By Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美) — Founder of Japan Language Factory (JLF), creator of the Terumi Method.
I want to tell you about one night.
I was 22 years old. I had just moved from the countryside to Tokyo. I knew no one.
I was working every job I could find — restaurant shifts, delivery runs, anything that paid.
I was always tired.
I was almost always alone.
One night, at 3 AM, I was sitting in a small curry restaurant in Sasazuka — eating dinner after a shift.
A man at another table noticed me.
He spoke to me in Kyoto dialect — soft, friendly, slightly old-fashioned.
“Why is a young woman eating curry alone at this hour? Come over. Let’s talk.”
My first thought was — suspicious uncle.
But I was tired. And lonely. And honestly, a little bored.
So I sat down.
He asked me what I was doing in Tokyo.
I told him the truth.
I had just moved from the countryside. I was trying to build a cooking school. I had a dream and no idea how to do it.
Something I said moved him.
He looked at me and said —
“Tomorrow I am going to a business meeting in Fukushima with a consultant I trust. Come with me.”
The next morning, 7 AM, I was on a train to Fukushima.
That meeting introduced me to the business consultant who changed my entire life.
The cooking school. The book. The Tokyo network. Everything that came after.
All of it traces back to one bowl of curry. At 3 AM. In Sasazuka. With a stranger speaking Kyoto dialect.
Now I want you to imagine something.
Imagine if I had not been able to speak.
The man would have asked his question. I would have stared. Smiled. Pulled out a translation app.
The moment would have died inside ten seconds.
He would have gone back to his table. I would have gone back to my curry. We would never have spoken again.
The cooking school would never have happened.
The book would never have happened.
Tokyo would have stayed a city of strangers.
And I would not be writing to you tonight.
That is the truth nobody talks about.
The most important moments of your life are not scheduled.
They are not on your calendar.
They happen in a curry restaurant at 3 AM.
They happen on a delayed train.
They happen in line at a coffee shop.
They happen in the seat next to you on the flight to Tokyo.
And every single one of them — without exception — depends on whether you can open your mouth and speak.
There is a Japanese phrase I want you to learn today.
Ichi-go ichi-e. 一期一会.
It means — this meeting will never happen again.
This particular moment, between these particular people, with this particular feeling — exists only once.
If you miss it, it is gone forever. The same person, in the same room, on a different day, is a different moment entirely.
Japanese culture is built around this idea. Tea ceremony is built around this idea. Real Japanese friendships are built around this idea.
And here is what nobody is telling you.
Every day you postpone learning Japanese — every single day — is a day of ichi-go ichi-e moments slipping through your fingers.
Conversations that would have happened.
Friendships that would have started.
Deals that would have closed.
Stories that would have been told.
You will never know what you lost.
That is the most uncomfortable part of postponing this.
You will not feel the missed moments. You will not see them.
You will simply… live a slightly smaller life than the one that was available to you.
Forever.
Let me tell you about a student who broke my heart.
He came to JLF after thirty years of marriage to a Japanese woman.
Thirty years.
Three decades of dinners. Three decades of conversations. Three decades of Christmases, fights, laughter, illness, raising children together.
And after he started learning Japanese — really learning it, the speaking kind, the Terumi Method kind — he came to me one day and said something I will never forget.
“I just realized — I have not actually known my wife for thirty years.”
He had loved her. He had supported her. He had built a life with her.
But he had never been able to hear her.
The real her — the her that only existed in Japanese — had been on the other side of a wall the entire time.
He could not hear what she truly thought.
He could not hear what she truly wanted.
He could not hear what she truly meant.
For thirty years.
And only when he could finally speak — could he finally meet his own wife.
This is the cost of waiting.
It is not just dollars. It is not just opportunities. It is not just business deals.
It is people you love whose real selves you may never meet.
It is conversations the universe was trying to give you, that you could not receive.
It is the slow, quiet erosion of a life that could have been bigger — if only you had started a few years earlier.
So today, I am not going to push you.
I am just going to ask you the most honest question I can ask.
How many ichi-go ichi-e moments are you willing to lose…
before you decide it is finally time?
— Terumi
The Founder Letters — a 9-part series by Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美), founder of Japan Language Factory.
You have reached the final letter in the series.
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About the author
Terumi Kai (甲斐輝美) is the founder of Japan Language Factory (JLF) and the creator of the Terumi Method — a speaking-first approach to Japanese that has graduated over 5,000 students worldwide, including learners from Amazon, Google, ANA, Mitsubishi, Lufthansa, and the U.S. military. Japanese by birth, Terumi Kai has lived and worked across three continents, and writes about language, culture, and identity at terumikai.com.