[Feature: 125 Years of Affiliated Schools] Akiko Suganuma: Nurtured by Keio's Affiliated Schools

2023/10/06

I was born in Mita in 1943. Due to the war, we evacuated to Ina Valley in Nagano, where my father was born and raised, and returned to Mita when I was four years old. My father won the world championship in billiards and owned a large billiard hall in Kyobashi before the war, but after the war, billiards was not a viable business. He started a machine tool wholesale company near where my current clinic is located. The Machine Tool Hall building on Mita-dori, which used to house "Tsurunoya," was built when my father was the national chairman. His photo was displayed there until it was demolished.

My childhood memories of Mita include counting cars passing through Daiichi Keihin from my house; I clearly remember there being only three three-wheeled trucks in an hour. The rest were all bicycles.

In the old days, the Mita Campus didn't even have guards, and anyone could enter. Since I was an only child, I often took my dog and played up on the hill.

I was born in the tenth year of my parents' marriage, so they cherished me very much. They decided to have me take the entrance exam for the Yochisha Elementary School because they heard that with Keio, I could go to junior high, high school, and university all in Mita, and I could take the bus to the Yochisha.

Fortunately, I was admitted to the Yochisha as part of the third class of girls, but the teachers didn't treat us like girls. They saw us the same as the boys. During the seaside school in Hayama or when staying overnight at the camp, there were few female teachers, so Professor Goro Kawasaki would sleep next to us. He once told me, "You have a terrible sleeping posture."

My homeroom teacher at the Yochisha was Mr. Sadao Okuyama. It was the first time Mr. Okuyama himself had a class with girls.

I entered in 1950, right after the war, so parents didn't have much leeway and times were tough. He often took children who couldn't go out much on Sundays on voluntary hikes and observation trips. He was a teacher who excelled in science and explained many things about nature, which made me love science.

Mr. Okuyama's house was behind where the Yochisha pond used to be. At that time, several teachers who had lost their homes in the war lived there. There was Mr. Hayashi, Mr. Okuyama, and perhaps one other. When going to school, I would enter properly through the main gate of the Yochisha, but on the way home, I would loiter a bit at Mr. Okuyama's place and return almost through the back gate.

There were no pools like there are now, and the highway that eventually divided the grounds hadn't been built yet, so the forest in the back had plenty of hiding spots. I remember the foundation of a house remaining in a corner of that forest—I wonder if it was Yukichi Fukuzawa's villa.

Speaking of games during breaks and after school, first there was kick-the-can. we played it in the forest. Then we would crawl into hollowed-out trees that looked like small shrines to play house with friends or eat mulberries.

Another memorable teacher from my Yochisha days was Mr. Fusao Nagano. He was also a science teacher. There was a science club, and I joined it. It was very fun. He also gave supplementary lessons. I had learned that fertilizers consist of nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potassium, so when the teacher asked about it in class, I raised my hand and answered. My classmates still tell me today, "That was surprising."

Chutobu Junior High School started as a co-educational school that admitted girls right after the war, and I was in the 10th graduating class. I became a first-year student just when the current school building (Main Building) was completed. I spent three years in a brand-new facility.

I was relaxed during my Yochisha days, but at Chutobu Junior High School, students come in from the outside. During the first semester of my first year, that felt incredibly scary, and I studied desperately. I thought I knew nothing and that the people coming from the outside knew everything. I worried about whether I could keep up with the lessons and get good grades on exams. However, once the midterms were over, I realized that wasn't necessarily the case.

When I went to the Girls' High School, I was scared for the first semester as well. When I went to the School of Medicine, I was scared for a year. Those of us who come up from the affiliated schools do feel a certain sense of inferiority for not having gone through the entrance exam grind.

But eventually, you start mixing and socializing normally with the people who came in through exams. Until then, you're too scared to approach them, but strangely enough, you eventually blend together.

I'm sure the other side was equally scared, thinking that those from the affiliated schools knew everything about Keio. But eventually, both sides realize that's not the case. That is one of the good things about Keio.

My homeroom teacher for the first and third years was Mr. Toki Yoshinaka, and for the second year, it was Mr. Kisaburo Kawai. Both taught mathematics. I wasn't good at traditional arithmetic problems like the "crane and turtle" problem, but once I got to junior high math, I especially enjoyed geometry. I loved how drawing a single line somewhere could solve a problem in an instant.

At Chutobu Junior High School, I was in the same year as Naoki Aikawa, and we competed in math. If I got a better score on a test, he would come all the way to tell me how frustrated he was (laughs). From Chutobu, only the two of us, including Mr. Aikawa, went to the School of Medicine, and even now he treats me like a comrade-in-arms. Mr. Aikawa went on to become the Director of Keio University Hospital.

