English translation of the prose
AI-assisted English translation of the prose; quoted poems remain in Japanese. The Japanese original remains authoritative.
Originally published: 18 March 2024.
Material from the Japanese website. Dates and references reflect the original publication. Quoted poems remain in Japanese.
Jun Kawada’s Manchurian travels and poems from my own life
Seishu Hamano — 18 March 2024
Reading Kasasagi, the tanka collection that Jun Kawada published in 1931—something like a record of his visit to Manchuria—I composed several poems in response to his feelings as a traveler.
As usual, inspiration from another poet led me to make a few allusive variations, but only two or three. As I read, entirely different ideas piled up, and opening lines surfaced one after another, so most of the poems were spontaneous. Yet after two or three revisions, they converged at a deep level of life, leaving a strange impression. There is a gap of exactly a hundred years. It was an unexpected gain to see common ground between life on the Chinese mainland before its great transformation through development and life in both countries amid the proliferation of civilization.
Kawada liked keeping records: nine visits and forty-eight days in Keijo, for example, as well as six visits to Mukden, five to Dalian, three to Port Arthur, and two to Pyongyang. He traveled diligently and made poems. Naturally, I expect an abundance of the traveler’s feeling.
Under the subheading “Prelude,” he writes:
大君の遠の使と寧楽人（ならびと）の
齋（いは）ひて行きしあらきこの海
Responding directly to its inspiration, I compose:
奈良人の超えへし灘海（なだみ）に乗り出でし
我が小袖にも跳ねし荒波
This is a faithful allusive variation, but its viewpoint is entirely different. Kawada praises the court and considers the hardships of its people. It gives a slight taste of an earlier age but is far from a lived sensation. Frankly, one scarcely feels history’s snow falling upon oneself. I considered writing 我が衣手 instead of 我が小袖, but the former brings to mind what follows it and dew, while overt praise of the imperial way as in Kawada’s poem seemed questionable. So I chose 小袖. Western clothes have tubular sleeves, but for a person without rank these too are garments. Thus it is natural that a poem entirely different from Kawada’s should be born. As I thought this, another quite unrelated poem unexpectedly came to me.
何一つ人智教へぬ親なれど
愛の数々いまだ生き生き
The conception is entirely different from setting sail. Yet I probably imagined that, if I traveled to Manchuria while it was still under Japanese rule, I would end up as one of the usual Manchurian adventurers, a rogue. The poem emerged as an apology for failing in filial duty.
Kawada also writes of this scene:
のびやかに鋤の長柄に顎をのせて
わが汽車を見る支那の男は
The subheading is “An immediate scene aboard the main line of the South Manchuria Railway.”
“Mantetsu” means the South Manchuria Railway. Even today, its former headquarters stand beside a roundabout in Dalian. The Yamato Hotel stands on the same roundabout; members of the imperial army and navy and senior officials stayed there with their families. Noncommissioned officers and lower-ranking members of the Kwantung Army garrison were assigned guard duties. Any triumphant Japanese traveler riding the Asia Express, pleasantly attended by Russian staff, would have seen Chinese farmers outside the window, resting their chins on the long handles of their tools and staring vacantly at Japan’s super-express, and thought them uncivilized. But one must read the hatred seething within them. Japanese farmers too rest their chins on their hoes when pausing from work. I saw this countless times in Japan, during and after the war. There is no need to stage the Mantetsu Asia Express specially to describe it.
Kawada’s poems also depict Chinese women and children gazing blankly at the railway. I have mixed feelings: they seem like a page of unspeakable shame from the era when Japan ruled.
Kawada also encountered a sand whirlwind.
竜巻をまこと見るかも目交に
うつそみの吾が目を疑へり
I once felt the same in the desolate wilderness beyond Xi’an, heading toward Dunhuang. A whirlwind astonishes one.
竜巻に巻き込まれしか夕陽さす
人智も夢も打ち砕くかも 成秋
I often think, not only in China but also when visiting Egypt, that ancient rulers building enormous tombs wondered how those around them would think and act after their deaths. Imagining themselves as victims whose tombs would be torn apart by envy and jealousy, they piled up layers of huge rocks in defense, determined not to let that happen.
吾妹もその子も孫もその先も
皆苦しむかねたみそねみに 成秋
親だまし独り歩めり吾妹の
つたなき日々や哀しみに満ち 成秋
Kawada captures sheep skillfully in verse:
たもとほりわれもひもじきゆふべなり
羊の群れの 飼葉食む音 川田順
ひと群れの羊もの憂ひ夕暮れに
飼葉食む音 心に沁みる 成秋
Original wording, author credits, notes and source materials are preserved there.