Ichi-go Ichi-E
Over the past week, I had the chance to visit Ebisu more often. Us, students were preparing for an exhibition, to summarise the work of our seminar. From ever rarely going to Ebisu, a short week of routined commute emerged. It did not take long before I remembered the different routes to the gallery where the exhibition took place.
I dragged my feet as I climbed up the slopes, my tote bag loaded with tools and paperboards. It’s still early in the morning, so restaurants were still closed for preparation. The sunny weather brightened the seemingly abandoned streets, mismatched with the array of cones that littered the sidewalks. The route to the gallery gave me a new insight of Ebisu, one different from the overly ornate Ebisu Garden Place, or office laden streets with men and women dressed in suits. It became something that I look forward to every time before I reach the gallery. Once I’m inside, the work began downstairs. Without any windows, it became effortless to lose track of time — sounds of people hammering nails into the walls, murmuring discussions over a random playlist., sometimes shouts across the room as one adjusts the alignment of the posters. By the time I climbed back up the stairs, the sun had set.
In the exhibition, I presented my graduation project that I have been working on over the past six months. Since coming to Japan in 2016, I have been more conscious of the different encounters I make, including the relationships built and broken over the past four years of being abroad by myself. Within these, were partings with individuals I was close to back at home. They were people who I knew from my childhood. However, these were partings that only left a short lingering of emptiness, before they were quickly replaced by another person who takes upon their role.
But looking back, I do not have any physical remnants of their existence. It was as if they have never existed but in the clouds of memories in my head.
It was difficult to express these kinds of feelings into words. Sometimes, I would end up questioning myself to the visitors, wishfully thinking for a hint. Ending my explanation about my project, I would habitually say,
“I still wonder what this means to me.” and the conversation ends in deep thought.
It was almost the end of Day 2 of the exhibition. The song “Hotaru no Hikari” hummed in the background, a song frequently used in Japan to signal a place’s closing. Yet, many visitors paid no attention and showed no signs of leaving.
A man came with a lady. Arms encircled in one another. He has made his round, and it seems like my little corner is his last stop.
After I finished my explanation, he asked:
“Do you know Ichi-go Ichi-e?”
For a moment, I couldn’t catch his words right — the buzz within the room, the tiredness slowly crept from my legs to my head.
“Ichi-go Ichi-e?”
I grabbed for my notepad and scratched the words in Hiragana with the last drops of ink of my dying pen. Eventually, I handed him the notebook, and he wrote 4 Japanese letters with careful intention. He proceeded to explain the meaning of this phrase.
“It’s a Japanese proverb. Ichi-go means ‘one time,’ Ichi-E means ‘one encounter.’ Just like you and me, the moment I leave this gallery, we might never meet again in the future. Yet, to have this conversation at this moment is what defines our relationship. I think this might be the same for your project. The people who came, who stayed, and who had left you in those different stages of your life.”
Ichi-go Ichi-e cannot directly translate into English or Thai. It is a term that is used in tea ceremony, signifying the importance of the tea master to pay uttermost attention to attending the guests. In return, the guests also savor the moments of having tea prepared for them, reflecting on the impermanence of life.
The phrase strongly implies ‘to treasure the present moment with those surrounding you because they may not happen again’. However, to me, the phrase suggests more than just an irreplaceable moment, but also a collection of elements that pile on top of one another. It is not only the person you meet that is fleeting, but also the place, time, light, circumstances, and mood. All these different factors combine to create the encounter that is, in its way, one and only. Some of them soon disappear, like those who left no traces. Others leave a strong impression, and perhaps influence the choices we make in our everyday lives.
Through this experience of being part of the exhibition, I got to interact with all sorts of individuals. I shared myself, my family, my research with ease, despite the possibility of never meeting these people again in the future. I am not certain whether I will still remember these encounters in many years, but these encounters sure had made an impact on me and the choices I make from now on.
