Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
reading
fox : Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods
Episode from An Old Tree in Kyoto by Hidemi Woods
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Apple Books, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Apple Books, Google Play, Audible 43 available distributors in total.
Podcast”Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods : birthday”
Episode from An Old Tree in Kyoto by Hidemi Woods
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Audiobook : Japanese Dream by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Talking and Reading from Japan by Hidemi Woods : end
Audiobook: The Family in Kyoto: One Japanese Girl Got Freedom by Hidemi Woods On Sale at online stores or apps.
Podcast: a child in a different dimension
I don’t have a child and probably won’t have one all my life. But in my dreams, I’ve cuddled my baby for several times. It’s a boy and always the same baby, and I firmly believe I have a child in a different dimension. One day, in my dream, or in that dimension, I saw him in his twenties. It was the future. He lived in a secluded village and was devoted to an unfamiliar future sport. He didn’t notice me as I was watching him from somewhere far. I was so happy to see my baby have grown up and see him not working at an office as a businessman. An elderly man passed by me and I asked him about the sport my son was practicing intently. My question was if the sport was some kind of official, recognized, or popular, which was somehow a possible way to make money. He told me that this sport was completely unknown to the public and there was no event or competition, thus it never brought money whatsoever, not a cent. I burst into tears for joy. Not only he didn’t become an office worker for a steady income, but also he chose the profession that was totally unrelated to money or fame. He wasn’t interested in them. His only interest was the sport. I couldn’t stop crying for joy, thinking how ideally he had grown up and what a perfect son he was to me. I felt thoroughly proud of him and grateful for him to become as he was. Since I saw that dream, I’ve felt more confident of myself, because I’ve raised an honorable child in the other dimension…
Podcast: Family Casino in Kyoto, Japan
Episode From The Girl in Kyoto / Hidemi Woods
On Sale at online stores or apps. Apple, Audible, Google Play, Nook Audiobooks, 43 available distributors in total.
This incident happened one New Year’s at the end of the card game called ‘kabu’, in which my uncle acted as dealer for the yearly family casino at my grandparents’ house. He had lost quite a lot to my cousin, who was his son, as usual that night and my cousin had left the table as the morning dawned.
My uncle, my mother and I were left at the table and the game was about to close. My mother asked for a few more deals because she had also lost a large sum and wanted to get it back. To recover her loss quickly, she bet by the $100. The game was played for high stakes every year, but I had never seen the stakes this high. She lost in succession and her loss swelled to $500 in a flash.
“This is the last bet,” she claimed in desperation and put $500 on the table. She tried to offset her total loss on the last deal of the game. All at once the tension skyrocketed and strange silence filled the room. I held my breath and withdrew my usual small bet. The cards were dealt tensely and my mother and my uncle showed their hands of fate. Both hands were ridiculously bad but my mother’s was even worse. She lost $1000. Burying her head in her hands, she repeatedly uttered, “It can’t be! Can’t be true!” I saw tears in her widely opened bloodshot eyes. Then she repeated “Oh, my… Oh, my…” in a faint voice for ten times and staggered away. I clearly remember her state of stupor.
A couple of days later back in our home, I enticed her into playing ‘kabu’ with me since I learned how poorly she played it and I knew I would win. I used to receive cash as a New Year’s gift from my relatives during New Year’s and it would amount to $1000. I dangled it in front of her and said that it would be her chance to get back her loss. She took it and we played for $1000. As I had thought, she lost another $1000 to me. She said she couldn’t pay, and I offered her the installment plan. I got $100 more to my monthly allowance of $30 for the next ten months. That was the richest year in my early teens.
Many years later, she failed in real estate investment and lost most of our family fortune that had been inherited for generations. The amount she lost that time was well over $1 million. And that was the money I was supposed to inherit…
Podcast: A Japanese Girl in The Catholic School of Kyoto 3
Back in my Catholic school days, a teacher for home economics was Sister Carmela. I was in her cooking class. I had no interest in cooking at all and all I did during the class was giggling with my friends and washing the dishes. I simply couldn’t take anything in the class seriously. Home making seemed ridiculous to me, and to begin with, I could laugh endlessly when I thought about a sister called Carmela teaching how to make caramel.
As I was lazy all the time chatting and giggling, Sister Carmela often had to call my name in front of the class and shush me. She also noticed I hadn’t participated in any cooking but just been doing the dishes. No matter how hard and often she scolded me for my bad attitude, I didn’t obey and kept making other students laugh. Her patience snapped at last and she called me before the principal.
In my school, bad students were close to zero and a student was hardly ever called to the principal’s office. The principal was Sister Mary Catherine who reasonably believed I had done something extraordinarily wrong. But she was taken aback when Sister Carmela told her that I had fooled around during the class. She looked at her face with an impression of ‘That’s it?’ After mildly telling me to behave myself, she let me go. Sister Carmela’s punishment didn’t work and my bad behavior continued.
I was in her sewing class next year. Again, I slacked and asked my friend to make a skirt for me. Sister Carmela found that out when I turned in the skirt pretending I had sewn it. That snapped her completely. She decided to appeal directly to my parents and called up my mother that evening. Over the phone, she told her at length how bad I had been in her class. She blamed my bad attitude on my mother’s lack of discipline. My mother kept apologizing for a long time, but her tone gradually changed. As Sister Carmela strongly criticized my mother’s way of raising a child, my mother suddenly yelled, “I have no reason to listen to someone who has never married nor had a child!” and hung up violently.
I was stunned because it sounded to me the most insulting remark about a sister. She said to me, “Who does she think she is? She has never raised a child herself, and yet looks down on me who did raise a child. You don’t have to obey such a stuck-up person!” And Sister Carmela stopped complaining about my behavior ever since…
Hidemi Woods 