"Do you ever wish you were a scarlet rose in a gentle breeze?"
(With thanks to 'Y.S-san')

The sentence above is the inspiration behind this page and was written and expressed by one member of a group held here in Tokyo a few years ago. It gave me the idea to gather together the reflections of ordinary people living here about any kind of emotional experience they either have been or are still going through. Your contributions are needed to help this page grow. Please send anything you like from a single line to an essay or even a drawing, picture or painting which somehow expresses the way you feel.




"Den of Images" by "Umayo' is a selection of three colourful drawings created and chosen by the artist from a longer and as yet untitled series of images.

"My Prologue" by 'nami' is a graphic/essay based on an extract from Hiromi Tanaka's essay on memories. You can see what kanji look like even if your system doesn't support reading Japanese.

"Classic" is another beautiful drawing by 'nami'. My thanks for both pictures which are from the gallery in her Japanese former home page: "Shizuho's World"


"My feelings of inferiority towards English" by 'Gorisan'

Hello, everybody!!. I'll write about my inferiority toward English ability. I go to the graduate school of a certain private university. My major is clinical psychology. Where, I also take a lesson of TOEIC (Test Of English for International Communication). I study and practice how to listen and speak in English in a practical situation. I enjoy the lesson with several undergraduate students. I once disliked listening, speaking, reading, and writing in English. Whenever I heard someone speaking in English, my inferiority toward English ability was keenly stirred up.

The reason is that my father was a teacher of English in a high school. He considered that a Japanese without English ability is incompetent in this competitive society. And he assessed famous figures on the basis of only his/her English ability, such as "prime minister Miyazawa Kiichi is an excellent politician, because he was very good at English". Also, this way of my father's educational attitude made me "perfectionist". He extremely overemphasized the importance of academic career. I had an obsession that "I must get an English ability, otherwise nobody wouldn't treat me as a member of this society."

However, it's quite reasonable that the English ability is mere one of the great many abilities of us. And there are many competent and wonderful person who cannot understand English. Now, when I can understand what he/she says in English, I feel very glad, excited. It is because my self acceptance has been enhanced. Even if we couldn't understand English, or we don't have any prestigious academic careers, we have absolute rights to live in our society. And we could lead happy lives. It's quite natural. I came to understand such a common sense in these years. That's why my "stupid" obsession toward English ability disappeared. Also, when my perfectionism toward English ability disappeared, I can study and practice English very relaxedly. I don't have to listen and understand all of what you said in English. And I can make mistakes. In fact, without any mistake we cannot improve our English ability.
Now, English ability is no longer the absolute scale assessing a person for me. I'll study English within the extent I could, and enjoy communicating with people from other countries not only in English but in Japanese.

P.S. If I write in wrong or impolite English, sorry.


Response to: "My feelings of inferiority toward English"

With great interest, I read the essay from the following perspective: I am a retired member of the U.S. Coast Guard. (From 1978-79 I was stationed in Okinawa where I flew rescue helicopter with the U.S. Air Force). In 1972, while stationed in Miami, Florida, I met and married a young college student named Hideko who was born in Japan. Her mother, Hanako, is Japanese and her father is American. In 1954, when Hideko was 5 years old, she immigrated to the United States. At that point in time, she could speak only Japanese (and, due to World War II, there was much anti Japanese sentiment in the United States). Consequently, because her mother desperately wanted Hideko to fit into American society, she was no longer permitted to speak Japanese. (Hideko was also re-named "Peggy"). Because of this, Hideko can no longer converse in her native language with her maternal relatives in Japan due to the fact that she very quickly lost her Japanese speaking skills. For the past 13 years, Hideko has worked as a college academic counselor. For the last 10 years, I have worked as an Assistant Professor of Business Law. Because both of us frequently work with recent immigrants from all over the world, we are very familiar with the problems encountered by students whose second or third language is English. Typically, like Gorisan, they are very demanding of themselves, yet uncertain about their English language skills. However, in the vast majority of cases, Hideko and I both feel that these students actually have a better command of the English language than most America born, non immigrant students. After reading Gorisan's essay, we think his command of the English language is also much better than most of our America born, non immigrant students. (arens@javanet.com)

You are welcome to use a nickname if you don't want your real name to appear online and your e-mail and/or homepage addresses will only be included if you would like them to be. Any contribution in any single language will be gratefully received. If you also include any translations they can be checked before posting if you like or simply posted as they come. Please indicate your preferences about these things when you send your contributions to: andrew@gol.com




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