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 …
I like literature, but sometimes I get doubtful about the meaning of literature as well. Because oftentimes it doesn't help people to get through the hardest time of their lives. I had a friend from the university called Yori. We were in the same drama club during my sophomore year. From the surface point of …
It was 2014. I was living in Melbourne. It was a cold spring night, and I was looking up the moon from the doorway of my house. It was my first time to see a total lunar eclipse. The moon was going wane. Well, at least it looked so to my eyes. Honestly, I couldn’t tell …
My grandfather, my father side, was, what you would call, a self-made man. He was an Air Force mechanic at WWII. After returning from the war, he started a small engineering workshop in Osaka, and expanded it to a mechatronics manufacturing company. He was an austere man, people said. He was stern, forbidding, and critical. He was …
I remember a girl I met in Melbourne, Australia back in October 2014. I was coming out of the State Library. There was a small gathering at the forecourt. A few girls in their 20s, apparently students, were giving something away to people. "Hello, please take a candy." She handed me a small bag of …
I am a human. I am not an angel. I am trying not to be judgemental, but sometimes I make mistakes. Like I did today. "Dad and I are going out for a dinner tonight," I was talking with mom over the phone. "Oh, that's nice. Where are you two going?" She asked. "Well, you …
"You only live once", people say. But that phrase really got me when I was traveling in Vietnam. It was back in 2003. I was traveling the Southeast Asia by myself, and I joined a local tour to go to Mekong Delta. I don't remember where it exactly was. It was back in the day …
I must confess that I was not the best student in the university. I majored Theatre Arts, but as I studied more about theatre, I found myself losing passion in it. In the early 2000s in Tokyo, I couldn’t find any show which captured my interest. Throughout four years, I have seen nearly 100 stages …
It's hard to describe how much I love my sister. She is my best friend, comrade and handler. But we weren't too close when we were young. I think we have become really good friends after one big fight. When I was 21, she came to Tokyo and stayed at my place for a month. …
When I was a kid, I always struggled to answer this question: "What is your dream?" As I grew up, the question changed slightly: “What do you want to do in your life?” And later, the question became more frequent and daunting: “So, what do you do?” I’ve never been able to answer those questions. …
A Thousand Years 