We have been during the Golden Week now.
"Golden Week" is the long holidays that begin from the end of
April to the beginning of May. There are some national holidays
at that period.(29th in April, 3rd, 4th, 5th in May) Japanese people
call these holidays "Golden Week".
If you have such holidays, what do you do?
I thought about how Japanese people spend holidays.
Japanese would spend hours for going shopping, making a short trip,
reading some books...
A lot of Japanese people go to recreational spots.
Shopping mall is one of the popular spots you spend hours in such
holidays.
But my wife hate the crowd. So, I may need to spend hours in my house
for most of hours.
I started to read a book "Kokoro(The heart)" by Natsume Souseki.
Do you know the author Natsume Souseki?
Natsume Souseki is one of the famous classical novelists
in Japan. He used to be printed on the 1000 yen bill.
I heard that his works have been getting popular in U.S.
The story of Kokoro is like this.
There is a man whose age is around 40 years old. A university student got
to know with each other and called him "Sensei (a teacher)".
The student had a sense of closeness to the man, Sensei.
The man has a beautiful wife. And he has spent hours with no occupation.
(So, he seemed to have a lot of properties.) He looked happy apparently.
But, the main character found something dark in Sensei's mind through
conversation. Actually, the man has the dark memory.
He was concealing a past experience. He had a good friend.
He betrayed his good friend, and got his friend's lover. After the incident,
the Sensei's friend killed himself.
The man, Sensei has a big sense of guilty.
The story is narrated like that setting.
It is said that Soseki was worrying about the future in the Meiji period.
In that period, our lifestyle was changing from old stylish to the modernized,
and westernized ones. Probably, people's value has changed to materialistic.
He is classical novelist over 100 years ago. But his works have been still
read among Japanese. If you have chance, please read his books.
Well...
I spend these holidays for writing a story. I'm struggling to do that..
2 comments:
Hm, people are different inside then what they are on the surface. Always.
Natsume Souseki - I bought a book that contains stories in "real" Japanese, but each page has also explanations of some expressions in English - it is written for those that learn Japanese. Part of this book is dedicated to Natsume Souseki. But I find it very hard to read - my Japanese is still very poor.
As for the Golden week - I think western people cannot fully appreciate what the Golden week means to Japanese. We are used to having much longer vacations and to take them whenever we want to, so I think we don't appreciate the freedom that the Golden week brings. I hope you used it well.
Shantal ForSD
> people are different inside then what they are on the surface.
That's exactly true.
Souseki's novels are classified
as classic literature. Each expressions are old. It sounds unfamiliar little bit.
But he described the people
who lost their moral as human
because of worship of money.
Please don't think your
Japanese is poor.
I am thinking that I write a
story for Japanese learners on this blog. I will use only
simple Kanji for beginners.
But I feel it is not easy
to write a story constantly.
I will do my best when I have a
spare time...^^
I'm so glad when I find your
comment on my blog. Thanks.
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