9.1969
If you are permitted to enter
From Author ;
This translation has some inaccurate turn of phrases.
This translation has some inaccurate turn of phrases.
So sorry.
In April 1969, I successfully transferred to the third year of the Department of Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Wako University. When I first visited Wako, probably one day in February, with my transfer application documents, I must have been nervous, because I have absolutely no memory of the scenery around Wako-zaka, where winter rice paddies must have stretched in a long, narrow strip along the road between the university and the Odakyu Line at that time. I only remember thinking, as I climbed Wako-zaka, "Ah, this university is built in a good location." I was born and raised in the western suburbs of Tokyo, at the foot of the Sayama Hills. The hills are not just familiar to me, but deeply ingrained in me. In a room at the university, I was concerned about whether the documents, especially the subjects and credits I had acquired, met Wako's transfer requirements. In the first year, the number of Chinese language courses, which are specialized subjects, was overwhelmingly large, and although I wanted to specialize in Japanese literature, I had not acquired any credits of a similar nature other than the general education course "Literature."
The person who assisted me was a young Masafumi Yamazaki, who would later achieve leading academic accomplishments in fields such as vocational education. Professor Yamazaki's warmth during our meeting truly soothed my anxious heart. I told him what I had been thinking beforehand: "I haven't taken any specialized courses related to Japanese literature, so if I apply to the literature department, will I have to transfer in as a second-year student?" He replied, "The second year of the literature department is full, so we are not accepting transfer students this year." He continued, "However, there are openings in the third year, so we will be accepting applications. If you apply, I think it will be as a third-year student." He then took my credit history sheet and examined it. At that time, I thought it would be almost impossible to transfer directly to the third year since I had absolutely no experience in Japanese literature. However, I was truly relieved by the professor's response after he examined my credit history sheet. The professor calmly and gently explained to me, reassuring me, "While your credit acquisition situation is different from Wako, your total number of credits meets the requirements. It's true that Wako includes specialized literature-related subjects from the first year, but in your case, you've taken many specialized Chinese language subjects, so if you review those, you should meet the requirements for completing the second year at Wako."
Without touching on any personal circumstances, such as why I aimed for Wako University, he reassured me by saying, "Your eligibility to take the entrance exam is fine, even with a three-year transfer." The feeling that he was such a kind teacher remains completely unchanged even after more than half a century; in fact, it has grown even stronger and continues to linger in my heart. Much later, in the 1990s, when information disclosure via the Internet became commonplace, I learned from back issues of student newsletters posted on the Wako University homepage that Professor Yamazaki had played a central role in the preparation staff for the establishment of Wako University, handling complex tasks, including legal matters. I have always held deep respect and admiration for a professor who, amidst such busy days, could speak to a transfer student with such meticulous care and kindness. In 1969, I had absolutely no other transfer options besides Wako University. Looking back now, I wonder what I would have done if it hadn't worked out, but when Wako University was featured in the Asahi Shimbun in January of that year, 1969, as one of several new universities, I chose Wako without considering any factors such as its size or the professors who worked there.
Mr. Kamiyama, a senior alumnus of my high school who lives in my town and continues his research even though he is over eighty years old, specializes in modern Japanese history and later became the principal of a high school. When he was discussing the collected works of Professor Tsuneyuki Kawasaki at his home, he said that my encounter with Professor Tsuneyuki Kawasaki of Wako High School was "fateful." Until then, I had never thought of it that way, but now I realize that it was indeed fateful. Perhaps my transfer to Wako High School was also fateful. When one grows old, as the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel once said, "when one's entire self becomes a distant landscape," will one realize anew that there were several such things that happened.
There was another major turning point for Wako. In 1978, my eighth year as a teacher, I sent off my graduating class as the homeroom teacher for the third year students at my second school, Tokyo Metropolitan Ome Higashi High School. At the same time, in April 1979, I also began to think about pursuing a new direction, and I submitted a transfer request that year, incorporating my desire to transfer to an evening part-time high school and resume some kind of new study, such as a master's program, during the day. However, even in February 1979, there was no prospect of a transfer to an evening high school, so I prepared to transfer to a regular full-time high school and had already interviewed at one Tokyo Metropolitan high school. On the day of my final acceptance interview, as I was putting on my shoes at the entrance, the phone rang. When I picked up the receiver, it was the principal calling to confirm that a position had opened up in the evening part-time high school and asking if I wanted to apply. I accepted on the spot and went for an interview at Tokyo Metropolitan Agricultural High School in Fuchu City, and my transfer there was quickly decided a few days later. If I hadn't received that phone call that day, I would have been transferred to a full-time school, and my hopes of continuing my daytime studies would have been impossible for the time being.
However, around the end of February 1979, the university had already entered the end of the academic year, and it was difficult to apply for master's programs and other programs at the university at that point. However, because I was a high school teacher and a graduate of Wako, I received a new university guide from Wako every year. When I opened it again, it seemed that it was still possible to apply for the advanced course. There was no application form for the advanced course included, so I think I clearly wrote "Application for Advanced Course" on a regular university entrance application form and sent the documents to Wako. If it didn't work out, I could always transfer to the evening program, so I thought I would consider a new direction the following year. Fortunately, Wako accepted my application for the advanced course, and in April 1979, I took the exam and was able to enter the advanced course.
At that time, I vaguely thought that if I were to enter a master's program, given my experience as a high school Japanese language teacher, I might be able to apply for a program in Japanese linguistics or Japanese language history. I think I was thinking that from there, I might be able to move towards language in general later on. However, in the end of the academic year, Wako was the only option left, and I ended up taking the entrance exam once again as a humanities major student in the Faculty of Humanities, where I had studied before. What came to mind at that time was Professor Tsuneyuki Kawasaki's history of Buddhism, and the history of Japanese Buddhism, which I had only briefly researched during my undergraduate years, and that perhaps I could at least read some ancient Japanese Chinese texts. In that short amount of time, I seriously considered what my immediate research topic should be. However, more than eight years had already passed since graduation, so I hesitated to contact Professor Kawasaki in advance, and I took the exam without making any such contact.
There was an English reading comprehension test in the classroom, followed by an oral examination in a separate room. There were two professors: Professor Shigeru Araki, a literature specialist in medieval and early modern Japan, and another professor whose name I did not know. Professor Araki mainly conducted the examination, and at the end he asked if I had contacted Professor Kawasaki, to which I simply replied that I had not yet. I wondered if that was what I should have done. Fortunately, after passing the exam, I called Professor Kawasaki and asked for his guidance, which marked the beginning of a seven-year period of further study under him as a postgraduate and research student. If my transfer to the evening division had been decided promptly, or regardless of whether I passed or failed, I might have aimed to take the master's exam at another university instead of Wako, which at the time did not have a master's program. But things unfolded this way. Perhaps that, too, was a matter of fate.
In the spring of my second year of high school, after reading Louis Heymond's "The White Virgin Land," I submitted my ethics and society end-of-year report, albeit a naive one, concluding that despite the difficulties, I would choose free will over religious determinism. From that point until now, I don't think my fundamental stance has changed drastically. Long ago, during a conversation with my father, he casually told me that he thought fate existed. As a young boy, I was dissatisfied, but from then until his death at the age of eighty-two, he always supported me in all my actions, telling me to "live as you please." Now, with deep gratitude, and adding the words, "Perhaps fate does exist," there are countless things I want to tell my father.
Let's go back to my transfer in the spring of 1969. Thanks to Professor Yamazaki's kind encouragement, I decided to take the transfer entrance exam. It was here that I met Professor Kenzo Miyazaki of the Department of Literature. I remember there was an English reading comprehension section in the written exam in the classroom, but I can't remember if there was a free writing or assigned essay section. After that, I think I moved to Professor Miyazaki's research lab in the research building and went there alone. There I had an interview. I think I was the only one taking the third-year transfer entrance exam for the Department of Literature that day. The research building was eerily quiet.
Towards the end of my examination in Professor Miyazaki's laboratory, he asked me about my favorite poets. I mentioned, among them, Shuntaro Tanikawa's poetry collection "Two Billion Light Years of Solitude," which I had seen at the Tokyo Metropolitan Ome Library and which he had found deeply impressive when he was 21 years old. However, I can no longer remember who else I mentioned. Perhaps I also mentioned Junzaburo Nishiwaki. His "The Traveler Does Not Return" greatly changed my image of poetry up to that point, and I repeatedly read it because I could feel the atmosphere of the Tama region, including Kodaira, in the content of the poem. I also liked Sakutaro Hagiwara and Tatsuji Miyoshi, but I don't remember if I mentioned their names. Finally, the professor said to me, "I don't know how your written exam went, but if you passed, come to my house."
After passing the entrance exam for Wako, probably sometime in March before I even started attending school, I visited Professor Miyazaki's home. I still wonder how that was possible, but I can only assume that he gave me his phone number after the interview. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to find out the location of his home in Nakano or decide on a date for my visit. His house was impressive, surrounded by a black-painted wall, and since my first impression of him during the exam was that he was somewhat imposing, I was probably quite nervous. He invited me into the drawing-room and we talked about many things. I only remember some of the details now, but one thing he mentioned was the research he was currently working on. "I'm currently researching Irako Seihaku," he said. I knew the poet's name, but I had never read any of his poems, so I just listened.
My professor spoke about Seihaku, but sadly, I can't remember it at all now. According to the Daijirin dictionary (Sanseido, 1988), Irako Seihaku (1877-1946) was described as "a central figure of the 'Bunko' school as a fantastical, mysterious, and exquisite symbolic poet. His poetry collection is 'Kujaku-sen' (Peacock Ship)." After transferring to the university, I took my professor's lecture on modern and contemporary poetry, and I learned that he highly valued Kambara Ariake (1876-1952) and Usuda Kyūkin (1887-1945), who are representative Japanese symbolic poets, but I don't think he made any special mention of Irako Seihaku. Perhaps he kept it to himself.
