JESS:
 When I was nine years old,
my parents got
 English teaching jobs
and moved us all
 to Japan for a year.
I was a blonde kid,
and that made me of interest
 to all the Japanese people
like 'cos they had
 never really seen
a blonde-haired person before.
(piano playing)
JESS: They would point
 at me or my sister,
touch my hair, talk at me-
 I didn't understand
 anything yet.
JESS:
 The day after we arrived
I went to school for the first
 time and then that was crazy.
JESS:
I didn't feel that anyone
was interested
in getting to know me,
except for one person
and her name was Fukue,
and we became best of friends.
JESS: She was really
 curious about me
and that made me
 really curious about her
because she was so
 different from everyone else.
We'd go down the dirt roads,
we'd explore the little shrines.
We would find frogs
 in the rice paddies.
JESS: She was
the closest friend that I had,
and she was a creative,
beautiful human.
After a year in Japan,
my family returned to Vancouver.
Fukue and I became
 pen pals immediately.
And then all of a sudden,
I just stopped hearing from her.
At the time, I just wondered
 if something prevented her
from writing to me or if she
 stopped of her own will.
JESS: Fukue was my
 surrogate family at school,
and I protected her
 from the bullies.
Now that we were apart,
I was scared that the bullying
 had started again.
JESS: Years later, when I
became a professional musician,
I reconnected with the koto,
 and that made me think a lot
about my time in Japan
 and Fukue.
This song is called
 'Lost Friends'
and I hope one day to find her.
(drum beating)
JESS:
Scarf. Guitar.
Chord.
JESS: So, I started
 looking online for Fukue.
There was no record of her name,
There was no social media
 accounts, no photos.
Nothing.
In the back of my mind,
 I was always worried
that something bad
 had happened to her.
So, I'm going back to Japan to
see if I can try and find Fukue.
The most important
 thing for me to say to her
is how much she meant to me,
and that how much
 she affected my life,
and showed me some important
 lessons about humanity.
I might not be able to follow
 the trail to anything
that is current, but maybe
 Fukue is still out there.
(accordion music)
JESS: The place that we
 ended up living
is a little town called Saku.
So Saku is referred to
 as the boonies
by Japanese people.
Dirt roads, rice paddies
 everywhere, little shrines...
We were so notable as a family
that we were asked
 to be the stars
of an educational video to teach
 Japanese kids English.
But that was of course when Saku
 had absolutely no foreigners
and it was a small,
 rural village.
It's now a regular city
 of 100,000 people,
so finding Fukue
 is going to be a lot harder
than it would
 have been before.
JESS: Wow, this is what
it looked like, for sure.
This is what
everything looked like.
The first place I'm going to go
is the school that Fukue
 and I went to as kids.
I have a meeting set up
 with the principal,
and I'm really hoping he can
 give me some information
that leads us to finding her.
JESS: The morning of
the Halloween party
me and Fiona woke up at 6:10
we put away our futon
Made breakfast and ate it
after we had prepared
and carved the pumpkin
children had started to come.
Ah Halloween!
JESS:
Halloween party also.
JESS: So when Fukue and I
 would play after school,
she would always come
 to my apartment.
The only time that I actually
 came face-to-face
 with that thought
was when I was formally
 invited to come to her house.
When I got to the place,
 it wasn't a house at all-
it was like a shack, basically.
It was poverty.
JESS: I remember just
 standing outside the house,
not knowing what to do.
Before anyone inside saw me,
 I just ran back home.
Just realizing that
 my best friend
lived in this type
 of a situation,
and all of the things
 that I'd heard,
coming around the corner
 at school and seeing kids
surrounding her
 and pointing at her
and clearly saying
 something not nice to her
even though
 I couldn't hear it.
JESS: What I saw that day
 has never left my mind's eye.
JESS: Is there anything else
that comes up here?
I see Iwamurada.
JESS : I still sort of
 speak Japanese like a kid,
so I've brought along
 a translator and guide,
Ryo, to help out.
JESS: We're looking at
the yearbook
I picked up from the school,
and it shows the father's name
of every student.
So we looked that up online and
we found a record from 2000,
which is 11 years later than
our nearest other record
so that's like
an improvement.
Even if he has passed and so his
number isn't listed any more,
his wife might still live there
or maybe his son lives there.
Maybe she lives there.
I think we should go to the
personal residence address
that's listed.
RYO:
93 2-10.
JESS:
Ooh. Here we go!
It just feels good to do
detective work, exactly.
It's kind of like
my childhood dream.
All my childhood dreams
meshing together in one trip!
JESS: Dammit!
This is definitely all new.
RYO: According to the map,
it's probably this house.
JESS:
Right. Like this one.
JESS: You know we probably
should have asked those women.
JESS:
Oh really!
Really!
Wow!
JESS: I can't believe
 that when we got to City Hall
that there was a full press
 conference waiting for me.
The most important thing
 about the press being here
is that it makes me
 really hopeful
that we're actually
 going to find Fukue.
JESS:
Fukue-san.
I want to find you.
(dramatic music)
(cell phone ringing)
RYO:
(speaking Japanese)
JESS:
Okay, great.
RYO:
(speaking Japanese)
JESS:
Yes, please.
JESS: So now,
like we gotta call her.
JESS: I don't think I actually
thought that this would happen.
Like, I hoped but...
JESS: I always felt
 I left Fukue behind,
knowing her life
 in Saku was not easy.
She never said anything to me
 about hard things were.
She was strong
 way beyond her years.
JESS: She could
 be using her intelligence
and her creativity,
 and having a wonderful life.
She might
 have a family,
she might have accomplished
all of her goals.
But on the flip side, maybe
she doesn't have a good life-
that would be a crazy
smack in the face of reality.
(telephone ringing)
JESS :
 I became emotional immediately
when I came to this city because
 it only existed in my memory
and in my imagination.
And then along with that came
this idea that like those times
were a time
 I could never access again
and the most important person
 to me from that time
of course was Fukue.
We just got
along so well again and easily.
It was so natural.
 It's just unreal.
She has a steady job,
 a husband that loves
 her so much,
and two awesome kids.
I think she loves
 her life,
and I think she has
 a wonderful life.
I'm so happy
 that even though
she had to drop out
 of elementary school,
she's been able to get to
 where she is today.
It's like definitely
 renewed my belief
in things turning out
 in the way that is right.
JESS :
 Now that I'm back home,
Fukue and I are going to
 keep in touch regularly,
like we did when
 we were kids.
She went through
 such a rough childhood,
and the fact that
 she is where she is,
despite what she was
 up against,
makes me so happy.
(dramatic music)
