"Playland on the Moon" - Award Winning Story by SMAS Student Tomoko Imai

Tomoko Imai is from Japan. She was a student in Teacher Lisa Spark’s Writing Intensive Class for ESL Students. This past summer, she won first prize from the San Mateo County Fair for her story, “Playland on the Moon,” in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Adult Exhibitor Category. 

You can read an interview with Tomoko here.

You can read her advice on learning a new language here.

And here, with her permission, is her award-winning story.

Playland on the Moon

by Tomoko Imai

          My dad probably died on March 11, 2011, the day when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit Japan. On the day, he was on his business trip to Tomioka, the coastal town in Fukushima, when the massive tsunami devoured the whole area, killing over 15 thousand people. My mom was desperate and hastened to search for him the next day, for days and weeks, but his body was never found. I was too small to understand what was happening. All I remember was the strong, devastating trembles of the earth, collapsing buildings and falling roofs, my baby sister crying and my mom’s pale face in despair. The deadly tsunami also triggered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident which caused the continuous release of toxic radiation to a wide range of areas in Japan, including where we lived. It was beyond control. My mom was afraid of the unknown influence of radiation. Consequently, Mom, who was an astronomer, started to apply for positions abroad. She finally got one in a research center at Burndon College and that was how my mom, my sister and I got here to the States. Although it was a kind of a dream come true for my mom, for me, it was just the beginning of another nightmare.

         I couldn’t speak a single word of English when I arrived. I was the only Japanese student in the fourth grade in a small town in Indiana. Every morning at school all kids stood to pledge allegiance to the Flag. I would just mumble some of the sounds that I thought I heard and that was the only voice that I made during the school hours. No one seemed to care about me because I was so silent. I was like a ghost in the classroom. People might have thought that I was shy and quiet. But in fact, I wasn’t. Back in Japan, I liked making jokes and making friends laugh, but here I couldn’t because I didn’t know how to make jokes in English. During the classes, I couldn’t understand a word of what the teachers and kids were saying. For me, they were just notes and background music, which induced me to daydreams of my memories back in Japan. Not knowing how to write the alphabet, I kept on drawing while others were studying. The time I hated the most was recess and the lunch break. Without a person to speak to and play with, I just sat on one corner of the school playground and kept on drawing. I just suppressed my feelings, bated my breath and waited until school ended.

          I felt like I could only breath after the night fell. Every night my sister Emily and I looked for the moon in the sky. The golden moon was the only thing that seemed familiar to me in this new country and the four-year-old sister seemed to be the only person in the world who understood my language apart from my mom who got all the busier after we moved.
“Look Emily! It’s a full moon tonight!”
“Wow, it’s so round!”
“Good evening Mr. Moon!”
As we greeted him, the moonlight gently shone on my little sister and me, as if he was replying. From then on, I spoke to Mr. Moon, to share what happened and what did not happen and that released a part of my stress.
       
          One night in the darkness, Emily whimpered in a faint voice.
“I cannot find Mr. Moon tonight.”
“Why is it so?”
We kept looking up at the sky searching for him, but we could not find him. Emily got upset and started weeping. Her cry got louder and louder. My little sister was too young to understand that sometimes happened. I felt sorry for her. Then suddenly, an idea leapt into my mind.
“I know what to do!” I got some paper and started to draw a round circle with a yellow crayon. “Look Emily!” I showed her what I drew.
“Wow, it’s Mr. Moon!” All at once a smile flourished in her face. That night my sister and I made countless moons.

          “Naomi, Emily.”
In the middle of the night, a calm deep voice whispered at our bedside. I opened my eyes to
see a strange rabbit with shimmering silver hair and blue eyes bending down on his knee.
“Who are you?” I asked in amazement.
“Why are you here?” Emily woke up half asleep.
“My name is Amour, the rabbit of the moon. Thank you for drawing the moons tonight. I am here to invite you to Playland on the Moon as a token of my gratitude.”
Amour extended his hairy hands politely. Though I was confused and puzzled, my instinct told me that I could trust him. I gingerly held his hand and as Emily touched his other hand, we floated, like a cloud!

          Through the window, toward the moon, we softly hovered in the starry sky. Soon, we reached the moon. The bed of golden flowers stretched out on the surface as far as we could see.
“What are these? They smell so good,” sniffed Emily as we landed.
“They are moon flowers. The moon looks gold because of these flowers,” explained Amour.
“Tonight, you are the princesses of Playland. Let’s get dressed.”
Amour clapped his hands, and suddenly my sister and I were wearing fabulous dresses studded with diamonds, fragments of the stars and moon flowers.
“Wow, we are like real princesses!” we yelled.
Surprisingly, the dresses resembled the ones I had always dreamed of.
As we hopped and skipped, the colorful moonstone pavement rang out with pure tonesresembling pianos.

