Hiroko's Cute Red Shoes

I've been to a few English conversational groups so far, one in Osa and the other in the neighboring town of Katsuyama. The people who attend are local residents and they are quite intriguing. The first group I attended was in Osa. It was a very casual gathering and one of the participants brought a thick photo album of his yearlong stay in the United States in 1976. He is the oldest participant in this group as he was in his early twenty's when he took his trip. He had pictures and postcards of L.A., Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, San Francisco's Japan Town, etc. All snapshots of California stuck in a time warp. The other participants are in their mid-twenty's. What is special about this group is that they all grew up together in Osa, they are all very well traveled to the U.S. and other countries, and they all still have their connection to their hometowns and each other as grown adults. It's touching to witness. Many of the young people in Osa return home after their college education and travels and live with their parents.

One of the conversational group participants is Hiroko, and she has cute red shoes. Well, being Japanese she's cute everything. She studied English in college in Kobe, then studied in Cambridge, England for a year and then went to Australia for four months. She has a very keen ear and picks up the subtleties of English very well from accent to accent. She and her friends took Roslynn and me to dinner my second weekend in Japan, a delicious restaurant in the town of Kuse. Good times.

Hiroko attended the other conversational group in Katsuyama. This group was more mixed in age and more structured. Since Roslynn and I were two new guests, each participant each had a turn to ask us questions about ourselves. Then we got to ask questions of all of them. Roslynn asked where they wanted to travel to within Japan and internationally. In their answers I heard glimpses of rich stories. Many had traveled to the U.S. and Europe for their honeymoons. Many wanted to go to Finland, a trip inspired by a recent Japanese movie about Japanese women who own and run a coffee shop in Finland. Hiroko's turn to share was precious. She said she wanted to go to Tokyo. Tokyo. Because in Tokyo they have cute shoes. Good quality shoes.

There were no apologies from her about the object of her trip to Tokyo. No apologies for being a girly girl. No apologies for being cute. My kinda girl.