As I went about my daily life in Japan, which had regained its normalcy after the COVID-19 disaster, I suddenly wanted to see a place that was the opposite of where I was now. In this age of digital life and AI, where we can see and know everything on an LCD screen,it is important to touch things, to touch people, to go somewhere on purpose, to touch culture, to touch shocking things, to touch kindness. Nothing is better than this. Values are born from our current actions and past experiences, but as we glimpse the unknown world, these values change as well.

One day, I learned about the Roma, a nomadic ethnic group residing in Central and Eastern Europe, with a rich sense of color. As a people without a country, they have always been discriminated against and oppressed by society; even today poverty and prejudice still remain. In the summer of 2022, I traveled to Eastern Europe and Romania, hoping to meet the Roma people. Romania is located in Eastern Europe, east of the Balkan Peninsula, and has a population of about 19 million.The country's name derives from the Latin for Land of the Romans,but it is also a nation formed by a diverse range of ethnic groups. I often wondered where I was after I landed in the capital city of Bucharest. Sometimes lights reminded me of America; sometimes smells reminded me of Asia; sometimes there were European landscapes; and sometimes there were Middle Eastern scents. Although Bucharest is not the capital of a developing country in the sense that it has a well-developed infrastructure, the communist era remains strong in Bucharest, and the city as a whole is gray. There were many lonely glances, and the way of life of the Roma people seen in the villages and ruins on the outskirts of the city was somewhat sad. However, as I traveled northward through Romania over the course of three weeks, I met many people with kind gazes,and some of the country towns had beautiful townscapes that made me sigh. Wherever I went, I found friendly Romanian people. A boy at the train station with whom I conversed in Japanese and Romanian for more than 30 minutes and a family I met in a village on the outskirts of town with endless laughter seemed to have accepted an Asian, who is rare in Romania, with open arms.

After passing through Hungary and Bulgaria, I came back to Romania. Since Europe is connected by land, we could cross the borders on foot. However, there are different smells, air and breath, and every place has its own identity. In recent years, all countries have been developed in the same way, with the same malls and the same scenery, but Eastern Europe seems to have remained as is.
People were living their own way. Romania was a place where I felt the warmth of their gaze.

At the time of my visit, the war in neighboring Ukraine was just six months old, and although the situation was chaotic, the Romanian people were quietly watching the war. We must remember that the war is still going on.