14.
1982
Coffee shop
Translated by Google 2024
14.
1982
Coffee shop
In 1979, I transferred from the full-time high school where I had been working to a part-time night high school and re-enrolled in the Humanities Department of the Faculty of Humanities at Wako University, where I studied the Heian Dynasty and Chinese, including Buddhist texts, under Professor Tsuneyuki Kawasaki of the Department of Literature. I decided to study literature. At my teacher's recommendation, I also took a course on the history of Chinese thought taught by Professor Nishi Junzo of the Department of Human Relations, and decided to take for myself the consequences of my days studying the basics of modern Chinese at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
When I graduated from the Faculty of Humanities, Department of Literature, in March 1971, I had not been able to find my own subject matter, and this year, as I approached the age of 32, I still had not found it. However, I had a faint hope that I might be able to see a new direction in my life by reuniting with Professor Shinobu Ono, who studied Chinese literature, and Professor Eiichi Chino, who taught Russian, both of whom I had taken when I was enrolled in the literature department. I also wanted to take Professor Hanoi's French-related course, if possible, as I didn't have the strength to take Valerie's lectures when I was in the literature department.
At Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, I took a literature lecture by Professor Secondo Ando, a poet and scholar of French literature, and even visited him at his home, but I was almost completely self-taught in French, and was at the beginner's level. However, Dr. Hanai was the only person who taught me this. However, he was unable to obtain credits. Now that I'm in my fourth year, I have no idea what my future path will be, but I still have a few courses left to take to get into the teaching position that was available to me for the time being, and the teacher recruitment exam is approaching, so I decided to start studying language in the fall semester. The classes were tough, and in the two years after I transferred in my third year, I was able to do all I could to attend lectures to graduate and become a teacher.
What I received from Mr. Hanoi was that he read a text aloud to me in a beginner's French class, and I managed to finish reading it, and at the end of the class, he gave me a seminar in the laboratory of Akiichi Saeki, a historian of haiku who was taking a seminar. When I was talking with a friend of mine, a friend who was a member of Dr. Hanoi's lab came into the lab out of breath and said to me, ``Tanaka, your teacher was complimenting your pronunciation.'' '' he said happily, as if he had been praised. I was really happy too. My French teacher recognized the French I had been studying on my own since high school. It was a kind certificate of attendance that the teacher gave me.
I completed my major in 1980, and as a research student in the Faculty of Humanities from April of the same year to March 1986, I continued to receive guidance on Heian Dynasty Chinese literature from Professor Kawasaki. I started reading Tokuichi's writings little by little. The warm guidance I received from many teachers during my time as a major and research student is truly countless.
In particular, I will probably forget for the rest of my life the warm but harsh criticism that Mr. Shinobu Ono of the Department of Chinese Literature pointed out to me regarding ``A Consideration of Heian Dynasty Chinese Literature - Regarding the Sankyo Guiki'' that I submitted as my major course thesis. I don't think so. I recognized this as a major problem as I was writing my thesis, but when I expressed it while writing the thesis, I realized that I had to restructure the basis of my thesis. The deadline for submitting the paper was approaching. However, Dr. Ono's keen eye was able to read it immediately after reading the paper.
The professor said, ``Tanaka-kun, would you like to come to the lab? I have something I want to show you.'' At the lab, the professor himself translated Bernhard's work, which was published by Tokyo Bungudo in 1939. - He lent me the first edition of Karlgren's ``Zoden Truth and Fiction.'' ``Karlgren's method is effective to a certain extent, but don't be overconfident,'' was my teacher's advice to me. I now believe that when I write a paper, I must be faithful to my professor's words, or perhaps that is what I wanted him to say. A dissertation is not meant to be a conclusion, but I think this is what the professor told me, with a guideline for life itself.
ONO SHINOBU AND BERNHARD KARLGREN
In 1969, when I transferred to Wako in my third year, I signed my handwritten letter of admission in front of the professor in the humanities dean's office, and since then I have been studying modern Chinese literature and Japanese literature in his laboratory. 10 years have already passed since I took the special course. In the summer when I graduated from the Department of Literature in March 1971 and was struggling as a teacher at Kitatama High School, I received a letter from my teacher, and one of the letters included a note about me, who had attended the buffet party for my graduation. Enclosed was a photo taken by the teacher. I think it said, ``Tanaka-kun is in the picture, so I'm sending it to you.'' I felt that the letter and photo were encouragement for me, who was struggling alone, and even though it had only been a while ago, I was moved to tears by the teacher's nostalgia and kindness.
Professor Kawasaki commented on my major thesis, saying, ``I wasn't sure how it would turn out halfway through, but I managed to put it all together.'' My teacher always talked to me like that. I started reading the Chinese diaries of court nobles from the Heian period, and one day my teacher told me about Fujiwara Tadazane, Kanpaku, which was one of the large books in the Great Japan Ancient Records published by the Historiographical Institute of the University of Tokyo. I thought I would try reading all five volumes of ``Denreki'', so I bought all the volumes and asked my teacher what he thought about (reading) that book, and he smiled. All he said was, ``You should wait a little longer.'' It is true that this book contained an endless amount of historical events, and it was beyond my ability to read just a few Chinese texts. It was one of the most embarrassing conversations I had with my teacher .
