6. The other people who inspired me: subject librarians in Japanese studies

Subject librarians in North America

Even though I was encouraged by my friends that I could study abroad taking my children, if I couldn't imagine anything, I wouldn't have been there.

In those days, I was working as a sales and marketing for customers in North America and some part of Europe. One of my jobs was to sell a subscription of journal-article database to academic libraries such as Stanford, UC, University of Chicago, Columbia, Michigan, and many other libraries that support Japanese studies. I was closely working with the subject librarians of those universities.

What is a subject librarian?

Now, for those who are not familiar with "subject librarian", let me explain.

Subject librarians are the librarians who are responsible for specific research area or specific theme in library services. They are required to have an advanced degree of that specific field, at least master's degree, or preferably PhD.
However, recently, research subjects are getting more complex. You cannot support such a complicated and interdisciplinary area with your single expertise.  So, depending on the subject area the needs for subject librarian is getting less and less.

But still, regional studies librarians, such as Japanese studies librarians, Chinese studies librarians, or Asian studies librarians, are in demand. Because those research fields are quite specific, and researchers in those study area need support from librarians who are extraordinarily familiar with something like language, culture, history, politics, etc.

Japanese studies librarians

So, the Japanese studies librarians whom I was communicating with gave me a quite concrete vision that I could be working in an academic library in the US after getting the degree. In other words, I had no image other than that.

Actually, I had been on a business trip to the US twice. One was Chicago in 2000 for an exhibition named AAS (Association for Asian Studies). The second one was in the summmer of 2002 when I went to a training program as a trainer. That was my very first experience of presentation in English. 
I met many librarians there which impressed me a lot. Many of them were Japanese who went to the US after they are grown up. They got a degree, and had a position in academic libraries.

One day, I got a mail 

While I was checking out the library schools of the US, I got an email from one of my clients, a librarian from the University of Pittsburgh. Her email was saying "why don't you come to Pittsburgh? You could work here at the library while you are studying in the graduate program". That was the offer that I had never expected.

5. People who supported me: members of Field of Mugi (Mugibatake)

Field of Mugi (Mugibatake)

In August 2003,  I was on a flight with my children to Chicago for my study in Pittsburgh. It had been 10 months since my Korean-mom friend suggested that I should go abroad.

Although at first it didn't seem like reality at all to me, there were three things that made me feel "I can do it".

The first one is Field of Mugi (Mugibatake) . This was a Japanese online community for working mothers which was launched by Ms Kazuyo Katsuma, an economic commentator, who was known as being listed in the 50 Women to Watch 2005 in Wall Street Journal. The Field of Mugi existed from the beginning of the 1990's to 2018 and helped more than 20,000 working mothers by exchanging useful information online.

Working mothers were still a minority

It was in 1989 that the law for equal employment opportunities for men and women came into force. However, in the 1990's in Japan, working mothers were still a minority. Many people believed in the so called "till-3-year-old Myth" which means children have to be taken care of by their mother at home at least until they get 3 years old.

Additionally, it was in the early days of the web. Working mothers were mostly depending on paper based information such as books and magazines. It was very hard to access firsthand information about how to find a nursery, how to manage the time for working and mothering, how to keep a good relationship with husband, and so on.

Members whom I never encountered in my daily working life

Therefore, Field of Mugi was a revolutionary tool for those who oftentimes feel isolated as the minority. But to me, it was not only a good information resource, but also something that made me open my eyes in terms of career improving. There were various types of members whom I never encountered in my daily working life. Their occupation were varied: newspaper reporter, researcher, medical doctor, company owner, etc...

Among them there were people who were actually studying abroad with kids leaving her husband in Japan.

It's not about whether you can do it or not

Since I started to gather the information about studying abroad with children, I often consulted those members if my idea was crazy or was realistic. One of them said "It's not about whether you can do it or not, but it's more about whether you move into action or not".

When I read this phrase in her email, I decided to stop worrying about the feasibility. I just thought I would try it. If I fail, whatever will be will be. If the members of Field of Mugi didn't encourage me to move forward, the idea of studying abroad with children would have gone nowhere. 

4. Can I make it happen?

Is it for my children, for myself, or for both?

It was October 2002 when I  started to check out how to study abroad with my children according to the Korean mom friend’s suggestion.　One of the other mothers I know who is Korean told me to do so.

It seemed she was talking about that only from the perspective of children’s education, more specifically, of raising them to be bilingual. She told me that the easiest way was that I went to university-based English school that didn’t require complicated application processes like preparing academic transcripts or asking references letters to others.

Raising children to be bilingual

Raising my children to be bilingual? It sounded very attractive to me at that point. But the truth which I realized later was not that simple. Children learn languages very quickly but also forget very easily. It depends on your child’s motivation whether he/she keep the acquired skill and make use it for future career. As the proverb says you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. It literally depends on personality of each child. 

