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The trace of my mind
Where was my youth?
Whatever is adolescence? Where was my youth? To speak strictly, I couldn't have any experiences of saying loudly, ‘This is my adolescence.’ Apart from the opinions of others, I myself think that I didn't have any. After I had graduated from Kizu High School, feeling keenly the severities of my father's economy and the society, I entered Hakama Special Steel Co. Ltd.. But It was all I could do to adapt myself to the new world. At first I couldn't repress fears of the bells of the telephones, and couldn't understand clearly what a lot of customers said because I had not had the business talk by telephone by that time.
Immediately after entering the company, it was planned to establish the department of foreign trade. At first some of young colleagues were taught English by Professor Isobe at Osaka Commercial University, one of our executive director's friends after the close of work. I was very ashamed of my bad pronunciation of English like Japanese “katakana” which I had had. Besides, being very tone-deaf, I could not distinguished his pronunciation distinctly: that is, it meant that I had not acquired a good pronunciation of English. After the lesson I was so tired from the practice of English pronunciation that I could not chew my food well at my flat at night. But in mid-June when we began to make a practice of pronouncing “l” and “r” I was attached to the Itachibori business office in Nishi-ku, and gave up the lesson. Though the pronunciation of “l” and “r” is still a great problem to me, I have made a grateful acknowledgement for the lesson that made me get the elements of English pronunciation.
I tasted the great bitterness, pain and sadness of business in Itachibori office. As even after the Korean War the business world of special steel continued to enjoy its own prosperity, I, a new face, would be took out for the reception of clerks of makers and our customers almost every evening, and come back to my flat by taxi after 12 o'clock. Having not drunk any liquor till entering the company, I had to take the special training in drinking much. This was a great pain to me who get easily drunk..
Living near Sonoda station of Hankyu, I came back to my flat from Namba via subway twice or thrice a month. Waiting for the train at deserted Namba station late at night, an indescribable sadness often arose in my heart, who was watching railroad ties. Though my salary as a freshman was \6,000, the bill of Hatamoto, a very famous swellfish restaurant, in Namba showed more than \20,000 per person after we enjoyed its dishes for two hours: a clerk immediately after graduating from a high school spent a lot of money as reception expense during an evening, which was about ten times as much as my salary. Though as a natural course of reception about half of the sum was paid by our company, the sum of my reception expense only in a month reached into astronomical figures. Therefore I couldn't help but judge that it was a madness.
Then I decided to enter the evening session of Osaka City University, and when I began to study to succeed in the entrance examination early in March, one of my seniors at the company advised me to take the second entrance examination of the evening session of Kansai University. Fortunately I succeeded in it. Though the closing time of our company was 6 o'clock at that time, I was allowed to leave the office at 4 so that I might be in time for the first class which began at 5:20. It took about an hour to go from Itachibori to Tenjinbashi-6-chome by streetcar via the stop of Before Osaka Station. If I had taken a bus, it would have been more inconvenient and expensive, because I had to change at the stop of Before Osaka Station for Moriguchi. Besides we had a traffic jam before Osaka Station, and it took nearly two hours to go there in either case when it rained. Therefore the rain made me give up to attend the classes.
Because I left the office several times to take the examinations of the first term earlier than usual, a lot of things to do awaited me at the office: I could not attend the classes to finish them. And after the closing time I was invited to take part in the reception of the clerks of makers and our customers again, and to play mah-jong with them. Therefore I had to sacrifice a whole year.
As the market began to be dull suddenly in 1962, my work at the office was rather little, and I could attend a lot of classes and take all of their units. On the other hand, a lot of companies which we had dealt with went down, and I had to take part in call-back. Then the coldness of money I felt thoroughly made me decide to leave the company and change the course of the university. But having not got any units in the previous year, I was not allowed to take an examination for admission into the day school.
The next year I, who succeeded in the examination, decided to go to school though it took about three hours and 20 minutes to go from my father's house to the university by bus and train: that is to say, I thought I could not ask him to pay my college expenses, but to give me board and lodging.. Now you can recognize the power and craftiness of the man brought up like a weed in these thoughts. But when one of my friends asked me the reason why I had changed the course, the answer was “I wanted to study in the sunshine.”
I attended the class of English drama which began at 10.40 on Friday. But Professor Kurikoma proposed to begin his class at 9 o'clock.” So I said to him, “Leaving our house at six in the morning, I can arrive at the classroom at a quarter past nine. Could you begin it at 9. 20?” As I had finished preparing myself for it, it would always be very interesting and fascinating to me, who could answer any question concerning the details of the drama because I had been a member of drama society in my high school days. And it made me lay the foundation of my lifework. The next year he held two reading circles a week, and took care of my graduation thesis. These instigated me to study English literature, especially Shakespeare's works, thoroughly and carefully.
Professor Hirooka, teaching us English linguistics, ordered us to hand in our reports concerning Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Hardy, The Apple Tree by Galsworthy, Silas Marner by G. Eliot, Sons and Lovers, The man who died by Lawrence, Tempest by Shakespeare, Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. As we had to write each of them which consisted of about 30 manuscript papers according to the titles which he assigned to us, I read these works over and over again. As the result, they gave me, who had not lived my life faithfully, the power to live through this world whatever might happen. My deep sense of gratitude to him who gave me this good chance will not fade away till I die. It was very happy and lucky to have had the very good teachers in my college life.
I was given some good jobs of private tutor by the customers with whom I have done business when I had worked at the trading company. And it gave me part-time jobs whenever they took account of stock and were very busy. Besides I was given the reward for my teaching as a private tutor two or three times as much as a lot of friends were. Though these conditions continued until I was stricken down with a serious illness in the last year of the doctor's course, I was and am grateful to them for their kindness.
