Long, long ago, we had a lot of beautiful days in Ashikaga City, Tochigi, Japan.
The City of Ashikaga -- A collection of episodes about what I experienced in Ashikaga City long time ago, focusing on what made me surprised to find out as a child. About some things I cannot recollect clearly I created the details.
Menu
［1 All Changed］
［2 Collective Madness］
［3 Sumo］
［4 Almost Drowned］
［5 Truck Driver Saved Me］
［6 Teachers］
［7 Firewood Splitting］
［8 Pounding Mochi］
［9 Chibi Was Killed］
［10 Sweet Acorns］
［11 Fire at the Post Office］
［12 Movies］
［13 Distant Memory］
［14 Second Distant Memory］
［15 Bypass］
［16 The Watarase］
［17 Visiting Relatives］
［18 Where the Alley Goes to］
［19 Mountains in Ashikaga］
［20 Aoyama Clinic］
［21 Barber Shop］
［22 All Yellow Around］
［23 A Secret］
［24 My Mother's Illness］
［25 An Encounter］
［26 Ma-kun］
［27 Chibi's Grave］
［28 Natto or Manju?］
［29 Surprised and Running Back at Full Speed］
［30 From Ashikaga to Kiryu, to Omama］
［31 Master in one Art］
［32 Community Benefit Center］
［33 My Mother's Sisters］
［34 Chased after by a Group of Girls］
［35 The Little Ones］
［36 Guitar, Bookcase and Fox Fur Collar］
［37 Half-baked Story］
［38 Chinese Character Exercise Notebook］
［39 In Place of My Father, My Brother....］
［40 The Terrifying Overturn of the Table］
［41 Cracker Balls］
Episode1: All Changed ↑TOP
Oh my god! A post office in front of our place? To see it on my
laptop screen, I was extremely surprised. People from Google have made
a mistake while making their Street View there?
No, no way.
After more than fifty years, the back street on which my father's
confectionery shop used to be has changed its appearance completely.
In old times, pretty wooden houses lined up on both sides of the
street. All the windowpanes were shining. Among them our shop was
situated, facing south between two stores owned by dealers in tanmono of
meisen, rolls of silk kimono material, for which Ashikaga was one of
the most famous manufacturing cities in Japan at that time. Several
more stores engaged in the same business were scattered along the
street. Now, after many years, however, most of them as well as other
houses have come to deteriorate miserably; some were demolished, others
were rebuilt into concrete buildings.
With the help of Google
Street View, you can see in front of the post office a vacant lot where
only green grass is growing. This is the very place where my father,
shopkeeper and workman, lived together with his five family members.
After his retirement, our old house stood unoccupied for a while, but at
last, it was demolished, and I heard the area around, including the raw
land, was turned into a large parking lot, which I now know is far from
true.
In those days, a typical day at home began with my
parents getting up at around six in the morning. They changed clothes
quickly and began working around the space shared by a confectioner's
workshop and a home kitchen. The husband and wife got to work in
the same place at the same time; the former prepared for his day's work
by boiling water in the two side-by-side cauldrons, and the latter cooked
foods for all the family members to eat for breakfast.
The
workshop was at the back of the place, together with a little adjacent
space that had a small hen house, a barn, and a concrete rainwater
tank. From the workshop, you could get to the front part of the place
through a narrow earthen passage beside the main zashiki, a Japanese
room floored with tatami mats. Through this path, freshly made sweets
were carried out on top of a tray into the shop and into the showcase.
In the shop, there were a few showcases, an assort of glass-top cases on
top of a big rack, as well as a lot of round, fat glass bottles on the
shelves by the wall. So not enough space was left. In the main
showcase wagashi, Japanese cakes made of anko, such as yokan, manju,
momoyama, daifuku, dorayaki, kanoko, kimi-shigre, kuriman, satsuma-imo ,
and others were displayed. Else in the glass cases were chocolates,
candies, caramels, chewing gums, jellies, and many more according to
children's taste; finally in the round bottles, peanuts, chilly
kaki-no-tane, senbei, sweet beans and etc.
At that time I
did not like anko cakes so much because they were a little sweeter than
they should be. In fact, I liked senbei, round, flat baked rice cake
better, especially those sold for 10 yen per six pieces, a good bargain
even in those days for their taste and flavour. Mr. Tamura, the senbei
baker, periodically brought them in a large 18-litter can by bicycle,
making the customers and us four brothers including me very happy.
Shops and stores should be tended by someone. If there were no such tenders, they are forced to close.
Our confectionery shop was naturally tended by my father, and sometimes
by my mother. And marvelously enough, besides them we had one more
very precious tender! That was the owner of the store across the
street, which also dealt in silk tanmono. He could never be seen
without sitting on a zabuton, a Japanese small square mat, in the centre of
the store's front zashiki, looking straight ahead as if he were watching
our shop.
"Looking after our shop, isn't he?" I asked my mother.
"True. Nowadays their business won't flourish. Times will change." she answered.
As she said, many of the dealers in meisen seemed to be engaged in
repeating to extend and then roll up their tanmono without anything else
to do.
The store owner's watching in his own fashion lasted day after day.
Though formerly faced with each other in a good relationship, both of
the houses have disappeared from sight; one was replaced with a green
lot, the other a post office, by the act of God.
Episode2: Collective Madness
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The back street on which Nagaiya Confectionery, my father's shop,
was located was called Minami Ginza Street after Ginza, Tokyo. The
traffic there was scarce compared to that of O-dori, but sometimes it
was severely blocked by special events or on major occasions.
The regional summer festival was a major event in which a mikoshi
carrying a godlike spirit passed through the street. Mikoshi was very heavy as it had a device of square timbers to lift high a shrine-like miniature model, and was carried by many strong young men.
They proceeded under water thrown, poured, or sprinkled with hoses from the roadsides, with
their rallying cry:
"Wasshoi, wasshoi! Wasshoi, wasshoi!..."
That was a more normal event than these crazy incidents:
On one occasion, Colombia Rose, a famous young singer who sang a song
about a girl bus conductor in Tokyo, visited our obedient watcher of the
shop. They seemed to be relatives. The entertainer was pretty and her
song hit the number one spot on the pop charts at that time, making her
appear for several successive years on the stage of NHK Kohaku
Uta-Gassen, a major sing-a-song battle of male singers vs. female ones,
which came on the air on New Year's Eve.
She was from
neighbouring Kiryu City, and whenever she came to our tender's home, she
brought about a situation in which a great many people appeared from
nowhere, causing a big wave of the stampede. It filled the street and
thereabouts, so that no one was unable to move with ease.
Most of the crowded people kept silent, with someone only saying "Can you see
her?" or something. They waited with great patience for a long time for
her to come out. They wanted to have a look at the singer, but always
in vain.
On another occasion, Inran Baba, meaning a nasty old
woman, suddenly appeared on the street and paraded by herself through
it. She was as well known as Rose, and when she came to the street she
could also attract a great many people from everywhere around.
The information about her appearance on the street was promptly spread by
word of mouth. The sound of footsteps of people who came running one
after another from the northern parts of the area to the site could be
heard from indoors. Many people lined up on both sides of the street.
"Apologize, Inran Baba."
The crazy woman's parade was fuelled with that triggering phrase. To
hear that, the old woman in bare feet, with a sooty black face and loose
and dishevelled hair, made her way quickly, staggering this way and
that. Together with her, people lined up moved in the same direction
rapidly. People would not stop crying:
"Apologize, Inran Baba."
Faced with the reiteration, she would come near to an electricity pole
with a formidable look on her face, mumbling something, swinging her
dirty hair like blazes, hitting her forehead hard against it.
"Guang, guang, guang!" she repeated three or four times.
Electricity poles in those days were made of wood, but the impulse of
the collision should have been great. Moreover, if she could not find
any poles near her, she would choose even the pavement of the street.
"Guang, guang, guang."
People continued their agitations. The mad woman got madder and madder, sometimes bleeding from her forehead.
The fierce, frightful incident progressed very rapidly. The dirty
heroine in dirty clothes walked down the street very fast. People on
both sides of the street also moved rapidly along, making everything
pass by at the same speed as of a tornado.
How long this
parade continued, or how far she proceeded I didn't know. We lived at
2781 Tori 3-chome, namely Third Street, and the street ended at fifth in
front of Yakumo Shrine, as far as I remember.
Madness was
greater among the audience rather than in the heroine, I think. That was an
instance of collective madness and my surprise was not a happy one, but
a sad one.
Episode3: Sumo ↑TOP
O-zumo, major sumo wrestling matches, could be seen on TV, but shortly after their sales began on the market the receiver sets were too expensive for ordinary people. Some people took it a business chance to provide people with sumo and wrestling programs on live TV telecasts for a small fee.
One day, Taka-chan, my little brother, and I visited one of such places. Going up the outdoor steps of an apartment house near O-dori, the city's main street, we went into a room in which the light was dimmed as if in a film theatre. We paid 10 yen each at the entrance and went inwards as we were told, both with a premium soft senbei in hand.
In those days TV programs were not in full colour but in black and white. Moreover, the size of the screen was very small, usually 14 inches wide. So it was not so exciting if seen from a little distance. To have fun, imagination was needed.
In the real world, however, sumo done among boys in the neighbourhood was extremely exciting and interesting. We usually played on the streets and sometimes in the sandbox in the park by the Watarase riverside.
We made a ring for sumo by drawing a circle with roseki, a stone of cera, on the pavement of the street that connected O-dori and Minami Ginza, where cars rarely passed by. Some boys gathered there and two of them in turn fought until one of them fell down or went out of the dohyo circle, according to the rule of sumo that decides which rikishi, sumo wrestler, has won or lost.
Sumo usually begins with two rikishi running into each other, and then they have a tussle with or push hard each other. They compete in strength, trying to win. You have to exert full strength, but waza, a technique in a quick response, is more important to defeat the other.
Rikishi are only males. No females are admitted. That is one of the traditional conventions kept from a long time ago not only in sumo but also in kabuki. Women or girls are not permitted to rise on the dohyo or the kabuki stage. Needless to say, little rikishi in the neighbourhood were all boys.
One day again, we were doing sumo in the driveway in front of a fancy Japanese-style restaurant. The place was next to the would-be post office, adjacent to the Minami Ginza street, and had no pavement on it. It was a very good place for children to play because we had never seen a car parked there in the daylight hours.
Rikishi were Taka-chan, Ma-kun, Shige-tan and Yo-chan, and me. Among them, Ma-kun and I were almost of the same age and were rival rikishi. I was good at yorikiri, driving the opponent out of the dohyo ring while gripping his belt, but Ma-kun liked nage, throwing the opponent down to the ground.
Changing opponents one after another, our sumo matches went on, when we heard someone cry out:
"Me too! Would like to do sumo!"
Everybody was greatly surprised. It was Aya-chan, a girl!
She was the daughter of the restaurant and had been looking at our sumo matches from the beginning. For a moment silence prevailed over the scene. No one there thought it could be possible. Girls were rarely seen to do sumo anywhere. Sumo was for males.
I hesitated a lot. A girl opponent. A few years younger than I. Could I do sumo against her in earnest? We surely couldn't fight on the same level.
