And I would walk 500 more,
Just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles,
To fall down at your door.”
From the Proclaimers song, “I’m gonna be (500 miles)”
Lord I’m five hundred miles away from home...
Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name,
Lord I can’t go home this way.”
Traditional song
Family is important, and it can be hard to
be separated.
My family will come to Japan in a couple of
weeks. Given the distance and cost of
flights, it’s rare that we get to meet each other. It’s the worst thing about living in
Japan. Well, it’s at least the second
worst thing after having to share a country with AKB48.
But a recent story I found on the BBC puts
our difficulty into perspective.
According to the article, a Chinese migrant
worker who was living in Shandong Province wished to return to his hometown
to see his family for Chinese New Year. But his family live in Heilongjiang Province,
over 1,700 km away. And the migrant
worker couldn’t afford a train ticket.
So he went by bike. He set off in December, weeks before
Chinese New Year. But he was uneducated
and couldn’t read maps. So he got a bit
lost. 30 days into his journey, he was
stopped in Anhui Province when he tried to cycle on a highway, and realised
that he had been going for hundreds of miles in the wrong direction. He was 500 km off course.
Touched by his story, the police and
workers at the highway tollbooth contributed a little money each, and
bought the man a train ticket home.
All’s well that ends well. I only hope they gave him
very clear directions to the train station.
Vocabulary:
to put something into perspective - to see
the true size or extent of something by comparing it with something else
a migrant worker – someone who moves long
distances to find or do work
to set off – to begin a journey
to be off course – when following a route,
or planned trip, to have gone to the wrong place
a tollbooth – a small room or window for
collecting money, especially to use a road or cross a bridge
“All’s well that ends well” – A proverb
taken from a Shakespeare play, meaning that something is good if it ends well,
even if there are difficulties along the way
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