Hidemi's Rambling No.159

A family gathering brings uncomfortable incidents to me. The festival for the local shrine of my hometown was a typical occasion in my childhood. We would have sukiyaki as a special treat for the festival at home with our relatives. All of us would eat from one big pan, which was set at the center of a table on a portable stove. I have seven cousins and two of them are younger than I am. They’re my uncle’s kids and used to be very ill behaved. I largely attribute my strong dislike of children to them. They wouldn’t touch vegetables in sukiyaki and ate only beef. When someone asked them why, they said it was because their mother had strictly told them to eat as much beef as they could, which was the most expensive item cooked in sukiyaki and was free here since the meal was our house’s treat. Their father, my uncle, would get nasty when he drank. He came to me and said, ‘You, peasant! Peasant!’ again and again because I was a daughter of farmers. Looking at these wretched relatives of mine, I broke into tears with a feeling of misery…