But at last, I thought I could manage to do sumo with her. What result would be brought about?
"OK. You and I, let's do sumo."
Among all the attention, with a feeling of being closely watched, I ran into her. But at the very moment we came chest to chest, I knew again it was impossible. More like a dance!
Too soft and tender, too gentle and smooth, and too yielding and fragile. I made her out of the ring by yorikiri with a very limited effort.
Tense atmosphere remained there all the while. No one said anything. I regretted to have done sumo with the girl. I knew that I had done what was never permitted to do.
Only the girl in a fluffy pink sweater seemed happy to have carried out her wishes. She must have thought the opponent was too hard and tough, too solid and sturdy, too unyielding and strong. It would be best to say that although each of the two rikishi had such an exactly opposite impression, they both at last had the same sense of impossibility.
Episode4: Almost Drowned
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Yanagihara Elementary School was located next to the City Hall and to the north of Bannaji Temple, built in the Heian Era about 900 years ago. On my way to school, I passed Yukiwa-cho which could be reached in five minutes on foot from my house. From there I had two choices in routes among others. One was turning left at the corner of Hakujindo, a Chinese pharmacy, and going north along the road running in the neighbourhood till you came to the corner at Sagawa Liquor Shop. Walking for a while, you will come to the City Hall and the school compound, which is now called Keyaki after a big keyaki tree in the centre of the schoolyard. The other way was going not north but east along Igusa Street, turning north at the corner of Bannaji Temple in Ietomi-cho and going along the west side.
It took me about 20-30 minutes to travel between home and school, and the length of the time taken for transit made me stop by somewhere, especially on the way from school. What I liked best on my way home was mamushi watching.
My favourite spot to stop at was Shimoda Tengudo, a dealer in mamushi powder, located near the post office in Yukiwa-cho. I used to have a good time looking into the show window and observing mamushi snakes wriggling. They are adders and their powders are believed to have an invigorant effect. Mamushi in the showcase were kept inside wara mats, dried straw of rice. Maybe they liked such an environment. They had black stripes along their long bodies, which seemed to be very slimy, against the dried yellow colour of the wara mats. They never raised their heads. I had never seen theirs. They were hidden. It was very interesting to watch them lying on top of each other and slowly moving, wriggling.
On my way to school in the morning, however, I would like to watch carp in Bannaji Temple's moat. The moat, together with the bank, was built to protect the residences of Ashikaga Clan as well as Bannaji's main hall, like many castles in Japan. It must have been very deep for security. Now carp were swimming slowly and comfortably.
For fun, I would spit from the sidewalk, which always made them move quickly and struggle wildly for a drop of my saliva. Several carp, white and scarlet or black, stormed to the spot and pushed into and dodged from each other violently. That was something worth seeing I could easily produce.
One day after school I decided to change my routine. I wanted to see the carp in the water more closely.
I went alone. It was the first time I visited the bank surrounding the vast premises.
I went through the West Gate and went up to the narrow path on top of the bank and proceeded for a while.
It was early afternoon and the town seemed very sleepy in the usual noise of the city. The water's surface looked calm and serene, while its body was not clear but rather dark. Just beneath the surface, dark green algae were growing rampantly. I tried to look into the water to search for carp, but I could not see any.
I began to go down the slope slowly, without knowing that the grass was very slippery due to the rain overnight. When my feet slipped, I managed to snatch some grass with both hands and tried desperately not to go down into the water. But I had lost my balance completely and I could not regain my footing. I knew It was too late. My body slowly began to go down into the water. I felt my sneakers, and then my trousers, getting wet, when I realized I would sink into the deep bottomless water and die at every moment.
That thought made me screech out:
"Kyaaaah!"
It sounded like a little girl's shriek. A very cry in panic.
Episode5: Truck Driver Saved Me
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I had never thought of myself screaming such a scream. Before that I had thought, if any, it would be something like "Wow!" or "Wah!", but in fact, what was squeezed out of me was a shriek like a little girl's. I was greatly shocked!
Luckily a truck driver passing by heard me. He might have found me clinging to the bank, stopped his truck by the roadside, and got out of the vehicle. He jumped off the sidewalk and came down the stonewall into the water.
Seeing that, I felt quite relieved. He walked slowly in the water and came to me. At last he lifted me in arms onto the bank, went back to his truck and drove off.
The usual afternoon hustle and bustle of the town came to me again. The moat's water was not deep, but in fact shallow. The man who saved me was my god. He knew the water was not so deep. He knew he could make me go up the bank. He knew his trousers and shoes would get wet, but he least cared about that.
In order to dry up my wet wearings, I had to waste time, taking a different route, all the way from Tori 1-chome to Tori 3-chome.
When I returned home my trousers got half-dried, rough and coarse. I did not tell my mother about my thoughtless adventure. I thought I could hide the fact from her.
But the truth inevitably smelled.
Koto-chan, my mother's youngest sister who lived at the time with us to help my mother do her housework said,
"Something smells, doesn't it? Fishy?"
My mother at once detected the source. She said to me,
"Take off your trousers and put them into the washing machine."
They knew something unusual occurred to me. Though they did not ask me anything, they had already grasped half the truth. What was important to me, however, was neither what sort of incident it was nor the cause of the accident. It was my nature, that is, the fact that I had a feminine nature inside myself.
Episode6: Teachers
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Mr. Kaichiro Matsuzaki was a senior teacher who took charge of our class, Class 1, Grade 6th at Yanagihara Elementary School. He was living in Kabasaki-cho in the far northern area of the city, near Sano City. He came to school by bicycle and it seemed it took him over an hour.
At the end of each term, teachers gave each pupil a report card to hand over to their arents. He often wrote in it that I should be more positive, I needed to become proactive, I did not look well or I had better cheer up.
His remarks were to the point, and it reminded me that I had been a pupil of few words. Though I could speak normally among household members and friends in the neighbourhood, I could not at school. That was probably a medical issue called selective mutism. The class had some pupils with the same problem, and naturally, they never talked to me.
Elementary school teachers teach children various subjects by themselves. One day, during the Japanese Language class, an explosion of laughter occurred. Such an incident had never happened in any of the lessons I had taken.
What triggered the laughter was this:
Tamiko, a pretty girl, was designated and reading aloud an essay, standing by her desk. She proceeded fluently for some time, but, when she pronounced the word "usbakagero," the laughter began and grew bigger and bigger. The duration was as many as a few minutes.
Usbakagero is a Japanese word for antlion, a dragonfly-like insect. It is normally syllabled as 'usuba-kagero,' meaning transparently thin-winged kagero, but by any chance, the word was probably syllabled as 'usubaka-gero'. Tamiko maybe caught her breath very shortly after 'baka,' which means 'stupid'. 'Usubaka' means 'slightly stupid' and 'gero' 'a man of low class', as used in samurai dramas. The wording and who spoke that being combined, a big laughter was produced.
Before Mr. Matsuzaki, a very beautiful young teacher whose name was Kumiko Tsukui took charge of us. She was living in the southern part of the city and presumably came to school by bus. I remember Shoda-kun and I were invited to her house, and one day the three went there by bus.
Her style of giving lessons was quite different from Mr. Matsuzaki's. She liked taking care of each pupil and speaking to him or her at her desk in front of the platform rather than giving lessons in the quiet classroom.
One day, when I was waiting for my turn in the cue in front of the teacher's desk, I found Maeda-kun pinching a single strand of genuine black hair of Miss Tsukui from behind her with the ends of his thumb and index finger and repeated to slip it through the both. I got jealous seeing that. Miss Tsukui, with a full smile, went on talking to the girl standing across the desk and did not care about the rude act Maeda-kun did.
Both of the above, a laughter explosion and a rude act, were interesting to me because they broke down monotonous school life.
Episode7：Firewood Splitting
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My father's essential facilities to make Japanese confectionery were the two sets of cauldrons and furnaces by the north window facing the backyard. Burning wood or coal in the furnaces made the water in the cauldrons above boiling and enabled there to cook a few kilograms of azuki, red little bean, into anko, sweet bean paste, or to steam glutinous rice as well as cakes made from the bean paste.
Often I was given a bit of steamed rice fresh from the seiro, a square wooden steamer. In my hand it was very hot, but in my mouth very good to eat.
For fuel coal or cokes was rarely used. Firewood was often utilized, which a dealer of wood collected in the mountains in the western part of the city. The wood was brought by rickshaw he pulled and arrived in front of our shop on Minami Ginza Street.
This dealer seemed to be in his sixties, healthy and strong. After he finished unloading several piles of wood out of his cargo and carrying them into the storage place in our backyard, he took a rest in the corner of the store.
A cup of tea made his face lit brightly.
"These days we are lucky to have a spell of fine days," he told my father, who was sitting across the desk.
"Rainy days are the worst. I'm glad to have fine weather recently," my father told him, "Rain prevents people from going out or visiting my shop."
"That holds in my case. On rainy days I won't work."
Leaving them in the small talk about the weather, I went to the backyard to split the wood by maul.
A maul is a tool for splitting wood, resembling an axe or a hammer. Though it does not have a sharp blade, it has a destructively powerful weighty head. Moreover, it has a hard wooden helve which is as long as one meter. That is, to make use of it, you must have strength.
The tool was apparently for adults, and I was too young to flourish it. But I was a challenger. I wanted to know the secret of the art of splitting wood. Probably it had something to do with the samurai spirit. Out of a bundle of firewood, I took one out and made it stand straight upward. I knew that wood splitting got almost half-done if you have succeeded in that process.
I flew my maul down with full strength. If the wood was in the right posture and was hit in the midst, it surely was split into just two halves. But, too often the wood flew somewhere without being split. It was very dangerous especially when our cat was running about.
I decided to become a samurai soldier who split half the opponent's head with his sword. It needed concentration. If you were distracted, you could not succeed. The secret was to grasp the midline correctly and flourish your maul straight down aiming at the line.
Thus I made progress little by little. Kami-kiri-mushi, a long-horned beetle, was a friend of mine.
Hi there!
They often appeared from a tunnel they made inside the trunk of a tree.
Episode8: Pounding Mochi
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Episode9: Chibi Was Killed
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Episode10: Sweet Acorns
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One day, Masaru, one of my classmates, came to school with some sweet acorns, which he claimed were very delicious. In a corner of the schoolyard, during lunch break, some of the boys gathered and ate them.
"Oh! It's good," said Mitu.
To hear that Masaru looked very proud.
"Yeah, it can be eaten raw and tastes good. Shall we go collecting some?" he said.
Mitu was eager to go.
"When and where?" he asked.
"Tomorrow, after lunch, at Tokushoji Temple," answered Masaru.
The next day, Masaru, Mitu, and some others, including me, went to collect sweet acorns at the temple situated in the hill area. The hill had Orihime Shrine on the top, together with another, Nishinomiya Shrine, on the western hillside, and several Buddhist temples scattered around them. Tokushoji was the nearest temple to our school and it had a lot of oak trees that produced sweet acorns in autumn.
It took a few minutes to reach the temple on foot, so we were sure to be able to come back to school before the fifth lesson of the day began. Soon we were there to find a great deal of acorns fallen here and there within the precinct of the temple.
