People : Ms Violeta Devenaite hitchhikes from Lithuania to Japan

Ms Devenaite was born in 1976. She graduated from Vilnius University (Department of Mathematics) where she took an MA in Mathematics. She entered the Centre for Japanese Language at Waseda in 1998 and is now a second-year MA student. Among her other talents, she is good at making knitted dolls and she is strong enough to lift a man!

Five years ago, during the winter holidays, Ms Devenaite competed with other students from Japan, Lithuania, France, China and Germany in hitchhiking from Tokyo to Sapporo. She comments that “The plan interested me, but I am not particularly fond of hitchhiking. The most difficult thing is to pick up the first car. When I was driven along the highway, I was so excited”. After she returned home, she hitchhiked from Lithuania back to Japan by way of Russia with a young friend. She did so only because she wanted to see her Japanese friends again. However, because she did not want them to worry about her, she did not inform her friends about this plan.

Ms Devenaite informed us that “when I travelled in Russia, I did not tell Russians that my destination was Japan. Thus, I chose to tell them I was going to a place which was a little further on from the place where I was”. She continued, “the drivers needed somebody to talk to, so I kept chatting. At first I did not sleep during the seven days before I reached Irkutsk”.

Ms Devenaite accepted the task of providing the translation for the joint performance of a play by the Lithuanian and Japanese theatrical companies. “I memorised my lines both in Lithuanian and Japanese. I am sensitive to my responsibilities and I did more than what I was entrusted to do. My work was hard, but the play was very successful. I am happy because I was given credit for my work. The more you admire my work, the happier I am”.

The parents of Ms Devenaite have a home in Jurbankas, a small Lithuanian town surrounded by a large forest. They are proud that their daughter is the first person from the town who has entered university. When in her home town, she often went mushroom gathering in the forest. Of this activity, she says “when I found many mushrooms, I gave my name to the place!”. Her ready smile always makes people happy. “As a trial”, she travelled for two days to Kyoto by bicycle. Is nothing impossible for her!?