September 11 in Year 152 of Country A’s calendar is the day when the protagonists of the Dark Wings Universe live through a momentous event. September 11, 2026, is the day when I happen to be writing that 9/11 episode in the story. It marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States. It is also the day I finally booked my flight for a short-term study program in Japan. In the lunar calendar, September 11, 2026, is the first day of the eighth month in the Bingwu year. I do not know whether there is any coincidence in all this—just as we never know which day in our lives will become a turning point that stays with us forever.
The wish to go to Japan was like a ghost that refused to leave; I, meanwhile, seemed to possess a yin-yang eye that worked only intermittently. When the frequency was right, I could see it clearly. When the signal weakened, I could no longer tell whether the idea was anything more than an illusion. At times the frequency rose and fell so sharply that it resembled a film skipping frames and flashing white, suspended somewhere between ‘there’ and ‘not there.’
On September 5, 2026, I decided to try giving the idea of ‘going to Japan’ a concrete form. I am grateful to my husband for supporting me and letting me make this attempt. On September 6, I contacted two agencies for study programs in Japan. One handled only long-term study; the other responded quickly and took on my case. By then, many Japanese language schools were only a month away from the start of term. On September 9, the agency confirmed that ISI Language School, Osaka still had a place for a short-term student and that accommodation was available, so I filled in the application. On September 11, I booked the flight. I still had to complete the online placement test and pay the fees. I was due to leave on September 29, leaving just eighteen days to prepare.
Between ‘letting go of everything and taking things as they come’ and ‘actively preparing for Japan,’ I chose a place in between. Three months is brief. Yet for a middle-aged person whose life is full of groceries, bills and everyday obligations, clearing three months the way one might have when young is not a casual or spontaneous decision. Perhaps this is simply the reality of middle age after taking on responsibility. ‘If the space does not exist now, it never will.’ I had wanted to learn Japanese for so many years, always in fits and starts, without ever truly getting anywhere. It simply never ranked high enough among life’s priorities, and the attrition of daily life made comfort and inertia all too tempting. In a world where AI keeps evolving, the importance of learning another language seemed to have slipped even further down the list.
Yet as I continued writing the Dark Wings Universe, I felt the opposite more and more strongly: AI is, after all, the invention of technical minds. Its grasp of philosophy, ethics, the humanities and even the finer shades of emotion has not yet reached the point of genuine understanding and communication across languages and contexts. And so I decided to leave. In middle age—when we are assumed to possess mature experience even as our thinking begins to harden—I want to relive how it felt twenty years ago to enter a new country without knowing its language.
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