[Journal 1]
Comparing My Experiences of Growing Up with My Parents'

My parents were born in 1937, in small villages are in the northern part of Japan. When they ware little children, Japan was at World War II, and the nation was extremely poor. Especially for my mother's family living in the mountains, it is as much as they were able to eat vegetables grown by themselves.
Both of my parents had over 5 brothers and sisters, however, after my mother's older 2 brothers die by accidents, they were supporting family as substitutes for their father who had gone to a southern island for the war, my mother had to work and help her mother. In that time, my mother was a 12-year-old girl.
Naturally, she could not go to school so often. So she was eager to get anything of skills to go on. When she was seventeen, she had ran away from home to the nearest town, then she was working in a beauty shop and living in it for 6 years. After she get a hairdresser's license, she confided to her mother that she wants to go to Tokyo for living actually. "How far you are going to!" my mother's mother cried over the parting. My mother consoled her, "Tokyo is not so far. It is only 10 hours from here by train."

I was born in 1965, in Tokyo. I had father as a carpenter, mother as a hairdresser and a 3 years-older brother. I was not able to study hard although my grades in school were always high, because I had to help mother's shop and housework. When I was sixteen, hoping to enroll into a university, my parents got divorce. I abandoned the university and was going to a high school as I worked. After I graduate high school, I had worked at publishers as a journalist and a graphic designer for 16 years.
2 years ago from now, when I move to the United States because of my husband's job, "How far you are going to!" my mother cried over the parting. I consoled her, "Los Angeles is not so far. It is only 10 hours from here by plain."

Although my mother and I were born in different generations, we could have similar experiences of growing up.

My mother says that her brothers' and sisters' death was the most painful in her life. 4 people of her 7 brothers and sisters have passed away by accidents. I have lost my father and step father, however I am getting along and helping each other with my brother and cousins. I must be fortunate, much more than my mother.