A story of Family & Seasons
Written & Illustrated by UAL Students
In Our
Lifetime
Me and some of my friends were walking home from school, one by one, along the side of a rice paddy. It was there that I remember seeing a beautiful, pink Lotus flower in the rice field!
Another fine morning, Grandad was feeding the chickens in the garden. One of the chickens had laid a lot of eggs in different places. Grandad told me and my little brothers that we had to find all of the eggs - it was just like a treasure hunt! We had so much fun that day
I also remember that Grandma & Grandad’s house had a massive well. We used to get the water from the big well to wash our fresh vegetables and rice from the farm.
One day, when I was cleaning the well, I found an eel at the bottom of it!
He had a long wriggly body and slimy skin.
I think he used to live off the vegetables and rice that me and my brothers would accidentally drop into the well - that was his breakfast, lunch and dinner!
I loved to swim in the sea after school everyday with my friends - we were like a little school of fish! We used to find a stone each and then drop them gently under the shallow sea water to the sand beneath. Whoever found their stone under the water first was the winner!
I was really good at this because I also found lots of wonderful turban shells (Sazae in Japanese) when I played this game.
During class,
our
we
outside
school
used
to
to
draw
and
wildlife
The
best
art
Art
go
favourite
nature
around
class
us.
ever!
class
tall when for
so
places
mountains Grandad
art
kind
was
of
class him!
wonderful
around
or
the
made to
put
our
because school
golden
rice
me
a
board
my
drawing
we
to
went
draw
fields.
from
I
wood
paper
on.
to
our
like
the
remember and
It
string
was
so
One freezing morning, I walked for more than a mile to school in the snow wearing just my Geta! Geta are Japanese wooden sandals...they are not very warm.
Also, at lunchtime, there was no school lunch made for us to warm us up- we always had to bring our own lunch box! Our old metal lunch boxes were known as hinomaru bento in Japanese.
Here’s a picture of what my lunchbox (hinomaru bento) looked like! It contained just steamed rice and a pickled plum. The red plum that sits in the center of the rice is a symbol for the Japanese flag - “The Rising Sun”. It was very popular in the old days!
To warm up our food, we didn’t have a microwave like you lucky children. We had to place our lunch box on a Hibachi a Japanese heating tool powered by charcoal. Luckily for us, our Hibachi was also a fantastic room heater for our classroom!
These are some of my favourite memories of growing up in the countryside. Even though we didn’t have the technology and tools that you have today, the nature and world around us was just the same as it is today.