childhood memories

It was when I was ten years old when I first heard about Harry Potter. A family friend who used to often travel to England gave me the book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in Japanese translation as my birthday present. The book was still new in Japan, and nobody really knew about it. […]

When I was five, there was an annual rummage sale at my kindergarten. On the day of rummage sale, there was no class, and the children were invited to arrive at the rummage sale at certain hour depending on their age. My mother left for the kindergarten early that day. She was supposed to be

When I was four years old, there was a time when my little brother was staying in a hospital for a brief time due to pneumonia. My father and I were alone at home, and would make a regular visit to the hospital to see my brother and mother. One day, my father had found

When I was five, I used to take bath every evening with my mother and my little brother. In Japan, it is a common practice for young children to take bath with their parent. Each evening, I was the first one to wash my body with the help of my mother while my little brother

The first birthday present I remember receiving in my life was the one from my parents for my third birthday. That day, I accompanied my mother for her shopping to the city centre as usual. We walked through the arcade stopping here and there for different errands. Then my mother took me to a MacDonald’s

It was when I was in Grade 5. I was walking back home from school with a group of my close friends as usual. We were half way through when a silly argument started. A random woman had passed by us, and we started comparing the person’s appearance to our mothers’. It was one of

During my early childhood, when my family used to live in a tiny half-dilapidated apartment, we depended on a small kerosine heater to provide warmth in the house during the winter season. In my hometown, the temperature hovered around 0 degree Celsius in the winter, and with the poor insulation of our apartment, it was

“Who is your favourite musician?” Whenever people ask me this question, after thinking for a moment, I answer “J. S. Bach.” My answer is always the same, but I hesitate because I sense that it’s probably outside of the range of answers they expect to hear. J. S. Bach is the world famous music composer

When I was five, since I started going to the kindergarten, I caught a cold more frequently than before. Whenever I became sick, my mother would prepare a bedding for me and tell my little brother to stay in another room so that he didn’t contract the virus. Our house was a tiny apartment, and

When I was five, one day, my great aunt visited us in our tiny half-dilapidated apartment. Since she lived in Tokyo – 2 hours away from my hometown by the bullet train -, we couldn’t see her often, but she was one of my favourite relatives and I always looked forward to meeting her. She