The Various Forms of うかがう

The newsletter and podcast are online:

The Japanese verb ukagau.

This month, the core topic I looked at was how easy and broadly useful is 伺う (ukagau) is, especially for folks struggling to gain a handhold with keigo: This is your handhold.

伺う means so many different things at once: to listen/hear, to ask, to visit, and to detect/view. There are a number of set phrases that you should start to memorize, and once they become more familiar, you’ll hopefully find yourself reaching less frequently for more complex verb permutations, which gives you more time to become familiar with those complex verb permutations, making them more familiar and less complex, enabling you to reach for them more easily…it’s a cycle, and you just need a way in.

However, 伺う is more complex that it may first appear, likely because of how broadly it can be used. There are actually (at least) three different kanji that get used for うかがう.

The first and most frequent is 伺 which gets used for those core meanings above.

The two additional kanji take on these meanings:

窺う
「そっと(気づかれないように)様子を見る」という意味
“To secretly watch (so that you aren’t noticed”

Kenkyusha also lists several other definitions: to peer into/through something, to watch/wait for an opportunity, to infer/surmise. So it appears as those this meaning can be rather broad as well and loses some of the deference in the other definitions.

覗う
「何かを通してのぞいて様子を見る」という意味
“To peer through something”

While 窺 can mean “peer into/through” something, this kanji tends to take on more of those meanings because it’s also associated with the verb のぞく (nozoku), which is the more frequently used word for “peek/peer” and gets used with compounds like 覗き穴 (nozokiana, peephole).

Kanjipedia also notes that 候, 偵, and 覘 are also used in various situations with うかがう, but judging from my cursory searches, these are less frequently encountered.

I think the best way to understand these as a whole is to think of all these additional kanji as (most likely) an extension of the “view/detect” definition in intricate different ways that writers can choose to take advantage of. I imagine that うかがう gets used in hiragana form pretty regularly as well, so keep an eye out for that as well.

The Move

Well, Murakami did not win the Nobel Prize this year. But I’m back on my Murakami bullshit anyway.

(Brief aside to note that I missed out on purchasing a translation of Han Kang’s The Vegetarian for 799 yen immediately after the announcement because some other Mercari maniac had the exact same thought. I saw the moment it was purchased, essentially. It was not marked as sold when I searched, and then by the time I tapped on the item, it had been marked as sold. Alas. Would’ve been a steal of a deal!)

I’m going back through Distant Drums and covering some of the chapters that I did not look at thoroughly. In this post, I’m looking at a really short chapter called ローマ (Rome) in which Murakami outlines his reasoning for choosing Rome as a sort of headquarters for his three years in Europe: It’s warm, and he has a friend living there.

A photo of people climbing down the roof of the Pantheon in Rome and houses and other buildings in the distance.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

He also writes briefly about the work required to leave Japan and how he felt exhausted upon arrival and needed two weeks to recover.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

We left Japan filled with the sense of moving. We were going to be away from Japan for an extended period of several years, so we rented the house we’d been living in to an acquaintance. We stuffed everything we needed for life abroad into suitcases. This was actually quite difficult work. Think about it: Your average person has no idea what or how much is necessary for life in southern Europe for a few years. As you consider it, everything starts to seem essential; reconsider it, and nothing seems necessary at all.

I wrapped up the work I was doing and managed have the regular features I was writing closed out. For one of the magazines—after being begged—I wrote six months’ worth of essays and submitted them all together. I met with the people I needed to and gave the necessary goodbyes. We found someone to handle things that came up while we were away. There was so much to do, and no matter how much we did, the things we had to deal with kept piling up. By the end I didn’t know whether we were progressing or regressing. I couldn’t even remember what we’d packed or the number of suitcases we had.

我々は引っ越しをするような気分で、日本をあとにした。何年か長期的に日本を留守にするわけだから、それまで住んでいた家も知人に貸した。外国生活に必要なものをあらいざらいスーツケースにつめこんだ。でもこれはけっこう大変な作業だった。だって何年間か南ヨーロッパで生活するにあたってどんなものがどれくらい必要かなんて、普通の人間にそう簡単にわかるものではないのだ。必要だと思えば何もかもが必要であるように気がしてくるし、要らないと思えば、何もかもが要らないようにも思えてくる。

とりかかっていた仕事はまとめてかたづけ、連載はなんとか打ち切らせていただいた。ある雑誌のためには—どうしてもそうしてくれと言われたので—六ヶ月ぶんのエッセイをまとめ書きして渡した。しかるべき人と会って、しかるべき挨拶をした。留守中の雑用をとりしきってくれる人をみつけた。やるべきことは山ほどあって、どれだけやってもあとからあとから用事が出てきた。最後には自分が前に進んでいるのか後ろに進んでいるのかさえわからなくなってきたくらいだった。スーツケースに何が入っているのか、いったい幾つのスーツケースを持ってきたのか、それさえ思い出せなかった。(26)

Very interesting to note that they really do give up on their life in Japan temporarily. He rents out his house. He stops taking work, but only after stopping his regular serializations, going as far as doing six months’ of work at the request of an editor. As someone who not too long ago wrote out three to four months worth of newsletters to get ahead, I can understand how Murakami might feel this way.

