The Good Daughter
by Kumi Taguchi
Scribner
Born in Melbourne in 1975 to an Australian mother and a Japanese father, Kumi Taguchi grew up in rural New South Wales. Her parents had wanted to name her Kumiko but shortened it to Kumi so that it would sound less Japanese.
Learning violin from the age of five, she won a scholarship to study music at university but journalism became her passion. This has meant that Kumi has travelled the world telling other people’s stories.
It was when Kumi’s estranged father died that the SBS Insight host realised how little she knew about him, and how ambivalent she had been about her Japanese heritage. Having divorced her mother, her father was a distant figure when she was growing up and when he died; her feelings about him were muddled.
Kumi sets out to understand the dad she never really knew and ends up finding a deeper understanding of herself. It is not a linear exploration as Kumi tries to piece together the disparate pieces that comprise her background, the way she had been treated as a result of that and the things she rejected in order to fit in.
An old Japanese woman once told Kumi that she was ‘haafu’ which is Japanese for ‘half’ or ‘mixed race’. Returning to Japan after her father’s death to try to lay some ghosts to rest, she was told that she was no longer ‘haafu’ but ‘ima’ which means double.
It is a fascinating memoir and journey of exploration about trying to balance being the good child with discovering her real self. Losing her father was just the inspiration she needed to find home. As she writes, “Memories swirl and go backwards and forwards and fold back in on each other.”
Instead of feeling the burden of being excluded from two cultures, Kumi’s explorations lead her to feeling blessed by two cultures.
Lezly Herbert
