In my country, Japan, Christmas would look very different from Western countries. While for families, Christmas has become a season to buy children presents. For young people, Christmas is considered a dating occasion. Couples go out for a romantic dinner, exchange expensive gifts and (if the gift and the dinner work their magic) they end …
My mom became a single parent when I was 12 and my sister was 7. I have no idea how she managed to raise the two of us by herself. In the mid-1990s, divorce was not so common in Japan compared to the United States or some European countries (Single-parented households comprised less than 4% …
How many Christmas evenings do I remember? When I was a kid, I loved Christmas parties. My grandpa, who was a very outgoing entrepreneur, would take whole family to this large holiday gatherings of Rotary Club in Osaka every year. We all dressed up and enjoyed special dinner followed by magic shows, stand-up comedy performances …
Whenever I eat chestnuts, I remember my late-grandmother. She was my maternal grandmother. We lived together for about 11 years since I was a baby. Besides my mom, my grandma was the person who took a great care of me when I was little. She was a fun person. She would laugh a lot. She …
My advice to the people.... have a dog, at least once in your life. Because they teach us some of the most important things in life: unconditional love, simple happiness and commitment. “Happiness is a warm puppy”, Charles M. Schulz said. I absolutely agree. To me, dogs and happiness are totally synonymous. The sky is …
I remember my first winter in New York. I enrolled NYU School of Continuing that winter to study art management. I was really excited to learn professional studies with other native English speakers. However, at the very first class in the semester, I realized my English was not at all enough to catch up with …
"Starting over" is the concept which I don't subscribe to because I believe life is a something continuous. But there was one time I felt I needed to start over entirely from scratch. November 7th, 2008: Brooklyn, New York. I arrived at JFK Airport the day before and settled in a hostel in Bed-Stuy. I …
Ten years ago today, I was at the airport waiting for my flight to New York. I was alone. It was a beginning of my real life, in the sense that I was not following anybody else's. Surely I have taken some big decisions before... like which course to study at university, or what kind of …
I don’t know much about my uncle. Because he led a very secluded life for nearly 40 years. According to my grandmother, my uncle was what people called “prodigy”. From a young age, he excelled academically. He went to the most prestigious university in Japan, and he continued his studies to become a science researcher. …
Walking My Neighborhood On a sunny autumn afternoon, I walked around the town where I grew up. I started off from a train station. I used to run to the platform to catch a train to my senior high school. I passed a railway crossing, and walked to my elementary school. For six years, the …
A Thousand Years 