A community of stories: Making space for reflection and dialogue in Tokyo and beyond

Japan Times

24-03-2025

Growing up in Japan, I was always treated differently because of how I looked: Curly hair, freckles and English conversations with my mom at the grocery store set me apart from the crowd. I tried to convince myself that the reason I felt othered was because I was too sensitive, and had nothing to do with how people treated me.
Recently, I hopped into a cab from Shibuya with my non-Japanese friend. While chatting in English with my friend in the backseat, I directed our driver in perfectly detailed Japanese.
'Your Japanese is really good,' the driver told me when we were paying. 'Better than a Japanese person.'
'Oh, I am Japanese, so...'
'Oh, you are?' he said with a laugh. 'That makes sense. Sorry about that. Here's your receipt.' He sounded slightly embarrassed, but also somewhat vindicated — as if there was no way that a foreigner could speak such good Japanese, after all.
It's easy to feel alone when you grow up in a country that prizes conformity. A hāfu (mixed-race Japanese person) is just another protruding nail that needs to be hammered down. There were times when I calibrated myself according to my environment ー not for the sake of pleasing other people but to make myself feel like I belonged.
It wasn't until my late 20s that I found myself craving opportunities to talk honestly about uncomfortable topics and to share thoughtful views on them, a place where I could examine myself and my surroundings with a critical lens.
I felt as though a weight was lifted when I finally discovered an outlet and support network through my interactions with travelers, writers and storytellers in Astray.
Finding tenderness through dialogue
I wrote confessional essays on Blogger throughout my early 20s. I didn't have an audience, but I relished writing about my love stories and life experiences. My writing voice felt authoritative, compared to the lack of confidence I had when I was younger — because standing out in Japan always gave people the opportunity to judge me.
Writing to me was an escape and gave me freedom to create an ideal self. Meanwhile, I was working in full-time jobs unrelated to writing, but I always thought that there was something bigger for me out there: a purpose, a creatively fulfilling life — I believed that there were other ways to tell my story.
It was serendipitous to meet Gemma Clarke in the summer of 2018 and learn about Astray at a time when I desired a seat at the table with like-minded people. A friend introduced us at a Spanish tapas bar in Tokyo. I was in my salarywoman attire and she was drinking a musky red wine. I remember how she lit up when I told her I write for fun. She eventually invited me to teach in the Tokyo-based workshop.
Astray is a storytelling project 'centered on travel, community, identity and liberation' founded by Clarke, now 34, an Australian based in New York who currently runs the writing workshops exclusively in Japan twice a year. The program also offers the workshop participants an opportunity to submit and publish their creative nonfiction online. The workshops are currently hosted in the Bakuro-yokoyama branch of Midori.so, a coworking and community space, while additional foraging and cooking classes take place in Takigahara, Ishikawa Prefecture.
Since the first workshop in 2015 in Bali, Indonesia, Astray has grown to host nearly 30 students in each session. Over the course of four weeks, a team of editors, writers, poets and academics hold daily seminars on how to write well and ethically, pitch to editors and publish via Substack, zines and other platforms. The students, who range in age from 18 to 40-something, also learn Japanese language with the woman-founded language school KM Global Language Academy and stay with local families in Tokyo. The foraging and seasonal cooking classes educate participants about nature, resources and food in regional Japan.
Astray is the brainchild of Gemma Clarke, an Australian based in New York, and is built on themes of 'travel, community, identity and liberation.' |
Freja Cuddington
Clarke has always been interested in travel and migration stories, how encounters with different cultures lead to other movements and changes in people's lives. She was already weary of the harmful travel writing narratives that are presented by a certain group of people, mostly white writers who have little tangible experience in the places they travel. Astray was founded under the principle that diversity of all kinds is critical, and Clarke has dedicated the project to nurturing nonfiction stories by writers who build real connections to a place and its people.
The first writing workshop in Bali exceeded her expectations. Since then, Astray's classes have developed around not only travel writing and a sense of place but participants' relationships to their own identities and cultures: The course provides an opportunity to reflect on oneself.
After being a part of the Astray community for a year, I've started to revisit my relationship with Japan with more tenderness. I'd long felt ostracized in Japan and, as a result, grappled with feelings of resentment. Through Astray, I met other hāfu students who grew up in other countries and never had a relationship with their Japanese side. They are curious and committed, talking to people, asking questions and going beyond their comfort zones with an open heart to seek answers. I find their exploration admirable, and it reminds me to set aside my grievances where possible, to continue to be curious and open.
An antidote to overtourism
Astray isn't your typical writer's retreat where most participants work in solitude; it's much more interactive and people-oriented. The classroom is a beautiful example of people showing up for each other no matter their gender, age, physical ability, neurodiversity, financial background or political beliefs.
Perhaps a workshop setting like Astray is the antidote to overtourism — providing a more responsible and deliberate experience than what the majority of travelers flocking to Japan are looking for. The participants yearn for real connection, the offline kind that entails taking care of and learning from each other. This winter, after a heavy topical conversation, we ended the class with a grounding exercise by having the students write down on a Post-it what they are hopeful for. One student wrote, 'All of you.'
I came to understand that community doesn't necessarily mean where you are, but who you choose to bond with.
The Astray writing workshop was held in the Bakuro-yokoyama location of the community space Midori.so. |
Thanatira Sabmeethavorn
I've been consumed by the thought of wanting to fit in for the longest time. In response to being constantly challenged by society for not fitting in the template, I've tried to be not just fluent but eloquent when speaking Japanese. I try my best with certain etiquette to be considered a sensible Japanese person. But over the years, I realized that convincing others wasn't the point — I had to surround myself with people who took me as I am.
I used to think that there was only one way to be Japanese. There was only one way to look, to speak and to act. I was sitting in discomfort with this because while I wanted to fit in so badly, I knew that I would never perhaps be like the rest. But through my engagement with a writing community like this, I've slowly come to the realization that the thing we fear the most — to be different — is what glues us all together.
Every class I join is a moment to reflect. I reflect on the times I felt alone and why it bothered me; I reflect on the times I was heartbroken; I reflect on my childhood that shaped who I am today. Through this process of reflection, alongside many others doing the same, we create a place from the ground up that gives ourselves somewhere to belong.