I was born in 1964, five years before the celebrated Yasuda Auditorium incident broke out at Tokyo University (in which riot police forced back the entrenched student activists). Being native of the rural countryside, my parents might have felt somewhat eerie about the enigmatic and outlandish energy emanating from university students.

 

My name Yoko was given by my father. I wondered what he thought when Yoko Nagata, the ringleader of the infamous Red Army incident, was arrested in 1972 when I was eight years old. He must have worried about the future of his daughter who had the same name as the culprit who had mercilessly bullied and lynched her comrades at their mountain hideout.

 

My parents came to Tokyo to attend my enrollment ceremony at Chuo University. My father took days off for the purpose, something he had not done before in my earlier school days. What impressed my parents when they walked into the campus might have been a group of helmeted students who were shouting into the loudspeaker. There were coeds among them. My parents were whispering quizzically to each other about what they had seen. I for one lost my buoyant mood at once.The ceremony itself ended without any trouble. We then attended our orientation, where someone questioned as expected about those helmeted student activists. The question was put by a freshman’s father who looked to be about of the same age as my father. My parents were listening attentively to the question and the answer that followed. I felt something ominous.

 

My father took pains to travel to Tokyo obviously to see what Chuo University to be attended by his daughter for four years looked like and what sort of students it had, not just to please himself by attending her enrollment ceremony. It was in such situation that he came across the scene of the student activists. Before coming up to Tokyo, I had thought I would enjoy myself at the school in the absence of my parents. But they might have felt uneasy about leaving their daughter at a place quite unknown to them.

 

I felt I should do something to ease their anxiety. After thinking this and that, I made up my mind to join a decent student club. I thought they would be happy if I took part in a club activity to exercise my intellectual curiosity at the institution of highest learning. I was supposed to major in Anglo-American literature and I thought my choice should be a club where English was routinely used.

 

I chose to join the English Newspaper Association. To me, a newspaper sounded something hard and steady. With the addition of English, I thought my selection would surely make my parents feel happy. I loved the title and ornamental letters of Hakumon Herald. It was obvious that its neatly edited English pages were far from what could be easily done by students. I thought if I joined the club to get involved in the newspaper my parents would feel at ease or at least less worried.

 

So I visited the room of the English Newspaper Association and took out some back numbers of the paper to use them as my card to convince my parents. This tactic proved a success. I could fully enjoy four years of my school life at Chuo. That was all thanks to my career with Hakumon Herald.

 

(The writer whose birth name was Yoshida graduated in 1988)

 

 

 

両親を安心させた私のヘラルド入部

浅本洋子

1964年、東京大学の安田講堂事件の5年前に私は生まれた。地方出身者 である私の両親は、大学生という立場の人間が発する得体のしれない異様なエ ネルギーに不気味さを感じたのであろう。

私の名前「洋子」は父が付けた。8歳のときの1972年に連合赤軍事件の 首謀者である永田洋子が逮捕されたが、父は何と思ったであろうか。残虐な方 法で仲間をリンチし、命を奪った殺人犯と同じ名前になってしまった娘の将来 を殊更に心配したであろう。

大学の入学式には両親がそろって上京してきた。父は平日にもかかわらず休 暇を取ったのだが、それまで父がわざわざ休暇を取って学校行事に出てくることはなかったのに。

入学式の当日、正門から入ってまず目についたのはヘルメットをかぶって拡 声器で大声を張り上げている数名の学生であった。その中には女子学生もいた。 両親はその光景を見ていぶかしげに話をしていたので、私は浮かれた気持が一 気に失せてしまった。

入学式は滞りなく終了し、学部ごとに説明会が催されたが、その質疑応答の 中で真っ先に出たのは案の定、ヘルメット姿の学生たちのことであった。質問をしたのは新入生の父親らしく、私の父と同じぐらいの年齢だった。その質疑 に私の両親も真剣に聞き入っていたが、私は嫌な予感がした。

父が休暇を取ってまで(わざわざ)大学に来たのは娘の入学を喜んでのこと だけではなく、娘がこれから4年間通う大学というものがどのようなところで、 どんな人間がいるのか見たかったのであろう。そんな中での光景であった。私 は両親の目の届かないところで思い切り羽を伸ばそうと考えていたが、東京の 大学という所をよく知らない両親にとって、娘を預けるには不安を掻き立てるようなものだったかもしれない。

両親の不安を解消すべく、何かしら手を打たざるを得なかった。あれこれ考 えた末、まじめなサークル活動という手を考えた。大学という最高学府で知的 探究心に満ち溢れた活動に参加すればと・・・。私の専攻は英米文学だったか ら、英語を使うサークルであれば間違いないだろうと考えた。

私は「英字新聞」でいこうと決めた。新聞と言えば何か硬派な感じを与える し、その上英字ときている。両親を安心させるにはもってこいだと思った。また「Hakumon Herald」のネームと飾り文字も自分自身気に入った。段組みされた英単語が整然と並ぶ紙面は、簡単にできるものではないことは誰の目にも 明らかだった。この新聞制作に携わるサークルに入部するとなれば両親も安心 し、少しは警戒心が緩むのではないかと考えた。

そこで部室に立ち寄り数部のバックナンバーをもらい、私の学生生活をスタートさせる切り札とした。そのおかげで私は大学生活を何不自由なく謳歌する ことができた。「Hakumon Herald」に感謝してもあまりあるのはこのようなこともあったからである。(昭和63年卒、旧姓=吉田)