Hiding in the Toilet and Studying

 

 When I was a child, I was a sickly boy. I often caught a cold. When I caught a cold, my mother took me to the hospital that my grandaunt runs. My grandaunt was a medical doctor. She always gave me an injection. Of course, I was scared of her and I hated her. She was a doctor. I had never felt any special feeling about that, but there were many stories about her life.

 This story is not about the grandaunt I mentioned before who had Alzheimer’s disease and who I took care of. This is a different person. This grandaunt is her sister.

 When my grandaunt was younger, she wanted to be a medical doctor, but her parents (my great-grandparents) objected to it. Even now, there are many barriers to female students becoming a doctor. Lately, it was reported that some medical university in Japan gave handicaps to female students when they took entrance exams. Those days there might be a lot of barriers to my grandaunt. She studied in the toilet to hide from her parents, and she broke through all the barriers. Finally, she became a doctor. She was the very first Western female medical doctor in Aichi Prefecture. There were a lot of female doctors in Chinese medical history, so we shouldn’t define her as the first female doctor. Anyway, she had been a general practitioner ever since I can remember.

I always wondered why my mother took me to the hospital where my grandaunt worked. That hospital was a little far away from our home. We needed to take a train to the hospital. It was hard for me because I had a cold. Recently, though, I solved the mystery. My mother was a famous feminist. She respected my grandaunt. My mother paid her a visit as a form of courtesy, and they exchanged information, and she supported the hospital.

 My grandaunt had four children. All of them became medical doctors. I heard my grandaunt planned to run a general hospital with her children. Unfortunately, the children works in different hospitals in different regions now. Just like how my grandaunt didn’t grow up as my great-grandparents wished, her children also didn’t grow up like she wished.

 I just dream too. If my grandaunt’s dreams had come true, then I could also work in a general hospital as a hospital clown.

Picture by akaishi