My Japanese grandma is eighty-four and still rides her bike, even though we tell her she really better not. She cycles even though it takes her just as long to bike as it does to walk. I’ve stood on her front steps and called out ‘kiotsukete ne‘ (be careful) only for it to land on her hunched back as her head floats down the road and disappears. 

The last time I saw her was three weeks ago. Before that, I saw her five years ago and the time before that, it was a week before my tenth birthday. She has always lived in Japan and when I saw her most recently she wasn’t sure who was who out of my sister and I.  We don’t speak Japanese well and she can’t speak English at all. So what does it matter who is my sister and who I am when we can both only manage a child-like level of communication. Everyday we’d ask her ‘kiyowa nanioshimashitaka?’ (what did you do today?) and when she replied we’d look wide-eyed to our mother to translate her answer. My sister might as well be me and I might as well be her and then we might as well switch every other day because our lack of language prevents it from making any difference. My relationship with my grandma is made of pointing, wild hand gestures and exaggerated, open-mouthed looks of surprise. One evening, we were out eating sushi at a soshiro (sushi on the track). She was trying to tell us about the last time she had been to England which she did by pushing her hands out explosively in front of her crotch and saying ‘Hanachan out’; by which we understood that the last time she had been in England was when I was born.

When she was younger she was a hairdresser and now her hair has lost its natural colour and she dyes it lilac. Done evenly by aged but professional hands, it doesn’t look bad at all. She doesn’t seem to have dementia. She speaks across the dining room table in clear, quick bursts of Japanese that my mum understands easily. They sit and laugh together and I wonder which one of them made the joke; maybe my grandma is funny. She always has the TV on, even when she is sleeping. There’s a TV in every room and through each doorway voices fill the walls. My grandfather died about seven years ago, and all the TVs make me wonder if she’s lonely in her wooden, low-ceilinged house. Perhaps the voices make her world feel bigger. My grandfather was paralysed on the whole left side of his body. As a young girl I would watch her sit at the foot of his wheelchair and stretch out each of his legs as he screamed for her to stop.

She has a daughter, my mother, and a son, my uncle. She has four grandchildren; my sister and I and our two cousins who live in Kyoto. She sleeps with the top of her pyjamas tucked into her bottoms. She has Yakult delivered to her door every week so I imagine she has great gut health. She has a patio covered in lush potted plants that she looks after militantly. She enjoys gardening but can’t bend all the way down to the ground anymore. She likes eating chips and pronounces it ‘chipusu’. 

That’s about all I know about my Japanese grandma. I wonder if she’s lonely. I wonder if she finds being old difficult. I wonder if it’s better for her that she doesn’t have to stretch out her husband’s legs anymore. I wonder if she misses being a hairdresser. I wonder when will be the last time she will ride her bike. I wonder if she would like to come to England again, although she’s too old to make the long flight. I wonder if next time she’ll know the difference between my sister and I; not that it matters. I wonder if she is annoyed at my mother for not teaching us her language. I wonder if she likes me. Despite not knowing her, I love her very much and I hope she’s okay all alone so far away. From being with her so little and being able to speak to her so little, these are probably things I will never find out.

Subscribe now to get exclusive content delivered directly to your inbox!