"Here's a bag from my home. I'll put it here, so quickly gather acorns and put them into it," Mitu said to the other pupils.
With a bag of acorns, we got back to school.
"Let's eat, all of us, " said Mitu.
All of the boys ate them in front of the school building. It was difficult to peel off the hard shell, but the nut tasted very good.
The incident, however, came to be known to Mr. Matsuzaki shortly after that. He talked about good and bad during the homeroom hour.
"I know some of the boys went to fetch acorns and ate them in the schoolyard. I know everything you do, " he went on, "No girl has participated. Only some of the boys did it. I would like to ask you if you are permitted to leave school during school hours and go to such a place."
It was clear that we were being scolded for our silly act and that fact made us very quiet.
"Mr. Matsuzaki," said Masaru, breaking the silence, "I'm sorry, but I thought it was OK if done during lunch break. Some of us go out and buy something to eat during the break."
"Going out to buy something to eat for lunch is OK," our teacher replied, "because not all can bring lunch from home. But It is another thing to go to collect something leaving school," he said definitely. "You must stay at school all day long except for some special occasions."
"You might be caught in a traffic accident," went on Mr. Matsuzaki, "you might let the worm go into your body through the acorns."
"Moreover, the nuts belong to the temple, to tell the truth. Even if they have dropped from the tree and have lain on the ground, they belong to the people at the temple. Sometimes they are too busy to gather the acorns they have expected to eat. You can't steal them from them..."
Mr. Matsuzaki, who was usually gentle to us, continued his complaints on and on. How Mr. Matsuzaki thought of things in many ways! I had to learn more to grow up.
Episode11: Fire at the Post Office
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Back in the old days, the city's main post office in the urban centre near Yukiwa-cho caught fire in the small hours of a winter morning when all the children of the family members were fast asleep. Only the parents were aware that something unusual was happening, hearing fire engines' wails of sirens and ringing bells, and made their sons get up and prepare to evacuate from home.
Getting out of the back gate into a narrow alley between the houses around, we saw some people in the neighbourhood were already there. We stopped in front of the gate to see blackish orange flames rising and sparks of the same colour flying high above in the dark sky over the roofs of houses. The post office was at a straight-line distance of about 100 meters.
"Burning. Will the fire come here to my house?" asked my brother, who was only half awake, with his schoolbag on his back.
"No, it wouldn't," answered my father, "The wind is blowing to the east, and not so strong as to fly the sparks to us."
"What made the fire break out?" one of our neighbours asked my father.
"You can't tell anything, but maybe a failure in taking care of cigarette butts, I think," answered my father.
Several people remained there and watched the fire burning for a while in the chilly, cold air.
"The post office is such an important place in our community. We're in trouble without it." said the neighbour.
"True. They should try not to start fires." said my father.
Soon we came to the conclusion it was perhaps OK to get back to bed.
The next morning, we read about the fire in the paper and knew there were no casualties. The fire was said to have broken out after the last man had left the site. The cause was suggested to be negligence in taking care of cigarette butts.
On my way to school, I saw the remnants of the fire-burnt building. The post office was a three-storied building of reinforced concrete, and had its all contents, including desks, tables, sofas, chairs, and others, burnt down. The smell was too strong to not quickly run away from the area. A smell of inferno, I thought, looking at the awful scene.
After I came home from school, I told my mother:
"Disgusting! Nasty! Stank! You should run away from the place."
"Don't get near to the site," said my mother.
"What becomes of the letters and postcards burnt away?" I asked.
"About registered mail, you would be compensated. But, almost all, you must give up." answered my mother. "This was one of the biggest incidents for these ten years. When you were a baby, we suffered from the outburst of flood by a typhoon, you didn't know."
"Yes, I knew that. I remember seeing soil-coloured water filled in the shop."
"Really? I think that's impossible."
Episode12: Movies ↑TOP
In Ashikaga City in the 1950s and '60s, we had as many as ten film theatres to choose from when going to see the movies. It depended on your age which theatre you would decide to go to. Many of the boys and girls perhaps visited the Yurakukan theatre located in Igusa-cho near Bannaji.
"Hyaraali Hyaralico Hyariico Hyararello... Who whistles that magical sound?"
The theme song of the samurai fantasy drama "Fuefuki Doji" began that way. The music itself was very exciting because it was the same unforgettable song of the drama of the same title broadcast on the radio, and was very popular among children. "Hyaraali Hyaralico Hyariico Hyararello... tan tan tan tan tan tan tan tan... Where will he go?"
Samurai movies by Toei in those days had characteristics of moral play in which the good always defeated the bad. As a child, I was fond of screen star actors such as Kinnosuke Nakamura, Chiyonosuke Azuma, and Ryutaro Ootomo. They were all good-looking and good at handling swords and all representatives of the good. We could easily tell apart good and bad at first sight.
The scheme of rewarding good and punishing evil was seen especially in professional wrestling matches as well. The idea made people excited very much and was accepted widely. Rikidozan always, at last, defeated the opponent wrestler with his last resort of karate chops. That was a good thing for almost all people.
As they grow up more and more, boys would like to go to see the movies at Chuo Theatre. It was situated beside the bank of the Watarase River in Tori 3-Chome and I could access it in no time. The theatre mainly presented lion-roaring Metro Goldwyn Mayer and search-lighting 20th Century Fox motion pictures.
I liked John Wayne, but liked more Audrey Hepburn. I was 15 years younger than she, but I thought she was beautiful regardless of age difference. I loved not only her long-haired figure in Green Mansion but also her short-haired look in Roman Holiday.
At Yanagihara Elementary School, by the way, and to tell the truth, I was fond of a Hepburn-like girl named Haruko-chan, who belonged to one of the second-grade classes downstairs. She had long, flowing hair that made her easily noticed among many girls.
One day, during recess, however, I found her going up and down the stairs between the 1st and the 2nd floors and found out her long hair was gone.
"Hi, Croquette, I had my hair cut," she said.
I regretted my silence there at the time, but I could not say anything because it gave me such a shock that she now was a lady with shortcut hair. Though I thought the style was becoming to her, I missed her long hair so much. I knew I was betrayed by both Audrey and Haruko.
Yes, I was talking about movie theatres in the city. Let's get back to the topic.
Adult citizens went to see the movies at Suehiro Gekijo, Asahiza, Shin-Toho or Daiei. But Japanese adult movies were not so interesting to me. Suehiro Gekijo sold at its stall grilled catfish good to eat, but not movies good to see, I was afraid.
Episode13: Distant Memory
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I don't remember how good or bad the world was into which I was born on January 30th, 1946, perhaps in the midst of the coldness that I now hate so much. But how low the temperature was, how I cried when I got into such an environment, or how shocked I was when I was cut off from my mother, I have no memory of.
My first, oldest memory in this world was the inundation of our shop, Nagaiya Confectionery Shop.
I don't know whether someone might have given me a huggy or I went alone close to the water at that time, but I saw an unusual scene, milk coffee coloured water weltering and moving slowly all around the shop.
The image was etched into my brain's memory area and even now I always have that image in me. True, with my own eyes, I saw it, but my mother once promptly denied the fact by saying "impossible".
In the southern area of the city of Ashikaga, the Watarase River twists and turns with a big curve between the Watarase Bridge and the Naka Bridge, making it come closest to the area in which our shop existed in Tori 3-Chome. The embankment collapsed, and the roads turned into rivers. The damage was such a big one as a number of news pictures taken then can be found on the net even after more than 70 years. Some people were seen riding on rafts or old ferry vessels on the muddy water, and others eating breakfast on the rooftop.
I'm afraid too much is said about Kathleen. Let's go to my second distant memory.
It makes me go back to my brother's birthday, November 1948, when I was 2 years and 10 months old.
My brother was born in the corner of the room at the back of the shop in the same way as his brothers, including me, were born. A woman from a midwifery association had complete control of the birth of a new baby.
As for me, It seems that I was walking about near the birthplace.
I was least thinking that my mother was ill in bed. Something important was taking place, I knew, but what was the matter I didn't know.
There was a big wooden basin there. I think I saw it at the time. My brother was surely washed clean as a newborn baby in the hot water within, but regrettably, I don't have any memory of that.
In a few days, I saw a piece of Japanese paper hanging down from the shelf of my home shrine. Now, of course, I know that it was a paper on which my brother's name was written, but I could neither read the Chinese characters written nor be told my brother's name at that time.
The old memory tends to be fragmentary. That can't be helped.
Episode14: Second Distant Memory ↑TOP
The scene I saw from the upstairs room of Matsuzawa Confectionery Store I visited was the third oldest memory I can remember. I think I was taken to the place by my eldest brother or my mother either being carried on his back or in her baby car. The store was located next to Takashimaya Department Store which existed at the corner of O-dori in Tori 2-Chome.
The scene was simply some pieces of image of the downstairs room seen from above. From a strange, new angle, they looked very interesting, with people briefly seen walking past with their heads moving.
The young store owner and his wife welcomed me. I was given some chocolates.
The fourth memory is related to the Yuai Kindergarten I went to when I was 5-6 years old.
It was located a few hundred meters west of our house, and I always went there on foot accompanied by my mother. For some time we walked without speaking to each other. But when we came near the kindergarten, I always noticed a half-and-half two-and-three-storied building diagonally in front of the kindergarten. The tiled exterior wall having few windows was covered with green ivy all over.
"What building is that? Scaring, isn't it? " I often asked my mother.
"It looks like a clinic or something, but next to it, there is a clinic, too. So, is it a place where bad people are shut up?"
My mother seemed not to know well about the building. She unlocked and opened the iron gate to enter the kindergarten.
In the kindergarten building, children regularly dance to music. I was shy and disliked the dancing.
The kindergarten had a big loquat tree in the centre of the yard and we children were given fruit in early summer. I remember it was very delicious.
Situated to the north of the Ryomo Line railway, trains sometimes went along with rumbling sounds. Near the track was a large square sandbox where children played making a sand castle and sand balls.
A big accident took place one morning, after I travelled from there to another sandbox under the loquat tree. I felt something big dropped into the sand through my short pants. I wondered whether I should tell Nobuko-sensei, who took care of us, about it or not. I thought:
Not many children drop off their big one in the sand. I'm no good but surely bad.
After all, I didn't tell my teacher anything. I was very afraid of getting shut up in the awesome building.
Episode15: Bypass ↑TOP
"Hi, what's going on up there?" Ma-kun asked me, looking up at me from below on the road.
"I've been asleep for some time, laying myself on the back in the sun. It's so comfortable. Shall we do a foot race now?" I said.
Before a warehouse was built, our house had a turfed bank-like incline at the end of the premise, on which I laid myself on the back or on my stomach to look over what the boys gathered to do.
"All right. I'll invite a few boys hanging out there."
Ma-kun immediately went to the boys in front of the barber shop on the corner.
The road I was looking down at from a higher place was a bypass road between O-dori and Minami Ginza Street. With few cars entering, it was in a substantial way pedestrianized and was used exclusively by the boys in the neighbourhood. Girls neither came to join boys nor played with themselves, but a dog called Shiro in Japanese participated in the boys. In those days, some dogs were wandering alone out of their houses without any chains or leads.
