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The lights of Tokyo

千曲市と戸倉上山田温泉の観光協会は年に１回、宣伝の為に東京で懇談会を開きます。今年は私も行けました。温泉のPRが主の目的でしたけど、個人的にもう１つな理由があります田：年に一回ぐらい長野を出て東京に行かないと、完全の田舎者になる恐れがある。最近はかなりやばいと自分でも思っています。だって、軽トラも買ってしまいました。
長野に引越ししてくる前まで、１１年間シアトルで妻と住んでいました。その間、毎年の結婚記念日で二人でフェリーに乗って島へ泊まりに行った。ある日、陶芸屋さんでお土産の買い物した時、｢どこから来たか？｣と聞かれて、｢シアトルだ｣と答えました。「あっ、私は昨日シアトルの市場で買い物してきた｣と言われました。自分達がシアトルに住んでいたのに、そんなにお洒落な所でほとんど買い物しなかった。その島ほどな田舎に住んでも都会とのつながりもちゃんとできるんだと分かりました。
そして、長野に住む事になったら、新幹線で１時間ちょっと乗ったら東京にいつで行けると。でも、なんとなく、信州の自然にうっとりして、休みの日は東京へ行きたいのではなく、逆に信州の自然へもっと深くに行っちゃう。戸隠とか志賀高原などへ。
でも、その島の陶芸屋さんと同じように、田舎のスローライフの良さを楽しみながら都会の刺激も定期的に受けなきゃ。
今回の観光商談会と言うきかけで行って来られた。そうすると、一番のショックは二階縦(？)の高速道路とマンションの数。亀清の薪ストーブの温もりが恋しくなった。
Our town's Travel Bureau made their annual PR 'Caravan' trip to Tokyo yesterday. This year I got to go along. Of course, the main purpose was to promote our town. But I had an ulterior motive: I wanted to see and feel Tokyo again. I am in serious danger of becoming a country bumpkin with my life here in Nagano. My goodness, I even bought a pick-up truck!
When my wife and I were living in Seattle, every year for our wedding anniversary we would take a ferry and go out to an island for a weekend. One time, when we were shopping for souvenirs at a pottery shop, the owner asked us where we were from. When we said Seattle, he said he had just been there yesterday shopping at the Public Market. Even though we lived in Seattle, we only rarely shopped at the Market -- we mostly just went to plain old grocery stores. That pottery guy taught us that even though you live in the boonies, you can still maintain a rewarding connection with the city.
So when we made the move to Nagano, I knew that I could hop on the Shinkansen bullet train for a one hour ride and be in Tokyo any time I wanted. However, I think Nagano's nature must have enchanted me somehow, because whenever we would go on a trip, we seem to gravitate away from Tokyo's concrete jungle and instead go further into Nagano's wilderness, like Togakushi or Shiga Highlands.
But in keeping with the potter's lesson, I took advantage of this PR trip and got my needed dose of Tokyo. And the images that struck me the most were the double-elevated freeways and the number of apartment buildings. It made me long for the warmth of the wood burning stove back at Kamesei!

The Parlor in the Back of the Caravan Bus

旅館の仕事をやれば、色々な方との出会いが出来ます。お客様一人ひとりとゆっくり話して知り合う事は無理ですけれども、時々その機会が出てきます。先日に泊まった方とよく話せました。姨捨夜景・伝説ツアーもご一緒に行かれました。亀清に戻ったら、｢一つな歌を聞かせたい｣と言われました。そしてロビーでおききしました：｢海行かば｣と言う軍歌でした。戦争のころ、欧米人が鬼だったと教えられたと。天皇が神様で政府がオールマイティーとのはどれだけ恐ろしいかと。そのころの日本の国と国民が今の北朝鮮の様でしょうとか。色々な深い話できました。そしてその軍歌を聴いたら、戦争の時代の雰囲気が物凄く感じました。
海行かばの歌詞を調べましたので下記の通りです。
As an innkeeper, we get to meet hundreds and hundreds of guests. It's not possible to get to know each and every one on an individual basis, but from time to time we make a connection. I made a particularly strong connection with one older gentleman the other day. We had gone on the Obasute Night View tour together and when we got back to Kamesei, he said had a song he wanted me to hear. So we listened to it together in our lobby: "Umi Yukaba" or, roughly translated, "Going Out to Sea". He explained the lyrics came from the Manyoshu, the most ancient collection of poems in Japan, dating back to AD 749. The song represents the military marching off to battle and to their deaths. We got to talking about so many things, how he was taught to think of Westerners as 'oni' (ogres) and how the people believed the emperor to be god and the government to be 'all-mighty' and how dangerous and illogical, unpredictable that could be, probably similar to what's going on in places like North Korea now.
I looked up the lyrics, and came up with the following:

海行かば
水漬く屍
山行かば
草生屍
大君の辺
にこそ死なめ
顧みはせじ

umi yukaba
mizuku kabane
yama yukaba
kusa musu kabane
okimi no hen
ni koso shiname
kaerimi wa seji

If I go away to sea,
I shall return a corpse awash;
If duty calls me to the mountain,
A verdant sward shall be my pall.
Thus for the sake of the Emperor,
I will not die peacefully at home.

More on "Umi Yukaba" at this link