It’s clear that this introduction was written after the trip was complete and that some of the subsequent writing was written closer to the moment of the events, which is just one more reason this is such an interesting collection. I really hope it gets translated at some point.

A reminder that you can see all the posts in this series on my page for Distant Drums.

Petra

Year 1: BoobsThe WindBaseballLederhosenEels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year 2: Hotel Lobby OystersCondomsSpinning Around and Around街・町The Town and Its Uncertain WallA Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year 3: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and WeirsThe LibraryOld DreamsSaying GoodbyeLastly
Year 4: More DrawersPhone CallsMetaphorsEight-year-olds, dudeUshikawaLast Line
Year 5: Jurassic SapporoGerry MulliganAll Growns UpDanceMountain Climbing
Year 6: Sex With Fat WomenCoffee With the ColonelThe LibrarianOld ManWatermelons
Year 7: WarmthRebirthWastelandHard-onsSeventeenEmbrace
Year 8: PigeonEditsMagazinesAwkwardnessBack Issues
Year 9: WaterSnæfellsnesCannonballDistant Drumming
Year 10: VermontersWandering and BelongingPeter CatSushi CounterMurakami Fucks First
Year 11: EmbersEscapeWindow SeatsThe End of the World
Year 12: Distant DrumsExhaustionKissLack of PretenseRotemburo
Year 13: Murakami PreparednessPacing Norwegian WoodCharacter Studies and Murakami’s Financial SituationMental RetreatWriting is Hard
Year 14: Prostitutes and NovelistsVilla Tre Colli and Norwegian WoodSurge of DeathOn the Road to MetaUnbelievable
Year 15: Baseball on TVKindnessMurakami in the Asahi Shimbun – 日記から – 1982The Mythology of 1981Winning and Losing
Year 16: The Closet MassacreBooze BusOld ShoesEditing Norwegian WoodProphecy
Year 17: Athens Marathon 1987, Infinite Appetites, Black Monday, Vibes-cation

Image of cows in a field in Petra near a monastery.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The final week of Murakami Fest 2024.

This next chapter, ペトラ (Petra), is a bit of a return to form. It’s a few pages longer than the previous chapters and Murakami hits the ennui notes that he’s been going for over most of the book, painting a subtle, muted portrait of offseason travelers taking things as they come in Europe.

After exhausting the sights in Mitilini, they take a bus to Petra where they take a room with a family through what may be the Women’s Cooperative of Petra. Murakami refers to it as 農業婦人会 (Nōgyō fujin kai, women’s agricultural association). They have lunch at a restaurant, see an uzo distillery, buy postcards, have coffee, watch the sunset, and then return to their hotel room where Murakami drinks brandy and reads Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Not a bad way to spend the vacation.

It’s a nice chapter, with a few delicate portraits of the people they run into. Here’s how he ends things:

“You’re Japanese?” she said. “I met a lot of Japanese in Australia. They’re a clever people.” She shook her head sadly. Then she gazed out past the fields, almost like she could make out Australia just past the horizon. “Visit again sometime,” she said. “It’s quiet here. Next time you can take it easy.”

We will, I said. We want to visit during the summer next time.

“You don’t have children?” she asked, like she’d suddenly remembered.

We don’t, I responded.

She looked at us and then smiled. “But you’re still young.”

We packed our things and paid the bill. She seemed very embarrassed to take the money. I don’t know why. Maybe she hadn’t yet adjusted to working with customers like that. I gave her some coins from Japan and told her it was for the girl who had shown us the way. She thanked me and stared at the coins in her palm. “Sayonara,” we said. Then we left her behind in her silent, puddle of sadness.

That’s everything that happened in Petra.

