In the city of Fujisawa, Japan, lives a woman named Atsuko Saeki.When she was a teenager, she1of going to the United States. Most of what she knew about American2was from the textbooks she had read. “I had a3n mind：Daddy watching TV in the living room,Mummy4cakes and their teenage daughter off to the cinema with her boyfriend.”
Atsuko5to attend college in California. When she arrived, however, she found it was not her6world. “People were struggling with problems and often seeme7”, she said. “I felt very alone.”
One of her hardest8was physical education. “We played volleyball,” she said. “The other students were9it, but I wasn't.”
One afternoon, the instructor asked Atsuko to10the ball to her teammates so they could knock it11the net. No problem for most people, but it terrified Atsuko. She was afraid of losing face12she failed.
A young man on her team13what she was going through. “He walked up to me and14, ‘Come on. You can do that.'”
“You will never understand how those words of15made me feel...Four words: You can do that. I felt like crying with happiness.”
She made it through the class. Per haps she thanked the young man；she is not16.
Six years have passed. Atsuko is back in Japan, working as a salesclerk. “I have17forgotten the words,” she said. “When things are not going so well, I think of them.”
She is sure the young man had no idea how much his kindness18to her. “He probably doesn't even remember it,” she said. That may be the lesson. Whenever you say something to a person-cruel or kind-you have no idea how long the words will19. She's all the way over in Japan, but still she hears those four20words: you can do that.
