Hyakunin-Isshu 百人一首
Feb. 17, 2001
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This winter something that had been missing from my
life for over 25 years made a comeback. That is a Japanese traditional
card game, "Hyakunin Isshu."
Let me try to explain what it is like.
"HyakuninnIsshu" literally means "one hundred people,
one poem". The game consists of one hundred
short poems which were made ( written ) during
the time from 500 A.D. to 1000 A.D. Each poem is made up
with ( using the
pattern of ) 5-7-5-7-7 syllables and
(; ) the first 5-7 syllables are called "the upper part" and the rest
"the lower part".
For example,
I translated one poem into English ( as an example). It says,
"Although I have tried to hide ( it ), my love must have been coming out ( be showing )
as people ask me if there is something on my mind." In this poem,
the upper part is "Although I have tried to hide ( it ), my love must
have been showing", and the lower part is "as people ask me if there
is something on my mind."
Actually this poem is so famous that if we say ( the phrase ),
"Although she is trying to hide", everyone understands that she is
in love with someone. To play the game we need a set of cards. It has ( There are ) two kinds of cards
( in the set; ) on one kind the whole poem is written with a picture
of the poet, and on the other only the lower part is written. We
spread ( out ) the latter cards, and while a reader reads the other
cards on which the whole part of a
( the ) poem is written, players try to recognize and take the (
right ) card as soon as possible. So if we know
the poems ( if we are familiar with the poems ), we have
an advantage having
(because we have ) time to look for the right card while the reader is
still reading the upper part. If we don't, we have to wait until the reader
gets to the lower part of the poem. As the poems are written in old style
Japanese and we need to remember as many poems as possible to win, I guess
this is one of the most sophisticated games in the world.
As I said, the winter I played this game for the
first time in about
( over ) 25 years.
I was in ( the ) Hyakunnin Isshu" club in my first
year of high school. It was not an extra-curricular club which
joined voluntarily, but a compulsory club we had to attend once
a week. I don't remember now why on the
earth I chose this club to join. But I remembered at least half of the
poems in those days. I was disappointed that after a quarter of ( a
) century I remembered only a few.
It was my daughter, Mika, who brought this game back
to (
into ) my life. She is in the first year of junior high and in
her Japanese class
( classes ) they learned the poems and had a competition.
Unlike the days when I was in high school, today
we have a CD in
( on )which all the poems are recorded and we can play them at ( in ) random order if the CD player
has ( a ) random playing function. So ( Therefore
) nobody has to be the reader. That makes me feel things have changed
a lot since then. Also I am glad my daughter has grown up to ( and
can ) play this sophisticated game with me. But I am afraid she does
not appreciate the beauty of the poems yet.
Now that I am more mature than 25 years ago, ( I
hope! ), I feel like I understand the beauty of the poems better.
Also I am amazed that the poems have survived for over 1000 years
and ( these days ) we still share many words with the ancient poets
like "the moon", "you", "sad", "black hair", etc.
Last month when I was reading through ( a ) newspaper
I found an article about
what (which) they called "Modern Students' Hakunin Isshu".
The article said a university in Tokyo hosted a poem competition and
chose ( the ) 100 best out of more than 70,000. The article showed
( published )some good ones. I was really amazed by one of them
( in particular ). It was made ( written ) by a 16-year-old
girl who attends a night high school. I tried to translate it into
English. Although I don't think my translation carries the feeling
of the original, it says, "Rising in the east, the huge heart is urging
me to live today, too. How annoying!" I was really amazed by the
vivid ( acute ) sensitivity
the 16-year-old poet has
( showed ).
Although I would like to keep playing the game once
in a while, as I am getting older and my memory is getting worse
and worse, I wonder how many years more ( more years ) it will
take for me to learn all of them by heart. I hope I will live long ( for a long time.)
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やはり冠詞、前置詞の間違いが多いですね。
extra-curricular
正規授業以外の
why on earth
いったいなぜ
←このすばらしい短歌の元は
“東からのぼるでっかい心臓が今日も生きろとうるさいったら” です。
urge せかす、
しきりに促す
learn〜by heart
〜を暗記する
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“The Place Where I Want
to Visit Most” Jan. 20, 2004
（校正なし）
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Given this topic, the first place that came
up to me was, of course, Delaware, Ohio.
But I have told you so many times how much I want to visit there, so
I tried to find some other places to talk about. Like the old ruins in
Egypt, Peru, Cambosia, or places where some famous movies were filmed,
like Iowa, the stage for “the Bridges in Madison County”, or California,
the stage for “the Goonies”, or Washington D.C. for “St. Elmo’s Fire”.