"Hey, Cha-kun, I've gathered three boys," Ma-kun said to me. "Come down here with your brother. It will make 5 runners."
After all five boys, including Hide-bo, Shige-tan, Ma-kun, Taka-chan, and me, gathered at the starting line Ma-kun drew with a roseki, a stone of cera, on the pavement of the street. We usually did a short-distance foot race, in which some boys stood at the starting line, and began to run simultaneously by the sign "Ready Go!". After that they soon came to the corner where they turned right, proceeded to touch the surface of a wooden electricity pole, turned back on the spot, and continued running as fast as they could to reach the goal line, formerly the starting line, one after another. The race was as exciting as sumo boys did on the road.
On this road some men came to do business with children; two men came riding on the bicycle to show kamishibai for gathered children who bought starch syrup. Kamishibai was the art of showing one picture card after another while continuing story-telling. In addition, by the trailer, one man came to sell shinko-zaiku, rice cake, and one more yakisoba, called chaw mein in Chinese, with potatoes in it.
But those businessmen stopped coming to the road soon. Maybe they didn't have enough power to continue their business.
One day, as a rare situation, I found no children around. That might have made me feel unusually relaxed. I leaned my back to the wall of a house making myself at home, when a girl came near to me and pushed her back onto me. It was Asa-chan, an elementary school girl who lived next door to the house. I was very much surprised at what she had done to me, not knowing why.
Harder and harder she pushed herself onto me. I knew enough of her back's contour and the fragrance of her straight hair. She went away soon, but I had never experienced such a surprise.
Girls' interest was quite different from boys', I came to know.
Episode16: The Watarase ↑TOP
The Watarase River begins to run at Mt. Sky, a mountain that exists between Mt. Nantai in Nikko and Mt. Akagi in Gunma, as major mountains. Through the valleys of the mountains of Ashio, it comes down, and via two big cities of Kiryu and Ashikaga, it flows down further to the south, making its basin wider at Watarase Yusuichi, a flood control centre, and eventually joining together with the River Tone.
Tori 3-Chome in Ashikaga City, where we lived, was one of the residential areas nearest to the river. Boys there went to the river to swim in summer or to fish and play by the riverside in almost all the seasons.
I, afraid of water, never swam there, while boys who were fond of swimming played in the water for hours in summer. They jumped into the deep, green water from the bank protection under the Watarase Bridge, dynamically swimming overhand in the swift current downstream.
One day in summer, my brother Taka-chan and I went fishing in the river. We aimed to catch minnow. We always wanted to catch bigger fish such as crucian carp, but they were rarely caught. We stood on the sand beach and threw our fishing lines into the water.
"I hope I can get a big one today," Taka-chan said.
"So do I," answered I.
That day, Yama-kun, our elder brother, went out fishing at the sand bar beyond the Watarase Bridge. Splitting the river in two, the sand bar had a large, beautiful, genuine white river sand beach. Yama-kun does fishing by setting a bamboo-made fish trap among the stones scattered in the torrent. I thought he could catch a big fish.
While we were looking at bobbers, I noticed Hide-bo was passing by behind us. I turned my head around and asked him,
"How long have you been swimming?"
Hide-bo answered, "An hour or so."
He and his brother have been trying to jump into the river water and swim downstream over the swift current. After a while, they climbed up onto the shore and walked back to the starting point. They were enjoying themselves by the downstream swimming, not daring to swim against the flow of the river.
In winter the Watarase River turns into the passway of Karakkaze, the wind blowing from Niigata over the mountains including Mount Akagi in Gunma, and the wind brings quite chilly weather. But in summer, a blessed land emerges around the river.
Taka-chan and I came home without any fish, but Yama-kun brought home two Japanese bitterlings. I had made a correct assumption.
Episode 17: Visiting Relatives ↑TOP
My father used to live in Sakaimachi, Gunma, his hometown, and my mother in the same town, diagonally in front of my father's home, not more than 50 meters away from each other. My father was the third son of the shopkeeper of Nagaiya Confectionary Shop and his wife, while my mother was the first daughter of the Uchiyama Liquor Store across the road. Surprisingly, they formerly lived as neighbours. So, much ado over the visiting relatives was reduced considerably.
"Take your handkerchief with you," said my mother.
"OK. I'm ready to go," said I.
It took about 15 minutes to go to the Ashikaga City Station of the Tobu Isesaki Line. We turned right at the corner of Tori 2-Chome, went on over the JR Ryomo Line's crossing, looked over the large flower gardens of the people who lived under the Naka Bridge with a wide roof of the bridge beam, reached in front of the station, bought tickets, checked in, and came up on the platform of the downbound line.
The line, between Tatebayshi and Isesaki, downgrades into a single-tracked one, and the passengers can enjoy a very scenic rural panorama out of their windows. Our destination was the fourth stop from Ota City, Ashikaga's neighbouring city, so, for half an hour or so, I had a good time watching the landscape go by from my window.
After a while, the train pulled into the platform of the station.
"Here we are!" my mother said.
She stood up from the seat and held on the strap.
While we walked I felt my mother a little strained, as well as myself.
My uncle's wife always welcomed us by serving sushi for lunch. I was amazed by the deliciousness of tuna sushi, which I had never experienced because of my father's liking. Surely my mother had the same opinion.
The disposition within the premise was quite alike between the main shop and its branch, with the shop in front, then the zashiki, the factory, and the backyard. If you would like to keep a confectionary shop, you should find a place like that.
Next, we visited my mother's family home. It used to be a liquor store with a great mansion that accommodated a lot of sumo rikishi during their tour.
The question remains:
Were my father and mother friends as children?
No, they weren't. Because in the Meiji era, the mixed company was not permitted.
Then, when did they know each other?
I think they came to know each other at the station they used to go to school by train. Using the same railway line, my mother went to Isesaki City and my father to Ota City, each in the opposite direction.
Even if they recognized each other, they didn't fall in love with each other, because they had no occasion they could meet with. My father was 2 years older than my mother. No evidence can be found that shows love was a cause of their getting married. They had a picture taken for an arranged marriage, I know, and that fact was enough to wonder how they got married.
On our way home from Tobu's station, my mother suddenly allowed her knees to sink to the ground, before going over the railway crossing of the Ryomo Line. I was surprised to see my mother fall. Had she been too strained during the reunion?
Episode 18 Where the Alley Goes to
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There was an alley on the west side of our house that led up to the main street in the city center. This alley was narrow, about one meter wide, and few people passed through it. There were two garbage cans, ours and the neighbor's, somewhat apart near the entrance, and we once discovered that Ken-chan, a bataya, or Bataken-chan, was sleeping in one of them. BataKen-chan was a big, well built, scruffy dressed man who had a penchant for scavenging trash cans.
The alley crossed a bypass which was a children's playground, on the way . And just before the bypass, there was a back entrance to Torikou facing the alley. This was a chicken specialty store that was more upscale than the supermarket, but one day I witnessed a very shocking event. A chicken that was clucking and squawking had its neck twisted and strangled by the owner, who then dumped the blood into a bucket. Moreover, he looked at me and grinned.
This was a tough experience for a schoolboy. I swore right then and there that I would never go to this store even if my mother asked me to buy ground chicken.
The alleyway once ended, but it began again when you crossed the bypass. A little further on, there was often a girl standing alone, presumably coming from the house on the left. She would just stood there and stared at me, not doing anything. I would involuntarily tap her on the head. She never cried. I couldn't understand what kind of child she was.
Soon I heard the drums beating faster and faster, and voices chanting sutras. There was a Nichiren-shu house.
Eventually, the path led to a rental book shop called 'Yume no Ya.' When I came out of the alley and turned right, it was the storefront of the book-lending shop. I seldom went to the school library, but I often rent books from this store. I chose picture books, manga, and a magazine with "Boy in Kenya" in them. This was a story about a Japanese boy named Masaru who was active in Kenya.
Passing through alleys is interesting. The alley in Yukiwa-cho was especially interesting because my homeroom teacher asked me to deliver school lunch bread to the absent classmate, and I often went through it to deliver the bread to the home. Haruko's house was in the same alley. My heart danced with excitement as I entered the alley passing by the Soto Zen temple with the stone monument saying "Neither sake nor fish is allowed to come in the precincts of the temple."
Episode 19: Mountains in Ashikaga ↑TOP
As soon as you cross the Watarase Bridge, you will see a torii gate. This is the entrance to Onna Sengen. The place was a low hill or high plateau that was easy to climb. When we climbed to the top without stopping and looked around, we had a great view of the river, the plain, and the mountains in the region. I often went there to play with my younger brother Taka-chan and my sumo buddies.
Just
next to the hill was Otoko-sengen, about 100 meters above sea level. It
was a bit steeper, According to my research, they were originally one
mountain, which was divided into two when a cut was made in the lower
part of the mountain to allow the Tobu Railway line to pass through.
I
once went to Otoko-sengen with my brother, the second of the brothers.
This brother was an active, adventurous boy of action and did a lot of
watery activities such as ditch searching and fishing. So we were not
very social to each other, and I played with my younger brother more
often.
We picked up fallen tree branches and swung them around, brushing off the approaching branches as we both made our way up the mountain path. But the wind whistling unusually strong made me feel uneasy. Seeing the tall treetops of the pine trees swaying, I felt as if we had somehow wandered deep into the mountains, so after a while, I whined, "I want to go home, I want to go home."
"No, no. We just got here."
My brother did not mind being blown around by the strong wind. But as we went on, he said, "I don't know what to do. Let's go home."
Ashikaga has many low mountains. Mt. Iwai, which is said to be a bottleneck in the flood control of the Watarase River, is a 50-meter-high low mountain that looks like protruding to the Watarase River as if it made the river bypassing. It seems to have occupied an important position as a vantage watching point during the Warring States period.
One of the most important low mountains is Suido-yama (Mt. Suido). This mountain, whose elevation is about the same as that of Sengen-yama, is located in the center of the city and has a water supplying facility. Water is taken from the Watarase River and purified at this facility. The water source is Mt. Sky. The water must be clean. Later, we had our wedding reception in Rendaikan in the Ashikaga Park.
Returning to the road from Mt. Sengen, crossing the Watarase Bridge, and heading almost straight north, you come to the foot of Mt. Orihime. To the west is Mt. Hatagami, and both of the mountains have shrines at their summits.
The ridge from the side path of Orihime Shrine to Mt. Ryogai is now a busy hiking trail, but in the Showa era (1926-1989), only children were walking on it, and we rarely saw adults there. This ridge had a pleasant up-and-down undulation. Sometimes there were exposed rocks that had calcites on them or smooth surfaces like a mirror, which were interesting to see. The route from Mt. Oiwa to Mt. Gyodo was a bit complicated, so it was difficult to go that far into the mountains.
One day my eldest brother said to me, "How about going hiking in Mt. Gyodo?"
"That sounds amusing. Yes, let's go."
I thought we were going to take a course of the ridge path from Mt. Orihime, and asked him, "Are we going from from Mt. Orihime?"
"No, we'll take a bus to the Bishamonten gate at the foot of Mt. Oiwa. Climbing the mountain and then proceed to Mt. Gyodo."
