What does it mean to be Japanese?

In my previous personal note, I started unraveling pieces of my childhood.

The story I will be sharing today goes back to when I was about 13 years old, the summer of 2004. I can't believe it's been more than 15 years or so already, because I can still remember it just like yesterday.

Ever since I was little, my mother used to take me and my brother back to Japan every summer in order to maintain our Japanese. My mother, my brother, and I―we would spend the whole summer, probably about two months, staying at my grandmother's house in Tokyo. For the first two weeks, my brother and I were put into a Japanese public school in the name of 'Taiken Nyugaku,' which is sort of like a 'trial schooling' thing that our grandmother had arranged for us. We started doing that when we were 1st and 2nd year students in elementary school, all the way up until we were 1st and 2nd year junior high school students. So I guess in total, I could partially say that I went to Japanese public school for a total of 14 weeks, much of it being a fun-filled experience (except for the pool classes; that was hell).

小さい頃から夏はほとんど日本で過ごしていました。幸い父はゴルフが得意で、会社のゴルフコンペで優秀な成績を収めては賞品として航空券を勝ち取ってきていました。それを使って母と兄と私は毎年日本に２か月間一時帰国。日本にいる間は母方の祖母の家で過ごし、日本語を忘れないようにと、地元の学校に「体験入学」をさせてもらっていました。

I really enjoyed going to elementary school in Japan because everyone was kind, and I got to experience Japanese culture such as playing the 'pianica' and cleaning school facilities by ourselves. To note, these two are unique to Japanese schools; we don't have an instrument like the 'pianica' in the States, nor do we clean up the classrooms ourselves. Usually, staff known as janitors do the clean-ups for us.

アメリカの学校は６月下旬から夏休みに入りますが、日本の学校は７月中旬からだったので、日本の学校は毎年２週間だけ通わせてもらっていました。確か祖母がその学校の校長先生と交流があり、特別に毎年お世話になっていたんだと思います。学校ではピアニカを初めて演奏したり（そもそも存在さえ知らなかった）、自分たちで学校の掃除をしたりと、アメリカではできないことを沢山経験させてもらいました。なかでも、朝礼の時に全校生徒が集まり、皆で「となりのトトロ」のテーマソングを歌った時は、「日本の学校って不思議だな～」って思ったのを覚えています（笑）。