Friday, October 29, 1999

Chance meeting at museum leads to journey to Japan

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BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        A chance encounter. That's all it was. On a Saturday four years ago, Michael Connelly was on vacation from his job as stock clerk at the Mariemont Kroger. Wandering through the Cincinnati Art Museum, he saw two young Japanese women viewing a 17th-century scroll inscribed with scenes from the life of Buddha.

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        He struck up a conversation with the visitors, who spoke English. Within a few minutes Mr. Connelly was leading them through the museum.

        “The next thing I know, we're walking around Mount Adams. We stopped at the UDF and got ice cream. We're sitting there, and they're asking me all sorts of questions. And one of them says, "When are you coming to Japan?' ”

        An embarrassing silence followed. Then one of the women said, “Someday, right?”

        “Yes, someday,” replied Mr. Connelly, who is now 33, single, and lives in Madisonville.

        Before parting company, they exchanged addresses. And that, Mr. Connelly thought, was that.

        About a month later, he received a letter, postmarked Tokyo. It was from Aya Isobe, one of his new friends. Soon, another letter came, from Mari Hirata in Osaka. Both are office workers, and both received responses from Mr. Connelly.

        In the following months and years, they exchanged more letters. Also birthday cards, Christmas greetings, e-mails and an occasional telephone call.

        And Mr. Connelly began to think “someday” might not be so far off.

        “The more I talked about it, and the more they said, "Come and visit,' I thought, why not?”

        Last May, he began taking Japanese language lessons at the Conversa Language Center in Blue Ash. His teacher, Kiyomi Matsudo, was encouraging when Mr. Connelly talked about a possible trip to Japan.

        Soon after, Mr. Connelly joined the Japan Society of Greater Cincinnati.

        Meanwhile, in anticipation of “someday,” he had been saving money. Then in the spring, he began checking with travel agencies, gathering maps, researching air fares.

        “I was very nervous about it, because I didn't know if it all was going to happen,” he says.

        You've probably guessed by now: It did happen. On Sept. 22, Mr. Connelly flew from Cincinnati to Atlanta, and then from Atlanta to Tokyo, a 13-hour flight.

        When he set foot on Japanese soil, he was ecstatic. Also, severely jet-lagged.

        His first morning in Tokyo, he was sitting cross-legged on the floor of Aya Isobe's apartment as she got ready for work. Things started shaking.

        “Oh,” she said nonchalantly, “it's an earthquake.”

        Mr. Connelly rushed to a doorway, but there was no need for concern. His long-anticipated visit did not come crashing down around him. The tremor was minor.

        He spent two weeks in Japan. His friends Aya and Mari showed him around when they could. But they were working, so he had plenty of time to explore on his own.

        He traveled the country by rail. He visited Osaka's castle, Nara's temple, Hiroshima's Peace Park. The park, built where an atomic bomb exploded over the city in 1945, stunned him emotionally. He was almost in tears when he left.

        He also stopped in Nagasaki and met Kate Frei, an English teacher and the daughter of one of his Kroger customers. She had written him before he left Cincinnati and said she would welcome a visit.

        Over the course of his two weeks, he made plenty of new friends. He's keeping in touch with several of them.

        His favorite souvenirs were given to him by strangers. One is a small fan; another, a towel a woman took from her bag and handed him when he spilled juice. She insisted he keep it.

        The trip, he says, was “better than I expected. People were very helpful. Their generosity was amazing.”

        He has extended an invitation to Mari and Aya to make a return visit to Cincinnati, so he can treat them with the same kindness he experienced.

        Will it happen? Mr. Connelly hopes it does, someday.

       

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