My
eldest brother was a semi-professional climber of mountains, such as
Mt. Tanigawa and Mt. Yatsugateke, so I trusted him completely.
The
next morning, my eldest brother, younger brother, and I took a bus from
the Tori-3chome bus stop and headed for Mt. Oiwa. It took about 15
minutes by bus. In those days, many buses were running in the city.
The
mountain gate of Saishoji Temple on Mt. Oiwa is flanked by two statues
of Aun Nios, one on each side. After admiring the Nio statues, we went
up the mountain path to the 417-meter-high summit. Near the temple,
there was a sign telling visitors to follow a winding path, or bypass,
that led to the top of Gyodo Mountain.
Of
course, we chose the easier way. Taka-chan did his best to follow his
brothers. On the way there, a bird, probably a shrike, made a loud
squawking sound.
"That bird is too noisy," Taka-chan said.
"It's probably a shrike. Shrikes can make loud cries, and they are also very good at imitating other birds," said my brother.
As
we enjoyed the mountainous terrain, we reached the top of the mountain
where there was a mountain stream. Gyodo-san was a completely different
kind of mountain from the ones we had climbed before, and it felt like a
religious site that would cleanse our hearts and minds. The sky-high
bridge connecting the main hall of Joinji Temple and the Seishin-tei tea
house, both of which were on the cliffs, was as spectacular as the
Hokusai's painting.
After
we ate delicious onigiri (rice balls) for lunch, we found a king crab
in the mountain stream. The cool water felt good on my burning feet. It
became a fun day.
Episode20: Aoyama Clinic ↑TOP
Beyond the main street, the Aoyama Clinic is located. I have to go there when I have a fever from a cold, making it hard to walk around. I'm always accompanied by my mother.
Entering the clinic from the driveway, you will find yourself in the entrance hall, standing in front of a big clock with the pendulum swinging from side to side. You should take off your shoes, rise to the floor one step higher, go to a waiting room on your right, and wait your turn there. The room was an ordinary tatami matted room.
On cold winter days, the room is warmed by the charcoal heat from the brazier. They don't have any other heating system. In summer, there's only a fan. No air conditioner was set up.
The nurse comes to call my name when it is my turn. From the corridor facing the well-kept Japanese-style garden with a pond, my mother and I enter the examination room on the left through the sliding glass door and is greeted by Dr. Aoyama, sitting at a large desk, his wife, and the nurse.
"What's wrong with you today?" The doctor asks.
"He has a fever that won't go down," my mother replies.
As soon as I sit down on the chair on the other side of the desk by the instruction of the nurse, the doctor stands up, comes to me, and says to me, "Well, say ahhh." When I open my mouth wide, a medical instrument with a mirror on the tip is shoved into my mouth and the doctor says, "Rr-e-e-ed," rolling his r's.
This is the accent typical of Edo people when they say "red."
Immediately, a device that looks like a big cotton swab dipped in iodine or Lugol is shoved down the throat. The doctor swabs my throat with it.
I at once go woozy. But he does it twice.
It is torture. I shed tears.
When I go to see the doctor because I have a tummy ache, his saying becomes "He-e-avier," and the nurse gives me an enema and asks me to endure it if I would like to make it out. I do so.
The pharmacy is located by the entrance hall, and medicines are given out of the small window when you pay the medical fee on your way out. Whenever I had a cold, I was given both a medicine and a powder to take. The medicine tasted like cola and was tastier than the powder packaged in a white paper folded like origami.
When I am out of school with a cold and in bed, I could have bananas and grated apples. These are special. Bananas, which my father is afraid of, we can rarely eat.
At one time, Takachan developed a fever and his face turned bright red. My father called Dr. Aoyama and asked him to make a house call. The doctor gladly complied and came to us with his examination bag. Perhaps it was because he had just left his castle to make a house call at a merchant's house, I noticed neither his Edo accent nor his frightening postures.
On his way home, the doctor said he did not have his glasses and looked for them everywhere. But everyone knew that the glasses were on his forehead.
My mother pointed and said, "Doctor, your glasses are on your forehead."
When the doctor noticed, there was a laughter, including from the doctor.
"Oh, I forgot it," the doctor said, embarrassed.
Taka-chan was on the mend.
Episode21: Barber shop
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When I was told to go to the Barber's shop by my mother, I went to the one that was next door but one. Not many people waited their turn there, and I had my hair cut comfortably.
Tsuru-chan, a fmale barber, was the daughter of the parents, but she rarely did cutting hair. Her husband, who was called 'master" took care of almost all the customers.
He did his best and gave even child customers a full course, from cutting hair, shampooing, and taking a shave.
The master always worked his way through without saying anything. He had a rather fatty body, and always wore a white coat. Sometimes he says "mhu." It was the sign he showed when he found something good.
After shampooing and drying my hair, he would sharpen his razor on the leather. He looked happy when he did this. And then his work began.
As a child, I had little to be treated with a razor in my face. Any excesive hair outshooting was not on my face. Perhaps, there was no need to shave my face.
But the master went on. He said "mhu," and pinched my lips with his fingers. I had my eyes shut and pretended to sleep. "Mhu," he said, and he teased my lips with his fingers. I felt it comfortable to have my lips pinched and fiddled. Moreover, the razor came to me, threatening me. The time was eternal.
So I didn't hate to go to the barber's.
Episode 22: All Yellow Around ↑TOP
Around
the city hall in November, small golden shapes swooped down from the
ginkgo trees and piled up on the sidewalks all around. When I stepped on
them, they made a rustling sound.
One
day, when I left school alone, I met a group of girls coming this way
along the golden corridor. There were still a few ginkgo leaves
fluttering here and there.
I
really wanted to go to the fire station on the other side of the street
and look at the big shiny red and golden vehicles, but I saw the girls,
so I went straight ahead.
One of the girls said abruptly, "Croquette doesn't smile unless to Sawada-san, does he?"
Croquette
was my nickname. When I waved to the young man at the Arai butcher
store on the other side of the street from the fence hole, he delivered
the croquette in a paper bag from across the street. This was a
traditional technique for generations of upperclassmen when there was no
school lunch. It was witnessed by the second graders downstairs, who
nicknamed me because of croquette every time.
I
did not respond to any of the girl's questions. As usual, I hushed
through. At this point, both walked by, although I might have smiled at
Haruko-chan.
I
often went to the second grade class downstairs as a checker to see if
the class was ready for cleaning; the second graders did not clean
themselves. The fifth graders upstairs did the cleaning. But the second
graders pulled their desks to the back of the classroom and got it ready
for cleaning.
When
I went to check, there were sometimes still many pupils left, and they
would make a big fuss, saying, "Here comes Croquette."
But I could see only Haruko-chan. I wrote "well done" on the blackboard and hurried to my home room.
Episode 23: A Secret
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As
far as I can see from Google, the barbershop next door but one seems to
be gone now. But, once upon a time back then, there seemed to be a
riddle in terms of family, although for them it was an unnecessary
nuisance to resolve. Tsuru-chan was the daughter, and Tsuru-chan's
parent was probably the grandmother of the family, who lived in the
house behind the store. The male barber who was called as master was
perhaps Tsuru-chan's husband. However, they did not seem to have any
children together.
My mother told me one day, "Kei-kun is actually an adopted child."
”Oh, Kei-kun.”
The
conversation began in a way that I was not sure I understood. Nobody
heard of a child born in the barbershop. And then suddenly there was a
boy named Kei-kun appeared, with whom it was difficult for me to play.
"He was adopted by Tsuru-chan and the master, and was taken in from an orphanage," my mother told me.
"He looks a little different from Japanese."
"I
don't know about that, but he actually has a brother who is working in
the silk store in front of us. But they don't know about that," my
mother said.
I had seen a glimpse of this brother. I had seen him in the back of the store of the watcher of our shop.
"But,"
I asked my mother, "he's already an elementary school pupil, and if
it's his own brother, wouldn't he find him near of kin?" I asked my
mother.
"He would. But, surprisingly, they don't have any contact with each other, though they live so close to each other."
"What happened to their parents?"
"I hear they went bankrupt and committed suicide."
"Bankrupt? Suicide?"
"Bankruptcy means going rags. Suicide means to kill yourself."
"Does that happen?"
"Yes, it does."
"The children survived?"
"Yes."
"That's too sad a story."
"Yes,
it is. But Tsuru-chan is a very good woman, and even if she can't have
children of her own, she wants to adopt one and raise him or her."
"I can't see clearly."
I thought that would be fine.
"Make friends with him."
I was afraid I couldn't do so easily.
Episode 24: My Mother's Illness ↑TOP
It
was difficult to find flush toilets in Japan at that time. People used
pit latrines everywhere. Although primitive and barbaric, these toilets
were neither expensive nor difficult to make, and, for some farmers,
could be used as a source of organic fertilizer, as well as they had a
benefit to detect illness from the smell.
My
father looked short and thin, while my mother was a rather large woman.
Therefore, when the person pumping the latrine told my father that
someone in the family must have diabetes because what he had just
collected smelled sweet and sour, the husband immediately told his wife
to go to see the doctor.
After seeing Dr. Aoyama, my mother stopped eating rice and started eating a piece of bread without any dipping sauce.
"Don't you ever get tired of bread?" I asked, watching her eat the toasted bread without any butter or jam.
"Not really," she replied. "But I have to be patient or I'll get into trouble."
"Dr.
Aoyama said I don't really have diabetes, but my blood sugar is much
higher than normal. You won't die if you don't eat rice. You just have
to stop eating rice."
She gave up rice and ate only bread for months. I felt sorry for her among us all.
However,
she gradually got better and better, and the day finally came when the
fetcher did not say anything and the doctor did not recommend a bread
diet. The disease was conquered. It was nice!
Later,
I happened to mention this to a doctor, a member of the staff at a
medical school hospital in Tokyo, who works part-time at a nearby
clinic.
"No, bread has quite a lot of sugar, too," he told me.
I
looked it up on the net and found that a bowl of rice and a slice of
bread are about the same, each about 200K calories, but the bread seems
to have slightly fewer calories.
In any case, my mother taught me that what must be done must be done completely.
Episode 25: An Encounter ↑TOP
It
was an autumn afternoon. The sky was wonderfully blue all over. The
ginkgo trees along the street looked as if they were in full bloom
yesterday, but since then they had shed many leaves, which painted the
sidewalk bright yellow.
I
dug the leaves with the toes of my athletic shoes, kicked up a thin
layer of fallen leaves, and made a rustling sound as I continued my
walk. I had just left the school gate and the fire station was just a
stone's throw away. The smell of gasoline was in the air, and I could
tell that the fire trucks were all dressed up. From the front of the
first floor, I could see pump trucks and ladder trucks, with their
bodies glowing bright red, and their snouts proudly lined up in a row.
The
space was large enough for three or four classrooms to fit inside. The
concrete floor was black and wet. A tightly wound hose hung from a hook
on one of the tiled walls, and a long-handled mop was propped up beside
it. There was no sign of life, and the area was all too quiet.
I thought, "I might step in right now."
I
looked down at my feet and saw that my shoes were resting on the narrow
drainage ditch that bordered the concrete floor of the building and the
paving stones of the sidewalk.
