Time is like an eternal traveler, and the passing years are also travelers. Those who spend their lives on a boat or guide a horse into old age live each day as a journey and make the journey their home. Many ancient people have also died while traveling.
I too, from some year onward, have been like a drifting cloud, always longing to travel, and have wandered along the seashore. Last autumn, I swept away spider webs in a broken house by the river and saw the year come to an end. As spring arrived with its misty skies, I felt the urge to cross the Shirakawa barrier, and my heart grew restless. Invited by the gods of the road, I couldn’t focus on anything.
I mended the tear in my trousers and replaced the strap of my hat. Rather than thinking of the usual remedy of three-league moxa, my thoughts turned to the moon over Matsushima. I gave my house to someone else and moved to Sanpu's cottage.
"Even a humble grass hut becomes a doll's house when new people live in it."
With these thoughts, I placed the front eight verses on the pillar of the hermitage.
It seems that this year, as we approach the end of the year, there are many old movies, TV dramas, and special programs focused on “Chushingura (Ako Incident)." The “raid" by the Ako warriors took place on December 14, 15th year of the Genroku Era. In the Gregorian calendar, this corresponds to January 30, 1703. Snow must have fallen on the day of the raid.
As I spend the end of the year colored by Chushingura, I have turned another year older this year.
By the way, have you ever heard of the term “Angel's Ladder"? Recently, on my way home from work, I have often seen this “Angel's Ladder", although it is small in scale.
“Angel's Ladder" refers to a hole in the clouds that often appears on cloudy winter evenings. It is called as such because the pale evening sunlight showering down to the ground from the hole looks like as if angels were coming down to the earth. It is clearly a word that is originated in Christian countries and is a very romantic expression, but regrettably it has not become a seasonal word in haiku, which is because we can see the “Angel’s Ladder” in every season.
A few years ago, a senior translator asked me to join a “Renku” (linked verse) circle, so my wife and I bought saijiki (almanacs) and other books and studied haiku.
Renku (linked verse) is a very elegant pastime in which we string together verses in the following order: 5-7-5 ⇒ 7-7 ⇒ 5-7-5 ⇒ 7-7...
It lasted for over one and half years, but then we gave up on the halfway. “Angel's Ladder" reminded me of the time when we were making efforts to work out a haiku.
また、同じニュースの中で“word of the year for 2024”(今年の単語)が取り上げられていた。今年の単語は、“Polarization”(二極化)だったそうだ。「二極化」とは、物事や人が全く異なる意見を持つ2つの陣営に分かれる現象を意味する。世界におけるアメリカと中国の対立や、アメリカにおける民主党と共和党の対立などが反映されているらしい。
(拙・和文英訳)
According to the news last week, it was announced at Kiyomizu-dera Temple in Kyoto that “gold" (kin) was chosen as the kanji for 2024. This is the 5th time since 2021 that “gold" was chosen. It seems to reflect the gold medals won by Japanese athletes at the Paris Olympics, the registration of “Sado Gold Mine" as a World Cultural Heritage, and the backdoor money secretly created by Japanese politicians.
Incidentally, the kanji for last year, 2023, was "tax" (zei). Before that, it was as shown in the table below.
The same news also featured the “word of the year for 2024." The word of the year for 2024 was “polarization." “Polarization" indicates the phenomenon in which things or people are divided into two sides that have completely different opinions. It seems to reflect the conflict between the United States and China in the world, and the conflict between the Democratic Party and Republican Party in the United States.
The other day, the news featured "Kakisudare" (persimmon blinds). “Kakisudare” means a scene of persimmons being hung like blinds on the eves of rural houses to make dried persimmons. Previously, this scene was often seen in late autumn, but due to the global warming, it seems to have been postponed by about two weeks recently.
Bitter (Astringent) persimmons are used for making dried persimmons, but they originally have a higher sugar content than sweet persimmons. When they are dried, the astringent tannin called shibuol changes from water-soluble to insoluble (a de-astringent reaction), making the astringent taste disappear. It is said that the sugar content of dried persimmons after the moisture has been removed is about four times that of sweet persimmons.
The white powder on the surface of dried persimmons is crystallized sugars such as glucose, fructose, and sucrose, and is called shiso (persimmon frost), and is considered a herbal medicine in China. A Chinese proverb says that as persimmons have high medicinal properties, “when persimmons turn red, doctors turn blue.”
Persimmons have a long history. In the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, the word "kaki" (persimmon) is used as a place name and person’s name. For example, it is said that the Man'yoshu famous poet Kakinomoto no Hitomaro called himself "Kakinomoto" because he had a persimmon tree in his house.
Furthermore, the Engishiki, compiled in the middle Heian period, ripened persimmons and dried persimmons were used as offerings in ceremonies and festivals, and as sweets for the emperor. It is presumed that persimmons would have been cultivated at the imperial court since ancient times.
AMABIE is a reportedly auspicious yokai (legendary creature) that first appeared in the archives of the former Higo Province in 1846. The article described in the archives is as follows. A government official was investigating a mysterious green light in the water. When he arrived at the spot of the light, a glowing-green creature with fishy scales, long hair, three fin-like legs and a beak emerged from the sea. The mysterious mermaid-like (or merman-like) creature introduced itself as AMABIE, and made two predictions: a rich harvest would bless the province for the next six years, and a pandemic would devastate the whole country. Further, AMABIE instructed the government official, in order to stave off the spread of the pandemic, to make someone draw an image of AMABIE and to show the image to as many people as possible.