“I just can’t give up”

Haru-san at the speech contest

In 2024, Mari Haruno, originally from Tokyo and currently residing in Toronto, Canada, participated in North America’s biggest speech contest alongside native English speakers and won the bronze medal (hereafter referred to as Haru-san). She describes her profession as a “special educator,” “writer,” and “inspirational speaker” and at the same time works as a “study abroad expert” at a study abroad agency that supports international students coming to Canada.

Her self-introduction started with the “melon bun tale” from her time as a university student in Tokyo when she was 18 years old, working at a convenience store.

“When I was 18, I was working part-time at a convenience store and I sold 580 melon buns (sweet buns) in an hour all by myself. Simply selling them wouldn’t achieve that much. I stacked all 580 melon buns—the maximum quantity we could stock—into a tower. Next to it, I sang and danced to a song about melon buns that I had created myself. And that led to customers not only buying five or ten buns each but also people from afar rushing to the store to buy melon buns from me, as my performance became a hot topic on the internet.”

As Haru-san set the record for selling the most melon buns, she was awarded a trophy by headquarters and offered a full-time position.

Later, Haru-san was offered a position at a major pharmaceutical company, which she was set to begin after completing graduate school. She was majoring in biochemistry. Around that time, she was splashed with a chemical that her junior accidentally spilled, resulting in severe burns from her neck down. Although she regained consciousness in the intensive care unit, the doctor informed her that she would have no choice but to amputate her hands unless she could endure skin transplant surgery followed by intense rehabilitation. There’s no way I can give up, she told herself. She continued with rehabilitation after the skin transplant surgery, managed to avoid amputation, and returned to living a normal life.

However, the pharmaceutical company canceled her job offer, citing her inability to use her hands as before. So she completely changed her career direction and joined a web service company that was growing at the time. Haru-san, who worked there as a salesperson, consistently led her team with top sales performance among 80,000 peers.

What Changed in Canada

How did she end up moving to Canada?

“When I was in my late 20s, I changed jobs as I was headhunted by a principal at an eikaiwa (English conversation) school. At the time I couldn’t speak any English. But I helped the English instructors at the school achieve their goals in class and successfully increased the number of students by more than five times within one year.

Then the English teachers from Australia and Canada encouraged me to go abroad and experience the world for myself. That’s how I came to Toronto, just for one week, carrying only my passport and cell-phone. I had the opportunity to observe classes at a Japanese language school and learned that the education system here was different from that in Japan. I thought I wanted to come here and teach children myself too. So I returned to Japan, applied for a student visa and flew to Toronto to attend college nine years ago when I was 32.”

While studying at college, she started working at a study abroad agency and taught at a Japanese language school on Saturdays. In 2017, she became independent and started her own school. In most cases, the parents of her students are both Japanese, or one of them is Japanese. She also has a passion for teaching children with special needs, such as those with autism and ADHD.

“At one point I was a full-time student, working full-time and also teaching kids at a Japanese school on Saturday. Later I obtained a permanent resident card (in Canada) through marriage, and now I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old.”

We asked Haru-san what has changed since she came to Canada, considering she has taken on multiple jobs and become a wife and mother. “A lot of things changed. People thought I was different from before, and I had always lived by the principle that ‘a nail that stands out will be hammered down, but one that stands too high won’t.’ In Japan, many people draw lines at certain ages, saying things like, ‘You’re already 25’ or ‘You’re already 30,’ and they often believe that women shouldn’t take on new challenges once they become mothers. However, in Canada, you can do anything regardless of your age, and no one will stop you. So, I’ve come to look forward to getting older here.

I had no knowledge of LGBTQ when I was in Japan and thought that a person was either male or female. In Canada, men can marry men, and women can marry women, and everyone openly expresses their feelings. And there are 253 ethnicities living in Toronto. I can see that they all coexist in the same place, respecting one another without fighting or causing conflict.”

“We can do anything if we have a passion”

It was because Haru-san suffered severe burns right before finishing graduate school that she ended up choosing a path different from a research career, which ultimately led her to the opportunity to go abroad.

“I think it was fate – or it was meant to be that way. This does not apply to just young people in Japan, but what I can say is that Japan is not the entirety of your world. If things don’t work out for you in Japan, you just need to step out a bit. Then later, when you go back to Japan, you’ll realize that Japan is a country that has such great culture. I love Japan myself too, so I have no plan to obtain Canadian citizenship. I will continue to live as a Japanese in Canada.”

The world championship of the biggest speech contest in North America, mentioned at the beginning, will be held on November 9. What made Haru-san decide to enter the contest?

“It had been my dream to speak at TED Talks. But then–this might sound strange–I thought speaking at Japanese TED Talks in Japanese would be too easy. Instead, winning a speech contest in Canada would be more rewarding, because it’s more challenging.

As I won the bronze medal at the North American contest, I became one of the 14 top speakers in the world. Everyone is a native English speaker except me, and many are professional speakers who do this for a living. The world championship will be contested among 14 of us.

As I was selected to be one of them, the host asked me, ‘Are you sure you can do it?’ to which I replied, ‘I will surprise you.’ At this contest, I want to prove to my young students that we can do anything and achieve anything if we have a passion for it.”

We hope for Challenger Haru’s victory.

Haru-san’s YouTube channel: @motivator_haru 
The official website of the speech contest “Speakerslam”

© 2024 Keiko Fukuda