I also like to visit New York again, where my favorite actor lives. Actually
I visited there in 1982. At that time the actor was in New York City Univ.
So when I think that I might have been in the same city at the same time
as he was, it makes me feel dizzy.
But after all, those cities are like pictures in a travel magazine.
Still the only place I want to visit badly is the small town in Ohio, where
I spent one precious year in my youth.
Part of me is afraid of visiting there, though. Because most of the
people I knew in the town have left there; things must have changed. The
memory I have is deeply connected with the people so if I visit there,
I fear that all I’ll get will only be the feeling that those days are really
far far away.
I experienced various types of accommodation when I was there. During
the summer, I rented a room in a fraternity house. A fraternity is a social
club for boy university students. A sorority is for girls. Each fraternity
and sorority owns a house on campus and the members live there. During
summer, most of them go back home, so they rent out the rooms for students
who stayed on campus and I got a chance to live in a fraternity.
One day a stranger knocked on my door. It was a gentleman in his mid-forties.
He said he had lived in the room when he was in college and asked me if
he could take a look inside. And we fell in love… Oops, it’s just my fiction.
What happened actually was, I said yes, of course, and he looked the room
with deeply nostalgic looks. Now I understand how he was feeling. And
it was that time when I thought, “I may be able to come back here just like
this.”
I wonder how the resident, who will be a young boy, will react to find
a mid-aged Japanese woman knocking on his door. I can’t wait for the moment!
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←去年（２００４．５）訪れたときこのフラタニティーにいってみましたが、もうフラタニティーではなく隣の教会が買い取って社会福祉プログラムのための建物になっていました。
私の部屋は一時的に失業者などに住む部屋になっていて見ることはできませんでした。残念。
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Show and
Tell No. 1 「主婦たちの英語奮戦記」の本 （校正なし）
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If I hadn’t read this book, I wouldn’t be here.
This is a book written by a woman, who made herself an interpreter,
and her students.
Now I think I study English with you rather hard, but I have not always
studied it so hard. When this book was published, it was taken up in book
reviews in newspapers or English-related magazines. I saw some of them,
but I was not so much interested. Why? I hate to admit this, but I was
so stuck up in those days, and I thought like, “English for housewives?
My English is not ‘housewife’ level!” How vain I was! Right?
Passing the first grade of Eiken before I was 30 was my goal, but at
24 I passed it. Of course I was very very happy. But I was really frustrated
because I knew my English was not good enough. I was suffering from the
gap between my English ability and my image for people who can pass the first
grade of Eiken. And I almost gave up. In those days I didn’t study English
hard and didn’t seek opportunities to improve my English, although I was
using English every day in my work.
So I was stuck up thinking, “my English is not ‘housewife’ level”, but
at the same time I was really disappointed with my English.
After passing this book in a bookstore several times, finally I bought
it. And once I started reading it, I couldn’t put it down. I was reading
this book with a frying pan in my hand preparing dinner. Reading this book,
I thought, “Maybe I could do more.” And I began going out for chances to
use English and to get to know people who might share motivation for studying
English.
First I started a correspondence course for a licensed interpreter guide
exam.
Also I joined a volunteer interpreters’ section of Fujieda International
Friendship Association. The city official in the association came to know
that I liked this book so much and he suggested that we invite the writer
to a lecture and we did. This is the fryer for the lecture. I took part
in the panel discussion. I hated talking in public, but I wanted to see
her in person and I felt obliged to be one of the participants. After the
lecture I wrote a thank-you letter to her and this is the postcard from her.
When I tell people how I have studied English, they tend to think that
I have done all by myself. But it’s not true. Although I didn’t have a
chance to study face to face, I have had some excellent teachers like Mrs.
Tokumatsu, Rob and Suzy. And the author of this book, Mrs. Aoyama, is
surely one of them.
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ミニスピーチ ”君が代と日の丸”
ミニスピーチなので校正なし。
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Kimigayo and Hinomaru
Whenever I watch non-Japanese people singing their national anthems placing
their hands on their chests, I feel really envious.
Our national anthem, Kimigayo, and national flag, Hinomaru, are directly
associated to the monarchy and the miserable memories of wars. So there
are not a few people who are object to them. Some do not stand up when
the national anthem are being played and the flag is being put up.
Let me translate the meaning of the anthem into English. It goes like
this; Your reign will last for one thousand generations or for eight thousand
generations until gravel will be a big rock and gather moss.
Obviously this is the song that admires the emperor. So for people who
believe the Showa Emperor is responsible for the World War II, this is an
outrageous song.
I understand that, so I hope we can make up a new national anthem under
which we can feel united.
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