February 2022

When I was five, during the weekdays when my father came home late, my mother, my little brother and I would have a small reading time before our bedtime. My mother would read a picture book or a picture story show (called kamishibai in Japanese) for us, and we would have a lot of fun […]

During the summer when I was four, I spent several weeks at my maternal grandmother’s house while my baby brother went through a major heart operation and required the full attention of my parents. At my grandmother’s house, every day, I had the entire day to myself. During the day, my grandmother was usually busy

It was when I was six. Shortly after the sudden departure of my one and only little brother, I was feeling very alone at home and missing him every day. Usually, during the day, I was busy attending the kindergarten and playing with my best friends, and didn’t feel the void in my life too

When I was five, my mother used to take me and my little brother to the local public library once a week. It was a tiny old library located at 5 minutes drive away from our apartment, and we would borrow several picture books for our evening reading time. One day, we borrowed a picture

When I was in primary school, I became fond of cleaning activities. In Japan, school children used to take turns in cleaning different parts of the school after classes every day, and I discovered that my favourite was to clean the bathrooms. Bathroom cleaning was the least favourite of everybody else, but I found it

A chocolate cornet is a Japanese pastry which comes with a twisted bread and a chocolate cream filling. It used to be a shared favourite of my father and my little brother. There was a travelling bakery visiting our neighbourhood every Thursday when my family still lived in the tiny half-dilapidated apartment. It was the

It was when I was five years old. One day, my family were going to make a visit to my paternal grandmother’s place. Her place was about three hours train ride from our home, and I was excited to travel by the bullet train all the way to Tokyo with all my family. Since we

Throughout my young childhood, my father read me bedside stories whenever he was at home before my bedtime. Starting from Winnie the Pooh, we covered many of the world famous children’s literature such as The Little Prince, The Hobbit, Swallows and Amazons, Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver and more. Our bedside story started

During the summer when I was five, I was visiting my maternal grandmother’s house with my mother and little brother. Since it was hot, one day, my mother gave us a permission to play in the bathtub. There was lukewarm water in the bathtub from the night before (in Japan, we often keep the hot