunch with them after the class; we planted pine saplings at the shelter forest on a shoreline of Shizuoka and said our prayer for peace and prosperity; we chatted with Japanese college students; shop assistants waved goodbye to us.

Just the other day, I watched a video by a delegation member about our journey in Japan quietly on the campus of our university in Jinhua. The video is titled Seeing You is a Miracle. My tears welled up. I am grateful for the journey because I met so many friends. Such an experience is a gift of life. Some memories have become clearer and dearer since the end of the visit several months ago.