          At the end of the pavement, we found a moon trampoline. We rushed over and jumped on it. Flip-flop, flip-flop! We could jump as high as I could imagine. “Oh, I have never jumped this high in my life!” I cried in a flare of delight.
“I can jump as high as you!” When Emily jumped, she suddenly lost her balance.
“Help!” she cried.
Just then, Amour hurried on the moon unicorn and caught Emily.
“Watch out when you jump Kim! You could hurt yourself.” Amour anxiously looked into her face. “I am okay!” she replied cheerfully. I was relieved to see that he caught her. Behind them was a herd of white unicorns with silver and gold sparkles hopping and galloping. I wanted to ride one too, so I jumped on one of them. It was warm and soft, moving up and down among the stars like a merry-go-round.

          As we proceeded, rotating enormous cups decorated in fine lines and flowers appeared in the air. They had no rails nor wires. They just floated in the air by themselves.
“Amour, what are those?”

“They are moon coffee cups. Do you want to ride one?” Amour smiled.
So three of us rushed to ride one. Just as we turned the handle of the cup, it started rotating even faster.

“This is so much fun!” Somehow, Emily and I couldn’t stop laughing. We hadn’t laughed this much for a long time.
Suddenly Emily’s stomach growled.
“You must be hungry. It’s time for tea.”

          When Amour clapped his hands, extravagant cakes, donuts, chocolates and cookies appeared in front us. My mouth watered.
“Bon appetit!” smiled Amour. I ate big mouthfuls.
I thought that I had never tasted anything as good as those.

The cakes were sweet because they contained fragments of stars.
When I got full, I asked.
“This place is so much fun. Have you always lived here Amour?”
“Yes, I have. I will show you my favorite place in Playland.”

          When Amour clapped his hands, suddenly we were inside a gondola of a giant Ferris wheel. With a clickety-clack of the wheel, the gondola slowly moved toward space. The starry view from the Ferris wheel took my breath away.
“It’s so beautiful.” I sighed as I gazed.

“Yes, it is.” Replied Amour.

          In the middle of the silence, the galactic glowing blue marble was floating among the countless stars. Sparse white clouds and green and ocher continents, the world map that I saw in the classroom, were creating a pattern, but it was seamless, without borders. The pure blue was gently protecting the whole globe as if it was one living organism, constantly breathing.
“What is that?” Emily asked.
“It’s the earth, where you are all born and live,” Amour replied. The earth cast a pale light on the faces of three of us.
“I have always been watching you from here and I always will.” Amour’s blue eyes gleamed gently.
With a clickety-clack of the wheel, the gondola returned to the surface of the moon.
“It’s almost dawn. You need to go home,” said Amour.
“No, I don’t want to. I want to play with you more. I don’t want to go home,” Emily cried.
“We want to be with you, Amour!” I looked up to Amour as I did not want to lose him.
“No, you need to go. Your mom will be worried,” he told us.
“Whenever you want to meet me just look up at the moon. I will always be here.”
Amour hugged us very tight. Just then, as we felt his arms and warmth, the fragrance of our dad embraced me. I felt the glaciers inside me, accumulated over the years, melting with his warmth, causing an enormous flood of warm water, circulating the whole body and finally reaching my throat and eyes. I knew who Amour was. My tears overflowed. Amour hugged us even tighter. We held our hands again.
          Through space, toward our home in Indiana, Amour, Emily and I softly hovered in the starry sky. Emily and I sneaked under our blanket before our mom noticed. Soon, the warm gleam of dawn through the curtains gently shone on our faces.

Interview with Award-Winning Writer Tomoko Imai

Tomoko Imai is from Japan. She was a student in Teacher Lisa Spark’s Writing Intensive Class for ESL Students. This past summer, she won first prize from the San Mateo County Fair for her story, “Playland on the Moon,” in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Adult Exhibitor Category. 
You can read her story here. 

I sat down with Tomoko to find out about how she learned to write English so well and what she hopes to do in the future. 

Here, with her permission, is her interview: 

When did you start taking classes at SMAS? 

In January 2019 with Teacher Lisa’s Writing Intensive class.

Where did you learn English?

I arrived in the States last year. I used to live in N.Y. when I was a child - for about four and a half years. That is how I first started to learn English. I’ve worked for foreign affiliated companies in Japan. I’ve always worked using English. I used to live in the Netherlands. Because my children attended international schools there, I spoke English and also Dutch. I spoke fifty percent English, forty percent Dutch, and ten percent Japanese.