A deep memory from Chutobu Junior High School is the drama festival. A Japanese teacher named Mr. Kojiro Nakai was in charge, and he would say, "You, come here," and he decided everything from the casting to the subject matter.

Mr. Aikawa was always the lead. There was also a girl as cute as a Madonna who always seemed to be the heroine. I was mostly backstage, but in my second year, I played the role of a village girl. The story was about a famine where we went to petition the village headman because there was nothing to eat, but I was quite chubby back then (laughs). I fell into self-loathing, wondering why someone so chubby was playing a role where they were starving to death. I said I would never be in the cast again, so in my third year, they let me be the director.

A teacher who left a deep impression at Chutobu Junior High School was Mr. Etsuo Iguchi, who taught Japanese history. It was a descriptive test, but at the end, he would write various things like "well done" or "your handwriting is messy." Just having one line written in red ink made me so happy and made me want to be praised again. Later, when I taught health at the Girls' High School, I made sure to look at the tests carefully and write a line at the end. I think that was my starting point as a teacher.

For club activities, I was in the Physical and Chemical Research Club. We would collect suspicious-looking sweets and analyze food additives and coloring agents. The young and charismatic Mr. Kenjiro Kaneko taught us.

It was an era when sweets were heavily colored. It was around the time when food additives were becoming a social issue. I can't forget how I wrote our research results on large sheets of paper for the autumn presentation and worked hard to explain them to the parents who visited. The starting point for my long-term involvement in food safety issues lies in Chutobu Junior High School.

At Chutobu Junior High School, I developed a style of studying hard, and I have many fun memories. My friends from my Chutobu days are still close, regardless of gender.

As I mentioned at the 75th anniversary of Chutobu's founding last year, perhaps because there was a slight underlying feeling that Chutobu has a shorter history within Keio compared to the Keio Futsubu School, we are united, and the bonds remain very strong even after graduation.

And the teachers interacted with the students normally, creating a comfortable atmosphere. None of the teachers were arrogant at all. There was an atmosphere where even if you got scolded a little, you could just say "I'm sorry" and slip away.

Even back then, when we called teachers, we used "-san" for everyone. So when a university professor became a department head, students would come in without knocking and say "Mr./Ms. [Name]," which would surprise them. But for Chutobu students, it was normal.

Keio Naka-dori has changed to cater to business people since the bubble era, but before that, it was full of eateries for Keio students, and the shopkeepers were all Keio supporters. When I passed through in my uniform during my Chutobu days, they would say, "Welcome back."

When I entered the Girls' High School, I would stop by shops with friends on the way home. After table tennis practice, I would go with my seniors to a sweets shop called "Kasuga," which was located near the road between the old Mita Library and Daiichi Keihin, and we would compete to see how many we could eat. Across from the current main gate of the university, there was a small Western-style restaurant, and their salmon pilaf was so delicious that I looked forward to it during summer table tennis practice.

In my third year, I was told that if I could gather 20 people, they would approve a swimming club. When I reached out, 25 people gathered, and I became the first captain. During the training camp at Yumigahama in Izu, I encouraged and pushed everyone. I was the one surprised when a girl who could only swim 25 meters was able to do long-distance swimming in about 10 days; I realized that if you try, you can do it.

At that time, the Hiyoshi Festival for the Senior High School and the Kanna-sai for the Girls' High School were not separate as they are now; the Hiyoshi Festival was held jointly by the high school in Hiyoshi and the Girls' High School. We sent executive committee members to each other, and I was in general affairs in my second year and vice-chairperson in my third year. I traveled to Hiyoshi every day during the summer.

The Hiyoshi Festival back then was very serious, with many research presentations. The post-festival party was folk dancing.

There might have been more interaction between the Girls' High School and Senior High School students than there is now. A significant number of students participated as committee members. I still exchange emails with the Senior High School members from that time. Some even became married couples.

On the other hand, the Girls' High School being just for girls was also indescribably fun. Since we were at that age, we were conscious of boys' gazes, but because there were no boys around, we did whatever we liked with abandon.

Let me tell you a bit about our pranks. When the gentle Mr. Eishiro Nomoto came for class, I led everyone to hide in the back stairs. Even when the teacher arrived, because he was so gentle, he just sat quietly at the podium.

Eventually, he went back to the teachers' room. Then, when Ms. Yoko Taniguchi came in about to get angry, we were sitting quietly in our seats and said, "We were here all along" (laughs). She said, "Ms. Suganuma, you're the ringleader, aren't you?"

Also, there was a rule that we couldn't use hair clips for braids. They said braid clips were too flashy, but ribbons were plain so they were okay. So the whole class wore large, flashy ribbons and asked the biology teacher, Mr. Hidetoshi Tozawa, "Could you please hold the class on the lawn in the courtyard?" As a result, it became famous throughout the school, and braid clips were permitted. I was the ringleader for this as well.

