Reading time: 1,5 hours

It’s a cold morning, or maybe I’m just very tired from how little I’ve slept. I feel the cold creeping under the sleeves of my jacket and I hear my mom behind me grilling me:

“Where did you put the extra money?”
“I have 20 dollars sewn into my jeans pocket.”
“Where are your documents?”
“In the checked luggage, mom, really, can you stop? Everyone is here, and you’re coddling me as if I’m not going to the other side of the world!”

I hear the silence in the air, I’ve crossed a line. I look back and mom is crying in my aunt’s arms… She’s probably constantly thinking about withdrawing all her permission for me to go to Tokyo at 13 years old.

I hurry to reach the check-in, just so my parents don’t change their minds. They even brought Mr. Soare, a friend of my dad’s, the only one in the whole village of Vlașin who has ever been on a plane. They brought him because he knows the way things work and it’ll be fine; I have no idea what to expect or what’s next. I follow this man who walks in front of the group with my dad, explaining everything to him as if my dad is the one flying for the first time, not me.
Only Mr. Soare’s voice could be heard throughout the airport, the only thing that he was missing was a neon flag so we all knew where to go:

“Aaa, well Goguta (dad, short for Gheorghe), when Oana lands in Zurich, she’ll see, it’s different, it’s not like here! They have many terminals and dozens of boarding gates!”
“And will Oana manage without a drop of English?”
“What? Show the ticket at any counter like the one we were at earlier and she’ll surely get to Japan, don’t worry, Goguta.”

I am being docile, I don’t make any comments, I don’t look around, because I’m afraid panic will start to take over my mind. I have to change a plane in Zurich and I’m facing over 20 hours of flights and airports. I must not lose control.

The check-in is done, the enormous 32 kg luggage passed without any extra charges, I weighed it at home dozens of times. A shiver ran down my spine and I’m seriously thinking to leave the sheets from mom in Tokyo on the way back, I don’t want to spend any money on the return trip. I have a goal to maintain, I have to come back with 2000 dollars home, whatever it takes.

We go to passport control, me and my entourage of family, friends, and parents who keep blowing their noses as if they have some sort of allergy. Yes, they have an allergy to my departure for 3 months in Tokyo.

I pass through security and look back. I’ve left behind 2 parents broken by tears, fatigue, and worries, a sister who takes on their pain and doesn’t know whom to hug, an aunt who cries louder than mom, an uncle who judges his sister for what stupidity she did, a grandmother who doesn’t even want to look at my departure, Mr. Soare who sees me as an Elon Musk, and my 7th-grade classmates who kept me up all night talking.
Enough people for me to feel the pressure of success and the 2000 dollars my parents borrowed for this trip.

With the boarding passes in hand, passport, and a folder of documents held tightly, I head straight to the gate for Zurich. I was an hour too early, I take a seat and I don’t move until boarding, as if the airport or the gate would have moved if I did.

When boarding opened, I was the first, seat 17J, the plane half-empty. I follow the stewardess’s instructions for the first time in my life, following them as if there was going to be a test. Alright, I know what to do even if it crashes in the ocean or in the mountains.

The hours on the plane pass quickly, I look around, only business people, dressed accordingly, laptops, CD players, and headphones… I had never seen so many in one place, it was like being in an electronics store with salespeople in suits.

We landed in Zurich. WOW.

I had heard the word “terminal” before, the lady at the check-in in Bucharest mentioned it, and Mr. Soare said I had to change terminals in Zurich. I kept hoping someone would explain clearly what needed to be done, probably Mr. Soare explained it to my dad, I don’t remember the definition, and just as I expected, I really don’t know any English at all… Let’s see how I manage this.

Once I arrived at the terminal, I froze for about 5 minutes in the middle of it, shocked and amazed by the diversity of people. An African family passed by me in slippers and colourful traditional clothes, I see a Russian family with impeccable furs, and many people who seemed not to have checked the weather before leaving home.

It’s raining in Zurich, it’s gray, but this airport is a multinational enclave, languages, and colors so different that I start to taste and feel joy just because I get to see such a thing with my own eyes. I can’t wait to tell my folks, maybe I can call them when I land.

I look around, there are a lot of counters, I go to a counter, any counter, show my ticket and a nice, young man explains what the deal is with the terminal and that I have 6 more hours until my flight to Tokyo, Narita.

I head towards the terminal, showing my boarding ticket every 20 people just to make sure I’m on the right track, with continuous anxiety for about an hour during which I changed trains, kilometres of moving walkways, and a multitude of nationalities that I stared at with my mouth open.

All the seats in the terminal at any gate are occupied, I see some people sleeping on the floor, who knows since when. I lie down too but can’t fall asleep, panicked that I might miss the plane and the thought that I’d have to pay for the ticket myself terrifies me.

The remaining 4 hours are an exhausting delight, thoughts fly through my mind: how it’s going to be, how many degrees, I arrive at night, do these people have buses at night?

My thoughts are interrupted by an announcement that seemed to be just in my head: my flight had announced boarding, a flood of people heads to the gate, a multitude of people, dozens – hundreds, I don’t understand where we’re all going… through the window, I see the biggest plane I’ve ever seen, a metal whale that can’t possibly stay in the air, it said Airbus A380 – 800 on it, a humpback whale.

We board, I’m not lucky enough to sit on the upper deck, but does it make a difference? “You’re on a double-decker plane, oh what stories you’ll have to tell at home, Mr. Soare surely doesn’t know that such a thing exists, I’ve never heard him mention it.”

14 hours, that’s how long I stayed awake, eyes on the window and testing my English, 14 hours of questions, marvels, and stress.”

The stress brought me a first experience in my life; my body decided this was the most appropriate moment to become a woman, and my period made its first visit. But I haven’t talked to anyone about this, I don’t know what to do, I have nothing with me… why don’t I know anything about this? I feel a chronic fatigue, but I can’t close my eyes, as if, if I fell asleep, this plane would disappear and I would wake up back home.