The hardest was only the first step. All I had to do was take the step. My feet were itching to go in.
Just then, I heard a voice calling me by my nickname, "Croquette, Croquette!" The voice came across from the City Hall area.
It was those girls. The second-grade girls downstairs were hanging out again. I wondered if she was there too.
My
mind immediately began to wander. I lifted my eyes from the ditch and
turned to the tree-lined street, with my heart pounding. I meditated for
a moment because I was dazzled by the golden color of the ginkgo leaves
there.
There
must have been five or six girls in total hanging out there, and it was
hard to tell them apart because they were all moving around doing
different things. One of them was eating a piece of candy out of a bag
in her hand, while two others were talking to each other. Behind them, a
girl was leaning against the iron fence of the government building and
looked as if she was about to fall to the sidewalk, and there was a girl
who was wandering this way and that. The glare made the whole place
look like one big lump. I wondered if they were returning from somewhere
they went, or if they were on their way to the school playground. These
girls were just so carefree and laid back.
I wondered if she was there. I could only make out the face of the cheerful girl who usually accompanied the girl.
Yes,
it was not an impossible thing, but it happened so suddenly that I had
to smile. From behind the telephone pole over there, a fairy came out
and I noticed it was her.
She
was in a pale pink sweater. Her long black hair was dancing in the
wind. Her gaze was hidden behind her disheveled hair. I approached her
when she looked away for a moment. We passed each other, and I looked
her in the eye. I couldn't help but smile at her. She also seemed to
smile at me.
Episode 26: Ma-kun ↑TOP
Ma-kun
had a disability in the parts of the face. One day when I went to
Ma-kun's house to visit him, his young and beautiful mother asked me to
come in, so I did. I witnessed the mother holding Ma-kun on her lap and
giving him milk to drink, followed by Ma-kun crying. Ma-kun put back the
milk he had just drank through his nose.
What
he drank could not reach his stomach, but flowed back up his nose. This
must of course be unbearably painful and made him cry. His mother might
have wanted me to see the incident.
Ma-kun's
father was a man with a scary wolf-like look. He had a desk of his own
in a corner of the tatami room on the first floor facing the front,
where he sat and presumably waited for something to happen. There was
nothing but a black dialing telephone on the desk. He made use of the
only business tool for him to support his family.
Ma-kun's
family had probably moved from somewhere in the Kansai region to a
newly built house here. Ma-kun had a younger brother, and the four of
us, Ma-kun, his brother, my brother, and me, often played together.
There was a small shrine next to his father's office where we would
climb up on the roof or stay on the ground and shoot each other with a
bamboo-made cedar nut gun, saying "Bang! Bang!", but his father never
got angry.
On
the street in front of the house, a circle was often drawn with
pyrophyllite for the boys to do sumo or to play with marble beads and
pogs. Both sumo and the games made the boys excited and they made a lot
of noise, but Mr. Wolf did not say anything and let them play before
his office.
Although
they appeared to be leading a happy life, the family suffered two major
misfortunes after that, the first being foreclosure by the tax office. I
happened to witness the scene. One day, officers came to the house,
attached red paper tags labeled "Seizure" on a fine chest, cupboard,
tables, chairs, etc, and carried them away by truck.
The
second incident was worse. We were told that the mother had been
hospitalized with gallstones, but due to the failure of the operation,
she suddenly died.
The unlucky family moved somewhere else soon after.
Episode27: Chibi's Grave
↑TOP
One
day, Ma-kun, his kindergarten friend Mika-chan, and I decided to go out
together. I wanted to see Chibi, who had been on my mind for a long
time.
I asked them if they wanted to go to Chibi's grave.
"Who's Chibi?" Ma-kun asked.
"She's my cat who died a long time ago," I answered.
"Ummm," Ma-kun and Mika-chan said.
"She fell into a cauldron and was drowned."
"Oh," said Ma-kun and Mika-chan.
"I felt sorry for her. My father buried her in the grave."
"I don't know, but I feel sorry for her," said Mika-chan.
"She's already dead," said Ma-kun.
"Let's go."
We passed by a stylish shrubbery near Mika-chan's house and came to a water level station on the bank of the riverbed.
"The grave is about halfway down the bank. Follow me," I told them.
As we walked down the bank, we came to an area where the soil had risen slightly and a dandelion was blooming.
"Here we are," I said. Tears came to my eyes as I recalled. "Chibi was a tiny gray cat."
Tears fell from the eyes of the other two.
Then, Ma-kun motioned for us to go, and we climbed up the bank.
We
went to the left of the water level station and descended again to a
barbed wire fence. I failed to jump over and got an iron needle in my
calf.
"Ouch!" I yelled.
I was bleeding profusely. I knew I was in trouble.
Mika-chan pulled out a handkerchief. She told me to put it on the wound. It hurt, so I did as she told me.
I explained about the incident to my mother when I returned home.
When
I said Ma-kun's friend Mika-chan, my mother immediately knew who I was
talking about. She washed the handkerchief and returned to Mika-chan's
mother with some yokan.
Episode 28: Natto or Manju? ↑TOP
During
winter, a lady came along the street to sell natto in the cold early
morning. She would come from the west and head east, shouting "Natto,
natto!"
Natto
adds color, especially to the morning table. That's why it sells well
during the time of the day. Ever since the Edo period, people have been
running out of their houses to the street to buy natto, saying, "Wait a
minute, lady, give me a piece."
My
family used to buy natto from the lady. When you open the thick,
triangular thing wrapped in a thin sheet of wood shavings, you will find
a row of well-made, taut, large beans of natto. It is delicious if you
scoop out a small amount with chopsticks, place it on a bowl of rice,
sprinkle with mustard and green laver, stir, add a few drops of soy
sauce, and scarf it down in one go.
Kyogi
is a wrapping material that evolved from the "higekkawa" of bamboo
shoots. Its substance is thin tree bark, but its neatness and beauty
make it suitable for both natto and Japanese sweets.
One morning, a lady came into the store and negotiated with my mother.
"Can you exchange one natto for one of these manju?"
The
lady proposed to barter a natto for a Neboke manju in the showcase.
Comparing the two, natto was far more nutritious and manju was not as
good to eat as natto, but women might take the sweetness of the bean
paste.
To the lady's offer, my mother immediately responded.
"OK. Let's exchange."
She badly wanted natto on the morning table.
"I'm glad. I always looked at your manju sideways when I passed," The lady said.
"A Neboke-manju for 10 yen each and a natto for 10 yen each. Here you go," my mother said, offering a manju on a small plate.
"To tell the truth, I'm wearing a piece of newspaper," the lady said, interrogatively. "It's warm."
"Oh! You do that?" Mother hurriedly offered her a cup of tea.
"Thank you very much."
"Newspapers
are very useful for wrapping children's lunches and for many other
things. How do you wrap it around your body? Mother asked.
"A
piece of newspaper is the poor's coat. I usually put it under my
underwear. It's not so much you wrap it around you as you wear it."
"I see. How warm is it?"
"Very warm, and even warmer when you walk around. Manju was delicious, and the tea was good, too. I feel better."
"Good! Please come back tomorrow if you can."
The lady went out into the street to sell natto again. Her voice seemed to have changed a little, "Natto, natto!"
I received a hefty, paper-thin wooden package from my mother.
"The lady," she said, "was glancing at the chestnut buns."
"I see. But natto is more delicious."
"Yes, natto is stronger than manju," my mother agreed.
Episode 29: Surprised and Running Back at Full Speed ↑TOP
At dusk in the summer, my younger brother Taka-chan and I decided to go out to the night stalls on the main street. The open booths were usually on the sidewalks on both sides of the street, from in front of the post office on the 3rd Street toward the 2nd Street, the busiest and brightest section of the main street. They include the usual food stalls offering yakisoba, takoyaki, and okonomiyaki; ice cream and ramune stores; shooting games, ring toss, and goldfish scooping; and stores selling water guns and bong bongs, and many people came from all over the city to enjoy the cool evening air. The unique smell of acetylene gas for lighting was in the air around, and they were calling out, "Welcome! Welcome!"
Taka-chan and I were going to play goldfish scooping. We were supposed to scoop goldfish with a toy scoop covered with thin paper, and we would be rewarded with a goldfish as our catch. The paper is easily torn and it is difficult to scoop a large number of goldfish.
We each had a ten-yen coin ready in our pockets. At the corner of Peko-chan’s Fujiya and Kikaku Sushi Restaurant, we turned left and were about to head toward the main street when a male adult suddenly appeared out of the darkness.
As soon as we saw him, Taka-chan and I were both startled and shouted "Wow!" We made a U-turn and ran as fast as we could, somehow managing to escape. The thought of being chased by the scaring man sent a shiver down my spine.
That running away began not because we had agreed to do so. Each of us ran away voluntarily. So there was no doubt that it was a real horror.
"What's the matter, you two?" my father, who was on duty at the store, asked in disgust.
"We met a ghost .... A ghost..." I finally answered, my heart pounding and my breath catching in my throat.
Anyway, we went deeper into the house.
What kind of person was he? I thought after I had calmed down a little.
His eyes were not bloodshot, nore he had an eerie smile on his face. He didn't have a menacing look. But It was just that the atmosphere was terrifying. I thought, "There are actually people who have that kind of look, like Frankenstein's monster, for example, that is somehow frightening."
"Just when I thought you were gone, you came back. What the hell happened? My father asked us later.
"Well, we met a man around the corner," he said, "and we saw his face and ran away."
"He didn't do anything to you, did he?"
"No, he didn't. But Taka-chan also ran away at the same time. It was surely pretty scary."
"Call off visiting night stalls."
"Yes, that's enough."
"I'm afraid of night," said Taka-chan.
Episode 30: From Ashikaga to Kiryu, to Omama ↑TOP
"How about going on an excursion to Kiryu and Omama tomorrow, the four of us?"
One Saturday afternoon, when we were on duty cleaning the classroom, Mitu suggested a plan to us; Richi, Makoto, and me.
"I have never been there, but I hear Omama is a beautiful place many tourists visit," said Richi, carrying a chair.
"I have visited Oka Park in Kiryu once with my family members," said Makoto, sweeping the floor with a broom.
I knew I had to say something immediately, but could say nothing as usual. I neither knew where the destination was nor how I could get there.
"Through Omama, the beautiful valley of the upper stream of the Watarase is running. The town is near Kiryu City, and it takes 20 minutes or so by train from the city," said Mitu, looking over us from on top of the platform, as if he had checked up last night.
The activity limited to only four of us boys seemed interesting. Mitu would likely be a good leader for us.
At last I said, "OK. I'll join you."
"That's good!" said Mitu, "Then let's meet in front of the Ashikaga Station at 9 o'cock tomorrow. Don't forget to bring four 5 yen coins or two 10 yen coins as the fare. You must also bring something to eat for lunch."
At home, I told my mother about our trip plan. She said, "It's nice. You had better go. I'll prepare onigiri lunch."
The next morning, with a bag of lunch and a water flask, I left home for Ashikaga Station on the Ryoumo Line. We all gathered In the corner of the square In front of the station, saying hi to each other. Mitu, the leader of us, collected the fare from each of us and bought tickets for all. Son of a carpenter, he had a strong body and a good ability to take quick action. His behaviour was dynamic, and he was a fast runner.