「日本の方ですね。オーストラリアで沢山日本の人見ました。クレヴァーな人達」そして彼女は哀しげに首を振る。それから畑の向こうの方に目をやる。そのむこうにオーストラリアが見えるかしら、という風に。「また来て下さい」と彼女は言う。「ここは静かでいいところです。今度はゆっくりと来てくださいね」

そうする、と僕らは言った。今度は夏に来たいものですね。

「お子さんはいらっしゃらないの?」とふと思いついたように彼女は尋ねる。

いない、と僕らは答える。

彼女は僕らの様子を見て、それからにっこりと笑う。「でもまだお若いですものね」

僕らは荷物をまとめ、勘定を払う。お金を受け取る時、彼女はとても恥ずかしそうにする。どうしてかはよくわからない。まだそういう客を相手にする仕事に慣れていないのだろうか。僕は案内してくれた女の子にと言って日本から持ってきた小銭をあげる。彼女は礼を言って、手のひらに乗せたその小銭をじっと見る。「さよなら」と僕らは言った。そして彼女をその物静かなみずたまりのような哀しみのなかにそっと置き去りにした。

それがペトラの町で起こったことの全てである。 (310)

It’s starting to become more apparent that this is Bubble Era Japan. Obviously, the whole book is premised on this fact. Murakami, a mid-tier writer with a small but dedicated readership, could afford to close up shop in Japan, giving up many if not all of his regular writing gigs (one of the main points of the trip), and move to the Mediterranean for three years, living on a restricted budget. Room and board is 1,800 yen for the night and 500 yen for breakfast for two. Dinner for two is 1,300 yen and includes fish, salad, and wine. This only works if the yen is super strong. I’m sure that Norwegian Wood’s runaway success changed the equation a little, but it doesn’t seem to have hit yet. Something to watch for in coming chapters.

Impossible Pairs

The newsletter is online, which means the podcast is also here:

The core of the newsletter is about “impossible pairs,” in particular 4日 and 8日. Do you know the difference in pronunciation between these two without looking it up? The good news is that Japanese mix these up as well. So don’t sweat it too much, but it can be good to try and “brute force” pairs like this if you can establish a clear mnemonic or set of phrases that click for you. I also took a look at the difference between 確か (tashika) and 確かに (tashika ni).

I ended up rambling a bit at the beginning of the podcast about my usual nonsense: letting yourself follow the ebbs and flows of motivation as it comes to you. Although the one key point that I hope didn’t get lost is stop and check out the neighborhood around you in Japan. There are likely a ton of excellent restaurants, cafes, and bars for you to enjoy.

I found a reading cafe not far from me in Osaka and it’s given me at least one solid new author to read in Kakuta Mitsuyo. She seems to have had a couple novels and short stories translated, but no nonfiction. Worth taking a look at her writing! And the cafe, which is on Instagram here.

Click through to the newsletter to find a link to some of Kakuta’s nonfiction writing online that we’ll be reading for the October USJETAA Japanese Reading Group, and join us if you can.

Vibes-cation

Year 1: BoobsThe WindBaseballLederhosenEels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year 2: Hotel Lobby OystersCondomsSpinning Around and Around街・町The Town and Its Uncertain WallA Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year 3: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and WeirsThe LibraryOld DreamsSaying GoodbyeLastly
Year 4: More DrawersPhone CallsMetaphorsEight-year-olds, dudeUshikawaLast Line
Year 5: Jurassic SapporoGerry MulliganAll Growns UpDanceMountain Climbing
Year 6: Sex With Fat WomenCoffee With the ColonelThe LibrarianOld ManWatermelons
Year 7: WarmthRebirthWastelandHard-onsSeventeenEmbrace
Year 8: PigeonEditsMagazinesAwkwardnessBack Issues
Year 9: WaterSnæfellsnesCannonballDistant Drumming
Year 10: VermontersWandering and BelongingPeter CatSushi CounterMurakami Fucks First
Year 11: EmbersEscapeWindow SeatsThe End of the World
Year 12: Distant DrumsExhaustionKissLack of PretenseRotemburo
Year 13: Murakami PreparednessPacing Norwegian WoodCharacter Studies and Murakami’s Financial SituationMental RetreatWriting is Hard
Year 14: Prostitutes and NovelistsVilla Tre Colli and Norwegian WoodSurge of DeathOn the Road to MetaUnbelievable
Year 15: Baseball on TVKindnessMurakami in the Asahi Shimbun – 日記から – 1982The Mythology of 1981Winning and Losing
Year 16: The Closet MassacreBooze BusOld ShoesEditing Norwegian WoodProphecy
Year 17: Athens Marathon 1987, Infinite Appetites, Black Monday

A view of Mitilini, Greece, from the south.

Mitilini in 2010, via Wikimedia Commons.

In the next chapter, レスボス (Lesbos), Murakami continues his vibes-cation. He’s on Lesbos, as the title suggests, and there isn’t much to do. So they take a taxi outside the main town to see the Museum of Theophilus, a museum dedicated to the Greek folk artist.

Murakami seems impressed with the amateurish paintings and the way Theophilus is able to capture the awkward and frightening and suggestive, but part of the appeal is the moment in which he’s viewing the works. The Murakamis are the only people in the museum on a warm October day during the offseason.

They go to another museum right next door, which seems to be the Museum-Library Stratis Eleftheriadis-Tériade. Murakami describes it as containing works of Picasso, Matisse and others collected by a publisher who lived in Paris, which seems to correspond to Tériade.

