I passed the University of Okayama in 1968.For the first half year, I was desperate to get used to my new life.
For the first three months, I relied on remittances from my parents. However, after that, I was thinking of supporting myself, so on from the night one week after the entrance ceremony of the university, I started working in the cabaret.I was a typical hard-working student.
However, on the summer night of the year, I came across a scene on my way back to the boarding house by bicycle.
It is the conflict between politically active students so-called Uchi-geba.
At that time, the radical core faction and the Communist Party youth club Minsei were fighting fiercely on campus.
That night, some of the core factions were attacking some of Minsei with a square bar that was more than two meters long.
Under such circumstances, the police entered the campus under the pretext of reconnaissance.
The problem started here.
When police power entered the university campus, student protests raged on campus. The academic freedom is a major problem that is violated by police power.
　　Frequent rallies were held on campus, and it was resolved that the president should make a statement that police power should not enter the university campus.
However, 25 years after the war, the professors who were already over 50 years old didn’t care about that.
　　They couldn’t have heard the students’ crazy requests.
Therefore, students go on strike against such an unfaithful attitude.
At that time, there was a background of the automatic extension of the Japan-US Security Treaty in 1970, and university students all over Japan who opposed it were working toward the fight. Each university started strikes for various reasons.
The most radical and notable in Japan was the battle at the Yasuda Auditorium at the University of Tokyo.
　　In Okayama, the riot police entered the campus early in the cold morning of January of the following year. The information became known to students from the day before. Before dawn, many students gathered on campus. Naturally, I also went to the front gate of the university.
There were many students who threw stones and resisted.
However, the stone thrown hit one of the riot police, which killed the member.
As a result, the internal conflict became even more fierce.
After all, this conflict continued until I was in the third grade.
During that time, the common sense and values that I had in my head were broken into pieces. Naturally, I also questioned studying at university.
　　I decided to study philosophy in order to find the meaning of living. At this point, I abandoned my specialty physics.
　　And one day when I was in the fourth grade, a friend asked me.
　　”Are you graduating next year?”
　　I stopped there and thought.
　　A friend said he didn’t care about that.
　”If you want to graduate, go to Professor Mizuno.”
I went to Professor Mizuno as I was told.
　　I majored in physics and loved the physics lab because it was family.
　　”Sato, take the Toshiba exam. Toshiba is a good company,” said Professor Mizuno.
　　In fact, Professor Mizuno had belonged to Toshiba’s research institute for several years.
　　Two months later, I went to Tokyo to take the exam.