Later, when I became a doctor and started teaching health at the Girls' High School, Ms. Taniguchi was still there. When I said, "Ms. Taniguchi, it's Suganuma. Do you remember me?" she replied, "How could I ever forget you, you brat?" (laughs). But I was happy she remembered me.

During my time at the Girls' High School, I made sure to memorize what I was taught during the class itself, and after school, I was at full power with the student council, the Hiyoshi Festival, and club activities. It was the most enjoyable time of my life. At the Girls' High School, not many people cared if you weren't good at studying; there was a feeling of valuing what you were good at. All the graduates say that special talents or planning abilities were born from that environment.

When I was a high school student, I don't think the school was as popular for entrance exams as it is now. At that time, many parents still wished for an education that produced "good wives and wise mothers." Keio Girls' High School was different from schools like Seishin or Shirayuri, which were called "young ladies' schools" back then; it didn't provide that kind of education at all. We could never bring ourselves to say things like "Gomen-asobase" (a refined way of saying excuse me).

The beauty of Keio Girls' High School was that it was completely unconscious of such things. From the outside, people said we would never find husbands.

My father was hospitalized many times, so I went to the hospital often and thought hospitals were nice. I also liked science, so I decided I wanted to be a doctor.

I was told to take over the company, but I'm not good at economics. I persuaded my parents to let me go to the School of Medicine by saying that if I became a doctor, I could live on my own even after they were gone.

In my time, it was still an era where women were expected to marry early, and even if a woman became a doctor, she often quit after getting married. When I decided on the School of Medicine, my homeroom teacher, Mr. Akihi Sasaki (nicknamed Niya-san), lectured me for 30 minutes, saying I must never quit being a doctor because if I did, the recommendation quota from the Girls' High School would be reduced. I was the first girl from the Yochisha to go to the School of Medicine.

The teachers at the Girls' High School back then only taught what they liked. In chemistry, we were only taught inorganic chemistry. At the School of Medicine, Mr. Akira Tsujioka taught organic chemistry, and it was a total terror because I couldn't understand it at all. At first, my grades were bad and I was called in and asked, "What are you doing?" so I bought many reference books and studied. I had a terrible time. I'll never forget that (laughs). But perhaps he recognized my effort, because Mr. Tsujioka grew fond of me and I consulted him on various matters even after graduation.

The man who became my husband was my father's primary physician, and we ended up getting married while I was a student. While I was in the School of Medicine, my father was hospitalized at Saiseikai Central Hospital with pancreatic cancer. He had surgery there but passed away in three months. My husband was five years older and talked to me about medicine every day. I thought that even though he was in surgery, he was strong in internal medicine matters like endocrinology—that was the end of my luck (laughs).

During our honeymoon, he told me he wanted to open his own practice and contribute to community medicine, and my dream of working hard and doing research in a hospital was shattered. However, since it was a marriage I had decided on, I felt I had to cooperate, and we opened a clinic together in Mita. So, I have been in Mita my whole life.

From 1985 to 2000, I taught "Health" at the Girls' High School. This also happened because Ms. Ai Wada, who was a physical education teacher at the Girls' High School, came to the clinic and heard me talking to other patients. She said she wanted me to give that kind of talk to the high school girls.

When I started teaching at the Girls' High School, I naturally didn't have a teaching license. I was told I could teach anything, so I decided to teach the girls medical knowledge that would be useful for marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, child-rearing, family health management, and nursing care. Mr. Akira Tsujioka had become an Executive Director and said he would get special permission from the Ministry of Education (now MEXT) (the trend of teaching what one likes still exists).

Once I started teaching, I looked around and saw that all the other teachers had studied educational principles and educational psychology before teaching. I decided I should also get a teaching license, so I went to Japan Women's University's correspondence course where I could get a health teaching license. I was told I could get it in two years, but because I was practicing medicine, teaching classes, and had children, it took four years.

The high school girls would fire questions back at me, and things I took for granted as a doctor would be met with, "Wait, teacher, why does it work like that?" That was so fun that I ended up doing it for 15 years. Now, many of my former students from the Girls' High School are in their 40s and 50s and are very active in society. While there are many co-educational schools now, the Girls' High School has a charm that makes me hope it remains a girls' school forever.

What I thought while teaching at the Girls' High School was that the students are desperately searching for what to do when they enter society. When I talked about patients, their families, or society, they all listened with their eyes wide open. In our time, we were quite passive.

However, the atmosphere where teachers trust and protect the students is the same. That's why they can do what they like with peace of mind. That sense of security nurtured us.

I truly believe Keio University is a wonderful school where people harmonize regardless of which of the affiliated schools they enter from, and even with friends who entered from university, they are bound by strong ties as Keio University alumni after graduation.

(Recorded via interview. Interviewer: Mr. Keita Yamauchi [Vice-President])