One Girl’s Astonishing Search For Her Long-Lost Friend

By Louise P

Friendships are some of the most important relationships we will forge during our lives. Sometimes people also come into our lives for the shortest time, but they are sometimes the ones who can make the biggest impact on us. Children also make friends and lose friends faster than you can say “playtime,” but for one Vancouver-born girl, that wasn’t the case at all. Jessica Stuart, a Canadian Musician, was facing living in a new country where she knew no one and didn’t speak the language. One friend made a significant impact on her life. SO much so that years later, she returned to the foreign land searching for her long-lost friend. This is the story of Jessica Stuart and her trans-continental search for friendship.

A Young Start

These days, being an English teacher in Asia is quite common, and seeing a western face walking down a street in China, Vietnam, or Thailand is not too unheard of. But back in the 80s, this was way less common.

Image Courtesy of Ron Stewart

But this is exactly the reality Jessica Stuart faced. When she was only 9 years old, her family uprooted themselves and moved to rural Japan. In 1988, the farming community of Saku was a long way away from Vancouver, where Jessica grew up.

First Days

Jessica started school in Saku only a few days after landing in Japan. This was like nothing that she was used to and was actually a huge culture shock, not only for herself but also for her fellow classmates. Most people had never seen a blond person before, and Jessica stood out like a sore thumb.

Image Courtesy of Ron Stewart

Despite her being so unique to everybody, she had a hard time making friends. The kids would rather stick to the friends they knew rather than try to befriend a new foreign kid. But there was one kid who reached out to Jessica.

New Friends

Fukue was the one brave soul that reached out to Jessica and befriended her. The two girls soon bonded, and started spending a lot of time together, and were the best of friends in no time at all. The two girls taught each other their respective languages too.

Image Courtesy of Ron Stewart

“We would go on little adventures, just go explore wherever we wanted,” Jessica says. They caught toads in the rice paddies and visited shrines in the town. “She was truly interested in learning about my life and where I’d come from.”

Much Needed Bond

This bond was especially strong as Fukue never had many friends. She was severely bullied at school, something Jessica did not fully understand. It was only later that Jessica learned Fukue came from a very poor family and lived in poverty.

Image Courtesy of Youtube/CBS Docs

In the town of only 6,000, everyone knew Fukue’s family, and the poor child became ostracized at school. Jessica did not pay any attention to her friend’s economic background and loved her for her. In her mind, they would be friends no matter what.

Pseudo Celebs

The Stuart family became celebrities in their own right in the town. Being the only Caucasian people around, they were known by everyone. They were regularly featured in the local newspaper, and the school employed a videographer to capture footage of them.

Image Courtesy of Youtube/CBS Docs

This quickly became the new normal for them, and her parents were even commissioned to create an educational English video titled: English is Fun: Sing Along with the Stuarts. Jessica’s mother, who wrote the music for the film, is an ethnomusicologist, and she even plays traditional Japanese instruments.

Pen Pals

Jessica’s parents moved the family back to Vancouver after only a year in Japan as their contract had ended. Jessica and Fukue vowed to keep in touch and became pen pals. The girls did their best to stay in touch via letters, and it seemed at the time that their friendship would survive the geographical distance between them.

Image Courtesy of jessicastuartmusic.com

Unfortunately, this did not last as long as they had hoped. Jessica stopped receiving letters from Fukue. This puzzled her as her friend hadn’t given any information about her notable absence. It was the early 90s, and Jessica had no other way to try and contact her friend on the other side of the globe.

20 Years Later

Many years later, in 2017, Jessica was working as a musician in Toronto. She was giving guitar lessons to Daniel Roher, who happens to be a film director. As fate would have it, Jessica had just the kind of story to tell that Daniel was looking for.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

“We were having some very benign conversation after a guitar session, and I mentioned [being] a kid in Japan, and he was like, ‘Oh, you lived in Japan?’” Jessica retells. “He knew I played the koto and spoke Japanese, but he thought I was a Japanophile.”

Daniel to the Rescue

Jessica had returned to Japan once before searching for her long-lost friend, but she had no luck. She even wrote a song, Lost Friend, about her endeavor. “It’s about Fukue, my feeling of longing to be in touch with her to know what happened to her.”

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

She was very doubtful that her filmmaker friend could help her. “I was like, “  ‘Alright, man, you want to take it on, I’ll support you.’” In the spring of 2018, Jessica and Daniel set out in search of Fukue once more, and they could never have expected the outcome they received.

It’s All About Who You Know

In the past, Jessica’s searches have been fruitless. “I put an ad in the paper, hired a private investigator, talked to the school principal in Japan, but I got to the end of the line.” But Daniel explained that finding people was his specialty.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

Daniel also introduced Jessica to Ed Stenson, another filmmaker who can speak Japanese too. Daniel and Ed co-directed the subsequent film “Finding Fukue.” Jessica interviewed her old school principal and also headed down to the city hall to try and gather info.

