In this blog, I usually write about positive memories I don’t want to forget. But only this time, I’m going to write about memories I’d rather forget. I don’t want to remember them. I wish I could wipe them off from my brain, erase them from my history, and continue to live on as if such things hadn’t happened. But I can’t. And I think it important to share those painful experiences in the hope it may help other people, especially girls, from confronting similar experiences.

When I was 10 years old I was molested in a subway train. I was with my dad going to Osaka for my weekly dance lesson. The train was very crowded. I was standing next to my dad but we became separated as even more passengers got on. Then, a man touched my genital area and groped over my jeans.

At first, I thought it was someone’s hand touching my body accidentally. However, as the hand remained between my legs and kept touching my crotch I realized something untoward was taking place.

At that age, I had no awareness of the significance of my vagina. I didn’t even know what it is for. I knew that men were attracted to women’s breasts and buttocks, but that was something comical I’ve seen in cartoons or children’s animations.

So I did not realize it was an assault. I just felt awkward and uneasy. I couldn’t understand why a stranger tried to touch my body like that. There was something sinister in that act that I had never encountered before. It was scary and disgusting. I wished it stopped.

It would have been probably a couple of minutes, but it felt like an hour. Even after getting off the train, I couldn’t stop feeling grossed out. It felt like out of nowhere someone had put a dark smelly tar on my face.

As I couldn’t understand what had happened, I told mom as soon as I got home.

Her face went pale as if she found out somebody had died.

“Which part of your body did the man touch? Did he do anything else to you?!” Mom asked me frantically.

“No, he touched between my legs.” I was terrified by the intensity of her interrogation.

“How could you not notice what has happened to your daughter?!” She stormed into my father’s room blaming him. I could overhear the argument they had.

“She didn’t tell me.” Dad sounded mortified. “She is just a kid, you know, I never thought… I can’t imagine a guy would…”

“Sure you must have known what some men are like! Why you didn’t keep her close to you?! You thought you were with her on an excursion? This pedophile preyed on our daughter! And you failed to protect her, you didn’t even notice!!” She screamed and cried. She was very hurt. My dad was very hurt too.

I was horrified. I felt like I had done something wrong and that I was somewhat responsible for the terrible row my parents were having.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized to mom, crying.

“No, it wasn’t your fault,” mom hugged me tightly. “You must have been so scared. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go with your dad.” Their relationship was in trouble then.

It was the last time my dad took me to the dance school. But it was only the beginning of sexual harassments and acts of violence I had to go through in my life as a female.

When I was 13 years of age, my classmate asked me to model for her photographer uncle. In his studio, he asked me to strip to underwear as he “needed to check my body shape”. Later I asked my classmate to show me those photos but she said her uncle had lost the film.

At a sleepover party in the apartment of my girlfriend from college, her boyfriend lied next to me in the night and pressed his body against my back while I pretended to sleep. I was appalled.

On my way to work, as I was with a few other people in the elevator, a drunk guy grabbed my breasts. The other people did absolutely nothing to help me.

In a bar, a total stranger asked me to go to his apartment to have sex with him. I left the bar and he followed me as I headed home. I was terrified he might try to rape me.

At a company’s function, I was asked by my male colleagues. “What size of bra do you wear?”, “What is the colour of your underwear?” Other colleagues around me were just laughing.

I have also been told countless dirty jokes and sexual innuendoes on business occasions (Not only by men but also by women).

I have also had to endure a young guy exposing himself in front of my apartment. I called the police but they said they couldn’t do anything because a) it was not a caught-in-the-act, and b) the guy was known to have a mental disorder and couldn’t be arrested under the current laws even though he had been repeatedly reported to the police.

Yet I believe my experiences are not unique.

I’m writing this for the sake of a 10-year-old girl. A girl who liked going to dance class. A girl who trusted a classmate’s relative. A girl who was too afraid of upsetting her friend’s romantic relationship. I’m writing this for the sake of a woman who was too scared to grab the drunk man’s hand in the elevator and drag him to the police, for the sake of somebody who was too timid to say no to sexual harassments at work for fear of losing her job, for someone who set her expectations for local authorities so low. I’m writing this so that you know that you are not alone if you have endured harassment or been assaulted.

I’m not a political activist. I’m just a normal person who has had bad experiences and don’t want other people to have the same experiences.

Instead, I’d rather want people to have different experiences (because I’m a theatre person, and theatre people love to let others have unique experiences).

I remember a conversation I had with my late grandma a few years back. One night, as I told her I was going out for a drink, she was very surprised.

“I’ll be coming home late,” I said to grandma as I was putting on some high heels.

“Where are you going so late at night?” She muted the TV and asked me.

“It’s only 8pm, grandma. I’m going out for a drink with my friends. I mean, my girlfriends.”

“Are you going out with girls for a drink?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, my! When I was young, it was the thing men did. I couldn’t imagine ladies hanging out in bars, at night! My word!!”

“Do not think that I’m a bad girl, grandma. It’s quite normal nowadays.” I thought I have been criticized. But grandma, who was born in 1924, smiled at me.

“Lucky you. Enjoy!”

This is a type of conversation I aspire to have with my daughters and granddaughters when I have them. I want to see what used to be unthinkable becoming ordinary. Kudos to all the feminists throughout history.

Next month I’m going to be on a play called Vagina Monologues. It’s about women’s struggle and the exploration of their sexuality. It’s just a very small step to change the world. I hope people like it.