One Million Yen Girl

One Million Yen Girl is a movie about Suzuko, a 21-year old girl who undeservedly falls into holding a criminal record, and decides to move away from her hometown. She works to save up a million yen and move cities each time she does.

During her journey on working various seasonal jobs, Suzuko, who has never been praised for anything in her life, slowly discovers that she has hidden talents, as admirably praised by her employers. A surprisingly new-found fact, she shares with her much younger brother, who has always been recognized as the “smart one” in the family. 

Miss Passive

Ironically this brought back memories of my own elementary school days. I can still picture her bright, big, eyes, her delicate face and hair tied up in a small bun. She had a modest, small frame, and wore her saree with grace. Our literature teacher and mum of Kartik, our classmate. 

For some reason, I cannot recall her name. But as clear as day, I can still see her frown, her look of disgust, repeated lament, “Oh, what a passive class”. She used to say how the other class would actively participate and answer all her questions with vigor and life, while ours remained silent, unresponsive and PASSIVE.

She said it so often, that to this day I can’t recall a single thing she taught us about literature, but I distinctly remember we were called ‘passive’. By the end of the academic year, our silent class remained unchanged.  And she, remained frowned.

Let's Own It

Just as well, it is always good to use experiences as reminders and instruments of motivation - that if our students, our children, our team, our family, disengage - that as leaders, mentors, seniors, coach, we ought to not just whinge about it, but own taking the lead to introspect our own communication styles, sharpen our influencing abilities, deepen our empathy, elevate our leadership, to encourage and inspire positive action.