英会話に関する情報を提供しています。

★オリンピックと名前の関係

スコップを手に母親の畑仕事を手伝う。
幼少時代は山梨の田舎で過ごした。

Well, the first thing I have to tell you all is that I am just a little girl from a small town in Yamanashi Prefecture.

My name is Kana, because my father's dream was to take part in the Montreal Olympics in Canada in 1976, in the 3-day equestrian events. You know how Japanese people say ""Kanada'' instead of ""Canada.'' ""Kanada-chan'' sounds kind of strange, so my parents named me just plain ""Kana.'' So much for my name!

As I said, my dad was really into horse-riding, so we had this huge riding club in Yamanashi. I was born and raised in the countryside. Back then, the road from my house to the riding club wasn't even paved. And I had to walk close to 2 hours just to get to my elementary school.

Now you know what a country girl I am! If any of you out there think that you can compete with me about being the ultimate country girl, send me an e-mail, and we'll see. I am pretty confident that you can't beat me on this.

1976年モントリオール・オリンピックに
出場を果たした父親と。

Since our house was located in such an out-of-the-way place in Japan, my mother would do gardening, baking and knitting all on her own, and at night, she'd cook for the big crowd from the riding club and play her guitar.

We had party after party every night, and the fact that we had many guests every single night helped make me the girl I am today.

I'd observe each and every one of our guests and study their characters or personalities. I learned how people react to things in different situations.

I also learned how to listen to people, speak for myself and even entertain them a bit. I'd help my mother cook, or often I'd play the piano and sing for the group.

My father doted on his daughter (yep, that's me!), yet he was pretty strict about good behavior. His motto in raising a girl was to make her a cheerful, thoughtful and graceful young princess. But how do you stay that way all the time? With all those guests all the time, there was always someone watching me, right? If it were you, my dear girl friends out there, what would you do?

Eventually, to get in touch with the little girl inside myself =cd=ba52 the country girl who is sometimes not so cheerful, thoughtful nor graceful =cd=ba52 I started to write. I started to write my true feelings in my diaries and poetry. There, I could completely be myself and be honest about my thoughts.

That's my childhood.

I was ignorant and fearless. Here is the story of ""A Girl Like Me'': How she went all the way to America in the summer of the year 1990.