Junko

Born in Kamakura, Japan, Junko spent her childhood with a growing sense of uneasiness with the Japanese education system. As a teenager, she already knew that she didn’t want to raise her child there, and as a way to move overseas in the future, she began attending an English conversation school. There she met an English teacher from the UK, and after they married, they left Japan for Southeast Asia. When she became pregnant in India, they decided to move to Australia in 1973 when the Australian White Policy was still very much part of everyday life back then. In this interview, Junko takes us back to the life for Japanese people in the 1970s Australia. She also shares her secret of success in intercultural intimate communication and in building trust with her Australian in-law family whose member had been a prisoner of war of the Japanese during WWII.

鎌倉出身のオーツ・純子さんは、子供の頃から日本の教育システムに疑問を抱いていた。若い頃からすでに日本での子育てを諦め、将来海外に行く為に英会話学校に通いだす。そこで現在のイギリス人のご主人に出会い、結婚後は東南アジアで１年半滞在した。インドで妊娠した際にオーストラリアへの移住を決意する。来豪したのは白豪主義の名残がまだ強く残っていた１９７３年。このインタビューでは、その当時の在豪日本人の生活、国際結婚カップルのコミュニケーションの秘訣、また、第二次世界大戦中日本軍捕虜だったオーストラリア人の親戚との対話についてお話して頂いた。