Tomo the savage
Tomo was short and stooped, and his head narrow with large ears and slant eyes. He was academically behind and spoke crudely. He was not strong, so he wouldn’t challenge […]
Shuji the rancorous
Mr. Hoshi broke us into study groups of four to work on math problems and science projects. Groups had to form with two boys and two girls. In my group, […]
Mr. Hoshi
Miss Kawano retired after three years of her reign, and Mr. Hoshi took over our class. He preached like hell. At the end of the day, before we were dismissed […]
Barefoot Gen
My sister told me about the black rain. She said if you got showered by the black rain, first, your hair would fall off, and then you would vomit blood […]
Two faces of the Emperor
I was nine years old when Emperor Hirohito passed away. The 64th year of Showa had just begun several days before. It was unfathomable to me that Japan went from […]
“Angry Jizo”
We had an annual movie-watching day at school before the summer break. In my first year, they played a stop-motion animated film called Okori Jizo, meaning angry Jizo. The paradox […]
Grandmother
My grandmother passed away in June 2011, a few months after the Tohoku earthquake. She was 98 years old, but she had stopped living much earlier. When I went home […]
Essay 2 – Jizo
The second time I asked my grandmother what I should write about, she suggested the “Jizo” of our community. Jizo, in general, is the statue of Bodhisattva. They are less […]
Essay 1 – bath furnace
Among a handful of good things that happened during three years with Miss Kawano was that she made us write a short essay every day. Most of the time, we […]
Milk
What my stomach couldn’t take was milk. Milk was served with school lunch in post-war Japan, as it was considered to provide the same nutrition that made Americans tall and […]