I press the button with the little person symbol, and a lady comes in that absurd darkness and silence. I think it’s night here, in the sky and between time zones. I don’t even know what time it is in Romania. I can’t explain to the flight attendant what’s going on with me, I don’t know basic English, let alone medical terms, but I find some supplies in the bathroom which I use completely incorrectly, but still, somehow, I manage. If only they wouldn’t stick to my pants and rustle with every move.

After 13 hours of adrenaline, strange foods, and torturous silence, people wake up, open their window shades, and on my side of the plane, I see something magical. A white mountain peak, as if drawn, as if I know it from somewhere, a peak with a hole right in the middle, it looks like a huge ruptured boil on the earth. The captain announces that we can see Mount Fuji. I burst into tears of joy, I had heard of it, I knew it was a volcano, it was the first volcano I had ever seen. The plane circles around it, I fill my heart with that image, this serene mountain, appearing out of nowhere among the clouds, like a shogun of nature. I already sense their culture: it is grand, individual, clean, pure, but with a dangerous core, hot lava is at its heart.

We land, Narita, Tokyo, Japan. I encounter an even bigger airport than Zurich, starting to get an idea of the world and its magnitude. I live in an extremely small country, with a single terminal and 10 boarding gates.

At security control, something is wrong, very wrong. I see some border police with dogs coming towards me, I get scared. They try to explain in English, I understand nothing, I only hear:
“Papers! Papers! Visa! Visa!” a horde of small, agitated Japanese people shouting at me.

We don’t understand each other, I don’t burst into tears, I keep it all together and remember the folder with apparently useless documents in my checked luggage. I gesture towards the baggage claim area, and a procession of police and dogs follows me. I see my luggage and open it in front of them, moving aside my mom’s sheets, dad’s tailored outfits, and the absurdly large hairdryer for that luggage. I find the folder and hand it over!

Apparently, those documents were the most important, I manage to get through with my entertainer visa obtained through an important contact in Bucharest. I won’t say more, but I can say it’s an extremely well-known designer who got me this visa combination 😊. A visa that will later create massive problems for me, but until then…

I pull out the papers faxed by the agency in Tokyo, papers that simulated a hand-drawn map. What is clear is that I need to get to this Ana Hotel and then call the agency. It’s 11:00 PM, and the paper specifies some hours that seem to be in the morning, I start feeling a bit nauseous…

Signs everywhere for buses to Ana Hotel, I buy a ticket for 3 yen and get on one of them, hoping it’s the right one. A small Japanese man, very nice, helps me with the 32 kg of luggage. Tokyo is beautiful at night. I could say that Blade Runner was inspired from here, and I swear I could hear Vangelis in my ears. In the end, I did have a couple of tapes, besides the ones with Celine Dion, so Tokyo could sound like Vangelis or Celine Dion to me.

It’s midnight, and I haven’t slept for two days. I get off the bus and rush into the hotel to call the agency, but I have no money, only dollars, papers, and these phones work with coins or cards? What are these phones, they seem like public phones but indoors? I notice out of the corner of my eye a pink-faced, chubby, and slightly sweaty man watching me…

“Hey little lady, you need help?’
“Yes please!”
“You need coins, you have coins?”
“No.”
“Well, I have some coins for you, what can you offer me for them?”
“I have 20 dollars, sir.”

Then I realize that I don’t have my luggage with me. I leave the man, run through the hotel to the bus station and see that the bus is gone. I sit on the curb and cry, but in the usual Japanese vocalizations, a small man catches my attention. My luggage was at the reception, waiting for me. I calm down and return to what I think is an Englishman on a business trip, he’s still there, I was hoping he wouldn’t be.

He hands me a coin, and when I take it from his hand, he holds my hand for a moment, looking into my eyes. I feel a cold shiver down my spine and look around to see if there’s anyone else, just a few people at the distant bar and the reception. I snatch the coin, look for the paper with the phone number, it’s a short and strange number, 7505-1111. Something’s not working, the coin keeps falling back. They gave me the wrong number, are they crazy??? What do I do now?

I go to the reception, show the paper and the coin, and manage to make a call, someone answers:
“Musi musi!”
“Hello! I am Oana, Ana Hotel is!”
“OK OK OOOOaaaana, stay there don’t leave!”

I wait outside the hotel, next to my enormous luggage, as big as me and as heavy as two Oanas. I see a short Japanese man, with long hair and very agitated, coming towards me with a paper that says WANNA! I tell him I’m not WANNA, I’m OANA, to go somewhere else. He introduces himself again and insists I get into the car across the street, a minivan with tinted windows. I could never remember his name, I get in the car thinking it seems like the most normal thing for this guy to come get me here at 1:00 AM, seems like he knows something about me.

Under suspended bridges, over bridges, hills, and channels with blooming trees, we reach a hill in front of a thin building, with many floors, I think I counted about 21. We go up, and reach the 17th floor, my ears pop a little. On the 17th floor, a desk full of people awaits me, as if it’s 10 AM at the insurance office.

They measure my fingers, feet, bust, waist, hips, neck, between shoulders, everything you could imagine being measured that night was measured.

Finally, I dare to ask for the bathroom, not knowing how to handle being a woman, which I had just become. I was in bad shape, needed some advice in that direction. I hear from the bathroom that something’s wrong, a measurement wasn’t correct, they point at my belly and then in the air, signalling that IT’S NOT GOOD!

I got this far and apparently, my waist was too big, at 13 years old I was too big in the waist.

With anxiety, I dare to ask for a pad through some absurd signs and Rom-English explanations, then I see the whole office exhale noisily in relief. It seems that my oversized waist had an explanation, and everyone calmed down. I passed the measurement test!

Without much conversation, because I couldn’t sustain it, I find myself back in the minivan, starting to feel hungry. About 10 minutes from what I established in my mind as the agency, I find myself in front of a hotel whose name I don’t understand, but I see three stars more off than on.

