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A Gift of Encounter

Ueno Takayuki (Oita National College of Technology)

Hello, everyone. My name is Takayuki Ueno. I am happy to meet you. Today I am going to talk about my precious experience. It happened when I visited Kyoto on a school trip. I had a wonderful encounter there. I hope you will share my feeling that an encounter has a special power.

On the morning of our trip’s second day, we started off to see around Kyoto. Because it was my first visit, everything was fresh and interesting. We visited many famous temples. They were so wonderful that they made me very happy. When we returned to the hotel, we happened to meet another group. They said to us, “Have you finished your English assignment?” We could not make out what they were talking about. Then one of my group members took out a letter from his bag. On seeing the letter, I remembered the assignment, crying, “Oh my god!! I have forgotten it completely.”

Before the school trip, my English teacher said to us, “I’ll give you an assignment that you must do during the trip.” And a letter was passed out to each group. We had to achieve three goals:

First, we had to find foreigners and speak to them.
Secondly, we had to tell them about the assignment and hand them the letter.
And finally, we had to take a picture with them as evidence.

The assignment was heavy on our mind. However, we had somehow forgotten it. What a shame! When we remembered it, we had only an hour left. We were in panic. At the moment, we saw two foreigners!! We came up and spoke to them in a hurry.

They listened to our poor English and received our letter. Through the conversation, we knew something about them. They were Robert and Jennifer from New York. After we took a picture together, they thanked us and walked away. We were happy to have achieved our goals. But we didn’t know what a big benefit this encounter would bring us later.

A few weeks later, we were in school as usual. In the morning, our homeroom teacher said, “Today is your very lucky day!! A great thing will happen later.” We didn’t understand his words. Later in English class, our English teacher came with a big box!! On the box was written: “Dear junior high school students, from Robert and Jennifer”. Yes, the two foreigners we met in Kyoto sent us a gift!! Because we had written our school address on the letter we gave them, they could send us the gift. In the box, there were T-shirts, a picture they took in Kyoto, and their letter. The gift made me realize that although we spoke to them only because it was our task, the encounter was thought of as very special by Robert and Jennifer. In order to convey our gratitude, we planned to write them a thank-you letter. But it was not easy for us to write a letter in English. So we asked our English teacher for help. A week later, we successfully sent the letter. From this experience, I realized I had to study English more to communicate with foreigners. And I began improving my English.

That encounter has benefited me a lot. I have got interested in English, brushed up my skills, and made many foreign friends. And now I have a chance to be here making a speech in front of you. However, I would like to mention, above all, two lessons that are impressed deep in my mind:

First, I learned the true meaning of the Japanese phrase一期一会. The chances of new encounter are low. You might say it is like a miracle. Even if you meet someone and become friends, chances are you may never see him or her again. So I think you should enjoy making most of the time together when you are meeting. Then you can build a good friendship and cherish it as a good memory for the rest of your life. I think 一期一会 is one of the most wonderful phrases in Japanese. Don’t you?

Secondly, an encounter provides you with nourishment for your mind to grow. You meet a lot of people in your life. They tell you something important for you to grow up. You have a wonderful time with them. I have learned a lot from my parents, friends, teachers, and many others including Robert and Jennifer. From my experiences, I think an encounter is great because it brings us a special gift. I might meet Robert and Jennifer again. Then I would talk a lot and strengthen our friendship. But I know, somewhere in my mind, that we will never meet again. Even if I have no chance to meet them again, I am sure I will not feel sorry because we are firmly connected by that one-time encounter.