The train was not so crowded, and we made ourselves at home on the seats. Shortly after starting, the train passed by the kindergarten where I used to go. The images of the big sandbox and the biwa tree passed swiftly in my eyes. After 20 minutes or so, we reached the Kiryu Station. Many people descended from the train at the station. Across the track, there was another platform that belonged to the Ashio Line.
"Let's go! That way!" pointing to the north, Makoto said.
"Sure! Let's go."
We saw several goats at the Oka Park. Monkeys, rabbits, and other animals were also there, but we hastily left there to head for the main destination of the day.
"In five minutes, the train for Omama starts. Let's run back to the station," said Mitu looking at his wristwatch that he borrowed from his father.
At the station, Mitu bought four tickets and we moved on to the platform, where the bell was already ringing, signaling the train's departure. As soon as we were on board, the train started.
The view from the car window has changed dramatically. The line, as is now called the Watarase Valley Railway, runs along the winding valley. The atmosphere is like going along the canyon in the mountains and we were excited at the scenery.
"I never knew the upper stream was like this. It's so beautiful," said Riichi.
"We seem to be in another world, don't we?" said Mitu.
We were in Nagame Park shortly after descending the train at Omama Station. Going down to the valley of the Watarase, we could find little fish swimming in the clear water, of which we all felt very precious.
A picnic began at the concrete table and bench in a corner of the park.
"I forgot to bring lunch with me," said Riichi in a pitiful voice.
"OK. I have brought four onigiri; each of us can eat at least one."
"Thank you. I will have one."
"Your mother is a good cook, isn't she?" Mitu asked me.
"No, not so much," I said. "My father is a good cook, and his soba, tempura, pork cutlet, and fried potato are very good to eat. But my mother is not so good at cooking." I was excited at the occasion and went on saying:
"One morning, when I complained a lot about liveliness of the morning table, my father got angry and turned the table on us."
"Cups, bowls, chopsticks, plates... Everything was scattered around. It was a mess and we were unable to eat anything that morning."
"Such a thing will happen," said MItu. "But I know that you can speak if you want to speak."
"I can speak around my house, but I cannot speak around my school."
"Why? Wherever you are, you are you" said Mitu.
I didn't know why I was so, nor why I looked like 'hyottoko' in my photo taken by Makoto. Hyottoko refers to a man or his mask with his mouth pursed and bent.
Episode 31: Master in one Art ↑TOP
Katchan is second to none in finger wrestling and arm wrestling.
When I approach him to say, “Katchan, let's finger-wrestle,” he immediately gets into position by putting his elbows on the desk and giving me a thumbs-up.
With me in a half-crouching position between the rows of desks, and our elbows on the desktop, we both laced our four fingers together.
“Yoi-Don!”
The four fingers are now thickset together, and the game begins! The two of us moved our thumbs together, standing straight on top of each other. But I couldn't keep it up for a minute.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."
I fell down and was lost. Katchan never loses.
Perhaps because of his disability, Katchan lacks composure. He is not good at keeping still and has a habit of sticking the tip of his tongue out from between his lips. But he has the physique of a judo player and is a very strong arm-wrestler. When we made the desk in front of the blackboard into a ring, he immediately twisted my wrist and I was pinned down, losing in a heap.
There were other students with disabilities in other classes as well. Maeno-kun was one of them. He was always smiling and looking happy.
One day during lunch break, everyone was relaxing in the school yard near the entrance to the school. The girls were playing jump rope. I was glancing at them from nearby place.
"Oh my God! Run, run, run, it's not safe,” Mitsu shouted.
Maeno-kun sent a clear, watery liquid flying unbelievably high into the air, sparkling and glistening. It had such force that it looked as if he had used a fire hose to send it flying.
The girls ran around screaming, “Oh no!" If they get wet, they will be in trouble.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
The culprit was laughing broadly.
The liquid had been sprayed from between his legs. The piss boy pinched the hose and held the nozzle with his fingers, thereby gaining momentum and sending it high into the air. He must have been patient and waited until it was almost over full. The water flew in parabolas, sparkling, and sending other pupils scurrying.
This is something you have to practice, isn't it? Even so, I was amazed because it was such an impressive feat.
Episode 32: Community Benefit Center ↑TOP
There is a Western-style building called “Kyoeki Kaikan” at the corner of the street to the east. The building is from the Meiji or Taisho era (1868-1912) and looks a little modern, with a sushi restaurant and a western-style outlet store on the first floor, a large tatami room on the second floor, and a dance hall on the third floor. The dance hall has red and blue lights flashing through the windows every night and plays dance music on vinyl records.
"Lately they've been doing it every night,” I said. "The music is light and cheerful, but the lighting is a little weird."
"Yes, the lighting is very shabby. It's a nuisance to have the lights shining all night long."
I don't know who like to dance and come here. I have never seen them.
There is a U.S. military base in nearby Oizumi, and I once saw on the street some soldiers coming in a jeep. They come all the way to Akagi-tei in the 3rd Street in Ashikaga City. It has a restaurant on the second floor, where they have steaks and maybe even dance afterward.
One evening when I went to Akagi-tei to buy 100 grams of pork knuckle, as ordered by my mother, I met a soldier coming into the shop, saying good evening. He came from the base to eat beef steak at the restaurant upstairs. He was wearing a khaki-colored military uniform top and bottom and a khaki-colored square army cap.
The second floor of the Kyoeki Kaikan was a tatami room, perhaps for the owner's mutual benefit association or the shopping association to hold meetings. One day, all the elementary school sixth graders of the third street who are to graduate were summoned to a special meeting. It was not clear what the purpose of the meeting which gathered the graduates by the circular notice. But my mother insisted that I go anyway, so I had no choice but to attend.
Before the meeting began, when no one had arrived yet, I went up the stairs to see what the dance hall on the third floor looked like. There was a stage at the front. The rest was just a wooden dance floor filled up with nothing.
The graduates were not treated to a feast at this party. With a cup of tea, we pretended to listen to the adults continue the greetings. It was a pep rally, with the kind of “you'll be junior high school students now, so do your best."
However, I was surprised to be asked to give a speech at the end of the meeting. Such a sudden request made my heart pounding, as I am not very good at talking. But, I stood up at last and said, “Thank you very much for holding this meeting at this time of year when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom,” which sounded like a full-blown thank-you.
Later, however, I chided myself to think that "at this time of year" meant “today and recently,” and that only "today" would have been a better choice. I thought that I had used fancy words and ridiculous wording.
Episode 33: My Mother's Sisters ↑TOP
My mother was born as the eldest daughter and was named “Tsune”. She had three younger sisters. The second sister was named “Kimi” and married the owner of a confectionery store in Koizumi, near Ashikaga, as his second wife; the third sister was named “Hana-chan” and married a tofu maker in Koizumi, who also worked part-time at the confectionery store; and the fourth sister was “Koto-chan,” who once lived in our house in Ashikaga.
My mother often went to Koizumi-machi to see her younger sister. My younger brother and I, who were her favorites, would often accompany her. The train went up in the opposite direction from Sakai-machi, where both my father's and mother's relatives lived, to Tatebayashi in 20 minutes, and then we changed to the Tobu Koizumi Line, which took about 10 minutes. The route from the station was very similar to the train ride to Sakai-machi and then walking along the main street to my parents' houses. After walking for a while on the prefectural road from the station, we arrived at a confectionery store that looked very similar to the one in Sakai-machi. The shop had a mix of Japanese sweets and dried sweets on display.
If there had been a large living room on the first floor, it would have been in the way of the store. There was a tatami room in a corner, where the sisters' reunion begins over tea and other refreshments.
"Thank you for coming so far," said the younger sister.
"Have to change trains, it's a little bit nuisance,” said the older sister.
"Welcome, Seiya-kun and Takao-chan. Here's some money for you. Keep it."
We each got a 100-yen bill. Yay!
"I'm glad you're all doing well. Kimiko isn't sick, but she ate so many oranges that even her skin turned yellow. She has eaten almost all of the two kilograms we had bought."
Taka-chan and I immediately set out on an exploration of the long premises. We proceed with Hana-chan's children to the back yard, which leads to the street a block away from the main street. We saw there various machines and three or four craftsmen kneading bread dough on an unbelievably large platform. A large order comes in from the nearby Sanyo Electric factory. So, the confectionery was a sideline, and the bakery was the main business.
The quirky feature of the house was the Goemon bath. My mother told me that the bathtub looked like a drum on the earthen floor, filled with water and heated by a fire burning from below.
She told me, “They don't use it now. They have an ordinary bathroom,” my mother told me.
My mother's sister, my aunt, had raised two sisters after her marriage as a second wife. The children of the former wife, who apparently died of illness, were two boys. The oldest son was a student at the University of Tokyo, but he refused to go. He never visited the university. No one knew what he was thinking.
Since he was away fishing, there was no way we would meet him, but the thought of such a person living on the second floor frightened me. I was sometimes worried about what would happen if we met him. But we were much younger, and Hana-chan's children were even younger, so I didn't think nothing of it while we played together.
It was after rain that day and I had to take an umbrella with me home. As it wasn't raining, I felt a little foolish.
In front of the city hall adjacent to the elementary school, I was caught up by five or six girls from the second grade class downstairs. They didn't grab me by the belt of my pants, but they followed me at my heels.
This is not good, I thought.
"Where do you live?”
I decided to take a different route than I usually take on my way home, so I chose a route one street north of the usual one, toward Tomoe-cho, but I was extremely concerned about how all the citizens would view me on the road with a few girls in tow.
Although it was not raining, I tried to maintain myself by holding and squeezing my umbrella.
I desperately wondered how I could run away from them.
Eventually, we came to the textile cooperative building. My heart was pounding, but I was able to make some space between them, so I ran and tried to make more space. There was a billboard on the way, so I hid behind it and tried to get past the group, but failed and was caught again.
Eventually, they finally came to my house.
My mother, who was on duty at the store, was surprised to see the store full of little girls. I was exhausted, so I quickly went to the back of the store. As expected, no one had followed me that far.
I heard my mother asking the girls, “Where does this girl come from?" I heard my mother ask the girls.
Someone answered, “She is a child of Kinsuzu."
After my mother gave a dice-shaped paper box of 2 caramels to each one of the unexpected visitors, they finally left.
Episode 35: The Little Ones ↑TOP
The reason why the little kids in the 2nd grade, Class 1 downstairs and I in the 5th grade, Class 1 upstairs started interacting with each other was because I was assigned to check and supervise whether the cleaning preparations were complete or not.
When we took our lunch break, the younger second graders were done for the day. They were not yet strong enough to clean, and would carry their desks and chairs to the back of the classroom for the fifth graders to clean after school. My duty was to make sure they completed the preparation, and if OK, I would write “Well done!” in chalk on the blackboard and circle it. This was a special assignment assigned by my teacher.
One day, when I went down the stairs to do this check, some of the little ones remained in the classroom. Some of them were on the corridor side, but for some reason they greeted me without carrying their desks and chairs or leaving.
