Sunday, August 25, 2013

MIYAZAWA KENJI: Part III "The Cat Office" (Anime)

THE CAT OFFICE
(A Short Anime Feature)

     Quite a few years ago a short anime feature was produced in Japan entitled "The Cat Office." While not totally faithful to the original storyline, it is close and thus is quite enjoyable. Just follow the link below to watch and enjoy it.

MIYAZAWA KENJI: Part II "The Cat Office"





THE CAT OFFICE

By

Miyazawa Kenji


A New Translation by Hayato Tokugawa


The following short story, “Neko no Jimusho,” first appeared in an amateur literary publication, Getsuyou, in 1926; however, it was not formally published until 1986, when it was included in a complete collection of Miyazawa’s works. The tale center on the daily operations of a small office run by of all things, cats, and was a commentary on workplace bullying and bureaucracy. While “Neko no Jimusho” is not one of the author’s best known stories, it has been illustrated as a children’s picture book several times, has been adapted in manga form, and there is also an anime adaptation of the story.

Near a certain railroad station was the 6th Office of the Ministry of Feline Affairs, which dealt primarily with inquiries into feline history and geography. The clerks in the office all wore short coats made of black satin, and were very well respected by everyone. As it happened, any time that one of the clerks left his employment or had to retire for some reason, every single one of the young cats in the area clamored to take his position. Be that as it may, the number of clerks at the 6th Office of the Ministry of Feline Affairs was always limited to four; so, of those many cats who sought the position, the only one who would get it was the most literate among them and who had the neatest handwriting.
Now, the manager of the office was a rather large black cat, a touch senile perhaps, but otherwise as sharp as a tack quite respectable. The workers beneath him were:

First Clerk: a white cat
Second Clerk; a tabby cat
Third Clerk, a tortoiseshell cat
Fourth Clerk, a “sooty” sort of cat.