There were many times when I found myself turning pale because of the way I read your books. Tanaka-kun may think that my writing style is unavoidable since my teacher was always quiet, but I would like to tell you one thing.
During an ancient document reading class, we were trying to decipher Kukai's letters and found that there was a mark on the text that was the same as the return mark "check mark" used in Chinese literature, and the teacher explained that it was the same as "check mark". Something happened. After the lecture, when I asked the professor in the laboratory about the first appearance of the check mark, he said, ``I don't know if it was the first time it appeared, but it appears in the Mido Kampakuki.'' Coincidentally, around that time, I was reading Fujiwara no Michinaga. I carried this book, which is a diary, in my bag every day and read it little by little, and at that time I had all three volumes, so when I told my teacher, ``I now have all three volumes of Kanpakuki,'' he told me the number of volumes. I forgot about it now, but the teacher mentioned one of the volumes, so I took it out of my bag and handed it to him, and the teacher turned over a few pages and said, ``Tanaka-kun, here it is,'' and ticked it off. He showed me a passage from Michinaga's Chinese writing. The total number of pages of the three volumes of Mido Kanpakuki was nearly 1,000 pages, with all the lines marked with commas, and I was struggling desperately to read even a single page. . The teacher immediately pointed out the part of the difficult book that had a single mark written on it. At this point, beyond my own lack of knowledge, my face turned pale. It was a tremendous height of academic excellence that the teacher possessed.
Mr. Kawasaki and Mr. Ono were really good friends. When I told Mr. Kawasaki that Mr. Ono lent me a copy of Karlgren's ``Saden Shinkaiko,'' which he himself had translated, Mr. Kawasaki replied with his usual smile, ``Mr. Ono is a master of languages.'' "Yes," he said. In 1930, at the age of 24, Professor Ono translated Floyd Dell's ``Biography of Upton Sinclair,'' and in 1938, he translated Svan Heading's ``The Escape of Ma Zhongying'' for Kaiseisha. In ``Guideposts: Chinese Literature and Me,'' published by Ozawa Shoten in 1979 , he writes about a man who worked in the Manchuria Railway Research Department in pre-war China, became acquainted with a Russian family, and taught their daughter Russian language. He said that he was helped with this.
However, his true value came after the war in 1948, when he began translating the Ming Dynasty novel ``Golden Vine Mei Song Story'' with Kuichi Senda, first with Kuichi Senda, and finally by himself in 1962, translating it into a mediocre book. The fact that it was published in three volumes as a comprehensive collection of Chinese classical literature by the publisher is perhaps the most important feature. I should probably refrain from sharing the original text without having read it, but I have carefully read and translated this book, which was said to be extremely difficult to understand in the colloquial language of the Ming Dynasty and even the dialect of that era, over the course of more than ten years. I can't help but admire him. It seems that he was thinking about further revisions in his later years, and I felt like I was witnessing his struggle with language.
Regarding the translation of Shinobu Ono's Kinpei Baikowa, the following comment was made by Takeshiro Kuraishi in his last book, Guidepost: Chinese Literature and I, published by Ozawa Shoten in 1979. The following is written inside:
``The identity of the author of ``Golden Plum'' is a difficult question for literary history, and its language is also extremely difficult to understand.In this case, the monument is equivalent to a wordless monument.In that sense, this translation can also be used as an explanation for the Rosetta Stone. They have similar meanings. (Mr. Takeshiro Kuraishi)
In 1979, the year I returned to my major at Wako, I learned from the syllabus that my professor had covered original songs from the Yuan dynasty and lyrics from the Song dynasty in his seminar. One day, I happened to be with the teacher on the train home, and when I asked him why he had chosen a difficult original song and lyrics this year, he replied, ``I have to do something that difficult.'' He said. I received these words as a precious gift from my teacher to a young seminar member in the Chinese language department at Wako, but in later years I realized that my teacher's teacher at the University of Tokyo, Atsushi Shioya, was a pioneer in the study of lyrics in Japan. I learned that it was. I now understand that the professor entrusted this academic tradition to the young seminar members at Wako.
This conversation with the teacher on the train was the last time I spoke with him. In the fall of 1980, her energetic teacher suddenly passed away. At Sensei's funeral held at the Aoyama Funeral Hall, Sensei Kawasaki stood solemnly in the center of the platform as the funeral director.
In the fall of 1982, the University of Tokyo Press decided to publish the three volumes of ``Selected Historical Works of Tsuneyuki Kawasaki,'' and I had the privilege of helping out a little with the editing.
Now I will extract the obi attached to the anthology box.
