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帰省, and the question every family here is also asking
Twice a year the whole country travels in the same direction. 帰省 is the word — not 'going home' but returning to the house you came from — and it happens at 正月 and at お盆 in mid-August, which between them produce the 帰省ラッシュ that the news reports like weather. お盆 is not even a public holiday; companies simply close, because everyone is going anyway. What is being asked for on those trips is presence: 顔を見せる, show your face. Conversation is optional and often thin, which is why Alex's father saying less is not necessarily a sign of anything. Then there is the other half of this lesson. The question Alex is turning over — stay, or go back for parents who will need help — is not a foreigner's question with a foreign answer. Japan has the oldest population in the world and the same conversation is happening in every family here; 介護保険 was created in 2000 precisely because households could no longer absorb it alone, 老老介護 describes the elderly caring for the elderly, and 遠距離介護 is a standard word for managing it from another city. Alex's version has an ocean in it rather than a bullet train. The shape of the problem is the same, and so is the fact that nobody solves it in one phone call.