Hmm...

Note: This was posted by Lily then accidentally deleted by Nickolai then recovered by Hazel. So it appears to be posted by Hazel but is actually by Lily. XD (And Nickolai is highly apologetic).




I’m not an always optimistic person.

Grumbling, whining & complaining is my daily mantra which I can’t live without.

However after reading ‘A Daughter of The Samurai’, it got me thinking hard on how the author managed to find beauty & hope in death, separation & struggle.

The author, Etsu Inagaki Sugimoto was born into a well respected samurai family which valued tradition above all. She was bounded by the tight, strict traditional Japanese customs throughout her childhood which she obediently adhered to without giving it a second thought or questioning how or why. During her teens, she set out on her sole voyage to America to meet her husband, a Japanese man who was then drawn by the business opportunities offered in the West. Later, forced to raise two precious daughters as a single mother when her husband continued his journey to ‘the other’ world.

What awed me most is that Etsu told the world of her story without any threads of malice, revenge or spitefulness but instead with full of innocent inquisitiveness & vivid imagination. Being a conservative Japanese country girl new to the immense freedom America had to offer, Etsu found similarities between her present & past, concluding that people around the world may differ in fashion, perspective & tradition but in heart they are very much alike as we are all afterall humans.

She found happiness in discovering things that were new & puzzled her. Describing every experience she went thru with joy & pleasure unlike me who would have rant on & on about how depressing life is… opps, i just can’t help it!

The way Etsu painted & expressed her life & herself; putting language & imagination, 2 powerful tools to good use.

Haha… I’m glad I did pick up this book although was kind of skeptical at first when my mom recommended it to me as it was her literature piece in secondary school.

Miss you guys who are all studying at different places but at least I know,

‘The earth is flat & you are on the other side of the plate, not far away but out of sight.’

- A quote from ‘A Daughter of The Samurai’-