him to become an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy. However, while a student at the naval academy in Etajima, he swam to the bottom of a lagoon (he grew up in a shellfish diving community) on a dare and ruptured his eardrum. The injury caused him to fail the navy physical. His father felt shame and embarrassment by his son's failure and this drove a wedge between them. The strained relationship drove the 18-year-old Hayakawa to attempt (ritual suicide). One evening, Hayakawa entered a shed on his parents' property and prepared the venue. He put his dog outside and attempted to uphold his family's samurai tradition by stabbing himself more than 30 times in the abdomen. The barking dog brought Hayakawa's parents to the scene and his father used an axe to break down the door, saving his life. After he recovered from the suicide attempt, Hayakawa moved to the United States and began to study political economics at the University of Chicago to fulfill his family's new wish that he become a banker. While a student, he reportedly played quarterback for the football team and was once penalized for using jujitsu to bring down an opponent. Hayakawa graduated from the University of Chicago in 1912, and subsequently made plans to return to Japan. Hayakawa traveled to Los Angeles and awaited a transpacific steamship. During his stay, he discovered the Japanese Theatre in Little Tokyo and became fascinated with acting and performing plays. The above account, however, is disputed, in part or in whole. According to professor of Japanese language and literature at UC San Diego Daisuke Miyao, Hayakawa's turn to acting was in reality less eventful; there is no record of Hayakawa having attended University of Chicago or having played sports there. Hayakawa's acting career instead likely followed a series of odd jobs in California: as a dishwasher, waiter, ice cream vendor, and factory worker; his theatrical appearances also were just another temporary pursuit. Another revisionist account by author Orie Nakagawa holds that Hayakawa had always intended to go to California to find work under his older brother in San Francisco; his father, however, convinced him to study at Chicago instead, and Hayakawa did so for a year before leaving to return to his original pursuits. It was around this time that Hayakawa first assumed the stage name , meaning "snowy continent" ( means "snow" and means "continent").