Excerpt: Chapter 7: The Past as a Foreign Country It was two weeks after the staff party that I heard the news of Noriko’s engagement to someone whose name no one had heard of.  The news immediately spread as if it were a long-waited special event stirring our neighborhood; it generated such energetic pulse among our neighbors, who normally would keep friendly distance from one another.  It was far more than noticeable, and caused almost paranormally surreal experience for me whenever I saw my neighbors actually talking to one another.  Despite this overwhelming phenomena, Noriko’s family kept themselves unaffected, and rather seemed quite happy, with the wedding plan undergoing in quite hasting pace.  Since there was no way of communication between Noriko and I, the arrival of the news struck me with the feelings of both sheer surprise and bitter-sweet sadness: the jolly image of her at the staff party, dancing along with her ‘gaijin’ boyfriend, quickly vanished as an unwanted memory, obsolete now, in a nostalgic sepia color. “She made it on time,” Mrs. Sato, one of our neighbors, announced to a small group of neighbors, whom all huddling like school children at a field trip, curious and inquisitive look on their faces.  Auntie, standing at the edge of the circle, moved her head dubiously, its tilted angle suggested her position was unclear: whether she was agreeing with her neighbor’s opinion, or not.