When I decided to drop 20 pounds, my NY friends balked. But in Japan, I discovered a truer relationship to my body
I decided I had to lose weight on a research trip to Japan for National Geographic. After posing for a picture with a post-tsunami cleanup crew in northeastern Japan, I was immediately given a print of the picture as a keepsake. There I was, smiling broadly, and looking enthusiastic. I was also, to my eyes, enormous.
No one in Japan ever told me I was fat. Instead, relatives — my mother is Japanese — would say things to me like, “Wow. You are starting to look like your father, aren’t you!” Obesity, just so you know, is one of the major factors that contributed to my American father’s death.
My Japanese cousin asked me, “Are you considered large in America?”
“Small to medium,” I said.
“Oh. So I would be minuscule over there.”
“Yes. Very, very small.”
“It’s best to stay in one’s own country, isn’t it?”
My cousin’s comment initially struck me as the kind of naive thing a homebody might say to an inveterate international traveler. But now I take her words at face value. She meant that she ought to stay home to avoid what had happened to me.