My Artifact Story

My favorite bicycle 

My artifact is a bicycle. I have been using it since I was a fifth grade elementary school student. It looked cute and I immediately liked it when I went to buy it with my father. I had used my sister’s hand-me-down bicycle for a long time. So I was happy to have my father buy my own. I have been using it almost every day for about ten years. It is brown and black. The size is about two meters. It is very heavy. It has two tires and a basket. It doesn't have a carrier. It is used when I go somewhere. A lot of people, from young to old, are riding bicycles. It is very useful for people who don’t have a car. 

 I was a manager of the track and field club when I was in high school. So, until it snowed, I used to go to the athletics field by bicycle every day even on rainy days. The club was a bit strict, so I always rode my bicycle as hard as I could after school and when I went to the weekend tournament. I was going to club activities with my friend during the summer vacation of my second year of high school. We were in a hurry so we were speeding up. It had rained the day before, so the slope was wet. At that time, I couldn’t turn the slope and fell down from my bicycle.

“Waaaaa!!” I said.

“Mai, are you OK?” My friend said. 

“I can’t move my body. Can you call my parents on my phone?” I said.

So, my friend called my parents. I went to the hospital with my parents. I took an X-ray and found that my arm was broken in two places. The left hand was broken, not the right hand of the dominant hand. My arm broke but my bike didn’t break. I was glad my bike didn’t break. I used to go to junior high school and high school and go out with my friends on this bicycle, so I have a lot of memories on this bike. Especially, I remember the club activities when I was in high school that I worked hard on from early morning to late night. However, I thought it was necessary to ride safely without speeding up too much.  I’m using it to go to university and go shopping now. I want to use it carefully in my future university life. 

 In Japan, traffic accidents happen 500000 to 1000000 every year and many people die or get injured. Compared to other countries, there are a lot of fatal accidents while walking and riding bicycles in Japan. I think Japanese people give priority to cars. However people walking on the pedestrian crossings are priorities, so the car must move when a pedestrian crosses instead of trying to turn first. Recently, there are a lot of accidents by older drivers. I think we should age our license, so old people should use public transport. But, old people drive by themselves because transportation is not convenient in the countryside. We need to think about this problem. Also, if we are careful, we may be involved in a traffic accident by the negligence of the other party. I think each person should be away and pay attention. 

 Club activities are popular in Japan and have become part of Japanese culture. Compared to other countries, Japan is focusing on club activities. In Japan, Many schools have club activities almost every day after school and on weekends. In other countries, there are no club activities or season system. I think the club's merit is that we can get a lot of memories and experiences and learn manners or courtesy. But, there are problems for club activities. For example, it’s becoming compulsory to join club activities, the teacher working long hours and the student practicing long hours. Also, the student should study but they only do club activities. From this, I think club activities themselves are good. But Japan is doing too many club activities, so we should reduce the number of clubs like other countries.