Sissy Peter's Bold Life

This is a man's recollection of his childhood. His name is Peter, and he is now 70 years old. He is peacefully retired, with his wife. Although he doesn't like to compare his life with others' life, he thinks that he has at least had a satisfactory life. In this story, Peter recollects two memorable events that he had at seven years old. They were just small events, but had a great influence to his life ever after.

When little, Peter was a timid and weak boy. He was very weak in fighting. He soon started crying. He didn't like 'manly' sports such as iron bars, fencing, or baseball. He liked playing house with neighbor girls and singing and picking flowers. So, Peter was called "Sister Peter" by other boys and made fun of.

1. Peter didn't like school.

Peter entered elementary school in the spring of seven years old. To tell the truth, he did not enjoy school very much. This was mainly because he did not like crowd. For him, other boys were too wild and vulgar. They took his toys, punched him for fun, made him do dangerous things, and shoved him to the corner and stood in his way.

Honestly, Peter preferred to stay home and help his mother. His mother was a farmer. She was always working--washing, cleaning, cooking, planting vegetables, carrying heavy bags, weeding, sewing, heating bath water, etc. Peter liked to help her with these works, though he was not much help. But his mother pushed him to go to school. "Go to school. You must study hard and become a great man. It is my life dream. So work hard at school," she used to say. Reluctantly, Peter went to school-- for his mother's sake.

2.Peter's First Bully

Peter was ashamed of himself- for his timidness, shyness, feebleness, and sissiness.

There was a naughty boy in his class named Billy. Billy was quite opposite to Peter---strong, wild, athletic, active and bossy. One day Billy started a new play--which was to assault Peter from behind. He sneaked from behind, and jumped on Peter's back with all his weight. Peter got astounded and struggled to shake him off. But Billy far overpowered peter. Peter was pinned down under Billy for ten or more seconds in front of his classmates' eyes, which was very shameful for a boy. Each time, Peter pleaded Bill to stop it, but it only made Bill wilder.

Peter did not tell about this bully to anybody. He had no other way than put up with it. It was so shameful for a boy to beg somebody for a help about such a 'sissy' matter. Every day he went to school with a heavy heart, fearing he might be attacked again at any moment. Why he didn't fight back? It's because he hated fighting, whether win or not.

3. Peter Finally Retaliates

This continued for three weeks or so, when a quiet resolution came growing in his mind. It was to retaliate to his bully by completely ignoring Billy's attack without making any reactions.

Once making this resolution, Peter went to school with lighter heart, even with some expectation. Soon there came a chance to put this strategy into action. Next time Billy jumped on his back and clung on him on the school corridor, Peter completely ignored him and made no reaction. Instead, he staggered calmly ahead with determined steps, dragging naughty Bill on his back.

Apparently Bill seemed not a little surprised with this new reaction, for he got down from Peter's back quicker than before. Having this glorious success, Peter rejoiced in his heart though he pretended totally indifferent. When Bill launched a next attack on him, Peter again responded with the same cold indifference, and walked quietly into the classroom still dragging Bill like an old rug on his back, quietly and with all his might. Peter's quiet and firm indifference killed the fun of Bill's bullying games. Before long Bill gave up bullying Peter.

4. Prototype of Peter's Conflict Solution.

One day many years later, Peter was watching TV broadcast of a heavyweight boxing championship match between Cassius Clay and George Foreman. Most of the people predicted that Foreman would win. In the first half of the game, Fraser appeared more powerful than Clay. Fraser gave a lot of punches and blows, and many hit Clay's head and body. However, in the latter half, Clay started overpowering Fraser. Instead of returning punches even receiving rains of punches, Clay steadily stepped forward on the ring. In this way he pushed Fraser into the corner, making him unable to escape, and pounded massive punches and blows on cornered Fraser. Finally, Clay technically knocked down the former Champion Don Fraser and won the world championship. Peter was deeply moved with this scene, and remembered having had a similar satisfaction when he succeeded shattering Bill's bullying after many painful days. "Clay cornered Fraser without returning punches, and I cornered Bill without using any violence." Peter said to himself.

5. Never knew why he had to fight

In his elementary school there was a big event that Peter disliked greatly. It was 'boshi-tori',i.e. cap-hunting game. It was a big event in the annual school sport festival. All the boys in school, from the 6th to the 1st grade, had to participate in the game. The boys were divided into two opposing groups according to the classroom they belonged to--the Red Clan and the White Clan. This means that the homeroom teachers were also divided in the same way. In the game, the two groups stood on both ends of a big encircled ground, more accurately battlefield, facing each other. At the sound of the pistol, all the boys rushed against the opponents to hunt the caps they were wearing. The Red Clan attacked the White Clan to hunt their white caps. And the White Clan, vise versa.

There appeared three different types of boys regarding their attitude. There were certain numbers of boys who loved to fight in such a game. They were like heroes in these games. They bravely attacked their enemy boys one after another and contributed to the victory of the Clan. The second group was many of the boys that just followed the brave leaders and only hunted a few caps when possible. And the rest were the coward boys who just ran away from their enemy boys without hunting any cap. Peter belonged to the last group.

Peter hated this game, partly because he was always attacked by enemy boys, but mostly because he didn't understand why he had to fight at all. To him, the whole game seemed nonsense, meaningless, and only vulgar.

Around one month before the sport festival, the homeroom teachers--now the Clan teachers--gathered their students and stirred them to win the next boshi-tori. They even nominated some student leaders and coached them strategies for the battle. Seeing this, Peter always felt ashamed of himself for not being able to behave 'manly' to meet the Clan teachers' expectations. And all this made Peter feel the more timid. He spent his school days hiding in the dark corner, and this made other boys treat him 'sissy' all the more.

6. Unexpected Rebellion

Even after Billy had stopped bullying Peter, there were several other boys who enjoyed bullying him, and as usual, he could do nothing but put up with it. One rainy day in June, he went to school with a new umbrella. It was a precious umbrella which his mother managed to buy for him after saving the scarce money in her family, and he painfully knew it. After school, on his way back home, he was surrounded by four bullies in the same grade. First they were teasing Peter calling him names, but then one of them noticed his new umbrella. "Say, where did you steal it? Give it to me." So saying, the boy grabbed at his umbrella and pulled it.

If it had been some other belonging, such as his toy, Peter might have let it go without resisting. But this time, it was his mother's umbrella, and this intrigued explosion of anger in him. Without knowing, Peter fiercely shook off the bully's hands and the next moment threw the umbrella at the bullies like an arrow with all him might. The next moment, Peter turned white fearing the pointed edge might have stuck into some boy’s body. Fortunately, the umbrella had turned around in its flight and only its handle hit him.

He was surprised at the fact that he had fought back. He was amazed to realize his hidden power of anger. Something made him stand fiercely, ready to fight even if he may be defeated. He doubted his eyes when the bullies somehow turned around and left him without saying anything. It was the end of their bullying of Peter.

Even now, at 70, Peter doesn't like fighting. He has never acted 'manly', if it means violence, egoism and aggressiveness. But to save his beloved one, he has bravely fought against enemies and hardships, and he calls it 'courage'. And it was these two experiences at 7 years that taught him the real courage.