They take their time, and when they finish, they head up the hill for a beer. Murakami ends the chapter in a nice way.

We go outside and up the hill a bit, go into the first kafenio we see, and order a cold beer. The beer is so cold it makes my eye sockets rattle. The afternoon is quiet, the light is warm. A tourist pamphlet notes, “Lesbos is known for having the most clear days in all of Greece.” I see a patrol boat heading into the port. A blue and white Greek flag flutters in the wind. Today feels like one of life’s sunny patches.

I wonder if someone could paint our picture. A 38-year-old writer and his wife, far from home. Beer on the table. Life is pretty good. And occasionally there are patches of sun in the afternoon.

外に出て少し丘を上がり、最初にみかけたカフェニオンに入って、冷たいビールを注文する。目の奥が痛くなるくらいよく冷えたビールである。静かな午後、暖かい光。「レスボス島はギリシャでいちばん晴天日の多いことで知られています」と観光パンフレットにはある。パトロール・ボートが港に入ってくるのが見える。青と白のギリシャの旗が風に揺れる。まるで人生の日だまりのような一日。

誰かが僕らの絵を描いてくれないかな、と思う。故郷から遠く離れた三十八歳の作家とその妻。テーブルの上のビール。そこそこの人生。そしてときには午後の日だまり。 (302)

It doesn’t feel as substantive as some of the other writing in the book, but it’s a nice little chapter. I do feel like the chapters have gotten shorter as we pass the midpoint of the book, which makes me wonder whether Murakami was writing these contemporaneously. We know that he kept a journal, so he very well could have written these out after the fact; the book wasn’t published until 1990. If he was writing them contemporaneously, however, it might make sense that we get these short, sparse vignettes rather than the extended travel writing at the beginning of the trip. These are maintenance pieces. Written after he finished literal and figurative marathons.

I think it again highlights exactly how quickly Murakami works. He left on the trip without having started Norwegian Wood, and finished it in less than a year. While traveling and writing (or at least journaling/taking notes) about everything he did while abroad. Say what you will about Murakami, but he’s not a slacker. These chapters, however, do feel a bit vibey and muted, but perhaps that’s what Murakami was going for.

Black Monday

Year 1: BoobsThe WindBaseballLederhosenEels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year 2: Hotel Lobby OystersCondomsSpinning Around and Around街・町The Town and Its Uncertain WallA Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year 3: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and WeirsThe LibraryOld DreamsSaying GoodbyeLastly
Year 4: More DrawersPhone CallsMetaphorsEight-year-olds, dudeUshikawaLast Line
Year 5: Jurassic SapporoGerry MulliganAll Growns UpDanceMountain Climbing
Year 6: Sex With Fat WomenCoffee With the ColonelThe LibrarianOld ManWatermelons
Year 7: WarmthRebirthWastelandHard-onsSeventeenEmbrace
Year 8: PigeonEditsMagazinesAwkwardnessBack Issues
Year 9: WaterSnæfellsnesCannonballDistant Drumming
Year 10: VermontersWandering and BelongingPeter CatSushi CounterMurakami Fucks First
Year 11: EmbersEscapeWindow SeatsThe End of the World
Year 12: Distant DrumsExhaustionKissLack of PretenseRotemburo
Year 13: Murakami PreparednessPacing Norwegian WoodCharacter Studies and Murakami’s Financial SituationMental RetreatWriting is Hard
Year 14: Prostitutes and NovelistsVilla Tre Colli and Norwegian WoodSurge of DeathOn the Road to MetaUnbelievable
Year 15: Baseball on TVKindnessMurakami in the Asahi Shimbun – 日記から – 1982The Mythology of 1981Winning and Losing
Year 16: The Closet MassacreBooze BusOld ShoesEditing Norwegian WoodProphecy
Year 17: Athens Marathon 1987, Infinite Appetites

A ferry leaves from Kavala.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

In the next chapter, カヴァラからのフェリーボート (The Ferry from Kavala), Murakami rides the ferry from Kavala to Lesbos. It’s notable for the point of view which really focuses in on Murakami himself, and not his wife. He’s on the ferry and notices a group of young Greek soldiers. They’re always riding ferries, although he doesn’t have a good idea of where they’re going.

There’s a nice scene describing the young soldiers laughing and smoking cigarettes. Murakami writes them sympathetically because he’s been thinking about fighting ever since the Evros River incident, which happened the December of 1986 (the year prior).

