Twenty-three kilograms.
That’s all the airline will let me take to Japan.
Funny.
Nobody told me how many questions I was allowed to bring back.
I used to think sustainability was simple.
Recycle.
Walk more.
Carry a reusable bottle.
Done.
Was it?
Then I booked my flight.
I celebrated.
No.
I celebrated…
and then I felt guilty for it.
How do you hold a reusable bottle in one hand and a boarding pass in the other?
No.
Wrong question.
The real question is why I thought those two things couldn’t exist together.
One question became another.
If sustainability were only about plastic…
why would my flight matter?
If it were only about recycling…
why did buying another jumper suddenly feel different?
Who stitched my clothes?
Who grew my food?
Who paid?
Who keeps paying?
No.
Wait.
I’m doing it again.
Trying to untangle the whole planet before I’ve even packed my suitcase.
Maybe sustainability isn’t about knowing everything.
Maybe it’s about realising everything is connected.
Five weeks in Taiwan didn’t give me answers.
They made the questions louder.
I arrived believing I was there to study.
I left carrying questions home.
I stopped asking,
“How do people live here?”
and started asking,
“Why do I live the way I do?”
Japan isn’t another destination.
It’s the next question.
I don’t want to arrive as another tourist.
I want to arrive as a respectful guest.
That means choosing trains before unnecessary flights, refilling instead of replacing through initiatives like mymizu, buying second-hand before asking the Earth for another, learning Japan’s recycling system before assuming mine is enough, supporting local businesses, and leaving useful things behind for the next student.
Not because one student changes the world.
Because millions might.
Everyone says,
“Save the turtles.”
Do they know about the whale mistaking plastic for a jellyfish?
The seabird feeding it to its chicks?
The coral bleaching where nobody is watching?
Who paid?
The whale.
The seabird.
The coral.
Who keeps paying?
The ones that never chose.
Perhaps the bottle in my hand was never just a bottle.
Perhaps buying second-hand was never just about saving money.
Perhaps it was about looking at something someone else called finished…
and disagreeing.
Only later did I realise these questions were never mine alone.
Someone else had already named them.
Goal 11.
Goal 12.
Goal 13.
Funny.
I spent so long searching for answers…
I never realised I had joined a conversation that began long before me.
The airline will weigh my suitcase.
Twenty-three kilograms.
That is its job.
Mine…
is different.
The real question was never what I would take to Japan.
It was always…
what I would bring back.
Better habits?
Better questions?
More respect?
…
Who keeps paying?