Do you enjoy creative writing? Have you written other stories? 

Yes, I have. I’ve always written stories in Japanese. The story that won the contest -- actually I wrote the story in Japanese about eight years ago. Since I thought the story matched the theme of the contest, I re-wrote it in English. I translated the story three or four years ago back in the Netherlands because I had friends with the same hobby, and we wanted to share stories. I attended the writing course at the Adult School and Lisa taught us how to be more creative and descriptive. I think this is how I improved the expression in the story.

Do you have any advice for students here at SMAS? 

I think there are several ways to improve foreign language skills. One of them that I would highly recommend is accumulating good sentences. When we first start to write or learn foreign languages, teachers often encourage us to write in our own words, but the problem for us is we don’t have enough words to express what we want to say. I think it’s a good idea is to learn good sentences and learn them by heart. In that way, we learn good writing and a sense of the language.

Another way is to have your writing corrected by native speakers. I think I’ve had my writing corrected by native speakers for over ten years. I think I should admit I still make mistakes. There’s a huge gap between native and non-native speakers. But by having the writing corrected over and over again, we can improve step by step.

These are the two ways I recommend, in addition to basic repetition of grammar practices and vocabulary building. Grammar and vocabulary are also very important.

How did the SMAS writing course help you meet your goals? 

I’m really thankful to Lisa. I found her course very interesting. Especially learning the descriptive paragraph. She taught us how to write by stimulating the five senses of the readers. It was the first time that I learned that sort of technique and it was very, very interesting.

Lisa’s course was designed for non-native speakers. The range of expression was very limited, but she still taught us the academic styles of writing. I think it’s very beneficial for adult learners since we have to live in an adult world. I think as non-native speakers, it’s very important to learn to be very persuasive in order to communicate with native speakers here in this country.

What are your new goals? 

I’m going to CSM in the Fall. My ultimate goal is to learn programming and also the method of teaching languages. I would like to develop good software or applications to learn languages. I started to study French at eighteen and then Dutch when I was over thirty. I started to learn English when I was eight. How to learn languages is very different depending on the age or knowledge. I’m very interested in developing apps that are suitable for each age level.

Award Winning Writer Tomoko Imai's Advice On Learning A New Language

Open Book with the word "English" above it

Tomoko Imai was a student in Teacher Lisa Spark’s Writing Intensive Class. She won first prize from the San Mateo County Fair for her story, “Playland on the Moon,” in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Adult Exhibitor Category. You can read her story here. Tomoko is from Japan and she speaks four languages - Japanese, English, and Dutch and French. She is interested in developing software to help other people learn languages. 

You can read her award-winning story here.


You can read an interview with her here.

Because she can speak four languages and interested in helping others learn languages, I asked her advice about how to learn a new language.  Here, with her permission, is her advice:

Below is how I usually start to learn accents, intonation, pronunciation, punctuation,
vocabulary and spelling of a foreign language with no knowledge:

1. Ask a native speaker teacher/ friend to help choose a simple paragraph beautifully written by a professional native speaker author.
2. Translate and thoroughly understand the meaning of the paragraph (professionally translated text helps).
3. Have it read aloud by a native speaker and record it.
4. Listen to it more than 100 times while you are cooking, working out, commuting, or doing housework, image the meaning while listening.
5. Read the paragraph aloud with the native speaker’s recorded voice, imitating the exact accents, pronunciation and intonations.
6. Mark intonations and accents as if you were writing music notes.
7. Learn the paragraph by heart as if you were learning how to sing a song.
8. Recite.
9. Dictate the paragraph.
10. Correct the mistakes.
11. Practice writing the same paragraph until you make no mistake.

Once a paragraph is learnt by heart, all the expressions and sentences become your own. Surprisingly, you begin to understand the spoken language with similar contexts. I usually repeat this process with different paragraphs until I begin to speak the language to a certain extent.

Concerning practicing advanced English writing as a non-native speaker, I usually first read a couple of texts or articles of the same topic written by a professional native writer and analyze the style of writing. When I want to write a sentence which I can express in my own language but not in English, I first look it up in a dictionary for some word options. Then I read example sentences to learn how they are used. Finally, I search for sentences using the words on the internet to learn the ways the words are usually used to decide which of the word options suits what I want to say the best. I try to avoid direct translation because the way things are expressed is very different depending on the language, and direct translation very often sounds awkward in the language translated. When possible, I try to have my writing corrected by a native speaker and learn the correction by heart.