July 2022

I was five year old when my father gifted me with my very first dictionary. One evening after supper, he said that we were now all going to go to the bookstore to buy a Japanese dictionary. It was rare for us to go out for shopping that late, so I got very excited. “What […]

When I was little, my little brother and I got along well, but there were moments when a fight erupted between us over some small things. One morning when I was four and my brother was one, my mother took us to her workplace to take photocopies of a teaching material. There was nobody else

When I was in primary school, every summer, there was a series of mandatory swimming lessons. Like many typical public schools in Japan, there was an outdoor swimming pool on the school premises, and whenever the water temperature was above the certain degree, we were called to the poolside for the lesson. While most people

Since I was very small, I was a huge lover of stories. I loved sitting with my mother when she read me some picture books, and I loved lying next to my father while he read me a bedside story. I would eagerly listen, completely absorbed in the story. But despite my love of stories,

It was when I was about four and my family lived in a tiny half-dilapidated apartment in the north region of Japan. Having recently become a big sister, I was extra motivated to take care of other people around me. It especially brought me a sense of pride and joy to “help” my mother, who

The summer when I was four, I was living with my grandmother for several weeks while my parents were busy attending my little brother’s major heart operation back home. Though my grandmother lived with my uncle’s family, most of the family members were school teachers and usually it was just me and my grandmother at

When I was a young child, I always had a fascination with the idea of an attic. In many western tales that I read, a person often lived in a small attic, and I thought that it would be so cozy to stay in the tiny spot under the roof. So, when I was six

When I was eleven and twelve, I participated in a major classical music contest held for students. I was registered in the piano section, and after the long, intensive practice through the summer, in early September, my mother and I travelled to Tokyo to attend the first round of the contest. There were about a

When I was about nine, my maternal grandmother came to visit us during my spring school break. One evening, my mother, grandmother and I had finished dinner when the famous old Japanese TV drama series “Oshin” started to play on our family’s TV screen. “Oshin” is a fictional story depicting the life of a woman

My little brother, when he was small, was an ardent bus lover. It’s not uncommon for a young boy to show interest in vehicles, but one unique thing about my brother was that he was only interested in buses and no other kinds of vehicles. Right adjacent to the community of half-dilapidated apartments we lived