I didn’t have any crushes on the boys in Japanese school and it wasn’t because I didn’t like boys.
Undokai (Sports Day) is an annual event that schools throughout Japan—elementary through high school—hold during the fall. Undokai combines the Japanese word undo, meaning exercise, and kai, gathering. The undokai event stems from Taiku no hi (Health and Sports Day), an official nationally recognized holiday in Japan that commemorates the …
I have a good Japanese accent. It’s so good that I can fool any Japanese person into thinking that I’m a native from Tokyo. The trouble is I don’t look the part. Fooling Japanese people into thinking I’m a fellow native is limited to phone conversations. Rarely do I fool …
My full legal name is Victoria Emily Mariko Kraus. Growing up, I responded to Bikki, the Japanese pronunciation of Vicki, my English nickname. My mother, friends and relatives in Japan, and Japanese family friends in the U.S. all called me Bikki’chan. (The “chan” being the Japanese version of the Spanish …
I recently had a conversation with an old high school friend reminiscing what we did on the weekends growing up. She went to Catholic school on Saturdays to prepare for her first communion and confirmation while I went to Japanese school. Since one of the aims of this website is …
I must reaffirm that being a hopeless romantic does not take away from me being anti-chauvinist. The fact that I demand to be treated like a lady when I’m on a date or in a relationship should not compromise how I am to be treated at all other times.
I don’t consider myself a feminist. Mainly because I am, painful as it is to admit, a hopeless romantic. When it comes to Saint Valentine’s Day, however, my cynical nature of male chauvinism and excessively commercialized holidays comes out full force.
I’m preparing to take the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) to apply for graduate school. Studying for this exam takes me back to high school when taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)—the required exam for any high school student or graduate applying to an undergraduate four-year college— was the biggest thing.
My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. I tend to get spiritual around the month of my birthday, trying to deepen the “meaning” or significance on the one day during the one month of the year that celebrates another year toward retirement. I attribute my getting spiritual …
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