In another three minutes, in a hotel room with a small kitchen included and a folder of papers in hand, there were details for the next day and a map explaining the walking route to the agency, I had to be there at 8:00 AM. An amusing name jumped out at me, Roppongi Station. Would Mr. Soare have managed with this map in hand in a city where everything is in Japanese? Mr. Soare didn’t seem so brave anymore, I felt I had already surpassed him in life’s adventures.

Hunger… hmmm what to do, adrenaline won’t let me stay calm in the room, I go out, find a supermarket 10 steps from the hotel but I don’t recognize anything and can’t read anything, I think I spot some logos but it doesn’t seem to be the telemea* I knew.

I quickly realize they don’t have telemea, I get sad… What will I eat here? In the middle of the bed, already 3:00 AM, I can’t sleep from hunger but I remember that mom put some ABC instant soup for me, I heat some water in the kettle and pour it over the plastic cup. I fill myself with slightly too hard letters and broth that tastes like ‘home-cooked soup,’ falling asleep dressed with my luggage unpacked.”

• Telemea is a traditional Romanian cheese that is somewhat similar to feta but with a crumbly texture and a tangy, salty flavor. I dare you to find me one Romanian who doesn’t have an unnaturally close relationship with telemea.

TOKYO 2000 – PART 2

As if still dreaming, I hear a phone ringing continuously. I answer and hang up, it rings again, I answer and hang up, someone knocks on the door.

“Hello, ma’am! Wakeup call!! Wakeup call!!!!!”

I jump out of bed, thank the person at the door, and continuously struggle not to get back into bed. It’s 6:30 in the morning, and I’ve slept for about 3 hours.
I open my luggage and put on the first outfit created by my dad at Big Berceni with those 2000 dollars. Flared grey pants made from lycra that remind me of ABBA, of the men in ABBA. I pull on the too-fluffy white turtleneck; the fluff gets into my eyes, mouth, nose, I sneeze. I feel like changing into something else, but this is the outfit my dad made at home, discussed, tried on, and approved.

I apply some mascara stolen from my sister, and use a toothbrush to brush my eyebrows as my mom taught me. I pull my hair into a bun that almost dislocates my eyelids, as my dad taught me. I grab my book, map, take a deep breath, and head out the door at 7:20. The paper says it takes me about 20 minutes to walk to the agency.

I step out, turn left, manage to find all the little streets hand-drawn on the map, but I reach a point where I don’t understand: above me are about 5 bridges piercing the sky, I realize that in Bucharest I never had to read a bridge on a map because there’s only one, Grant Bridge, here there are 5 on top of each other, and the Japanese person who drew the map is clearly not an artist.

I realize I haven’t seen the sun yet, I look around and there are only extremely tall buildings and bridges, I don’t see any pedestrian crossings, cars are racing left-right, up and down, next to me. I see people hurrying along the street like little robots, some girls with high socks in short black pleated skirts. My dad would never let me wear something like that ever!

No one is talking, I try to stop someone, but they all shrug. I panic, I don’t want to be late, I see a taxi and stop it. I show the paper to the driver, and we start moving. My eyes are on the meter, the amount increases exponentially, I continuously calculate in my head from yen to dollars, how much was a yen in ron but in dollars? I didn’t get a chance to tell the taxi driver that I only have dollars, I don’t even tell him until we reach the agency building, which I hope to recognize.

We arrive, and I see that the amount is something I’ve forgotten to calculate, I throw 20 dollars at him and jump out of the taxi, running up the hill. I don’t recognize the building, I run so the taxi driver doesn’t catch me, who actually left quietly behind me.

I see some tall girls, something is there, I follow them. I was right; they were going to the agency! I don’t introduce myself, just follow them creepily, get into the elevator, and reach that small lobby with a much too large table and a wall full of composite images of models, I see mine too. I greet everyone, no one responds, it’s as if I don’t exist. A tall, handsome Japanese guy comes up to me and introduces himself:
“Kenji, your booker.”

I smile like a lovestruck kid in kindergarten, try to explain that I want to call home, and he invites me with a smile to a phone, I write the home number on a piece of paper, and he takes care of dialing. It rings once, twice, three times, someone answers:

“Hello!” It’s Catalina, my sister.
“Hey, it’s me! I’ve arrived, I’m fine, I’m at the agency, I don’t think I can talk much! There are so many bridges here, not like our Grant Bridge, there are bridges everywhere here! (me and my bridges)”
I hear in the background:

“Who is it? Is it Oana?” I hear my mom, she takes the receiver:
“What are you doing, honey, how are you? How was the flight?”
“Mom, I saw Mount Fuji from the plane! And you should know that those papers you put in my luggage were the most important, but I solved it, I’m here, I’m staying at a hotel, I don’t know what’s next.”
“Did you eat? What did they give you to eat there?”
“I ate ABC soup last night, well, they don’t give us anything, we have to manage with the weekly pocket money, but I don’t understand anything from the supermarket. Okay, they’re signalling me to stop, I’ll call when I can!”

And I hang up. And once I hang up, I look at Kenji, he was warm, with a warm look he asks me:
“All good?”
“Yes, yes.”

I felt like a grown-up and in control of my life, I didn’t know when or what I would eat today, but the adventure was beginning.
I take out the document folder prepared by my mom and start explaining to Kenji about the insurance. We are interrupted by a woman who looks more like a man, with fleshy, cracked lips from dryness, her skin had acne scars from youth with craters that were hard to look at, eyeliner both above and below, so dense that it looked like a wrong version of Cleopatra. She extends her hand without a smile and says:
“I am Yokko, the boss!”
“I am Oana, the model!”
I hear Kenji burst into laughter.

This woman gives me chills down my spine, she is so ugly and ironically, she runs a modeling agency, a manly woman dealing with beautiful girls. 

We go down to the same minivan driven by the same guy who picked me up from Ana Hotels the night before, he was our driver. He didn’t know much English, nor did I, but the other girls were amused by our broken English.

I discover that we go to castings driven by a driver, and this relaxes me. I look out the window and marvel at this city full of blooming trees, I ask what trees they are, I’m used to nature, I grew up in the countryside, and they seem either cherry or sour cherry trees. They were cherry trees; I had arrived in the middle of Sakura in Japan.

