A road to the remote －人里離れた場所への道－

“The remotest place on Earth can sometimes be the most attractive place on Earth, especially in times when our belief in humanity is lost.”

Turkish writer, Mehmet Murat Ildan

I saw an article recently about a village in the Netherlands which is suffering from too much tourism.  It is a quaint, picturesque village with old-fashioned windmills and dykes.  But according to local residents, it is being overrun by bus-loads of foreign tourists.  They tramp through the locals’ gardens, take photographs of the locals as they work, drop litter and then leave.  They rarely even spend any money.

For a village that would rather be left alone, what options are there?  How about this?  The villagers get together and pray to God to save them from the unwanted contact from the outside world.  God will then cover the village in mist and make it disappear.  It will be unreachable from the outside, except for one day in every 100 years.  You see, God thinks of everything.  In his plan, there will be very occasional chances to bring in some fresh air and have the rubbish collected by the bin-men.

Villages or islands which vanish and reappear are quite common in folk tales.  But perhaps the most famous vanishing village was invented for a 1940s musical – Brigadoon.  In that story, the villagers of Brigadoon in the Scottish Highlands are worried that the outside world is encroaching too much into their home and changing their traditional way of life.  So the only way they can save their culture is to make their village vanish.  In the story, an American tourist finds the village and falls in love with the bagpipes, whiskey, Highland dancing, and a local girl, and so decides to stay.

But is the idea of cutting yourself off from the rest of the world to preserve your culture realistic?  I would say that it probably isn’t.  A few hundred people is too small a number to retain a high level of culture.  People would also very quickly have to start marrying their cousins and close relatives, due to the lack of other options.  But perhaps there is a balance to be found between being too remote, and being too easily accessed.  If there was no motorway to the picturesque Dutch village then buses of lazy tourists wouldn’t go there to take a few pictures before being driven on to a buffet lunch down the road.  If you had to catch a train, or drive a rented car up narrow roads, then more committed tourists would arrive, and probably stay for lunch.  Perhaps its important not just to think of what roads must be built to make access easier, but what roads shouldn’t be built, in order to keep access sufficiently difficult.

Vocabulary:

quaint – attractively unusual or old-fashioned

picturesque – of a place or building, beautiful to look at, especially in an old-fashioned or unusual way

a dyke – a long wall built to prevent flooding from the sea

to be overrun – to be occupied and dominated by large numbers

to tramp – to walk heavily or noisily

litter – rubbish or unwanted items left on the ground

bin-men – men whose job is to collect and remove household rubbish from bins or plastic bags

to vanish – to disappear suddenly and completely

to encroach – to enter where you have no right to; to intrude on someone’s territory, personal life etc.

A soldier of the Queen’s guide to drink, sun, marriage and death ー女王陛下の軍人から、酒、日差し、結婚と死についてのアドバイスー

Britain seems to be in a permanent political crisis.  Many supporters of Brexit appear to think we can turn the clock back to a glorious British past, when British soldiers defended the largest empire in history.

So I thought I would take a look back and see whether life really was as glorious for the British in the old days as they suggest.  Rudyard Kipling interviewed British soldiers in India in the 1880s.  He collected some of the advice he heard from them and turned it into a song, or poem, called “The Young British Soldier”.  Some of the advice was to avoid strong drink, always wear your sun-hat in India, to marry an older sensible woman instead of a young pretty one who would cheat on you, and to shoot yourself if you were left wounded in Afghanistan.  Does it still sound glorious?

I have edited Kipling’s song by making it shorter and changing some lyrics to remove difficult words and slang.

An edited version of “The Young British Soldier,” by Rudyard Kipling (1890):

When the half-made recruit goes out to the East,
He acts like a babe and he drinks like a beast,
And he wonders because he is often deceased,
Before he’s fit to serve as a soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.

First mind you stay clear of the drink sellers’ huts,
For they sell you sharp knives that rot out your guts,
Drink that would eat through the steel of your gun butts,
And it’s bad for the young British soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.

But the worst of your foes is the sun overhead,
You must wear your helmet for all that is said:
If he finds you uncovered he’ll knock you down dead,
And you’ll die like a fool of a soldier.
A soldier of the Queen.

Now, if you must marry, take care she is old:
A troop-sergeant’s widow’s the nicest I’m told,
For beauty won’t help if your meals are served cold,
And love’s not enough for a soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.

If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, don’t dare,
To shoot when you catch them, you’ll hang – that I swear,
Make him take her and keep her, that’s hell for the pair,
And you’re done with the curse of a soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.

