Run for Japan in Scotland
June 6th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Aya writes about how she felt when disaster struck her home country, Japan and what she did in Scotland to help…
March 11 2011 has become an unforgettable day for the Japanese or people who are related to Japan. The series of earthquakes and tsunami brought the nation-wide tragedy that our Prime Minister described as ‘the worst since the World War II’. Given the situation, the University of Glasgow organised a run event to support the Tohoku University in Sendai, one of the worst hit areas in North Japan. So I called my friends including one Japanese friend and formed a small Stirling team to challenge 5km for fundraising.
I had never run in a race since school so training started with my friends who also had no experience in an official run. Although our training was often put off by our university coursework or part-time job shifts we managed to do some slots individually. During the session, a strange feeling caught me sometimes. I was trying to do something for Japan but at the same time I was so far away from it for such a long time that it almost felt like as though it were a foreign country. I was caught in-between two national identities. I had to somehow reconnect myself to my homeland through accomplishing something I’d never done because part of me was feeling more attached to Scotland, though not completely.
The event day was a great fun. Despite us being beginners we all reached the finishing tape and we raised a decent amount of money amongst ourselves which would then be sent to the Japanese university. Coincidentally this also closed my 3rd year at the University of Stirling. I’m feeling more like a multi-national student now. I belong to both Japan and Scotland and perhaps more in the future. And in this way, I think I can better define myself from now on.
