Anna Matsushita

  1975 — Life at the Boarding School   Monday morning. First period was Mathematics.   "Good morning, everyone. Right then, open your books to page eighteen..." I did as I was told, but several of my classmates still looked half asleep.   A month had slipped by since I'd arrived at the Japanese boarding school. I'd become quite used to eating in the dining hall. That morning, Maiko and I were chatting over scrambled eggs as usual. Before we knew it, the bell rang, ten minutes before lessons were due to begin. We grabbed our bags and ran to the classroom.   It didn't take me long to notice that, out of the twenty-eight students in our year, fewer than I'd expected paid much attention in lessons. It was the same in Mathematics as it was in Japanese. Some slept with their heads on their desks. Others didn't even bother to listen.   The moment the bell rang at the end of each lesson, a handful of students disappeared outside, ...

  Please listen to this as an old woman’s rambling reminiscence. It happened more than thirty years ago.   For someone like me, who had spent the years from the end of junior high school through high school in Britain, the Japanese university entrance examination system was an entirely unfamiliar world. What worried me most was hearing that the English used in entrance examinations was largely based on American English.   Let me start with the examination itself.   By the time I sat for the entrance examination at my second-choice university, I had already received a rejection from another university. I therefore attended a short summer course offered by a cram school, where I was taught things such as how to write academic essays in Japanese. There, I was told that, although it varied from university to university, American-style English was often used in entrance examinations.   Then came the day of my second university entrance examination. ...

  “ Ema, that’s not right. Put your tongue against the roof of your mouth. Again.” Mum’s sharp voice rang through the living room.   My two little sisters and I were all born and raised in Tokyo, to Japanese parents.   It was 1977.  From the age of six, we had English lessons at home every single day. My sister, Marie was four, and the youngest, Emi was only one year old.   Mum was our English teacher, and she was tough. She showed no mercy, even with my sisters. "Mum was born in America and came back to Japan. At the time, I didn't know why."   She often told us about those days. Wide roads. Big houses. Kind teachers. A sense of freedom. And she always ended with the same words.   “ America is our homeland. One day, we’re going back. If you can’t speak proper English, people will think you’re a foreigner and look down on you.”   I was too young to understand what “look down on” really meant. But the word left...