My essential

         

           This is the watch I received from my friend as a present in my first year of high school.

The main color of it is gold and the color of the watch face is pink gold. It is made of metallic,

plastic and grass. The size of it is about 3 cm in diameter and it is the size of a typical watch.

It is very convenient because it can be freely adjusted in size, so there are no holes in the

belt of this watch. There are no number plates on the watch face and it’s memory is engraved

with seconds, so the design is so stylish.

When I was a first year high school student, I received this one. I was very happy because I wanted something with this kind of design and I loved it right away. When I was in high school, I always used this watch as a timer during tests and mock exams from that time. During all school exams, classroom clocks are taken off to prevent students from cheating, etc. So we need to bring our watches for the exam, but I only brought this one watch. The reason was that the watch was more consistent and stable than the other watches. As usual, I used this watch during mock exams in my senior year of high school. Things were going very well at first. However, when I checked my watch…, this one suddenly stopped working. 

“Oh, my god! My watch stopped working!” I said.

“I don’t have another watch that I can lend you!” My classmate said.

“Oh, no!! I had no way of knowing how long my test would take!” I said.

This one has never stopped working until then and I completely relied on this one, so I upsetted. Eventually, somehow I was able to time with my internal clock because I had taken many mock exams at that time and remembered a little bit about how the test time felt. At that time, we managed to overcome the crisis, but there is no guarantee that something similar will not happen in the future. From then, I keep in mind that I take 2 kinds of watch for when it is no longer working. By doing so I will be able to help them in case another student’s watch is out of service. I have also lent my watch to my friends on many occasions. I used this one at all university exams because it worked completely during exams after that time. I had a spare watch with me at that time, but I was very happy to be able to use this watch until all the exams were over. I emotionally attach to this watch and even now as a university student I always put on this watch. In the past, I used to use my cell phone to check the time. However now I unconsciously use my watch more and more to check the time.

In Japan, people overly quantify children. It is something that is strongly rooted in Japanese culture. Schools often require students to take tests and score them, and teachers talk about them as if the test scores are the most important part of school life. In fact, written test scores are generally considered important in university entrance examinations in Japan.  In general, a bad score on a test often means that he or she is a dropout and will be left behind by other students and teachers, even if a student has non-academic abilities (For example, cooperation).  In other words, the school’s goal is not only for students to get good scores on tests. We can’t measure a child’s ability by test scores alone. In other foreign countries, such as Europe, education is tailored to the abilities of each student. Therefore, they rarely give tests there that require memorization skills like in Japan. A person’s abilities are not only academic skills that can be quantified by tests. Abilities such as cooperation, communication skills and creativity should also be recognized. These abilities are called non-cognitive abilities and they have begun to attract attention in recent years. In order to solve this problem, we have to start looking not only at the academic abilities of the children, but also at their other abilities, little by little. 

In Japan, giving the gift of the watch is a common thing. A clock that never stops ticking can also have a romantic meaning, such as “let's spend time together” or “let’s spend the same time even though we are far apart”. So, the watch gift is so good on important occasions if you received it from your family, friend or girl/boy friend. However, it is a bad luck gift in China and it comes from the Chinese pronunciation of clock. The pronunciation of “send a watch” in Chinese is very similar to the pronunciation of the word meaning to wish you dead. Even in neighboring countries, the same thing can have a completely different meaning. Therefore, you should avoid gifts that are pronounced the same as an unlucky word in China.