If I make this bold idea happen, I should focus on my own goal, I thought.

My potential for achievement

However, I could never imagine I could do the academic work on a specific subject because it had been 14 years since I finished my undergraduate, and additionally, I was never very studious in my college years.

Well, I can say now I had the potential for any achievement, but at that time I had assumed I was too old to do something new, which was totally wrong.

It was a kind of lessons to realize nothing was too late in most cases once you decide to initiate. 80 year old me in the future may be thinking that current me who is 54 is still very young.

Anyway, 10 months later, I was on a flight with my children to study in the graduate program in Pittsburgh. Why was that? What gave me a kick in the backWho encouraged me to do that? There were mainly three factors.

3. Why don't you go abroad with your children?

Korean mom My Korean-mom friend

The mom friend who suggested that I go abroad with my four children was a Korean mother living near my home.

It had been 12 years before when we met first in a neighborhood park. I was letting my son play there, and so was she for her daughter. We became friends really quick. In those days I was on a second maternity leave with enough time. I asked her to teach me Korean to have a lesson once a week.

She was really good at teaching as she used to be an elementary school teacher before coming to Japan to marry. She never used Japanese during the lessons even when I visited her for the first time.

Learning Korean by porny videos?

It was in the beginning of the 1990's which was long before the Korean-culture boom came to Japan. Nowadays you can have tons of materials for learning Korean including movies and dramas. But back in the 1990's  there were very few. I had no option but renting the videos, Mulberry, Mulberry 2, and Mulberry 3 directed by Lee Doo-yong, which had so many porny seans and had me learn a lot of expressions which I would never use in my life!  Anyway, a couple of years later, I was able to speak Korean which was enough to read easy newspaper articles or to go shopping in Seoul with no translation. However, now, I totally forgot. Although Japanese and Korean are similar in grammar, you quickly forget unless you use them very consciously...

How about studying abroad?

"How about studying abroad, Yoko-san?" she said and continued "Canada should be the best, I think".

That was the word I had never expected to hear. I didn't even imagine going abroad by myself. Furthermore, studying abroad with four children is something unheard-of at least around me. However, she was quite serious. It was one of her natural options to go to a foreign country to change her life in a big way, and in fact she did it herself. Of course she was single with no kids when she came to Japan, but still, it was not unusual for her to see many relatives to migrate to Canada, Australia, or the USA for children's education.  That was a totally different environment from mine with a quite average Japanese lifestyle.

2. Lost my husband at 36

 I was only 36 when my husband passed away

In September, 2002, my husband passed away. He had been hospitalized for about 5 months but didn't recover to the end. He was only 42, too young to die. He and I had four children, two boys and two girls. They were 13, 11, 7, and 5.
At that time I was only 36. Like most of the women in the same generation may have been so, I never imagined that I myself became widowed at such a young age.

I literally thought that anything could happen to our life.

What would you do if you were in such a situation?

So, what would you do if you were in the same situation? You lost your husband, have four kids, you are working but don't get paid enough because the breadwinner was your husband. Of course you will get a certain amount of money after processing tons of documents as you are entitled to inherit your husband's property, but it would be all used up in years if you want to have your children educated well or even with a standard level.

According to the national statistics in 2015, the average income of single mother in Japan is 243 million yen, which is $22,670. My wage was slightly more but given that the average number of children is two my income can be said much lower.

So, what am I going to do? Now I had a big bank account. It was like 30 million yen which was totally beyond my imagination. Then I had an inspiring thought. What if I use this money for studying abroad? 

Actually this idea was originally coming from one of my mom friends. 

1. About this blog

Want to be a proper breadwinner?

Being a single mom is very challenging especially when you have more than two kids and do not get paid enough.
One of the solutions is to "update" yourself to become a proper breadwinner, but how can you do it?
Let me share my story that I experienced more than 15 years ago.

At 36 I became widowed (Anything uncontrollable could happen to your life! )

I had four children who were 13, 11, 7, and 5 years old. My salary was only 3 million yen which means $28,000 per year. It was totally not enough to raise my children.

I decided to "update" myself.  In 2003, I went to the US with all my children.  The main objective is to  join in a graduate course to get a masters degree. Two years later, I successfully got the degree and had a new position in Tokyo.

By the time I quit the job to be independent in 2015, my salary increased up to 14 million yen, 4 times more than before going to the US.
None of my children had to have a mortgage to go to college. Now they are all grown up, and one of them is a dad of an adorable baby girl ( I am a grandma!). 

I live with a wonderful husband whom I remarried in 2016 and a beautiful dog.

My life totally changed.

This blog is mainly focusing on my two-year life in the US which was sometimes funny, sometimes tough, and overall very worthwhile to me and my children ( I hope so).
Hope you’ll enjoy my story and have some tips to make your life better.

Happy reading!