Tetyana Solotska
26/05/26, 03:00
Ukraine House Japan is continuing its series of publications dedicated to the women members of our organization, their professional journeys, experiences, and personal reflections.
Through these essays, we hope to introduce readers to the people who shape the UHJ community and contribute to the development of cultural dialogue between Ukraine and Japan.
In this essay, Tetyana Solotska, co-founder of Ukraine House Japan, shares personal reflections on more than twenty years of life in Japan, the quiet influence of everyday life, encounters with human kindness and attentiveness, the role of meditation and nature in her inner world, and the gradual rediscovery of Ukrainian cultural identity while living far from Ukraine.
“As a child, I loved listening to elderly women speak about their lives. I was amazed not only by how much they had gone through, but also by how kind they remained after all their hardships. Even when they spoke about difficult things, there was warmth and gentleness toward other people in their words. Many of them repeated the same thought: life passes very quickly. At that time, I could not truly understand those words.
In 2000, our family came to Japan sincerely believing that we would stay here for only three years. This year marks already twenty-six years in Japan. Sometimes it still feels unreal to me.
When I look back on these years, I first of all feel deep gratitude toward Japan. This country gave our family stability and peaceful everyday life, but at the same time it also slowly shaped me through countless ordinary daily moments that gradually changed the way I look at people, nature, and life itself.
Japan became the place where my husband and I raised our two daughters. Growing up between different cultures and languages, they became fluent in four languages. After russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our family stopped using the russian language. Language itself began to be perceived as something connected to memory, dignity, and identity.
Some of my earliest memories of Japan are connected to the Japanese language teachers I met during my first years living here. I still remember their patience, generosity, and sincerity. They helped me not only study Japanese, but also feel that kindness was waiting for me here. Looking back now, I understand how important those encounters were at the beginning of our life in Japan.
Many years later, while working in Japanese elementary schools and juku, I saw another side of Japanese everyday life — how seriously teachers treat children and how naturally responsibility for others is woven into daily actions and human relationships.
I especially remember the events of the great earthquake in 2011. Teachers stayed together with children at schools while parents tried to return home across the city after transportation had stopped. There was a quiet trust that adults would calmly and responsibly take care of every child until families could reunite again. This experience left a deep impression on me and revealed a quiet form of social interconnectedness and mutual responsibility that is difficult to describe in words.
Gradually, I also began noticing another form of attentiveness — the kind expressed through very small gestures: carefully wrapped gifts, quiet words of gratitude, attention to details about other people without placing them in a position of obligation in return. All of this slowly influenced the way I look at human relationships now.
Japan also shaped my perception of nature. My husband and I often walk through parks and gardens during different seasons, and over the years I began noticing things that previously escaped my attention: reflections of light on water, moss after rain, changes in seasonal light, the smell of earth during humid summer evenings, the quiet beauty of carefully maintained spaces, the slow opening of roses in my small garden.
Japanese gardens are often perceived not simply as spaces created by people, but as places for contemplation and coexistence with nature. Even very small gardens carry a sense of care, restraint, and deep respect toward the natural world. It seems to me that Japanese people often express love for nature not through grand words, but through everyday attentiveness. Seasonal flowers near entrances, carefully maintained neighborhood plants, trees preserved through generations, people quietly admiring sakura or autumn leaves — over time, all of this changed the rhythm of my own perception as well.
Many elderly people live in my neighborhood, and their warmth and sincerity constantly remind me that the comfort and orderliness of Japanese everyday life were built through decades of hard work and attentiveness toward others.
Life in Japan also gave me two very personal gifts.
One of them was meditation, which gradually became an important part of my inner life and changed the way I observe thoughts, emotions, and time itself.
The other was pysanky.
As someone born during the Soviet era, I did not have the opportunity to deeply encounter this tradition in Ukraine. It feels deeply symbolic to me that it was precisely in Japan where I truly discovered this part of Ukrainian culture and began to feel connected to something that had once been interrupted by history.
By nature, I have always been closer to quietness, contemplation, and life away from constant social activity. However, over time I came to understand that cultural connection between people does not emerge by itself.
This realization became one of the reasons for creating Ukraine House Japan together with other women on our team: to give Japanese people more opportunities to encounter Ukrainian culture directly, move beyond distant images or news headlines, and build human connections despite the geographical distance between our countries.
For me, cultural exchange is not only about presenting traditions or organizing events. It is also about creating spaces where people can meet through sincerity, attentiveness, conversation, and shared human experience.
The desire to represent Ukraine through slogans or loud declarations does not exist in my perception. But it has always been important to me that people who meet me as a representative of Ukraine feel dignity, sincerity, attentiveness, and respect toward others.
Now, after twenty-six years in Japan, I understand much better the words of those elderly women from my childhood about how quickly life passes. It truly moves very quickly.
Sometimes this realization comes unexpectedly — while walking through a familiar garden, watching evening light fall onto roses, or returning once again to places that have accompanied so many years of my life.”
link to FB https://www.facebook.com/PysankyNoTabi
