私：この大学に入学した感想は？
女子大生：規則一点張りで、自由がなさそう。やっていけるか心配です。
Itten-bari
(Joshi tanki-daigaku de)
Watashi: Kono daigaku ni nyuugaku shita kansoo wa?.
Joshidaisei: Kisoku itten-bari de, jiyuu ga nasasoo. Yatte ikeru ka shimpai desu.
(At a women's junior college)
Me: Now thatyou're a newstudent, how do you feel about your college?
Student: The school's a real stickler about rules and there doesn't seem to be much freedom. I'm worried about whether I'll be able to make it.
Itten-bari means to confine oneself to doing one thing, to stubbornly insist on one point. The word originated as a gambling term referring to staking or betting (haru) all one's money on one number (itten) and one number only.
I was recently asked to speak at a certain women's junior college on the topic, "How to Live As a Woman." The talk was to be for 90 minutes and I had prepared myself accordingly. After arriving at the school and walking around a bit, however, it became painfully obvious to me that the talk I'd prepared would be out of place, perhaps even irrelevant.
All the college students were dressed in black school uniforms. Each one I passed in the hallway wore the same pink, plastic hallway slippers. I saw one student asking a teacher for permission to go out that night. The teacher responded that it would be all right but that the student must make sure to come back before the dormitory gate closes and must not forget to take a taxi from the station. Gakusei wa "Wakarimashita" no itten-bari (The student confined herself to just saying, "I understand"). She didn't seem to be interested in offending the teacher.
Come to think of it, not only was the school dormitory surrounded by a tall wall, the wall was also topped with barbed wire. I'd first assumed this was to keep intruders out. Now I wondered if it wasn't perhaps to keep students from getting in after the gate closed! What can a person say about "How to live as a woman" to students being educated in such an environment? "Think about how to be emotionally, mentally and economically independent. Think about how you can love other people." Talking about such things seemed to be useless.
"Do you want more freedom?" I asked one of the students.
She laughed. "Of course." "Why don't the students make the school change the regula tions? " "Sense! wa 'Dame desu' no itten-bari de, hanashi ni narimasen (The teachers stubbornly insist that that isn't possible. It's no use even asking)." In other words, put up or shut up. If the school had been a junior or senior high, I would have had an easier time understanding. But this was a college. Not a few men must be quite happy with schools like this who produce graduates who will do whatever the boss (a man) says, whatever the husband orders. It was funny though, kanojo-tachi no dare ni kiite mo "Jiyu ga nai. Jiyu ga hoshii" no itten-bari de aru (no matter which girl I asked, they all persisted in answering simply, "I have no freedom. I want to be free"). It looks like the rules and regulations are defeating their own ends.