We arrive at the first casting in a building taller than the agency’s, we go up in a glass elevator, and as it ascends to the 46th floor, my ears pop, but I can’t take my eyes off Tokyo unfolding in front of me, with each floor I see how vast and tall it is, I didn’t even know it was by the sea, I even see in the distance a Tour Eiffel, where am I?

The driver lines us up in front of the clients and speaks for us, presents our books, and when he gets to me, I see how 15 polite Japanese people laugh loudly saying only:

“Kawaii! Kawaii!!” (Adorable! Adorable!)

 It seems that the feedback is positive, and I am the new monkey to be shown off, and the Japanese absolutely fall in love. I’m going to make money here! I tell myself in my head. 

Another 15 similar experiences that day, and the driver drops me off in front of the hotel. I had only eaten an ABC soup in the last 24 hours, but it didn’t matter, my life had gone crazy, and I decide to open another soup, but this time with noodles, and of course, my mom packed some St. John’s Wort tea bags, known to be good for the stomach. 

I wake up with the same phone that I don’t hang up this time, I’m hungry. I try to open another ABC soup because that’s all that’s left, but the water doesn’t even boil before someone knocks on the door, the little Japanese guy, I really need to remember his name once! He signals that I’m moving and goes straight for my luggage. In 15 minutes, I’m in the minivan headed to a new destination. 

We arrive in front of a building, I counted about 27 floors, but there were more, this driver is rushing me. The elevator stops on the 19th floor, a left, a right, and a small door opens to an apartment with a living room and an open kitchen. Through a sliding bamboo door, I see a room with 2 beds. 

A blonde girl who seems much older than me comes towards me, she’s Agnieszka from Poland, she’s stunning, tall with blue eyes. She quickly realizes I don’t know English and reads my age, I see the disappointment in her eyes, but I try to move past it because the driver is rushing. She gives me the key and tells me that today I’m free, it’s Sunday. 

Agnieszka takes me directly, shows me the nearby supermarkets, teaches me a few products I can eat: yogurt, sardine can, bread, peanut butter, and pasta. We return home, and she doesn’t pay attention to me for the rest of the day. 

I open my luggage, take out the bedding my mom packed, and prepare my bed, I have king-size sheets, this bed was the smallest single possible and had the worst mattress I had ever encountered. We have a balcony, I go out and realize how high we are, I get dizzy and go back inside. The dizziness wasn’t from me; it was an earthquake, the whole building was swaying, and I panic, running towards the exit with my passport in hand so they can identify me in case of a tragedy… I hear loud laughter from the room:

“Where are you going to go? It’s an earthquake!! We have this here every day! Get used to it!”  

I don’t find it funny; this girl hasn’t heard of the ‘77 earthquake? Indeed, in the following weeks, I was to experience so many earthquakes that if one caught me in Bucharest, I would just go to sleep. 

Days go by, and with a quick calculation: about 15 castings a day, in 5 days, I’ve seen approximately 75 clients in a week. The same reaction: Kawaii! Kawaii!! 

Finally, I find out that tomorrow I have my first job! Yuhuuu

TOKYO 2000 – PART 3

The landline phone in the room rings. Groggy, I look at the clock; it’s 5:30, and the agency seems to offer a wake-up call service. This hour is abnormal for any Oana Stan, but I manage to remember… it’s the day of my job in Tokyo. My first one! 

It would have been so nice if I had slept last night instead of worrying so much. I didn’t sleep at all, thinking about this first paid day with a contract. I think this is the first real job. Before, my sister was with me at every shoot, I knew there was some money involved, but I never bothered with that. It was an adult thing; I just liked going to photo shoots and transforming into different characters. 

I used to go to castings by car. I was constantly daydreaming, staring out the window, sometimes sad, and unable to find my place in this group of models. I was never forced to walk alone farther than the agency, a path I eventually learned. 

On the occasion of the first job, I find out that in this case, we go alone, on foot, by subway, and with the classic maps drawn with handwritten details on their edges. My sleeplessness came from this, I just hoped I wouldn’t be the one who couldn’t manage to arrive on time. 

The night before, Agnieszka, who rarely talked to me, decided to help me. Sometimes she has friendly impulses, probably out of guilt or because she notices my facial expressions and the fear I display when I see the subway map and read the details for the next day’s job. 

We spend the whole evening together, and she explains how each station lasts 1 minute and a half, and if I don’t read my station correctly, at least I should guide myself by time. She explains how I need to change lines and draws with a pen only the subway lines that interest me, erasing with a marker any other subway line that might confuse me due to the similar colour. 

Why is she doing this? Why so much interest in a subway? Because in Tokyo, the subway map has run out of colours to use. It’s a game of tangled yarn where the lines have colours from magenta to peach pink; this rule is maintained for any colour in the rainbow.

I’m absolutely terrified, but I have no other options. I can’t call to cancel because that’s why I’m here. But I still don’t understand why a driver doesn’t pick me up. After all, I’m 13 years old and don’t read in English, let alone in Japanese. I couldn’t eat this morning. I make myself a peanut butter sandwich and take it with me. Who knows what they’ll give us to eat there, as my mom would say.

I arrive at Azabu Juban station, the closest to home. I enter the Japanese subway for the first time, and my heart stops. A space so tall, lit up, it’s like a highway underground. 

No one talks; everyone has something in their ears. I was to find out years later that they were Bluetooth headphones. The platform is full, but there’s an absurd silence. I didn’t even know that dozens of people could stand next to each other without communicating in any way. 

I have two stations to go and need to change. I’m careful where my exit door should be and already position myself on that side, to make sure I can get off. 

The Japanese have small, flip phones, pink, fuchsia, turquoise, with glitter, cats, and lots of trinkets attached to them. 

In the subway, no one talks. Everyone has headphones; many are asleep. They sleep in their seats, and I see how at the first station, a few of the sleeping ones wake up as if preset and quietly get off at their station. 