When first under fire and you’re wishful to duck,
Don’t look or pay mind to the man that is struck,
Be thankful you’re living, and trust to your luck,
And march to your front like a soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier,
A soldier of the Queen.


Vocabulary:

a crisis – a time of great difficulty or danger

to turn the clock back – to go back to an earlier time, an earlier way of doing things etc.

sensible – not foolish; practical and realistic

half-made – unfinished; not fully trained

deceased - dead

fit to serve – sufficiently good or able to serve

to mind something – to remember or be careful to do something

to rot something – to make something living become bad, diseased, damaged etc.

a gun-butt – the hard wooden base of an old-fashioned gun

a foe – an enemy

a widow – a woman whose husband has died

a comrade – of a soldier, another soldier fighting on the same side

to dare – to make a bold or risky decision to do something

to be under fire – to be in a state where others are shooting at you

to duck – to lower your head to avoid being hit by something; to try to avoid being hit, shot etc.

I want convenience, just not this much －コンビニエンスがほしい。でもこんなにはいらない。－

“Too much love will kill you,

Just as sure as none at all.”

From the Queen song, “Too much love will kill you”.

For around five years now I have been teaching English to a student who is a little unusual.  She doesn’t own a computer.  She doesn’t own a mobile phone.  If I want her to read a lesson plan before the lesson, I have to print it out and give it to her a week in advance, rather than just sending an email.  If something suddenly comes up and I would like to re-arrange a lesson, I have to call her landline and leave a message on her answering machine.  In the heart of Tokyo, surrounded by vending machines and fast food restaurants and all-night stores, it feels a little strange to be dealing with someone who can’t be quickly reached.

On the other hand, I can see the temptation to turn one’s back on some modern conveniences.  A different student of mine said to me the other day that convenience stores were springing up around her apartment like mushrooms.  She lives a ten minute walk away from her local train station.  There are already four convenience stores on the road between her apartment and the station.  Last week she saw a notice on the wall of a construction site on the road.  It said that the site would soon be occupied by a new convenience store.  Does anyone need to pass five convenience stores in a ten minute walk?  What inconvenient thing could happen to you in the two minutes since you saw the last one?

Convenience is generally good.  But still, you can have too much of a good thing.  If you don’t believe me, think of the Queen song, “Too much love will kill you”.  Love is great, but have too much of it and it will lower your life-expectancy!  Convenience is great but have too much of it and it will lower your IQ and self-reliance.

I remember going on a night out in Osaka with my flatmate when we lived together in a small town, between Kobe and Osaka.  When we missed our last train home, we decided to walk back in the dark alongside the train tracks.  From memory, it took us about five or six hours to walk home.  But we were supremely confident that nothing bad could happen to us because we were bound to pass dozens of all-night convenience stores along the way.  And so we did, stopping for a drink, or to use the bathroom, or to eat some weird cheese snacks, or to ask for directions, many times before we made it home.  If it weren’t for those convenience stores we might have learned some discipline, and planned our night out a little more carefully.  And we might have gotten home and stopped drinking much earlier.  Too many weird cheese snacks and too much convenience can kill you.

Vocabulary:

in advance – before some planned event

to reach someone – to successfully contact someone

a temptation – a desire to do something, especially if it is wrong or unwise

to turn one’s back on something – to give up on something and avoid it

to spring up – to appear or grow suddenly, like a fast-growing plant

self-reliance – the ability to do things for oneself

one’s flatmate – someone who shares an apartment with one

from memory – As far as I can remember

bound to – almost certain to

Noticing the moss all around －辺り一面の苔に気づくこと－

“In the end, you won’t remember the time you spent in the office or mowing your lawn.  Climb that goddam mountain!”

Jack Kerouac

“Travel and society polish [a person], but a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a little moss is good on a man.”
John Burroughs

I never could have believed that the loss of a doughnut shop and a coffee shop could leave me so disturbed.

I went to a branch of Doutor – a well known chain of coffee shops in Japan – and tried to settle down for my regular Friday morning coffee.  Then one of the staff members said, “Thanks for your regular custom.  By the way, this is the last month we will be open.  This branch will close in November.”

“Oh,” I said.  “That’s too bad.  I’ll have to find another coffee shop.”

This happened just a few days after I learned that the local branch of Mister Donut would close.  I used to go there once every two months or so, when I needed a little sweet treat and free coffee refills to pick me up.

I have become as predictable in my habits as an old man.  I remember my grandfather eating regularly in the same cafe, ordering the same bacon roll, and drinking the same brand of gin.  “Ah, that’s old age,” I thought.  Now I too drink coffee in the same place, cook the same meals for dinner, and drink the same brand of sho-chu.  Well, my grandfather lived into his nineties and remained mentally sharp until the end, so maybe having regular habits is not a bad thing.  But it is very different from the ideal life I imagined when I was younger.

