The major they chose, forty years later

A sixty-two-year-old woman in Japan wrote this in a free-response survey: "In high school I couldn't stand up to my mother's pressure. I wanted to study Korean literature… I should have held my ground." She went where her mother wanted, got a stable job, and her mother was satisfied. Forty years on she still browses literature shelves in bookstores. Following a parent can be filial — and also a handing over of the wheel. The one steering your life has to be you.