He goes on a little aside about the futility of war before being brought back to his senses by a Greek man who points at the television:

The middle-aged Greek man seated at the table next to me says, Hey, look at the TV, it’s Japan. The news on the TV in the first-class lobby is showing the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Kabutocho. People with rigid looks on their faces are shouting something. They’re pointing. Their sleeves are rolled up, and they’re yelling into phones. But I’m unable to figure out what’s going on. “It’s money,” the Greek man says in broken English, “Money.” He pantomimes counting out money. I take it that stocks have crashed. But I can’t explain the details with my level of English. (* I realized this later, but this was Black Monday. When I think about it, I’m reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1929, Fitzgerald learned of the Great Crash when he was traveling in Tunisia. He describes it “like distant thunder.” Of course, Black Monday wasn’t anywhere close to the scale of the 1929 crash, but I still remember feeling a sort of sense of unease. I might’ve been thinking about war just at that moment, so the stock crash and everyone’s paralyzed faces on TV may have felt more darkly ominous than usual to me.)

隣のテーブルに座っている中年のギリシャ人が僕に向かってほら、テレビを見てごらんよ、日本だよ、と言う。一等船室のロビーのテレビのニュースが東京兜町の証券取引所の光景を映し出している。こわばった顔つきをした人々が何かを叫んでいる。指を上げている。シャツの袖をまくりあげて、電話に向かって何か怒鳴っている。でも何のことだか僕には理解できない。「moneyだよ、money」とギリシャ人が片言の英語で言う。そして金を勘定する仕種をする。どうやら株が暴落したらしい。でも詳しいことは僕の英語力では説明できない。(*あとになってわかったことだが、それが例のブラック・マンデーだった。僕はこのときのことを思い出すたびに、スコット・フィッツジェラルドのことを考える。スコット・フィッツジェラルドは1929年の大暴落をチュニジアを旅行している時に知った。「まるで遠い電鳴のように」と彼は描写している。もちろん、ブラック・マンデーは規模として1929年の暴落とは比べ物にならなかったけれど、その時のなにかしら不安定な空気のことを僕はまだ記憶している。たぶんちょうどそのとき戦争のことを考えているので、株の暴落とテレビの画面に映る人々のひきつった顔が、僕には余計に暗く不吉に思えたのだろう) (296)

That’s essentially the end of the chapter. There’s a brief news segment on the TV about Prime Minister Nakasone stepping down for Prime Minister Takeshita. Red Dawn starts to play after the news. And Murakami returns to his cabin after eating a pear and crackers and drinking some brandy. He awakes in Lesbos.

This is an interesting chapter because of the F. Scott Fitzgerald connection and because Black Monday happens to be my birthday. So when I turned 6, Murakami was asleep on a ferry in the Aegean Sea.

I’m unable to track down the Fitzgerald quote, so that’s my translation of Murakami’s Japanese. If anyone knows where I might find that Fitzgerald writing (it seems to be his journal/diary rather than a piece of published writing), let me know!

Infinite Appetites

Year 1: BoobsThe WindBaseballLederhosenEels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year 2: Hotel Lobby OystersCondomsSpinning Around and Around街・町The Town and Its Uncertain WallA Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year 3: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and WeirsThe LibraryOld DreamsSaying GoodbyeLastly
Year 4: More DrawersPhone CallsMetaphorsEight-year-olds, dudeUshikawaLast Line
Year 5: Jurassic SapporoGerry MulliganAll Growns UpDanceMountain Climbing
Year 6: Sex With Fat WomenCoffee With the ColonelThe LibrarianOld ManWatermelons
Year 7: WarmthRebirthWastelandHard-onsSeventeenEmbrace
Year 8: PigeonEditsMagazinesAwkwardnessBack Issues
Year 9: WaterSnæfellsnesCannonballDistant Drumming
Year 10: VermontersWandering and BelongingPeter Cat, Sushi Counter, Murakami Fucks First
Year 11: Embers, Escape, Window Seats, The End of the World
Year 12: Distant Drums, Exhaustion, Kiss, Lack of Pretense, Rotemburo
Year 13: Murakami Preparedness, Pacing Norwegian Wood, Character Studies and Murakami’s Financial Situation, Mental Retreat, Writing is Hard
Year 14: Prostitutes and Novelists, Villa Tre Colli and Norwegian Wood, Surge of Death, On the Road to Meta, Unbelievable
Year 15: Baseball on TV, Kindness, Murakami in the Asahi Shimbun – 日記から – 1982, The Mythology of 1981, Winning and Losing
Year 16: The Closet Massacre, Booze Bus, Old Shoes, Editing Norwegian Wood, Prophecy
Year 17: Athens Marathon 1987

Week 2 in Murakami Fest 2024. Murakami creates a pitch perfect Murakami mood in the chapter 雨のカヴァラ (Rainy Kavala).

Kavala and the coastline viewed from the harbor.

Kavala in 1982, via Wikimedia Commons.