More Difficult than They Thought

After the Nagano Olympics, the once sleepy town of Saku had exploded in numbers. The addition of a bullet train to the town has made it possible to expand to over 100,000 people. This would make the search for her friend significantly more difficult.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

In the documentary, Jessica interviews old ladies on the street, and they miraculously recognize her. “Was your father the teacher here in the 80s?” they ask. Jessica gets confirmation from them that Fukue’s family still lives in the town, news that could not have come sooner.

One Step at a Time

After a long and tiresome search, Jessica eventually got a hold of Fukue’s sister. In the documentary, you can see her total shock and amazement when she reaches Fukue’s sister, who can give her the information she had longed to have for so many years.

Image Courtesy of Youtube/CBS Docs

Jessica wasted no time trying and get Fukue on the line, and viewers are holding their breath as the dial tone starts in the film. When the soft-spoken voice of Fukue answers on the other end, you can see Jessica’s heart explode with joy. The two quickly arrange to meet at the café outside their old school.

Just Like Old Friends

One can only imagine how nervous Jessica felt as she waited for her friend to arrive. Once Fukue stepped into the café, Jessica embraced her, and the two bursts into tears. They got along like no time had passed, and soon they felt like school kids again, laughing and enjoying their time together.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

Since Jessica returned to Canada, they have made sure to stay connected. They send letters, emails, and facetime regularly. The most incredible part of the journey is how far the documentary has reached and how many lives they have touched through telling their story.  

Bullying Problems

Once Jessica returned home, the bullying towards Fukue became unbearable. This was the heartbreaking reason that she stopped communicating with her friend. Jessica said she was warned about Fukue when their friendship started: “My classmates, even people who didn’t know me very well, would say ‘why are you playing with her, she’s dirty.’”

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

“We never discussed it,” said Jessica. “She wasn’t dirty. My parents always said to me that must be something the other kids heard their parents say … they got that from somewhere.” Jessica recalls seeing other children taunt Fukue as she was crouched on the ground.

Privacy Concerns

It quickly became evident that Fukue was a severely private person. Jessica and the directors took great care to respect Fukue’s privacy and boundaries. Jessica also agreed not to release the film locally in Japan to respect Fukue’s wishes.

Image Courtesy of Youtube/CBS Docs

“In the western world, we are having a moment where people are getting really honest about their problems, and it’s an empowering moment, but that is not happening in the same way in Japan. People don’t want their information on show for everyone; they are much more private.”

Instant Success

The film has had an incredible reception. It has become the most-watched online documentary by CBS and has garnered almost 10,000,000 views in 3 years. The National Screen Institute Online Short Film Festival also awarded them the A&E Short Filmmakers Award for best film.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

Brennan Tilley, who is a member of the NSI jury, had the following to say about the film: “A moving documentary about the importance of childhood friendships and the meaningful bonds that remain. It’s a film that will resonate with anyone who has had a short but deeply-felt connection with someone.”

Love From Fans

Jessica has received an incredible response from the film. People have reached out from all over the globe explaining how the film touched them or inspired them to find their own lost loved ones. Jessica also regularly receives fan art that she shares with Fukue.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

“It means a lot, and other people have said they have been inspired by the film to get in touch with people and try to find people from their past. There has been a whole ripple effect from that,” Jessica says. “I couldn’t believe how many people were missing old friends and how many people want to reconnect.”

More Fans for Jessica

Jessica composed the compelling score of the film and garnered a lot of attention for it. “Fukue’s Theme Pt. 1” is a dreamy ode to the friendship she has with Fukue and nods to a dream the two girls shared as children.

Image Courtesy of Instagram/ @jessicastuartmusic

“I can write conventional music, and I do write conventional music, but I never limit myself to a structure,” Jessica says. “I’ve never written, ‘I’m missing this, I should fill that blank there.’ It’s more of a progression. Where does the music want to go? I understand that that means it’s not going to be a single, I get that. But there’s a mood about the song, and I think that was the most important thing, so I just rolled with it.”

A True Test of Friendship

This whole experience made Jessica question many things and brought a lot of clarity and meaning into her life. “I think really it’s caring about the well-being and happiness of someone else, caring deeply to the point that you would put aside your own feelings. It’s just being an authentic human and connecting authentically with someone. We all have different kinds of friends. Fukue was a very significant friend.”

Image Courtesy of Youtube/CBS Docs

“The thing that I think about when I think about this experience with Fukue … it’s about empathy and compassion and really see from someone else’s perspective to understand them especially with the internet and being able to interact with people facelessly, people can be mean, people judge but if we instead of assuming the worst if we had a little bit more understanding we would have a much easier time.” Hopefully, this devoted search for lost friends will inspire more people to reach out to those they have lost along their way.