I’m already sweating, and I’m just staring at the subway map in the train. I obsessively check it, calculate my next steps, and from time to time, I get stuck staring at someone sleeping on the subway, who gets up and leaves as if this route is imprinted in their subconscious. 

I arrive at my station and have to change. I reach a hub of lines, and as I climb the stairs, a magnificent large space opens up before me, and the light in the subway is as if drawn. It’s white and cold, like in a hospital, but the walls are colourful. I see many pink cats, many cartoon characters, and probably ads with boy bands that almost look like girls with porcelain skin. 

I lose my calculation and stop someone to ask. They barely reach my shoulder. I see their eyes become very big, like a manga character, and from the total lack of facial expression, I see a smile, finally! 

They don’t speak to me, just gesture for me to follow, and guide me to my platform, then leave, climb the stairs, and I realize they just lost two and a half minutes with me. I smile, it’s like I see another side of the Japanese. 

I count my stations and have to change the subway again. I manage, I arrive at my station! 

I exit the station, and from that futuristic Tokyo with tall buildings and dizzying bridges, I arrive in the Red Dragon, a boulevard as long as the eye can see. Left, right, some houses that looked more like shacks starting from the basement, and the entrance from the street was through the house’s attic. 

I look for my number on this boulevard 183, 185, 187… 211… 213… 219… I’ve arrived. It’s a house seemingly more hidden in the pit. The building seemed tiny from the street, hidden in a pit that looks like a tourist trap for Europeans seeking traditional Asian. 

I ring a little bell drawn on a button that pretends to be an intercom. A small man, who seems no older than 16, opens the door warmly, with a bow from the waist, typical Japanese. I’ve always tried to imitate this bow, but it looks more like I have a broken spine and comes out more like a bow to the royal house. 

Everyone greets me cordially, offers me coffee, I’m 13… I refuse… they offer me tea… they only have green jasmine, I don’t recognize it, so I refuse… I’m not in their cultural customs, and I feel it, but I don’t want to drink something that doesn’t serve me. I accept plain water… I blush and sit on a chair too short for my height, even though I’m only 1.72m. 

The second girl arrives, a Ukrainian who has notebooks ready to learn Japanese. I think maybe that’s what I should do too, only if there were some kind of Olympiad to anchor myself in, then everything would make sense to me. 

The guy at the par runs his hand through my hair and realizes it’s too heavy, too much for him. No one taught him what to do with hair so loooong and uncut for 5 years, his hand couldn’t grasp it. 

This Myazaki, as I like to nickname them all, calls the client… five Japanese people come, take my hair in hand, and weigh it… Oaaa… Ooooo… oaaaa. They decide to hide half of it in a ponytail at the back and use the other half for the decided hairstyle. A proper bun comes out, makeup done, and the 13-year-old girl from Romania is ready to do an office wear catalogue. 

Having a thick ponytail hidden at the back automatically limits me in terms of the photographic poses I could make. I don’t comment, although I feel detached from this world where my hair is usually a blessing. Here, in Japan, my thick hair became a problem, but it’s resolved. I’ll use semi-profile, not full profile; we are professionals, we Romanians. Makeup done, hair done, let’s shoot! 

First outfit: top good. Blazer good. Pants good. 

Shoes 1 – not good. 

Shoes 2 – not good. 

Shoes 3 – not good. 

… 

Shoes N – not good. 

I see them getting agitated around me, but I don’t understand anything, they yell at each other, yell at makeup, yell at hair, yell at a phone. A hand hands me the phone:

“Oana, what is your shoe size?” It’s Yokko, and a cold shiver runs down my spine.

“39, ma’am, why?”

“No, it is not, why you lie to me?”

“I think it’s 39-40!”

“You lie to me! Why you lie to me??? You’ll do this job for free, do you hear me?? You’re a liar, you deserve no money, why you lie??” 

I wore the same pair of clogs, size 39, throughout the entire shoot. 

I knew I had made a mistake and tried to remember exactly when they asked me. I knew that at 1 AM, when I arrived, I couldn’t hide it from myself, I just didn’t think it was ever that important… apparently, it was $2000 important, and I was going to do photos for 45 outfits for free. 

I saw the client relax when they saw I was free; they acted human, I felt like doing all the jobs in my life for free to be treated like this, which I actually did most of the time… it seems this job set the standard for free work in my life… instead of having someone treat me like that, I preferred to work for free… what can I say, I’m a great businesswoman in modeling.

Years later, I continued to “monetize” my modelling talent and time for free because I preferred a docile client over 8-12 hours of life spent in disgust. Why do I say this? Even if you announce you wear a size 40 shoe, in modelling, it never mattered, they still put you in a size 37-38 for 5 minutes… that’s what they always said, for 5 minutes. You can manage! Why make such a fuss over some foot bones that don’t seem to matter to anyone? Over time, I ended up wearing size 41 on the left and 40 and a half on the right. 

But let’s go back to the catalogue I was working on for free… between outfits, all I did was calculate in my mind how much this lie would cost me on the contract and with what money I would return home? 

After 10 hours of contractual work and another 2 hours of overtime, I leave the job, totally forgetting the way home. Tired and slightly unfed (rice with chicken was never going to be my favorite food), I exit the building and instinctively turn left. I kind of recognize it, I walk straight ahead and remember that somewhere between 7-8 minutes, I should reach the subway station. Walking through the dark, tears hit me, from exhaustion, from hunger, from the humiliation of lying about my shoe size… all I know is that I cried all the way until I reached a subway station, I don’t even know which one. I enter the subway, and with tears in my eyes, I ask different Japanese people how to get to Azabu Juban Station. I had become Japanese too; I was quiet in the subway, not looking at anyone, I wish I had headphones to listen to music. I get home late, Agnieszka sees me crying, she doesn’t care, she’s on the phone with her boyfriend in their daily ritual. 

