Freelance Announcer Aika Kanda: “I want to take the ‘Ojousama Test'”

I want to clarify something. Am I a ″lady lady″?

For example, how would you feel if I said on a TV program, “I have been to Hawaii over 40 times, and here are some of my recommendations! How would you feel if I said, “I have been to Hawaii over 40 times and here are my recommendations! If they knew I was a young lady, they would accept it without hesitation. If not, however, you would probably say, “What?　Bragging? and that will cause them to change the channel. If you know exactly where you stand, you can change your expression.

Let me give you a brief history of my life.

My mother was someone who could clearly be described as a lady. I grew up in a household where we had a live-in nanny since childhood and where shopping was done through an outside vendor at Mitsukoshi.

She married and had three siblings, including me. We took the elementary school entrance exam and went to private schools for junior high, high school, and college. Our home was a three-story house designed by my father, and we only ever drove foreign cars. In addition, my grandfather was particularly fond of me, and when I was in junior high school, he gave me a credit card, telling me to buy something proper. Even though I was still a child, I bought purses and bags at Louis Vuitton, and all my clothes were purchased at department stores. Furthermore, for the completely unreasonable reason of my mother, “We go to Hawaii according to the Japanese spring, summer, fall, and winter seasons,” we went to Hawaii together four times every year for ten years until I graduated from college. I had no doubt that this was the norm because the girls in the integrated junior and senior high school I attended were all like that.

But in college, I began to feel uncomfortable with myself. Almost no one wore brand-name bags to school, and most of the girls wore sneakers instead of leather shoes on their feet. There were also kids who sat on the grass and drank beer directly from the can. I wondered if I was in the minority.　Just when I was thinking that I was in the minority, a girl with a bag much more expensive than mine sat down behind me in the school cafeteria. She called me and said, “Hey, Dad!　Can I go to Hawaii with my friends the day after tomorrow?　You have a room available, right?　Then take care of the tickets for us! I was so excited. (I can’t believe I can suddenly go to Hawaii and have a room there!　You’re a lady!) . My discomfort was blown away and I realized again that I am not a lady.

Then I joined NHK and became a working adult. It was only then that I was told, “Kanda’s sensibilities are not common. Don’t take your experience for granted,” a senior colleague told me. After that, I began to pay attention to what I said as a person who communicates something with words. I studied the news, was allowed to go on many interviews, and when I looked at my upbringing objectively (I am a young lady), I became convinced that I am a young lady.

A ″middle daughter″.

Later, I became a freelance announcer and was invited to appear on programs as a “young lady from an all-girls’ school. (Easy peasy!). ), I joined the show with my shoulders rolling.

But then I realized. The other co-hosts were all young ladies of a different order of magnitude. Some of them still have butlers in their lives, some are connected to social circles around the world, and some have inherited jewels that exist only a few pieces in this world from generation to generation. My level of young lady was like a “fart” and I was embarrassed just to be there. (I am an ordinary person after all!) I thought to myself, “I am a normal person after all!

But now, when I tell people on Fuji TV’s “Poka Poka” without hesitation that I went to Paris with my mother and visited ……, people on social networking sites write, “I hate Kanda for bragging about it.

I don’t want to be in this situation anymore. In order to do my best as an MC on live TV for two hours every day, I have to know what kind of circumstances are necessary for people to accept my past honestly.

So the other day I came up with a very good idea. Why don’t we create a ″Ojousama Test″? Ladies would answer questions that a young lady could answer, and score points. Passing the first grade would be an overwhelming proof of being a lady, and no matter what that person talked about, people would just accept her as a person who passed the first grade, right? I am sure that the TV personality Izumi Mori would pass the first grade at the top of her class. I would be about third grade. And if the third grade also qualifies me as a young lady, please don’t complain if I say, “I have been to Hawaii more than 40 times. That’s how common it is for a young lady. On the other hand, if you decide that a third-grade student is not a young lady, please don’t get angry at anything I say because it is only a third-grade story. Because there are higher-ups.

Aika Kanda / Born in 1980 in Kanagawa Prefecture. After graduating from Gakushuin University with a degree in mathematics, she joined NHK as an announcer in 2003, and left NHK in 2012 to become a freelance announcer. Since then, she has been active mainly in variety shows, and currently makes regular appearances as the main MC of the daytime TV program “Poka Poka” (Fuji Television Network).

From the September 15 and 22, 2023 issues of FRIDAY