childhood memories

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

When I was little, in one corner of the shopping arcade at the heart of my hometown, there was a small satellite store of Häagen-Dazs ice cream. At the time, my family was living on a tight budget, and even though we physically lived close to the store, we rarely went there. In fact, I

The summer when I was seven, I took an official assessment exam at my local music school for the first time. It consisted of several different tasks, and one of them was to read a given short music score and sing it out loud. When I went to the exam room, I was welcomed by

When I was about five, my family made a road trip to a mountain area near my hometown. At one point we came to a place where the view was fantastic even though it was not an official lookout. My mother suggested that we should take a picture there. It was many years before we

In my second year of kindergarten, our annual sport festival fell on a most gorgeous autumn day. There was not a single cloud to be seen in the clear blue sky, and the sun was bright but a lot gentler than in the summer. That morning, we were told to meet in the large public

This is a story I heard from my aunt – my mother’s elder sister – some time ago. She has three daughters, of which the two younger ones are a twin. They are all more than ten years older than me, so when I was old enough to have memories, they were already adults. But

When I was elven, I participated in one of the famous classical music contests in Japan. The section I had enrolled in was the piano section for primary school kids. After about five months of intense practice through the rainy season and the boiling summer, one early September, my mother and I travelled to Tokyo

It was when I was about five years old. One evening, my family finished eating dinner in the tiny kitchen of our half-dilapidated apartment as usual. My mother started washing the dishes, my little brother and I started playing, and my father went to the bathroom. After some time, I went back to the kitchen