`` Kawasaki Tsuneyuki Historical Works Selected Collection, 3 volumes
, 46 editions / 500 pages each / Regular price: 3,200 yen each
The work of the ancient Japanese world from the 7th century to the 12th century is discovered in the pathos and lifestyles of the ancients, and the intersection of ideals and reality. , a collection of three volumes of masterpieces that are multifaceted and three-dimensionally depicted.
Volume 1: Chronicles of the Manyo World Commentary by Haruo Sasayama
Volume 2 Development of Japanese Buddhism Commentary by Kazuo Osumi
Volume 3 Heian Culture and History Commentary by Yoshihiko Amino
In the final stage of editing the anthology, a pamphlet was completed that gave an overview of the anthology, and I was sent several copies to distribute to my acquaintances. It has already been mailed to the teachers at Wako, and I have given it to my close friends and close university staff at the university, but among the teachers, I would like to give it directly to Professor Yoshiso Yamamoto, a professor of Japanese medieval literature. So, I visited his laboratory. As luck would have it, the professor was alone in the room, and when I told him, ``Thank you, I was able to finish it,'' he seemed really happy and said, ``That's great.'' I still can't forget that smile.
The pamphlet included recommendations from three teachers. Professor Nobutsuna Saigo, who was famous for his research on ancient Japanese literature, especially the Kojiki; Professor Shinichi Sato, who wrote excellent essays on the history of Japan's medieval legal system; and Professor Shinichi Sato, who wrote a variety of essays on the history of ancient Japanese culture at Ritsumeikan University. It was Professor Tatsuzaburo Hayashiya, who had been
To show my lack of study, I later learned that Professor Yamamoto had been conducting research for a long time in a research group centered around Professor Nobutsuna Saigo. Therefore, I think he must have been especially happy that Professor Saigo's recommendation and excerpts from it were included in the cover of the first volume of Professor Kawasaki's selected works.
I only took Professor Yamamoto's lecture on the Tale of the Heike in my third year of literature, and I was completely ignorant of the radical empirical research on oral culture that he subsequently developed. I later learned that Sensei Yamamoto's other teacher was Yasu Hirosue Sensei.
In ``Round-round discussion on Mr. Yasu Hirosue's awareness of issues,'' which was published in the 42nd volume of ``Japanese Literature Journal'' published by the Hosei University Japanese Literature Association in 1990, Professor Yamamoto talked about Yasu Hirosue's writings. Regarding sermons, which are one of the themes of Professor Yamamoto's life, he makes the following comment, referring to a passage from Professor Yasuhiro's ``The Story of Drifting.''
``The ``substance'' of preachers is a wandering entertainer who carries around the form of story as an essential form. Here too, the meaning of the word ``substance'' is once dismantled, and a new meaning is created. We will also explore the relationship between the story format and wandering entertainers. It is in this relationship that the true nature of the preacher lies. "
Professor Yamamoto says the following about fieldwork:
``Mr. Hirosue doesn't do fieldwork. He travels. That's how it was. Regarding travel... There was something immediate. So I feel like there was another nucleus on the other side that could once again criticize modernism, speaking of the past."
Regarding oral culture, Professor Yamamoto said the following at the end of his lecture ``Another Story.''
``In an era when oral culture was still active and functioning, storytelling was not what we would call today's literary or performing arts, but rather a circuit through which we could learn about the past while closely interacting with the spirits of the past. And the places where these stories were talked about had their own unique meanings.Time and space in the Middle Ages were not as homogeneous as they are today, but each had its own meaning.'' Professor Tsuneyuki Kawasaki's selected history works, complete 3
. One day, I think it was around the fall or winter of 1982, after the volume was published, just before going up Wakozaka Hill, I met Professor Yamamoto who was coming down the hill. When I greeted the teacher, he asked me, ``Tanaka-kun, would you like to have some tea?'' I think it was probably the first time that a Wako teacher suddenly invited me to tea before leaving school. I don't know if it still exists today, but in 1982 there was still a small shop that couldn't even be called a coffee shop that had been around since Wako University opened. When you come down the hill, on the right side, you go up two or three stone steps and there is a door, and inside it is a small, somewhat dark shop filled with two or three people. The teacher sat in the back, and I sat in the front.
I can no longer remember anything about what the teacher said or how I answered. The teacher didn't even ask me any questions. I was facing the teacher who was quietly drinking coffee. Or maybe it was just stories that touched on everyday life. However, the quiet demeanor of the teacher still remains in my mind. It may have been a moment of relief for the teacher. When I was a research student at the time, I had never taken any of his courses. Perhaps he had something in mind about Professor Kawasaki's selected works, or about Professor Nobutsuna Saigo, for whom he wrote a letter of recommendation. Or perhaps it was to thank Tanaka for his hard work.
I still can't forget the kind teacher I saw at that time. I resigned as a research student in March 1986, and I never met him again. She passed away in 2007, shortly after the teacher retired. She was 72 years old. Thirty-one years have passed since Dr. Hanoi, who was her ally in her youth, passed away in 1976 at the age of 37.
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