Crossing the Sanzu River - Yotsuya, November 1970" by Fumihiko Anai

Crossing the Sanzu River - Yotsuya, November 1970" by Fumihiko Anai

I decided to take the college entrance exam at the suggestion of the editorial office. No, I don't know who came up with such a reckless plan, but I regret my thoughtlessness in taking it on. To begin with, I have a dark history of taking entrance exams. After graduating from high school, I tried many times to take university entrance examinations, but each time I failed. I moved from one school to another, from Tottori University School of Medicine, Kyushu Dental University, Hiroshima University School of Medicine, Shimane University Faculty of Letters and Science, and Kobe University Faculty of Letters, and even moved to a new house in preparation for the examinations, but the results were all disastrous. There was even a day when I saw a French movie called "Lilla's Gate" at the Takarazuka Theater in Hiroshima.

I was so determined to take the exam again as part of an editorial "just for the fun of it" project. This time, it was for the Department of Portuguese in the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Sophia University. The reason why I chose Portuguese is because the date of the examination was convenient for the deadline of this manuscript. However, a few weeks before the exam, I had planned to submit a blank answer sheet to ironize the examination system. However, as the date of the exam approached, that plan was shaken.

On the day of the exam, on my way to the university from the Kojimachi exit of Yotsuya Station, I was overwhelmed by the youthful students around me. I felt uncomfortable in the exam room, but faced the question papers. The three subjects were English, Japanese history, and Japanese, and all the questions were tough. The reading comprehension questions based on Torahiko Terada's essay "Manga to Kagaku" (Manga and Science) were quite difficult to understand in a short time. In Japanese history, there was a writing question asking students to "Explain the Iwakura Mission in 100 words or less," and in Japanese, students were asked to interpret a Chinese sentence quoting a part of an article by Teiyu Amano. In the end, however, I managed to finish the exam without submitting a blank answer.

Looking back, it was comical that I had this experience on the subject of the exam. I thought I was throwing myself into criticizing the system, but in the end I found myself struggling within it. After the exam, I was in a bar in Lisbon, Portugal, having fantasies of falling in love with a local woman, and wondering whether I should talk about this experience in a funny way.

But I can only conclude this series of articles by saying that examinations are not just a personal ordeal, but also highlight the problems of social systems. I can only hope that this experience will provide some insight, whether or not I am accepted into a university in the future.