Frozen Teardrop by Lucinda Ruh Page A

want in the world, plus all the new and interesting foods and products and accessories that I had never seen before while living in Europe. It was all at your fingertips. For any kid it was like being in Disney Land materialistically, but emotionally I was deprived. On top of all the new surroundings we were becoming accustomed to the language, which was intriguing and completely incomprehensible to us. A secretary from the office came with us most of the time to help by translating for us, from Japanese to English and back and forth, but to me it was still all gibberish since at that time I did not speak any English either. My mother, having lived all around the world, already had her method of starting over and getting accustomed to a new culture, language, and land and I never ever heard her even once complain about anything. My mother was and still is very courageous and I wish even now I had half her courage.
    It was still the summer holiday when we arrived in Tokyo. School had not started yet but would soon, and my parents were visiting the various top private schools around the area to see where my sister and I were to attend. My sister who was born in England had always attended English-speaking schools while so far I had only attended a French-speaking kindergarten. Therefore my mother and father wanted to put my sister in the international school and me in the French-speaking school. That would have been wonderful since my parents wanted to keep as much as they could as similar as possible while everything else around us had changed to the utmost extreme.
    But, unfortunately, something else we definitely had to get used to and overcome our fear of was the ongoing movement of the land. This was a new word for us: earthquakes. They were terrifying and one of our first experiences happened within the first month of moving to Tokyo. We were in the hotel and suddenly everything started to shake and a rumbling noise became louder and louder. The windows were shaking and books and clothes started flying of the shelves. The alarm in the hotel went off and instructions were heard over the loudspeaker. My mother quickly handed us helmets that every hotel room was conveniently equipped with. She took my sister’s and my hand and off we ran down the exit staircase.
    My mother kept a calm face, as she knew she was my sister’s and my only support. After a couple of hours of being kept in the lobby to make sure all was safe, with all of us quite traumatized from our first time experiencing this, we slowly all treaded back to our rooms. Following like sheep was the correct way; no emotion was to be showed. That was to be learned in Japan. To be respected you needed to speak no words, show no tears, and voice no screams. Silence, although with trembling hearts, was necessary to keep face. I was holding my mother’s hand so all would be good.
    There was no discussion afterward about it, other than saying this is what needs to be done when this happens. I truly wonder how scared my mother was, if at all, because she never showed it. I wanted to follow suit and be just like my mother. We were told that the helmets were placed everywhere so that people could use them in time of earthquakes. In our school we were told where they were kept, right in the beginning, and many, many earthquake drills were done throughout the year. Later in our home we would have a separate container near our beds with helmets inside, as well as some food and water to be taken with us in case of a serious earthquake. We would always be on high alert for earthquakes and throughout the thirteen years there were many more serious ones we lived through.
    Since the two different schools we were supposed to attend were about a long, one-hour drive apart, my mother decided after this incident that she would put both of us in the same school. Then in case of an emergency my sister would be able to take care of me. Again, I had no choice except to follow my