My Experience at Shouji Elementary School M.N. Doshisha International Jr/Sr High School, Kyoto, Japan

1993 is the year that everything changed for me. Our family moved back to Japan, and I set out on the first great adventure of my life - Japanese elementary school. There are so many things that happened to me during the two years in elementary school that I have never forgotten. None of these things are really important, but each of them made such a tremendous impression on me. Some are funny, while some are painful and unpleasant. But I suppose that is why I have remembered them so vividly. Due to the delay of the construction of our new home in Nara, our family had to move temporarily in to grandmother's house in Osaka. My parents decided that I should spend two terms in Shouji elementary school that was nearby. Although Shouji was a public elementary school, there were many returnee students. My parents thought that the environment there was good for me since I have never been to a Japanese school before. I felt very anxious about school. I was worried if I could keep up with the other students because English was my mother tongue and I did poorly at Japanese (especially kokugo). On the first day of my first term, my mother walked me to the school. I carried with both of my hands, my odougu bako. An odougu bako is a box where you keep your glue, scissors, rulers, crayons, origami and notebooks. The school gave me a long list of things I had to prepare before coming to school, and my odougu bako was first on my list. As I walked, everything inside the odougu bako made a small thumping noise. As I entered the school building and walked toward my classroom through the silent hall, the thumping noise from my odougu bako seemed louder than ever, which made me really nervous. I think a lot of returnees have experienced what happened next. The teacher introduced me to the class and many students started to gather around me. Since they all knew that I lived abroad, they showered me with questions and asked me to speak in English for them. "Say something in English!" is probably one of the most uncomfortable and difficult things I have ever been told to do in my whole life. But I realized that it is a thing you do out of curiosity, and sometimes you do it yourself unconsciously. I once asked my friend to speak something in Beijing. My friend looked very irritated and said, "you should know how I feel right now. You're a returnee too." When I realized what I had done, I felt terrible because I did something to someone that I hated the most. The first month of school flew by. Everybody was very kind to me and I experienced something new everyday.

One of the things that I remember about Shouji is the diary everyone in the class individually kept. The teacher handed me a small notebook with my name written on the cover. Everybody in the class had their own notebook and we were to write our thoughts in it so the teacher could read it. The diary keeping was not forced, but most of the students wrote in it frequently. We all turned them in the "diary box" which is a tin can on the teacher's desk. There was an unwritten law that no other student had the right to read your diary. I wrote in my diary mostly about school lunch. It sounds ridiculous, but I often hid in the bathroom through the whole lunch period. I hated vegetables and the amount of vegetables the school put in everyday was devastating. I couldn't sleep because of next day's lunch menu! As much as I dreaded lunch period, I dreaded playing the recorder. In most Japanese elementary schools, the kids learn to play the recorder in second grade. I remember how I stood feeling very small and miserable on the first day of music class. I had no idea what to do since I had never touched a recorder before. The music teacher devoted many hours, teaching me how to play the recorder after school. She was very kind and gave me easy pieces to take home, so I could practice. I often lost my temper because of my slow (snail-like) progress, but the teacher was always patient and encouraged me even when I made mistakes. By the end of term, I was able to play as well as the other students. Besides vegetables and playing the recorder, I had problems catching up with the other students in my studies. But my classmates never joked about my poor Japanese and many teachers tutored me after school. What I remember most vividly about Shouji, were the discussions that we held everyday after sixth period. Anyone could discuss anything with the class. Everyone shared their thoughts openly about how they felt about their friends, family, and school. I often raised my hand to express how I felt about what happened at school that day. To think of it now, I must have said many things that are very different from the way the other students think. But the students understood and took into account the fact that I lived in a country that hold norms and values different from those in Japan. They accepted me for what I was and they never tried to push their values on me, and I tried to do the same.

The discussions were usually about fights between girls and boys and I often got irritated because of the time. The teacher never let us go until we had the problem under control; which was the intention of the discussions. But one day, the teacher started to talk about a girl named Akiumu, who was absent that day. We all wondered why he was talking about Akimu when she was absent. He told us that she was absent that day because she was attending her mother's funeral. Her mother, who was a children's picture artist, had terminal cancer. We were all shocked because Akimu said nothing to us about it. We all thought about the past few weeks, when Akimu must have been aware that her mother was going to die. Akimu was a kind, bright girl and never showed a hint of stress or weariness, you could've never guessed she had such problems. I will never forget that day when we all cried silently in that classroom. I still remember the boy sitting next to me, and the tear that plopped down on his desk. He kind of rubbed the tear in the desk with his finger. It was the first time that I cried about something that was not about myself. It raised many questions in my head and was also the first time that I thought life was unfair. The pictures that Akimu's mother drew were beautiful. You could just imagine what a soft, kind and beautiful person she was. That made me think more that her death was unfair. Akimu started to come to school again, as though nothing had happened and we all did the same. We did not want to remind her of her mother when she was trying her best to shut her mother away in her heart. I still keep in touch with Akimu and she told me in one of her letters that she appreciated how everyone worried about her at that time. Although I experienced some hard times, I was having a great time at school. I woke up early, eager to go to school every morning. But one day, my mother told me that the construction of our new home in Nara was almost finished and we would be able to move in a couple of weeks. I was excited about our new house; I would have my own room again. But it also meant that I would have to change schools. I overheard my mother talking to my grandmother how she was worried if I would be able to adjust in the next school. The last few weeks in Shouji went by so fast. I tried to spend as much time with my friends and teachers as possible. On my last day at Shouji, my classmates threw a party for me. They gave me letters and presents, and told me how much they would miss me. They last sang a song for me, which made me burst into tears. I still have every one of the letters I received on that last day. One of my friends gave me a letter that moved me and changed the way I felt about myself. The girl that wrote me the letter wrote honestly how she felt about me when I first came to Shouji. She disliked me because she felt that I was too different from her. That we had nothing in common, and the norms and values I held were nothing like the ones she held. But she realized that we did have some things in common.

It was when I joined the girl's soccer team that our homeroom teacher coached. I was the first one to join and many girls came after me, including the girl that wrote me the letter. Soccer practice was held after school every Saturday and the practice was very hard and we lost all the games, but we had a great time. She said that she had wanted to join, but did not have the courage to be the one to join first. So when I joined the soccer team, it changed how she felt about me. She said that she admired my very "American" perspectives. She thought that I had courage and did not fear of being different from others. To me though, joining the soccer team was not a big decision and I was unaware that I was the first one to join until she told me. I joined because I loved sports and I used to be in the school track team back in the U.S. I was surprised that the actions I took without much thought could be such a big impact on someone else. Before I got this letter from my friend, I always thought that holding different values and customs from the ones in Japan was something wrong. I felt that I had to adjust myself so I would "fit" in neatly with the others. And I think that is what my parents thought too. But I realized that my perspectives and many points of view that I have cultivated over the years in the U.S. can be accepted and even influence the people around me. When I realized this, I became confident and was able to be "myself" again. Whenever I feel lonely, I look at the letters and remember the times at Shouji. The three months I spent at Shouji elementary school changed my life. If I had gone to a school that rejected my differences, I probably would not be the person I am today. Everyone I met at Shouji allowed me to be an individual and every small thing that happened to me made a great impact on my way of thinking.

Nishiura, Mariko (2000). My Experience at Shouji Elementary School. Retrieved March 25, 2001, from the Doshisha International Jr/Sr High School web site: http://www.intnl.doshisha.ac.jp/projects/3sa/2000/memoir/sa2/d30-mariko.html

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