I never used to stay in the same place for very long.  I lived in Glasgow, then Edinburgh, then Osaka, then Kobe, then Kyoto, then Shanghai, then Saitama... and so on.  My idea was that a new environment would always refresh the mind and soul.  I dreamed of one day taking the Trans-Siberian Railroad from the edge of the Pacific Ocean to Europe.  I wanted to hike the pilgrim’s route of 88 temples in Shikoku.  I wanted to see the Golden Horn of Istanbul.  Instead, I somehow found myself drinking coffee in the same coffee shop every Friday and trying to refresh my soul with an occasional doughnut.  Let me tell you that this does not stir the soul quite as much as taking a night train from Shanghai to Wuhan, and eating spiced duck necks with some random local passengers you meet along the way.

I felt a little disturbed by the closure of two chain restaurants in my area not because I loved their products so much, but because it made me realise how predictable my habits have become.  It made me aware of the slowing down of my life, and the bit by bit replacement of adventure with mundane regularity.  Perhaps I ought not to worry so much about repeating the same actions over and over again.  Whether it is drunk in Istanbul, or Shanghai, or Vladivostok, or Tokyo, a coffee is still enjoyable to drink.  And who doesn’t like doughnuts or sho-chu?  Man began life as a nomadic hunter-gatherer, and eventually learned to settle down in the same place and grow his own food.  Settleing down in the same place is more successful and satisfying in the long term.  Isn’t it?

Vocabulary:

to mow one’s lawn – to cut the grass in one’s garden

to polish something – to make something smooth and shiny by wiping it clean; to improve something

disturbed – not right or out of place

to settle down – to rest or stop in one place with the intention of staying there for a long time

a pilgrim – someone making a journey for religious or spiritual reasons

to stir something – to move or inspire something

mundane – commonplace and uninteresting

nomadic – of a person or people, living life without a permanent home and often moving around

The paralysing effects of Gaijinphobia －ガイジン恐怖症による麻痺の効果－

A phobia is an irrational fear.  They come in many different types, and they all cause problems.  For example, acrophobia is a fear of heights.  Someone who suffers from it may not be able to climb a tower or walk across a narrow bridge.  Claustrophobia is an irrational fear of small spaces.  Someone who suffers from it may not be able to enter a lift.  I would like to propose a new type of phobia: gaijinphobia.

“Gaijin” is the Japanese word for foreigner.  So gaijinphobia means a fear of foreigners.  There is already a similar word – xenophobia.  But xenophobia is usually used to mean dislike of or prejudice towards people from another country, like racism is a dislike of or prejudice against people of a different race.  I imagine gaijinphobia to be a little different, and less nasty.  It should mean a fear of talking to foreigners, especially for someone brought up in an island nation like Japan, which is a little cut off from the rest of the world.

I’ll give you an example.  Before I became blind I often used to go into coffee shops in Japan to relax and read a newspaper.  I would go up to the counter to order.  As I approached the counter I would sometimes see a look of panic in the staff member who was getting ready to take my order.  I could almost see them thinking, “Oh no – a gaijin!  Please don’t speak to me in English!  Please don’t cause me any embarrassment!”

It should not be hard to order a drink in a coffee shop.  Most of the vocabulary needed is basically the same in English as in Japanese – hot coffee/ hotto kohii and iced tea/ aisu tii, for example.  But when I tried to order the staff member would often be so nervous that they couldn’t understand whether I was saying hot or iced, or coffee or tea.  Their gaijinphobia was paralysing them with fear.  I don’t think it is a reason to get angry.  I find it kind of funny.

So I had to laugh when I read about an even more serious instance of gaijinphobia this week.  A staff member at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden was caught letting foreigners in for free.  Everyone was supposed to pay 200 yen to enter.  An investigation revealed that he had been doing this for years.  He had let thousands of foreigners into the garden for free, resulting in lost revenue of 25 million yen, or nearly 200,000 pounds.

When he was asked to explain his actions, he said that he had once been shouted at by a foreigner.  He had developed a deep fear of talking to foreigners, and so got around the problem by just waving them all into the gardens for free.

So you see that gaijinphobia is a less nasty word than xenophobia or racism.  It sometimes works out quite well for the gaijin.

Vocabulary:

irrational – not logical or reasonable

to propose something – to suggest something

prejudice – unfair opinion, not based on evidence; having a pre-conceived idea about something

nasty – very unpleasant or bad