Perspectives From the Pitch: Otsukaresama deshita
Hannah Diaz explains the meaning of the Japanese phrase "otsukaresama deshita" and her personal connection to it
In the unforgiving heat of a Japanese summer, I found solace in the salty shores of Kamogawa: surfer-infested waters, a few friendly sightings of porpoises if you’re patient and empty beaches aside from the occasional festival. The town rests near the southern tip of the Chiba Peninsula, bunkered just below small mountains, dense with trees flexing their different shades of green, filling the horizon like the canvas of a dedicated artist. In the spring, polka dots of cherry blossoms would shyly show face, bringing bright pinks and clean white speckles across the foreign forest.
Winding down from the mountains, the road curves haphazardly through terraced rice paddies until the final turn: a rounded bend, exposing the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, filled with surfers. Just as the ground levels out, the Kameda Medical Center sprouts up on your right, towering over the small beach town as one of the two buildings reaching over three stories. The hospital hosted not only some of the best international doctors in the world, but also a community of supporters for the local professional women’s soccer team. A walk through town would expose the many posters of different players. Jerseys hung in restaurant windows, photos and autographs covered walls, and there was an overall unwavering support for the young women that bring joy and competition to the quiet Sundays in Kamogawa.
The first day I spent in Kamogawa, Mr. Takiaaki Kameda himself brought me up to the seventh floor of the hospital. The elevator doors opened to a sea of blue. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided a panoramic view of the coastline where mountains meet sand. Kameda walked me to a private room with a long table dressed for a meal. He pulled out a chair for me before taking a seat at the head of the table himself. First came a bottle or two of Chilean wine, accompanied by delicately cut Kobe beef. I never saw my glass empty. When it was time for my last sip, Kameda would raise a finger and it would be filled. A five-course lunch followed.
Several guests came in and out of the room at his request, all introduced to me as he explained what life would be like for me in Kamogawa. My head coach and general manager. The head doctor of the sports medicine branch of the hospital. The team’s financial advisor. And his wife, a petite, beautiful woman, dressed in Gucci. Kameda explained to me that while I was almost perfectly placed on the opposite side of the world, I had all the support I needed in order to thrive. He offered me his home for dinner anytime I felt lonely or missed the choppy music of the English language. He brought me to the door of several expats who decided to settle in Kamogawa for good. And that evening, his chauffeur drove me to Tokyo, dropping me off at the lobby of a magnificent hotel in the heart of Ginza.
“The most important thing for a successful athlete is for them to feel at home,” Kameda explained as we walked the halls of the hospital that his family had run for several generations. He helped me furnish my apartment, taught me how to use my rice maker and fish oven, and showed me the art of recycling in Japan (much more complicated than I expected, and honestly, I’m not sure I ever got the hang of it).
“Anything you need to be comfortable is available for you.”
As it turns out, I didn’t need much at all to be comfortable.
From my apartment I had a straight shot to the water, three minutes by car or a cool ten minutes by footpath. The coast of Chiba wasn’t like the coast at home in California, or Spain, or anywhere else that was littered with million-dollar homes, beachside bars and resorts. The sand is left untouched by man, only softened by the ocean. The lone interference with nature are the old fishing holes made from stone, hidden by the rock shore, that now provide a swimming lagoon within the waves. Aside from a few summer weekends, I could almost always count on having the beach to myself, free to watch the artistry of the surfers tackling the Kamogawa waves while I tanned shamelessly. In the evenings, after training, I would drive directly to the beach, hop in the chilly water for nature’s ice bath, then lay in confusion as the sun set behind me instead of over the ocean.
There was one lone cafe on the beach, a two-story house, the top story converted to a small eatery sporting a balcony with a complete view of the beach. Next to it, detached but certainly included, was a surf shop, both for buying and renting boards. This was Nonkey’s, owned by a husband and wife, a surfer’s haven and a foreigner’s small piece of home.
The wife was, as I saw it, a young woman trapped in old, weathered skin. She was vibrant and quick-paced, always telling her granddaughter to keep up. If it was after 5:00 p.m. and I ordered a cappuccino, she would rightly bring me a shandy instead. She kept her hair short and gray, always wearing some sort of bandana around her forehead. She would pester me about going next door to rent a board from her husband, explaining, in broken English, that on a board nothing exists besides the next set. Then she would put her hands out to her sides and do a hula dance all the way back to the kitchen, cackling as the swinging door shut behind her.
It wasn’t until a day late in the summer that I took her up on the offer. I had stopped into the surf shop in hopes of picking up a skateboard for my sneaky morning bakery runs when I caught a glimpse of myself tacked to the wall behind the cashier counter. The husband had cut out what must have been every Kamogawa newspaper clipping that featured me. My first professional goal, the time I went to farm tomatoes with the locals, a comeback win against our rival city. Little black and white action shots of me from games scattered the wall. He caught me looking, rested his dark, wrinkly hand on my shoulder and turned me towards the rack of surfboards. I smiled and laughed softly, picking out a light yellow longboard and carrying it carefully out towards the break.
As we got in the water a cheer could be heard from the balcony of Nonkey’s. I paddled out behind the husband. We only had about an hour of light left and the water was darkening quickly. The waves were gentle, 2- or 3-foot rollers spitting themselves up on shore. He got me to stand up a couple times before it grew hard to see the height of the waves. He paddled further from the break, so I followed until he stopped. Sitting on his board he instructed me to be quiet with a touch of his fingers to his lips, then he closed his eyes. My feet dangled in the dark water. The breath of the ocean pulled me in then out. I looked out towards the horizon, pretending I could see California on the other side.
A splash broke the silence.
I looked at the husband, a smile growing on his lips as his eyes remained closed.
I felt my stomach lurching. Something else was with us. I looked down at my feet. Shark bait, ooh-ha-ha.
Then suddenly, a breach in the water, and a white, bald head poked up next to us a mere 5 feet away. I giggled with relief, and with childish excitement, I slid off of my board and into the water to join what was to me, Japanese luck. For the next new minutes, we were curiously inspected by a pod of finless porpoises. There is nothing more humbling than holding your head underwater and hearing the cackle of a dolphin echo into emptiness.
In Japanese there is a phrase お疲れ様でした or otsukaresama deshita, and it translates to thank you for your hard work. It is something you say to colleagues at the end of the day, or even passing a stranger as they leave their place of work, as common on my tongue as konnichiwa or konbanwa. It comes from the impressive practice of gratitude and respect in Japanese culture. Whether it is work or a hobby, there is a sense of incredible focus on the task at hand. This focus translates into a product that resembles art. Whether it is a meal from a chef, the pouring of a cappuccino, or the free teachings from Kamogawa’s oldest surfer, the hours and hours of devotion are as evident as the product itself. The Japanese recognize the hard work of someone else in their use of otsukaresama deshita. It’s a recognition of a shared experience, and as comforting as the cheers from a home crowd. There is something about that phrase, when I said it to the husband that night, that resonated deeper than any word in the English language.
Otsukaresama deshita.
Thank you for your hard work.
Thank you for your art.
And thank you for our shared experience of it.