What pulls me out of my miserable state is their conversation, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a Polish person talking on the phone, it sounds like they’re constantly arguing, but Agnieszka was crying… crying, yelling, and it seemed like they were fighting. I think she really missed her boyfriend, and what I was to learn later, Tokyo Fever catches up with everyone. It’s actually a proven syndrome, this Tokyo Fever, I was to be caught by it too.

A day with 15 castings, another with 10 castings, one with 8 castings, we even went to castings on Saturdays, but the phone didn’t seem to ring for Oana Stan at this agency, and I kept thinking it was because I lied about my shoe size. 

Weeks passed in Tokyo with countless castings, weekends, and many lonely evenings in the 19th-floor apartment in Azabu Juban. I had no jobs, continuously calculated on a Hello Kitty agenda bought from Shibuya. I didn’t seem to come out ahead with money, but slowly, I figured out that those $2000 I was supposed to return home with were actually the P&L of my contract: the agency ensured $10,000 per month minus expenses. My expenses were about $8000 per month after managing to pay for my plane ticket. 

A simple explanation of these contracts:

The agency contractually ensures $10,000 per month: 

Plane ticket: $2000 

Monthly rent: $5500 

Weekly pocket money: $250 = $1000 monthly (in Japan, this money didn’t represent much) Printing composites: $400 

Phone calls home: $100 

Others: driver, prints, various tickets: approximately $1000 

Expenses for the first month: $5500 + $2000 + $1000 + $500 + $1000 = $10,000 

Which means that in the first month, the agency owed me $0 because that was the value of the monthly contract, and the next month, these expenses would come without the plane ticket, here I could work hard enough to make some money. 

In the following weeks, I had countless castings, but only one other job for children’s pajamas, a job where no one complained about me… but I never managed to exceed my contract. I was to spend the following days in Tokyo at castings where I presented myself worse and worse, I was demotivated, alone, and developed a bad habit of crying every night. Agnieszka worked a lot, was always away from home, and I was almost always alone. 

In the evenings, when I got home, I took her CD player and found her well-hidden CD map. I knew how to rummage through the entire house, I became addicted to Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan. Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” became part of my experience there; I was on the 19th floor, feeling so high and vulnerable, and kept telling myself, “I must be strong to carry on, cause I know I don’t belong here in heaven.” I think these CDs laid the foundation for my English, I learned English through music. 

I felt lonely. I was lonely. But still, a few people showed up for me. Tully from Norway was the most exuberant, friendly, and took me with her wherever she went when she had the patience for me. That’s how I saw Shibuya, Yahoo Internet Cafe, Ueno Zoo, and most of the Japanese palaces in Tokyo. Tully went to clubs, she was of that age, went to Lexington, a club that still exists today with the same strategy: a bunch of models who drink for free if they had tokens and a handful of lost expats in Japan looking for models. Many times, I went with Tully to Lexington on a Thursday night to get those two tokens representing two drinks. Tully took me and Viola (a 16-year-old model from Latvia) with her to cash in these two tokens each, then she took us home, and so Tully had at least six free drinks that Saturday. She never let us stay; we were too young, she told us.

 One day, a stunningly tall girl with ankle-length hair, without exaggeration, appeared in the car we were going to castings in. I remember a picture from her book; she was barefoot, and her hair covered her like clothes. Tatiana from Russia was 15 years old and always carried a boy who didn’t seem to be a model at all, her brother Andrei, his role was to be her guardian, sent directly from Russia to support her. When I found out and understood Tatiana’s situation, I burst into tears out of anger, feeling so betrayed. I was 13, didn’t speak English, and had no one with me here, plus I had a roommate who hated me. But somehow, this made me feel good because I believed I managed to handle everything that happened to me on my own. I had maybe a weekly phone call from my sister, whom I constantly lied to, telling her everything was fine and rosy. 

While I was in Tokyo, the drivers changed three times. I was to find out one day that we had a new driver; it was no longer the one who picked me up from Ana Hotel, but a small, red, sweaty guy with craters on his face. This boy gave me a continuous sense of unease. He spoke to us rudely, drove aggressively, and it seemed he enjoyed it when we bumped into each other in the van due to his reckless driving. One night, around 1:00 AM, I heard the door to the house open with a key. I went slowly and woke up Agnieszka, she pushed me away, not wanting to talk. I insisted and signaled for her to be quiet and pointed towards the entrance. She widened her eyes and also heard someone in our house in the middle of the night. The bamboo door was open, and I sat in a corner of Agnieszka’s bed, terrified, waiting for the invader to make a move.

“Hey! Who is there?!” , she screamed courageously. 

I hear someone stumble in the living room, and with our books in hand, we went to confront him, screaming. We found the new driver perched on a chair, trying to reach some drawers stuck to the ceiling that I hadn’t even noticed before. We caught him in the act, stretching to take something from there.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”, Agnieszka screamed, terrified, I didn’t make a peep.

“Hi, just came to take my scooter helmet, I left it here the other day!”, the driver said.

“The other day? You’ve been in our apartment before???”  

The driver grabbed his helmet and ran out the door, leaving the chair in the middle of the house and us frozen in place. I heard her muttering around the house:

“This is illegal! This cannot happen, I will call the agency!” 

That’s when I realized that what was happening wasn’t right; seeing that he was from the agency reassured me, thinking everything was fine, but Agnieszka was right, this guy had a key to our apartment and apparently came in whenever he wanted. I was naive to the core. The next day at the agency, there were screams, and for the first time, I saw Yokko shocked and confused. Kenji wasn’t there; I kept looking for him. 

In 10 minutes, we went to the van ready for castings, and I didn’t understand how, but overnight we had a new driver, whom the girls started questioning. The absurdity was about to reach new heights; all the models complained about this new decision. Our new driver was a 21-year-old boy from Osaka, who had moved to Tokyo a week ago and wanted to be a booker. Basically, this boy had been in Tokyo for less time than I had, and he was supposed to drive us and sell us at castings. All I can say is that for the first time, we walked from where he parked the van; he knew nothing about Tokyo, was all sweaty in front of the clients, and from the body language, I understood that he was heavily ridiculed. I knew there were all sorts of discussions at the agency; I heard the girls talking, I started to learn English a bit, thank you Eric Clapton 🙂 

However, what I was to understand in the following years, and now, is that adapting to the new is key, and so we all did, we adapted to this continuously anxious boy. He was our best chance for the remaining time, and I knew at least I could sleep peacefully, knowing no one would enter our house again. 

There was a weekend when Agnieszka and the whole gang went to Disneyland. Yes, there’s Disneyland in Tokyo before any other European capital, maybe just in Paris? I think I saw an episode about Disneyland on TeleEnciclopedia? Maybe? 

We woke up early on a Sunday, Agnieszka yelling at me as usual; I was taking a bath; I didn’t know how to shower… in Bucharest, we didn’t have hot water, so we took baths with water heated on the stove… Agnieszka was yelling… I dressed quickly, but another earthquake hit, and we quietly waited for it to pass. Everything was shaking, from our single hospital beds to the heated and now-cooled food containers in the living room, we forgot them at home. 

We waited patiently. The earthquake ended, and we went down. The other girls from the building were downstairs, waiting for us, amused; I was the only one not amused by this earthquake thing… and honestly, all I wanted was for it to be evening, for Agnieszka to leave, and for me to enjoy her CD player. 

We headed towards Roppongi Station: me, Agnieszka, Tully, Viola, Aiste, and Olga. We were supposed to meet Tatiana and her brother Andrei. No one talked to me the whole way; they just signaled when I should get off the subway, when to pay, or when to show a ticket. I was quiet, as usual; I knew I was a burden to them, so I preferred to be invisible, just so they wouldn’t notice I was there, an extra worry. 

I’ll never forget the journey to Disneyland; maybe I’m wrong, but I swear the subway was suspended upside down, crossing a sea to an island so perfectly shaped it seemed man-made. That’s right, I was about to walk on an entirely man-made island. We arrived at Disneyland, I was 13 years old, and a dream from my more recent childhood was coming true. The entrance gates were 10-20, queues of parents or caregivers with children in line. I noticed that people my height or age were with other children, and I was with a group of models who stood out a lot. 

Andrei was in love with Agnieszka and echoed her hatred for me. They hurried and tried to leave me behind as often as possible; it was their inside joke. I was young, but not stupid. 

Tully waited for me and made sure I understood what was happening, otherwise, I had every chance of being left behind with a Japanese school group. Tully, with her much too large ears for her small face, took me by the hand and led me through the gates of Disneyland. I think she paid for the ticket; I don’t remember. I just know that this girl, much too thin and tall, took me by the hand and spoke slowly to me. 

We got inside Disneyland, and the group made a plan: we were going to get fast passes for Space Mountain and all the other roller coasters. It was simply magical!

Lunch came, and we went to something that seemed like a McDonald’s. Everyone ordered, and I realized I hadn’t calculated my money for food that day. I ordered a burger and a cola, sat at the table with everyone, and in an absurd happiness, I gestured and managed to knock over a Coca-Cola over all the food orders of the people I was with. 

A huge scream in Russian echoed suddenly. The entire table looked at me, and I tried to disappear, but I couldn’t. The whole restaurant had their eyes on me… I was pale-faced, and I could only hear Andrei, Tatiana’s brother, shouting: “Stupid!! Idiot Romanian!!” 

Tully intervened and took my hand; we left there, she tried to calm me down even though I wasn’t crying. I understood what I had done and how much I had cost those people, but I’m so clumsy by nature, this ‘quality’ of mine was going to cost me dearly all my life. I was so glad that Tully took me out of there; I was completely petrified, and that day I didn’t eat, I gave them my burger. 

Years later, through Facebook, I was to reconnect with Tully online and see that she was still in the same relationship with the same guy she was with during the Tokyo period. 

I look through her photos and see that they had a blond, scruffy child with big ears like hers. I felt such joy because this girl had to be a mother. She was my mother for a while here in Tokyo. I was never going to see Agnieszka again.

I arrive home exhausted after Disneyland; but happy and with stories to tell at school and home, but again sad and unintegrated. However, I notice that my English is getting better and better, and I can even break into conversations. 

One day, I finished castings earlier, it seemed strange, but I didn’t ask anyone anything. I was already tired of being rejected daily, dozens of times weekly, and I was only thinking that my birthday was coming soon, and I didn’t want to be caught here. And yet, I was going to spend my birthday in Tokyo. 

And the days passed, all the same. Waking up early in the morning, castings, returning to the 19th-floor apartment, taking Agnieszka’s CD player, listening to music, and again, like in a time loop. Today is my birthday, I turned 14, and no one cares, they call me from home to wish me ‘Happy Birthday.’ This May 25th breaks my heart with loneliness, and Tully surely went out last night and is nowhere to be found. I find out that Viola is going to be sent home; she didn’t work much here either… The phone rings. I stop Clapton, wipe my tears, and I’m informed that I’m going home because I don’t present a prolific future for the agency, and I’ll leave earlier… in a few days. I feel ashamed, for the agency, for my parents, for my colleagues… How was I going to explain that I went to the other side of the world, and I didn’t do anything? 

I take out the Hello Kitty notebook and redo the calculations. It seems that from the contract’s point of view, I would indeed be left with 2000 dollars in hand. 

The day comes to go to the agency to clarify the calculations. With Kenji in that room, he explains to me on A4 sheets some complicated Excel sheets. I just want to see the final sum, with what I’m left. It shows $1900 as the net income after this period of about a month and a half in Tokyo. 

I shiver and don’t understand where it came from, I go through the paper line by line, and start going through all the lines, plane ticket, rent, maintenance, composition, phone calls home, job deducted, and out of nowhere, I see health insurance 300$. 

But I bought insurance at home; I went with my dad specifically to a place where they do it, and I already paid. I already talked about this with Kenji on the first day, when we were interrupted by Yokko. I explain to Kenji calmly, thinking it’s just a misunderstanding. 

It’s absurd; I paid, I already showed it, why is it on my statement? I see him get up without any expression, explains to Yokko, she looks at me with disgust and speaks to him angrily. Kenji explains to me that I didn’t make this clear and that it was my responsibility to hand over this insurance and ensure it was recorded in accounting… I look at Yokko and speak directly to her:

“I have insurance, no pay 300$ insurance!!!”  

Yokko doesn’t explain anything to me, she just says:

“This is your statement; you have plane tomorrow.”

I don’t give up; “I have to return home with 2000 dollars; what don’t you understand?” 

They leave an envelope with that money in yen, and leave me alone on the couch; they all return to their computers, waiting for me to go home to pack my bags. 

That’s it! I’ve had enough of this place! Out of nowhere, I hear myself screaming in the middle of the agency, trying not to cry, but I don’t succeed. I scream and yell and stomp my feet like in a tantrum:

“You are bad people!! Yokko, you are a baaaad people! I hate you, I hate Tokyo! Fuck you and your agency!!!!” 

And I wait… silently crying… nothing happens, they just look at me surprised that such a thing could come out of this child, until now I’ve been the most well-behaved character in the agency. 

No one says anything to me, they let me cry on the couch, and I was just thinking about what I would say at home, to my parents, to my colleagues, to the agency… I embarrassed everyone. 

I decide to leave, go down still trying to calm down, not meeting anyone on the way, I hoped to see Tully. 

I want to buy some souvenirs from here and decide to head towards Yahoo Internet Cafe, it seemed there was a souvenir shop on the way. I exit the subway and hear Romanian in front of me; there were two tall, well-built guys talking about the night before at Lexington. They were two Romanian male models. I was to find out later that they were Bogdan and Traian, with whom I became friends years later. I didn’t stop them; I walked behind them, hearing them speak Romanian, and a homesickness hit me, and I forgot about insurance; I thought at least I’d come home with a few souvenirs for everyone, even for Mr. Soare. 

I find the shop full of chopsticks, calendars with Japanese cats, beautiful fans, and all sorts of small specific trinkets. I put them in the basket, do the math, take them out of the basket, and set myself a limit of $100 for gifts. I think I spent 4 hours in that place, trying to cover everyone I was going to give gifts to, finally, I stay within 79 dollars and have money left for the bus ticket to the airport and something to eat at the corner of the street; it was the first time I ate out and I really deserved it. 

I get home and start packing. Agnieszka is yelling at her boyfriend on the phone or whatever they were doing; I still don’t get whether it’s the language or this woman has anger issues. I decide to take the sheets home and carry the gifts I just bought for the people back home in my arms so they don’t add to the airport weight. If I’m not returning with the money intact, at least I won’t cause a financial hole in the sheets category.

In the classic Japanese system, I wake up at 5 AM to leave for the airport with the classic hand-drawn maps and details on the edges, but I’m leaving here differently; I barely looked at the maps. I didn’t need them anymore; I knew how to get to Ana Hotel, I knew the terminal, I knew not to forget my luggage.

However, that morning I found a few composites of the girls in the kitchen. They left them the day before; some even had an email address written on them, including Agnieszka’s. Somehow I don’t think I was that unpleasant here, maybe just my continuous state of anxiety translated everything catastrophically, or maybe this is just a habit for models when they leave?

The journey home is still dizzying but not as bad as when I arrived, I’m just thinking about the checked luggage, hoping I won’t have to pay out of these yen I’m hiding in the checked luggage. I should declare any money or goods I bring to Romania, but I’m well-instructed on how not to announce this. 

When I thought everything was calm and I even got a seat at the emergency exit, I find myself next to a chatty businessman on the plane. 

A man so talkative that he tells me all about his business, and when I explain how old I am and what I did in Tokyo, he’s shocked and confused, explaining how wrong my entire action is at the European level of children’s rights; I burst out laughing. 

It all culminates in such a disgusting point that I’ll present it succinctly: he pulls out a manicure kit in which there were tweezers, scissors, and three toothpicks that seemed already used. He takes one out and cleans his big teeth with it, puts it back without much cleaning, and takes out a second one to clean his toenails and puts it back without much cleaning. 

I feel physically sick and only think that surely, at least once, he confused the toothpicks. I decide to avoid and ignore him for the entire flight, staring intensely out the window at the wing and clouds when suddenly I hear just:

“Tell me when the engine stops!” and he laughs loudly. 

I manage to sleep and successfully ignore him. 

A Zurich later and a very delayed flight to Bucharest, I arrive at Otopeni where I calmly take my luggage and exit at Arrivals. 

I was to find out that my mom had a nervous breakdown when she saw that my flight was delayed, I find her crying and drained in my aunt’s arms. This delay might have been the last straw for her. 

I take them in my arms, and I’m fresh, mature, and in control. 

I arrive home, and my parents, along with my sister, sit like children on the floor in my room, waiting for me to tell them everything, it’s already 11 PM but it doesn’t matter, these people are hanging on every one of my words.

Of course, I tell them a lot about Tully, about Disneyland, I avoid the insurance thing as much as I can; that’s for another time. 

They have tears in their eyes, and now that I have a child, I understand why; now I understand that I came home a different child, just as my daughter transforms after some developmental spurt. 

I show them the gifts, explain how I stayed within budget, and that I still came back with 200 dollars less, and I’m really sorry about that. 

I see their faces, two parents proud to the heavens of their child that she took care of money, managed, and is now home intact, unscathed, with all fingers and toes. 

That’s when I realized it’s not about the money, and they regret telling me about those 2000 dollars, those didn’t matter, they just thought this would be an incentive for me to be careful out there. And they couldn’t have been more right, besides the anxiety those dollars gave me, this goal forced me to stand up and speak for myself when it was necessary, not to let a Yokko from Tokyo step all over me, at least morally. 

I tell them I don’t think I’ll ever go anywhere again because I only had two jobs during my entire time in Tokyo, and my dad gets up off the floor and tells me:

“My little princess, you’ll see the world, you’ll see!” And that’s how it was going to be.