He and his wife take a three hour bus ride from Thessaloniki and arrive at the harbor town Kavala, descending from the mountains into the town. Murakami is instantly at home: The town reminds him of Kobe with the harbor nearby and the mountains dropping down into the town. 海と山の間の距離は狭ければ狭いほどいい (The narrower the space between the water and the mountains the better), he notes.

He gives some historical background on the city, its role as the first place in Europe where St. Paul performed missionary work and as a sort of overrun middle point in conflicts between Europe and the Middle East. He arrives on October 18, the town’s independence day from Turkey after World War I.

He has a funny anecdote about eating breakfast at a Communist cafe (or at least one near a Communist headquarters) for the equivalent of 100 yen because the hotel breakfast was 500 yen.

They don’t really do much at all, which is kind of the point. Murakami has run his marathon both figuratively and literally. He finished the Athens Marathon, and he’s published Norwegian Wood. It’s time to take some time off. Yet he seems to be at a loose end, kind of itching for something to do.

Here are the final three paragraphs in the very short chapter:

We stayed in the port town for four days because I liked it quite a bit. For four days, we did almost nothing. We just kind of shuffled between the movie theater (We saw Brazil there, which was good), going on walks, admiring the view of the harbor from our hotel veranda, checking out the fish market, eating at the cheap, delicious psari taverna (seafood restaurant) near the market, and going on more walks. When it rained, we stocked up on wine and Papadopoulos biscuits at the neighborhood market and hunkered down in our room with a book.

It did rain a number of times. On rainy days, we would watch the rain from the taverna terrace and I’d get this…sense of exactly how far we’d come. I wonder why. All sounds were muffled, the overchilled bottle of white wine was sweating, and fishermen wearing yellow, rubber raincoats lined up to untangle a brightly colored fishing net. A black dog trotted around aimlessly like an attendant at a funeral. The waiter listlessly gazed at the newspaper. He was thin, with an odd beard that made him look like a magician. As I ate grilled mackerel, I sketched a man wearing a nylon windbreaker sitting two tables over. He was drinking a half liter of wine, eating squid, and tearing off pieces of bread which he stuffed into his mouth in an incredibly tedious manner. He kept doing it in that order. He would drink some wine, eat a piece of squid, and then stuff bread in his mouth. A cat stared up at him as he ate. I sketched this man for no reason in particular. We just literally had nothing to do on this rainy afternoon.

But it didn’t bother me. We had the harbor before us. The mountains behind us. Wine and biscuits awaiting us in the hotel room. And there was hardly anything about which I needed to concern myself. I’d run my marathon and gotten my airplane ticket refunded. I’d written my novel, and I still had a little time before the next one.

四日間我々はこの港町に滞在した。この町がけっこう気に入ったからだ。四日間、我々は殆どなにもしなかった。ただぼんやりとして、映画館に行き(『未来世紀ブラジル』もここで見た。面白かった)、散歩をし、ホテルのヴェランダに座って港を眺め、魚市場をのぞき、市場の近くの美味しくて安いプサリ・タヴェルナ(魚介レストラン)で食事をし、また散歩をした。雨が降ると近所のマーケットでワインとパパドプロス・クラッカーをたっぷりと買い込み、部屋に籠って本を読んだ。

時々雨が降った。雨の日に、タヴェルナのテラスで雨を眺めながら魚料理を食べていると、なんだか遠くまで来たんだなあ、という気がふとする。どうしてだろう?音がこもり、冷えすぎた白ワインの瓶が汗をかき、漁師たちは黄色いゴムの合羽を着込みみんなで一列に並んで鮮やかな色合いの漁綱のもつれをほぐしている。黒い犬が葬式の雑用糸みたいな格好で小走りにいずこへともなく走っていく。ウェイターは退屈そうにちらちらと新聞にめをやっている。痩せて、奇術師のような不思議な髭をはやしたウェイターだ。僕は鯵のグリルをを食べながら二つ向こうのテーブルに座ったナイロンのジャンパーを着たおじさんの姿をノートにスケッチしている。彼はすごくつまらなさそうにワインを半リットル飲み、イカを食べ、パンをちぎって口の中に詰め込む。それを順番通りにやる。ワインを飲み、イカを食べ、パンを口に詰め込む。猫が一匹それをじっと見上げている。僕はそのおじさんを特にいみもなくボールペンでスケッチしている。雨の午後に本当に何もやることがないのだ。

でも悪いきはしない。前には港がある。後ろには山がある。ホテルの部屋に帰れば、ワインとパパドプロスのクラッカーがある。そして僕には今のところ考えなくてはならないことが殆ど何もないのだ。マラソンは走り終えたし、航空券は払い戻してもらった。小説はもう書いてしまったし、次の小説までにはまだ少し間がある。 (291-292)

Ah, now that feels like a vacation. The man stuffing his face with bread and squid and wine feels like such a telling image. Like there’s no escape from want, from need, from desire. We must move forward with our infinite appetites. This isn’t high writing, but it’s Murakami at his strongest.