After transferring to the university, I was always puzzled as to why my professor, who was so upright and always made careful decisions, even to the point of being the head of academic affairs, would say, "If you pass, come to my house." Whenever I talked with my wife about the past, it always came up. My wife was also puzzled each time, saying, "I can't believe something like that happened." And why would he tell me that he was researching the Meiji-era poet Irako Seihaku, when I had absolutely no background in classical Japanese literature? Much later, when I began to see my younger self as someone I encountered in my youth, like a faint distant landscape, I began to understand my professor's feelings a little.
This relates to the time I visited the home of Professor Tsuguo Ando, a foreign language professor, poet, and French literature scholar, without an appointment, and he warmly welcomed me. I think he treated me with generosity because, even though I was an uneducated and untalented young man, I was serious about learning, I didn't seem to read much literature, but I liked poetry, and I seemed to have some ambition—a country boy. My close friend from high school, Kaneko, said to my face, "Are you really going to study physics?" But I probably grew up with a glimmer of my original optimism. I liked languages, but I didn't have much ability in them, and although I longed for mathematics, I only scratched the surface of modern mathematics before growing up. I seemed to like poetry, but I didn't seem to be able to write much poetry either. That's the kind of person I was, for sure.
But somewhere within all of that, there was always a glimmer of seriousness, wasn't there? As an outsider, I was such a poor young man. At Kitatama High School, a Tokyo Metropolitan school located in Tachikawa City, where I was first assigned, the art club students drew detailed yet somewhat comical caricatures of most of the teachers, including their toes, and displayed them in the hallway near the staff room on the second floor. I think there were nearly 30 of them. Mr. Saito, an art teacher who often helped me when I was inexperienced, invited me, saying, "Tanaka, Tanaka, they're funny, come and see them in the hallway." There was a variety of them: the physics teacher dropping an apple, the teacher pushing his desk and walking out into the corridor, the teacher with a sour face like a pickled plum, and so on. But of course, everyone's feet were on the ground. Amidst all that, I was the only one flying through the air like Superman. Mr. Saito found it amusing and teased me, saying, "So this is what Tanaka looks like." There were days like that.
That's why Professor Ando of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Professor Miyazaki of Wako supported me, even though I was as unreliable as a paper doll, yet somehow endearing. Professor Saeki, who taught me haiku, did the same. Now I can only feel gratitude, unable to reciprocate in any way. To return to the story. When Professor Miyazaki finished his talk, he led me to the second floor of his house. Almost the entire spacious second floor was his library. Rows and rows of bookshelves lined the floor, each packed with books. From among them, he took out a collection of poems and showed it to me. It was none other than a copy that Nakahara Chūya had personally signed and sent to Professor Miyazaki as a dedication. When I left his house, he gave me a book on classical grammar that he had written himself. He also added words of encouragement, telling me to become a specialist. And so I continued my studies at Wako.
Two years passed in the blink of an eye, and in early spring, around February of 1971, as graduation approached, I received a postcard from Professor Miyazaki. The contents were roughly as follows: "Congratulations, Tanaka-kun, your appointment at Kitatama High School has been confirmed. The principal contacted me yesterday." The next day, I visited Professor Miyazaki's office to express my gratitude. He smiled and told me, "The principal of Kitatama is a junior of mine from university, and he contacted me with an inquiry about Tanaka-kun, so I recommended him, and everything will be fine now." And so, I was interviewed by Professor Miyazaki, enrolled in the school, and graduated with his recommendation. I wonder if this, too, was a matter of fate.
Even after graduation, I visited the professor several times at the beginning of each year with two friends. One New Year's Day, in the tatami room we were shown into, the professor pointed near the ceiling and said with a smile, "This year, for the first time in a long time, I went to get a good luck charm, so I immediately put it up facing south." Sakai and Yamamoto, who had become teachers, were always with us. I think this New Year's tradition continued until everyone became busy with weddings and raising children. The professor always welcomed us kindly and gently. The professor also accepted the position of the first president of the Wako University Japanese Literature Society, which was established by graduates of the Japanese Literature major in the Department of Literature at Wako University, and became an alumni association and research group for professors and graduates. After the standing committee meetings held at Nakano Sun Plaza, it was a pleasure for us standing committee members to be able to talk with the professors who came to the meeting at a coffee shop on Nakano Sun Road. Professors Miyazaki, Ikeda, Saeki, Sugiyama, and Takeda were often together, making it feel like a small class reunion. We were all still young, nearing the end of our twenties, and now those days are incredibly nostalgic.
T.A.
Tokyo
2026
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