Seeing this situation, I wrote on the board, "No good!" in chalk.
The little boys and girls immediately began to fight back.
"No, you can't do that," one boy said.
"No, you can't write that,” said a girl.
I turned to everyone from the podium as if I were the teacher and told them, "Then move your desks quickly and go home."
One of the children was still insisting, "We're going to do it now, so you'll have to wait for us." I learned from his nameplate that his name was Shun-chan. Looking out the window, I saw a see-through pattern of the fence that faced to the butcher shop across the street, where I had gotten my nickname by waving my hand from the top of the wall, placing my order and receiving my lunch, all the while being watched by these kids.
I got a blackboard eraser, wiped, and rewrote, "Well done!"
"Yes, that's it," Shun-chan said. "You're more of Salad than Croquette."
There was another butcher shop on the street outside the main gate, where I used to buy potato salad and eat it on bread. He might have seen such a scene, too.
After that, I often sumo wrestled with this boy in the sandbox in the schoolyard. No matter how many times we took back and forth, I always won. Sand came into my athletic shoes, but I could just turn them upside down. This wrestling was fun.
It was in this classroom that I learned the name of the long-haired princess whom I had fallen in love with at first sight.
Episode 36 Guitar, Bookcase and Fox Fur Collar
Our house, which was a house cum shop, factory and residence, had a second floor only above the top shop. The mystery surrounding this upstairs room was that there was a guitar on the wall, a small bookcase and a fox fur collar in the wardrobe.
Finally, the fox fur collar in the wardrobe was a particularly hard-to-find treasured item, which I found in a drawer when exploring the wardrobe.
These apparently belonged to the parents, for they were all difficult for children to buy.
One day after dinner, my father fetched his guitar upstairs, leaned against the wardrobe and started playing.
"Strolling along the mountain paths in Izu, under the dim pale moon, the guitarist, like a bird on the journey again tonight, wanders to seek for his first love behind the smoky steam in the light..."
The guitar accompaniment on top of the beautiful voice must have been a surprise to everyone. I clapped my hands, thinking, "Who the hell is this father?"
"I bought this guitar to teach myself in my boarding house room when I was a confectionery school student."
My father spoke somberly, as if remembering the old days. He was a student at a confectionery school in Kanda, Tokyo, and there was a Iwanami Bunko copy of Naoya Shiga's The Boy God in the bookcase, which he had probably bought at a second-hand bookshop in the neighbourhood.
As for the fox fur collar in the wardrobe, I thought it must have been something my father had bought for my mother.
"I found something like this in the wardrobe drawer, what is it?"
"Oh, I'm surprised you found it. It's a collar made from fox fur," my mother replied.
"Hmmm, you wear this animal around your neck?"
"It's furry, so it's warm."
There was also a button with a hook to snap it on.
There was a feeling in me that all the adult things were a bit different. Many of them were difficult for children to understand.
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Episode 37 Half-baked Story
I
had no idea why or how Ryoko-chan came to our house that day. However,
that first-year primary school classmate had somehow made her way to
ours. Moreover, my mother had arranged for me to go to her house to play
with her. Her house in Ietomi-cho was a bit far, so the two of us set
off anyway, with Ryoko-chan on the back of my bike. It was a small one
for children, and only recently were the auxiliary wheels removed.
I
was worried about whether I would be able to take her on the bike. But
we made a good start and went on very smoothly at first.
"We are going towards Ietomi-cho, aren't we?"
"Yes."
We
reached the corner of Kikaku Sushi Restaurant, turned left there, and
came to the front of Uomasa Eel Shop, which soon led to the main street,
where the handlebar suddenly began to wobble, and the bicycle,
including the riders, overturned.
The two schoolchildren were thrown onto the street pavement, with their kneecaps scraped and bleeding.
Hearing the noise, a lady came out of the nearby gated house.
"Oh, my God, it's a disaster. Wait a minute."
The woman fetched a bottle of Germa mercurochrome. Two scraped knees turned bright red together.
"Get off the bike and push and pull it along," said the lady.
We both lowered our heads as thanks and then followed her advice.
By the time we got to Ryoko-chan's house, the red solution had dried up.
How can I play with a girl?
To tell the truth, there was something I didn't like about it from the very beginning.
Ryoko-chan suddenly started playing Princess without explaining anything.
"I am a princess, and it starts now."
I didn't know what to do, so I wandered around. There was a little girl besides Ryoko-chan. Is she her younger sister?
For
some reason, Ryoko-chan disappeared behind a pile of futons in the
wardrobe. There, she was saying something incomprehensible.
"I'm going home now," I declared.
I cycled home. That's all that the first grader has to say. That's it.
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Episode 38: Chinese Character Exercise Notebook
Unlike
kindergartners, first-graders have a wide range of essentials. Among
these are pencils, a pencil box, erasers, notebooks and textbooks,
without which they would be unable to study. Japanese primary school
pupils carry a ransel (originally a Dutch word meaning school bag)
filled with all these items to go to school. The leather school bag
itself is heavy, and when all the other items are gathered together, it
is quite heavy, making it hard on the new infantryman.
Of
course, studying is also hard. In addition to hiragana, they also have
to learn kanji characters from China. The notebooks for Japanese are
called dictation notebooks, and each page has a square grid like a
Japanese manuscript paper.
"Practise so that you can fill in the squares properly."
My teacher, Kumiko Tsukui, wrote this in the school report before the summer holiday and warned my mother.
It
is very difficult to write hiragana and kanji so that they fit into the
squares. Hiragana is not so difficult, but kanji are purely pictograms,
so no matter which character you write, it will always stick out. I am
not good at drawing. I am awkward.
The
top of the middle line of ‘mountain’(山) protrudes one square above the
top, and the foot of the mountain is much wider than it should be. The
adults don't seem to understand why it sticks out, but I do. Bigger is
always better. I can't write small.
As I sat down at the exercise book spread out on the table, my mother said.
"Make sure your writing doesn't go beyond the squares. It must be neat."
"Why?"
"Because if it's too big, it's hard to read and it looks messy."
I
knew that my handwriting was indeed messy, but I still really didn't
understand what ‘neat’ meant and what it meant to be neat.
Tsukui-sensei
created a band in her class. I had no musical talent at all, so I
joined one of the five or so who were in charge of castanets. I couldn't
play the flute or drums, but I really wanted to play something cool,
like a triangle that would make a chiming sound, rather than something
jokey like castanets. When I look at the souvenir photo, my shoulders
are hunched and stiff. I lacked something to do it properly.
In
a snapshot of myself in Omama, where I went to play with my classmates
in the sixth grade, I had a crooked mouth. I was not very good at being
taken proper photographs, either.
Episode 39 In Place of My Father, My Brother....
My elder brother one day started going to the mirror stand and taking time to keep up appearances in front of it every morning. This mirror was set for my mother's exclusive use, but she did not use it very much. The room was small and cramped with younger brothers at the breakfast table, and there my brother would fix his hair with pomade and comb it further.
He was 18 years old, just graduated from high school, and a newbie bank employee. He was probably instructed by his boss at work to put on his pomade every morning for his appearance.
While many of his classmates in high school were studying with their eyes on the college entrance exam, he chose to get a job. There would have been discussions with his parents, of course, though I did not know the details. Denied the opportunity to go on to college and required to get a job, including our family business, he was offered a job at a local branch of a certain bank in the city as a result of the career guidance he received at high school. He was 10 years older than I.
In the place of my father, a stay-at-home dad, the banker brother seemed to make a specal effort to take his youngest siblings from place to place. He seemed to believe that it was his mission. We enjoyed hiking in Mt. Gyodo, a low mountain in Ashikaga, camping at Senjogahara in Nikko, visiting Hirai in Chiba, and watching a professional baseball game at Korakuen Stadium. The expenses were paid out of his salary.
"Unfortunately we have a bad weather,” so saying, the lady at the inn served tea.
"Too bad,” my brother replied. "But we made it this far, thank goodness."
"Welcome all the way from far,” the woman said as she put the tea cup down in front of me. "What grade are you in elementary school?"
"I'm in the fourth grade. My brother is in the third grade,” I managed to answer.
"It's fun to spend summer vacation with your brother, isn't it?"
It was raining heavily outside, so we passed the time by playing table-tennis in the room by the entrance.
Dinner was a feast. Located by the sea, they served delicious fish.
We took a bath and got into the futon that was laid out for us. In the dark, we can hear the windows rattling and the wind whistling outside. It was the first typhoon I had ever experienced by the sea. Worried about whether, I had a hard time falling asleep, but eventually I did.
In the end, our swiminng pants didn't come into use, and we were thankful for nothing but our umbrellas for the rest of the day.
Episode 40 The Terrifying Overturn of the Table
An incident of turning over the chabudai had happened only once before I graduated from elementary school. At that time my parents, my brother, and me were at the chabudai.
As far as I remeber no natto or raw egg was served then. So I think it probably occured on a summer morning,
”We're facing few dishes,” I said.
My brother replied, “Shall I make rice with hot water?"
I said, “it's surely good, but with soy sauce rice would be good, too. And we don't have any eggs."
The two of us were still young and joking around with each other. Each prepared his favorite menu, making a lot of silly remarks, when a horrible disaster came over to us all.
"You don't have to eat."
My father, in a moment, turned everything upside down from a small bottle of soy sauce, plates, bowls, to chopsticks. They flew away from where they should be. The light chabudai now showed its legs ungracefully.
Both brothers were taken aback. They had not yet put a single grain of rice into their mouths.
"There was no need to be so angry,” the mother said pitifully as she gathered up the dishes.
The elementary school students went to school without breakfast and remained hungry until school lunch, thinking over what needs to be regretted.
A cracker ball may be a kind of firework. When thrown on the ground or asphalt, they explode with a loud sound. They look like small balls of paper glued together. We do not know what is inside. It must be an exploding firework.
But it wasn't cracker balls that I bought up. It was a lot of sheets of ammunition for my plastic model pistol, which were shown on the wooden panels and were sold together with other junks at the hut-like store at the end of that road. I spent all the money I had received as a New Year's gift to buy a large quantity, and secretly hid them in a drawer in the upstairs wardrobe. I was dying to have them, and the shopkeeper was happy to see them sold.
But I had to figure out how to use my stash in a small way. It wasn't as easy as it seemed. If I used a lot at once, someone would say, "Hey, you, why do you have so many bullets?"
Yama-kun, my older brother, seemed to have noticed this on a hunch. He teased me by saying that I had hidden a lot of cracker balls. He seemed to have immediately reported it to his mother, who came all the way up to the second floor to scold me.
She said, "That's not the kind of thing you buy with all your New Year's money."
"Didn't the shopkeeper say anything?"
“Even if you hid it, we would know right away.”
"You knew it was wrong, so you hid it, didn't you?"
As I looked out the window, my mother questioned me with tears in her eyes. I had nothing to say in reply. But deep down inside, I wondered if it's such a bad thing? It's my own money... "
At first, my mother insisted that I ask the store to return the money, but eventually she agreed that I didn't have to return it and that I should think about it more carefully from now on.
An uncomfortable moment passed. Actually, I didn't feel much remorse. I guess I bought the wrong thing.