Athens Marathon 1987

Welcome back to Murakami Fest. This is our 17th year doing this activity, and this year I’ll continue to look at Distant Drums (遠い太鼓), Murakami’s travel memoir written when he lived in Greece and Italy from 1986 to 1989. I’ve added a page to the blog to organize all of the posts for this Distant Drums project. I’ve realized there are some chapters that I skipped. I may go back and fill those in later, but for now we carry on.

Previous Murakami Fest Posts:

Year 1: BoobsThe WindBaseballLederhosenEels, Monkeys, and Doves
Year 2: Hotel Lobby OystersCondomsSpinning Around and Around街・町The Town and Its Uncertain WallA Short Piece on the Elephant that Crushes Heineken Cans
Year 3: “The Town and Its Uncertain Wall” – Words and WeirsThe LibraryOld DreamsSaying GoodbyeLastly
Year 4: More DrawersPhone CallsMetaphorsEight-year-olds, dudeUshikawaLast Line
Year 5: Jurassic SapporoGerry MulliganAll Growns UpDanceMountain Climbing
Year 6: Sex With Fat WomenCoffee With the ColonelThe LibrarianOld ManWatermelons
Year 7: WarmthRebirthWastelandHard-onsSeventeenEmbrace
Year 8: PigeonEditsMagazinesAwkwardnessBack Issues
Year 9: WaterSnæfellsnesCannonballDistant Drumming
Year 10: VermontersWandering and BelongingPeter Cat, Sushi Counter, Murakami Fucks First
Year 11: Embers, Escape, Window Seats, The End of the World
Year 12: Distant Drums, Exhaustion, Kiss, Lack of Pretense, Rotemburo
Year 13: Murakami Preparedness, Pacing Norwegian Wood, Character Studies and Murakami’s Financial Situation, Mental Retreat, Writing is Hard
Year 14: Prostitutes and Novelists, Villa Tre Colli and Norwegian Wood, Surge of Death, On the Road to Meta, Unbelievable
Year 15: Baseball on TV, Kindness, Murakami in the Asahi Shimbun – 日記から – 1982, The Mythology of 1981, Winning and Losing
Year 16: The Closet Massacre, Booze Bus, Old Shoes, Editing Norwegian Wood, Prophecy

We’re back with the Murakamis in Greece. This chapter is titled “The Athens Marathon and My Ticket Refund Went Well, I Guess” (アテネ・マラソンと切符の払い戻しがまあうまくいったこと). It’s October 1987, a month after the publication of Norwegian Wood. Murakami was back in Japan that summer to look at the galleys and take care of other publication-related details, and then he flew back to Rome via Helsinki. Now he’s heading to Athens for the Athens Marathon.

Runners running in the 1980 Athens Marathon.

Photo from 1980 Athens Marathon via Wikimedia Commons.

He spends this chapter talking about his doubts about the legitimacy of the original Marathon story. What about horses? he wonders. And would the runners really have died? Wouldn’t they easily have run the distance? He debunks this second conspiracy by noting that the runners had run to and from Sparta the day before, 250 kilometers.

Then Murakami provides some background about the Athens race itself, which is dedicated to Grigoris Lambrakis, a member of Parliament who was assassinated by right wingers in 1963.

Murakami mentions that he ran the opposite direction, from Athens to Marathon, six years previously, and notes that he’s meeting with a Japanese running organization at the start of the race. But he doesn’t see any other Japanese (or Asian) runners during the race:

Yet while running I didn’t come across a single Japanese. I was completely surrounded by Europeans. No matter how long I travel, I rarely feel lonely, but on this occasion I felt it keenly. I was permeated with these feelings: Ahh, I am an other, I am alone! Runners from many other countries were running around me. Greeks, of course. And Italians. And you can’t forget Canadians, who may be the people with the most free time in the world. And then Germans (Is there anywhere in the world where you can’t find a German?), French having a great time in matching uniforms, Northern Europeans and their exuberant friendliness, and English running silently with serious expressions on their faces. As for Asians, I was the only one, as far as I could see. During my travels, I’ve been to villages where I was the first Japanese they’d seen, of course, but as I ran this marathon for three plus hours surrounded entirely by foreigners, I started to to feel suffocated. I wonder why.

