The San-ikukai hospital in Tokyo's Sumida ward is much like any other in the Japanese capital, save for one special feature. It has had, since March of last year, a small room on the first floor with a cradle (and nothing else), where mothers can anonymously deposit their babies, never to see them again. The hospital accepts babies up to four weeks old. They are then cared for until foster families or infant homes can be found. In July, the hospital announced it had just received its twentieth baby, most of whom had been left within 24 hours of birth. The scheme is the first in the capital but not the first in Japan. Since 2007, the Jikei hospital in Kumamoto City has been accepting unwanted babies in its 'Storks Cradle' programme (modelled on the German ‘Babyklappe’ scheme) and claims to have 'saved' 170 babies. ✍️ Philip Patrick Article | | @Pbp19Philip

April 1942. "Los Angeles, California ... Little Tokyo." Businesses represented on East First Street include Hotel Mikado, Sho-Fu-Do confectionery, Ten-Gen restaurant, Sato Book Store, Hotel Empire, Sumida & Son hardware. Photo by Russell Lee.

There's a theory about Americans. Foreigners repeat it all the time. Maybe you've heard it. Americans are peaches. Soft and sweet on the outside. Friendly to everyone. Best friends in five minutes. "We should get lunch sometime!" But in the middle, there's a hard pit. Nobody gets in. Japanese people, the theory says, are coconuts. Hard shell. Takes years to crack. But once you're in, you're in for life. I'm Japanese. I'm a coconut. The man next door and I have bowed to each other every morning since 2017. I don't know his first name. He's a coconut too. We're very happy. So I asked Japanese people who once lived in America one question. "Did you ever get to the pit?" I expected sad answers. Instead, almost every one of them could tell me the exact day. "Two years of perfect manners. Then one Saturday, Kendra opened the door, saw me, and said, 'Oh. It's just you.' There was laundry on the couch. She stepped right over it. She said, 'Cups are where they always are.' I didn't know where they always were. I found them. It was the greatest honor of my life." (Engineer, 46, Indiana) "The Iron Bowl. Alabama against Auburn. During that game, nobody touches Marty's remote. Not his son. Not his wife of 31 years. In the third quarter, Marty handed it to me. His son stood up. His wife put her hand over her mouth. I didn't change the channel. I didn't breathe. Alabama won. Marty gives me full credit. Not the quarterback. Me." (Trading company, 52, Alabama) "Clem and Vonda had a full argument about how to load the dishwasher. In front of me. Then Vonda turned around and said, 'Back me up here.' I had a side. Bowls go on the top rack. I will defend this until I die. You don't get a side unless you're family." (Researcher, 39, Colorado) "For a year, Trina did everything for me. Rides. Casseroles. Then one day she called. 'Can you pick up my boy from practice? I'm stuck at work.' She asked ME. I drove to that high school like I was carrying the president. I was fifty minutes early. I waved at him through the fence the whole time. He was fourteen. He has not forgiven me." (Accountant, 44, Arkansas) "Grandma Maxine was polite to me for six months. Then at Easter dinner, she said, 'Elbows off the table, sweetheart.' The exact voice she uses on her own grandkids. I took my elbows off. I have never put them back." (Graduate student, 29, West Virginia) "Virgil showed me his crappie spot. His own son-in-law doesn't know where it is. I was sworn to secrecy. I'm 63 now, I live in Osaka, and I still won't tell you. Don't ask." (Retired banker, 63, Missouri) "Somewhere in year two, Darren's mom stopped calling Darren to ask how Darren was doing. She started calling me. Now when Darren wants to know how his mom is, he calls me." (Software developer, 41, Utah) Then one woman told me she never got in. Sumiko is 74. In 1983, her husband was sent to work in Macon, Georgia, for two years. She was 31. She spoke almost no English. She cried every night the first month, quietly, so he wouldn't hear. The woman next door was named Ardella. Ardella brought a pie on the first day. Taught her to drive on the right side of the road. Mostly. Spent every evening on the porch with her, talking slowly, the way you talk to someone you've decided to understand. "She was kind to me every single day," Sumiko told me. "But I never got in. When we left, she hugged me by the car and said, 'Don't be a stranger.' That's all." In Japanese, polite words that nobody means are called tatemae. "Let's have dinner sometime." Nobody books the dinner. Sumiko thought "Don't be a stranger" was tatemae. So she didn't write. She didn't want to be a burden. That's what a good Japanese guest does. For forty-one years, she was a stranger. But every summer, when the first peaches showed up at her supermarket in Tokyo, five dollars each, in their little foam nets, she stopped at that shelf and looked. She never bought one. She just thought about Ardella. Last June, her grandson was studying in Atlanta. One Saturday, he drove to Macon to see the old house. A man in his sixties stepped onto the porch next door. Ardella's son. Ardella died in 2019. The grandson told him whose grandson he was. The man looked at him. Took off his cap. Then he turned and walked him around back. Behind the house stood a peach tree. Big. Old. Heavy with fruit. Nailed to the trunk was a small wooden sign, painted over so many times the letters had gone soft: SUMIKO'S TREE Ardella planted it the week Sumiko left. 1985. "Mama said you'd be back. She said it every summer. We quit arguing with her around 1997." Every summer for almost forty years, that family picked the first ripe peach from Sumiko's tree and set it at the center of the kitchen table. And every summer, somebody said the same thing. "That one's Sumiko's." Ardella's great-grandkids say it now. They have never met her. They think Sumiko is some kind of peach saint. Every summer, a woman in Tokyo stopped at a shelf of peaches and thought about Georgia. Every summer, a family in Georgia set a peach on the table and thought about Tokyo. For forty-one years. Neither one knew. The grandson called his grandmother on video. Ardella's son took the phone, pointed it at the tree, and then, very seriously, held a peach right up to the screen. Like she could reach through and take it. Nobody in Sumiko's family had ever seen her cry. They have now. In July, Sumiko flew to Georgia. Alone. At 74. Her first flight by herself. The whole family was waiting on the porch. Eleven of them. Plus the mail carrier, who was just passing by and stayed for pie. Below the porch steps, Sumiko bowed low and spoke, in Japanese, very quietly. Her grandson translated. "She says, please forgive her for being a stranger." Ardella's son came down the steps. "Ma'am. Strangers don't get trees." Then she ate her peach standing under her tree, juice running down to her elbows, while eleven Americans and one mailman cried on the porch. She says it was very undignified. She is going back next July. So, about that theory. It's half right. There is a pit. Most people never reach it. But it isn't a wall. It's a seed. And you plant it the day we leave. America, you've planted more of these than you'll ever know. For people who never wrote. Never called. Never came back. We're coming. And this time, we'll write first.