Friday, June 28, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.474

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In my childhood, I was instructed by my mother that hair wasn’t a thing to wash everyday. She told me that once a week was more than enough. I had believed it was common knowledge all through my elementary school life. Soon after I started my junior high life at the privileged school, I realized that my mother’s instruction was utterly wrong. A girl in the same class asked me if I washed my hair everyday. It wasn’t a question really, but a criticism of my dirty hair. “Not everyday, but I wash it every other day,” I lied, as I sensed ‘once a week’ seemed unacceptable to her. But my false answer upset her so much enough. She nearly screamed, “Every other day? You don’t wash it everyday? Gross!” She looked at me as if I were some kind of disgusting creature. For the first time in my life, I found that hair should be washed everyday. I also noticed other girls’ hair was decisively different from mine other than cleanliness. Our school rules regulated strictly the length of our bangs. They shouldn’t reach down to our eyebrows. Back then, I had had my hair cut at a barbershop with my father. Because my father was a regular customer there, the barber wouldn’t charge us when I only needed to have my bangs cut. My bangs were cut straight well above my eyebrows like a line while other girls’ bangs were somehow fancy. I learned that they went to beauty salons and hairdressers cut their bangs. Since that day, I wash my hair every single day to this day. My mother once told me that I would get cancer for this. Needless to say, I stopped going to the barbershop. My mother groaned over extra expense for that. Near the school, there was a small bakery. The storekeeper was an old lady who was always holding a small dog. The dog had the ugliest face I had ever seen. It became famous for its ugliness among the students. One day, another girl in my class casually said that dog looked like me. Other girls unanimously agreed and laughed. Having a face like such an ugly dog, I felt washing my hair everyday was quite pointless…

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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.473

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While the school lunch was provided at elementary school, we needed to bring lunch from home everyday at junior high school. I went to a hardware store near my home with my mother to get a lunch box. My parents had always told me about one particular kind of lunch box that they thought represented the junior high school life. It was a big, square, silver aluminum box with a sliding case on the side for chopsticks, which my parents also used to have when they were students. According to them, it was a status symbol for junior high students and a must-have item. We got one of those at a small mom-and-pop store and my parents said that now I had officially become a junior high student. Again, it was a mistake to trust my parents. I was the only one at the privileged school who brought a big aluminum lunch box. Other students used a cute, small lunch box of plastic or Tupperware with a pretty design on it. They curiously looked at mine, as they had never seen a lunch box like that before, although it was common and largely prevailed among students in my parents’ world. They laughed and said how big it was, or asked where I could possibly find and get one of those. One day, my mother had forgotten to put chopsticks in the sliding case and I had no means to eat my lunch. I was trying to scoop rice with the cover of the case when a girl from the privileged elementary school shouted at me, “That does it!” She yanked me out of the classroom and took me to the school cafeteria. She picked a pair of free disposable wooden chopsticks there and told me to use those. We weren’t close at all and it seemed her action wasn’t from her kindness. It was just intolerable for her to be at the same school with a dowdy girl like me and she couldn’t take my weird behavior any more. The school prepared free Japanese tea for lunch. The students on day duty carried a big teakettle from the school kitchenette to the classroom. I brought a cup from home everyday for the free tea. But the service suspended because students had bought juice and no one had had free tea except for me. They didn’t appreciate free stuff like I did. I had to ask my mother for extra money for juice, and she was furious at other students’ weird custom…

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Saturday, June 15, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.472

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A few days after the orientation day, I officially started junior high at the privileged private Catholic school. The first day at school was an entrance ceremony. I put on the school uniform and the uniform leather shoes for the first time. My mother complained repeatedly about the leather shoes. Because she thought it was crazy to make kids wear such a heavy, stiff pair like leather shoes everyday, she said “What a weird school!” over and over. It would have become her regular remark about everything at school until I graduated. The school uniform bag was also heavy, made of leather, looking like a business briefcase. As a supplementary bag, a light vinyl uniform bag was provided too. I didn’t have much to bring to school on the first day since it was an entrance ceremony. But my parents and I figured that I should go with the primary leather bag, as it was a formal occasion. After my father frantically took pictures of me in uniform, I left for school by the local bus. When I arrived at school, I found that I was the only student that carried the primary bag. All other students were carrying the vinyl side bag. They kept staring at me as if I was a weirdo. One girl dared ask me why I had brought the primary bag not the side bag. “Because it’s a ceremony,” I replied, but she seemed more confused. For the next few months, I had been called ‘The girl with the primary bag’ by other students. Soon, we needed to get an English-Japanese dictionary. The school recommended a particular dictionary and I went to a bookstore with my father. There were two kinds of dictionary: one with a vinyl binding and one with a leather binding. The latter was ridiculously expensive. Since the contents were exactly the same, my choice was straightforwardly the vinyl one. I wondered what kind of stupid person would get the leather one. And at school, I found most students had gotten the leather dictionary. Some girls spotted mine and laughed at me, saying, “Yours is vinyl!” Finding the correct answer between leather and vinyl was too difficult for me at the new school…

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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.471

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On an orientation day held at a private Catholic school where I was about to start junior high, my mother and I got into the hall to receive the school’s uniform items. There was a long line of students and their mothers in front of the counter. Most of them were those who came from the school’s privileged elementary school. Since they had known each other for years at the elementary school, they were greeting, chatting and laughing cheerfully while others from public elementary schools like us were standing tensely in line with no acquaintances around. As those from the privileged school obviously sent out an air of wealth, I saw a clear barrier between them and us even though we were standing in the same line. They were privileged enough to let someone they knew who just arrived at the hall cut in line. Every time a pair of a mother and a child showed up, an acquaintance standing before us called them and let them cut in. It seemed our turn would never come. On the contrary, the line was getting longer and we were falling back. Growing up inside a small hamlet, I had thought my family was the richest. But now I realized that once stepping outside, there were many much higher-rank people who even didn’t have to wait for their turns in line. Suddenly, a mother whose child was also from a public elementary school shouted in anger, “You have money, but not manners!” A few other mothers including mine joined her and uttered complaints to the private school mothers. Although we were saying a right thing, they gave us a contemptuous look as if we were some poor protesters against wealth. It seemed they hated to be associated with us. I felt gloomy about the future considering I would spend junior high and high school years here with their kids while my mother had to endure only one day. We went home by bus feeling so discouraged and miserable…

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Sunday, June 2, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.470

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My first exposure to the English language was when I was about to start junior high school. When I passed the entrance examination for a private Catholic school, the school gave me a special homework assignment. It was a book of English penmanship exercises. The Catholic school had its elementary school from which most of the junior high students came. They had already learned English at elementary school while new students from public elementary schools like me had never learned it. The school intended to fill the gap in the English education by making the new students do their homework during the spring break before school started. I was learning how to write the English alphabet from an A while most other students wrote and read English easily. I knew almost no English words let alone their spellings. I dreaded to think how much work I would need to catch up with them. I was the smartest kid in the public elementary school I attended, and now, I was at the bottom of the private junior high. A few days later, the school held an orientation day when my mother and I went to get a school uniform, a uniform gym suit, uniform shoes, uniform indoor shoes and uniform bags. My mother was in a good mood, as the school was quite famous and she had become part of it. There, we encountered for the first time the mothers and their children who came from the school’s privileged elementary school. By all appearances, they were undoubtedly rich. They wore, talked, and acted all differently from people I had known. The English education wasn’t the only gap between them and me…

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