もっとも走っている間は一人も日本の人には出会わなかった。まわりはとにかくもうヨーロッパ人だらけだった。僕は長く外国を旅行していても孤独感というようなものはあまり感じないのだけれど、このときだけはそれをひしひしと感じることになった。ああ俺はここで異邦人なんだ、孤独なんだと身に滲みて思った。僕の回りにはいろんな国のランナーが走っていた。もちろんギリシャ人がいる。それからイタリア人がいる。世界でおそらくいちばん暇なカナダ人がもちろんいる。それからドイツ人(この地球にドイツ人を見かけずにすむ場所が果たしてあるのだろうか?)揃いのユニフォームを着て楽しげなフランス人、やたらと友好的な北欧人たち、むずかしい顔をして黙々と走る英国人。東洋人なんて見渡す限り僕一人である。もちろん旅行していると生まれて初めて日本人を見たなんていう村にいったりもするわけだけれど、回りが全員外国人というマラソン・レースを三時間何十分も走っていると、時々胸が締めつけられるような気がしてくるのだ。どうしてだろう。 (285-286)

We get more of Murakami’s views of Europeans and also an interesting examination of his reaction to being the only Japanese in the crowd. This was still relatively early days in both the tourism boom. Yes, there was an initial boom in 70s, but 1987 represents the beginning of the next stage of the boom.

Screenshot

I imagine it was also early days for Japanese running and jogging. Interesting to see how Murakami felt.

Airbag Expressions – 確認

This month in the newsletter I wrote about 確認 (kakunin), a really useful word in so many different ways. Give the podcast version a listen here:


While writing the newsletter, I realized that 確認 can absolutely be used as an エアバッグ表現 (airbag hyogen, airbag expression). I haven’t written about this topic in a while, but I did many, many years ago when I was first getting the blog going. One of my college professors used to teach these phrases as a way to lead into a request. Given that requests require the use of social capital and there are many different levels of social interaction in Japan, it’s easy to mess up a request and/or shock someone by making a sudden request. However, if you use an airbag expression to deploy a linguistic airbag before making the request, you’re much more likely to be successful and prevent any “injuries.”

Over time I’ve started thinking about this more broadly. How can you prepare someone for what you are about to say? How can you improve the odds that you will be understood? What pieces of language enable a conversation partner to predict what you’re going to say next?

確認 is one of these magical words. Just utter 確認したいですが (kakunin shitai desu ga) and you’ve created a template for the conversation to come. Your conversation partner can clearly see what’s up the road, and all you have to do then is populate that road with the question that you’re trying to answer. Your partner will then guide you the rest of the way by providing the answer to what you’re looking for.

I’d forgotten that I wrote about this on the blog (and in the Japan Times) a long time ago as well, but I don’t think I’ve been able to put this idea into words as effectively as I have been above.

How much did Norwegian Wood weigh?

In the newsletter this month I did a check-up on my kanji study. The prognosis? DOA.

I haven’t done a serious kanji repetition for over a year now. I don’t regret the two years I spent using an Anki deck to go through the 常用漢字 (jōyō kanji, ordinary use kanji), but I do wonder whether daily writing in a journal from the very beginning of my studies—23 years ago this summer—would have had a bigger benefit. Just write! Write every damn day! Write any kanji you know, not with the goal of learning more (which you’ll do naturally if you’re in a college course, or on your own separately through dedicated kanji study), but with the goal of creating your own, organic system of repetition.

One of the main motivations behind this practice, which I did for a few months last year before a trip home in November, was to buy some cool 原稿用紙 (genkō yōshi, manuscript paper) notebooks, the same kind that Murakami used when he was writing his early novels, including Norwegian Wood.

Thanks to his book 遠い太鼓 (Distant Drums) which I’ve been slowly reading through over the past few years, we know a lot of detailed information about Murakami’s process of drafting and editing Norwegian Wood. We know that it was 900 manuscript pages; that he finished a draft on March 7, 1987, in a marathon 17-hour writing session in Rome; that the next day he started writing out a second draft of the novel; and that he completed the revision/redrafting process on March 26. This means that on March 26, he was in Rome with at least 1,800 manuscript pages.

The notebooks I’ve been using have 50 pages each, which means that this would have been 36 notebooks if Murakami was using something similar. Each one of these notebooks weighs 153 g, which means that the 36 that Murakami was lugging around could potentially have weighed 5,508 g or 5.5 kg = 12.14 lbs, which the internet tells me is about the same weight as four human brains. In a more useful comparison, this is about the size of one slightly larger than average cat.

So Norwegian Wood doesn’t quite meet chonk status, especially when you divide the two drafts in two to get the 6.7 lbs that Murakami delivered personally to a Kodansha employee at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Color me a little surprised. I never knew you could fit so much on a single manuscript page. Even The Wind-up Bird Chronicle was only 2,500 pages total, according to the internet, which means it would have weighed 7.65 kg = 16.87 lbs. A bit chonkier to be sure.

Fortunately for Murakami, he switched to a word processor well before that novel, so he would not have needed to lug notebooks around the U.S. as he was writing.

Check out more on kanji and notebooks in the podcast this month: