Genshu Ota Autobiography

About two weeks passed until I arrived here, the University of Mississippi. At first, I felt nervous in US for the first time, but now I get used to be living here little by little. Even just for two weeks, I met and talked with many people completely different from me. Through the experience, I sometimes want to ask myself what I have done, and often think about my future

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I was born in a Buddhist temple, as the first-born son. My father was not only a Buddhist but also a worker in apparel. However, he failed to establish a business and ran into debt when I was a young child. He decided to get divorced, not to cause my mother debt. As a result, I did not need to take over the family business – a Buddhist. I do not know about in US, but in Japan some children – for example, first-born sons of doctors, musicians and Buddhist – must take over our father’s job, whatever you desire to do. However, I was released from the pain, and I felt free somehow while I was a young child. From this time, maybe I have come to dream of my future.


When I was a junior high school student, my sister had studied abroad in US for a year. She told me many things about studying abroad. So I became interested in the world, and wanted to go to the department of International Relations. I have respected my sister, and I always wanted to be like her. Maybe I would not want to study abroad like now if she had not been to foreign countries. In my university, I found a student NGO club, named TFSR-Kyoto by chance there. They have done international cooperation in Sri Lanka and Cambodia for more than 10 years. My friends joined it, and I was interested in foreign countries, so I also joined it just to want to know about foreign countries at that time.


Last summer I visited Sri Lanka as a club activity for two weeks and I went to a tea plantation village in an area with no electricity. We set micro hydro electric pumps with people there together to produce electricity. People there lived with less than 2 or 3 dollars in a day, and had not watched TV. I had ever spent everyday in Japan, where I could get almost everything. I, for the first time, met people living under bad conditions and knew the reality in the world. Through the activity my ideas about foreign countries have changed, and I have wanted to do something for them and help them - not from a pity. Probably, I had a somehow responsibility to help people in developing countries and compensated them because we Japanese people had made big mistakes in W.W Ⅱ.


That is why I want to work for the fields of an International Cooperation in the future. So first, I thought it was necessary to speak English. Therefore, I decided to study abroad in the US and now I have been studying English here. And also, in next semester I plan to take regular courses about International Relations. This is because it is not enough just to speak English in order to work in the world. I need to learn an expert knowledge about the fields, and think about things from many views. Especially I am interested in international cooperations and assistance for developing countries. Each country has its own ways of assistance and relief. So I want to study about the US. I thought my study abroad was going well, but I was wrong. Now I made friends with students here and sometimes eat lunch together, but I feel shy to use wrong English and I am apt to talk with Japanese friends in Japanese although I am studying English. I think it is my fault, but probably it is somewhat because of Japanese culture. That is because Japan is an island and surrounded by the sea. And also, we had closed our country from other countries long time ago – it is called “Sakoku”. We somewhat prevent new and different culture from coming to our culture.



However, Japan today has accepted new things more and more, and moreover Japanese people are industrious.
Like her, I will do my best!!