It was during Hippo Fukushima Camp I attended last weekend. Despite only had 2 hours of sleeping time the previous night, I didn’t feel sleepy at all after joining the morning exercise, that’s why I used the time to join the strolls outside. The sight was awesome - the veil of fog was hanging on the air, rendering a bit of unearthly touch to the field of view. And that’s how I took the picture above.
The scene reminded me of a 俳句 (haiku)by Watanabe Eri that I heard in one TV program. I really like the haiku, so I would like to introduce it here.
ようやくここは(Some of you might notice that the 韻律 (inritsu)was 7-7-4 instead of 5-7-5 which often be used in a conventional haiku, but I won’t talk about the technical aspect now.)
秋の穂のなる
東北
For those of you who would like to know the meaning, the English translation would be more or less as follows:
At long last, it is autumn seeds bearing Tohoko, once again.(I think everyone are well aware that it’s hard to make a translation of a prosaic work which can still convey the nuance and spirit of the original version,so it’s just natural that making a translation of a poetic work while keeping the nuance, literal meaning, and figurative meaning would be next to impossible.Therefore, my translation above is still far from perfect. For the same reason,I kept the title of this post in Japanese: because the translation in English would be either too long or losing the ‘punch’ that the Japanese title possesses.)
Back to the haiku, Watanabe Eri was a native Tohoku, and she participated in activities to support the disaster relief program in Tohoku.The haiku she wrote refers to the rice field in the tsunami hit area. The field was saturated with sea water, thus it was impossible to grow rice there anymore.It took around three years of rehabilitation process to return it to the original condition and start growing rice again. It should be felt long and difficult to recover back to normal life for those who live there, but I’ve seen lots of people facing hardship with unrelenting smile in the past 3 years, so I really glad they finally made it. And as in Japan the people of Tohoku is known for their patience and hard work spirit, this time once again they showed that the reputation didn’t come for nothing.
And the bottom line of what I want to say is, try to always be patient no matter how hard the problem that stand in your way.Anyway, God is with those who are patient.