The “sooty” sort of cat (everyone simply referred to him as “Soot Cat,” was not actually born that way; rather, he was born with some sort of regular, natural coloring (no one however was quite certain what that was). No, his coloring came from his habit of sleeping inside an oven at night; and as a result, his fur always ended up filthy with soot. His nose and ears in particular were stained a deep black, so one might even venture to say that he somewhat resembled a tanuki. It was because of this that Soot Cat was somewhat scorned by the others; that, and because the head of the office was a black cat, this sooty cat, who normally would never ever have been given a chance to become a clerk, no matter how much he studied, when a position became available, was chosen over forty applicants.
Manager Black Cat sat behind a red felt-covered table in the middle of the large office, with White Cat the First Clerk and the Third Clerk, Tortoiseshell, on his right, and Tabby Cat, the Second Clerk, and Soot Cat, the Fourth cat on his left; each clerk properly seated in their own little chair in front of their own little table.
Now you may well ask, “How did the 6th Office of the Ministry of Feline Affairs operate?” Well, it’s rather like this for example:
There was a knock on the office door. “Enter!” Manager Black Cat shouted, leaning back in his chair with his hands in his pockets. The four clerks kept their heads down, flipping busily through their various notebooks. A well-off cat entered. “How may we help you?” asked Black Cat.
“I would like to visit the Bering region in order to eat some arctic mice. Would you tell me the best place to go?
“Yes, of course,” replied Manger Cat. “First Clerk, tell us where arctic mice live.”
The First Clerk opened up a thick notebook with a blue cover and replied, “Usteragominya, Novaskaya, and the Husa River Basin.”
The manger addressed the well-off cat, “Usteragominya, Nova…what was it called?”
“Novaskaya,” replied the First Clerk and the well-off cat in unison.
“Oh yes, Novaskaya, and then what?”
“The Husa River Basin,” the well-off cat and First Clerk said again in unison, embarrassing Manger Black Cat.
“Right then! The Husa River. Well, I suppose that’s the place to go then.”
“So,” continued the well-off cat, “would you give me any advisories about travelling there?”
“Certainly. Second Clerk, tell me if there are any advisories about travelling in the Bering region.”
“Yes sir,” replied the Second Clerk, already flipping through his own notebook. “Summer cats must not travel there.” As he said this, for some reason, everyone glanced at Soot Cat.
Second clerk continued, “There is also a dire warning for winter cats. There is a danger of being lured in by the use of horse meat and trapped, near Hakodate. Furthermore, when black cats in particular travel there without properly distinguishing themselves as cats, they are often mistaken for black foxes and hunted down.”
“Ah, very well then,” said Manger Black Cat. “It’s quite as he said. You are not a black cat such as me, so you shouldn’t have any real trouble. Just be certain to keep clear of horse meat near Hakodate.”
“Well, then,” asked the well-off cat, “Are there any persons of note in that area?”
“Third Clerk, give me the names of any persons of note in the Bering area,” ordered Manger Cat.
“Yess…well…in the Bering area…yes…Tovaski, Gansoski…there are those names.”
“Tovaski and Gansoski? What sort of fellows are they” inquired the well-off cat.
“Fourth Clerk, tell me about Tovaski and Gansoski,” directed Manger Cat.
“Yes sir.” The Fourth Clerk, Soot Cat, had already placed one slender paw at the entries there for Tovaski and Gansoski. Both the manger and the well-off cat seemed to be very impressed by that; while the other three clerks glared at Soot Cat as if they had been slighted, and just sneered.
Soot Cat read from his notebook the best he could. “Chief Tovaski has great moral influence. He has a piercing gaze, but he is slow to speak. Wealthy Gansoski is a bit slow to speak, but he as a piercing gaze.”
“Well then, that’s all I need to know,” said the well-off cat, and he left.
And that’s the way things work — rather well for cats; however, only a year after the incident I am about to describe for you, the 6th Office was shut down. Be that as it may, you no doubt realize by now that the Fourth Clerk, Soot Cat, was greatly disliked by the other three. The Third Clerk, Tortoiseshell, was just itching to take over Soot’s work and be rid of him; and Soot simply wanted the others to think well of him. So, he worked very hard at everything he did; but no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to change things.
For example, one day when Tabby Cat, who was seated beside Soot, placed his lunch on his desk and began to eat, he was suddenly struck by a case of the “yawns.” Taby stretched out his stubby arms as high as he could, and gave a great yawn. Now, since they were all cats, this wasn’t seen as any sign of disrespect had he been a human, it would have been the sort of offense that would have gotten his whiskers pulled. What was rude however was that when he pushed his table away, trying to stretch his legs as well, his lunch box slid off, clattering onto the floor, right in front of Manager Black Cat. The lunch box was a little beat up, but since it was made of aluminum, it didn’t break. Tabby hurriedly finished his stretch, and then leaned across the table, stretching out his arms, attempting to pick it back up.
“It’s no use! You’ll never reach it,” laughed Manger Black Cat, noisily chewing on a piece of bread.
At that moment, Soot Cat had just opened the lid of his own lunch box; but seeing the situation, he stood up at once, picked up the lunch box from the floor, and handed it to Tabby Cat. Tabby suddenly became quite angry, threw his hands up, refusing to take the box which Soot had gone out of his way to pick up, and shouted, his body shaking.
“What’s this? Are you saying I should eat this? Are you saying I should eat something that fell on the floor?”
“No sir,” replied Soot. “I was merely picking it up for you, since you were trying to pick it up yourself.”
“And just when was I trying to pick it up? Hmmmm….I just thought it quite rude to drop something in front of the manger, so I as trying to push it under my desk.”
“Oh, I see,” replied Soot. Still, the lunch box was sliding all over the place so…”
“What impertinence!” snapped Tabby. “Are you trying to start someth…”
The manger gave a loud growl, interrupting so as not to allow Tabby Cat to start a fight. “Please stop your quarreling. Soot didn’t pick up the lunch box with the intention of making you eat from it. And perhaps you have forgotten, Tabby…but I told you this morning you were getting a 10-cent raise.”
At first, Tabby Cat appeared frightened, but listened with his head bent down. Soon he began to smile. “Please forgive my rudeness sir.” He glanced sideways at Soot Cat and took his seat.
One has to feel sorry for Soot Cat. Once again, fifty-six days after that incident, a similar event occurred. This very sort of thing often happened because, for one thing, cats are naturally lazy, and also their front legs that is, their arms are rather short. On this particular day, it was the Third Clerk, Tortoiseshell Cat, sitting on the other side of the room, who, before he could start his work for the morning, let his pen slip and sent it rolling onto the floor. Tortoiseshell decided to spare himself the trouble of standing, so right then, as had Tabby, he leaned forward across the desk, stretched out his arms, and tried to pick up the pen. And, just as before, there was no way that he could reach it. As a matter of fact, Tortoiseshell was particularly short, so as he leaned further forward, his legs left his seat. Soot wasn’t sure whether he should pick up the pen, given what had happened before, so he hesitated a bit, blinking, but soon he could no longer just ignore it and stood.
This time however, Tortoiseshell leaned too far forward and toppled over the desk, banging his head. It made a dreadful sound, so much so that even Manger Black Cat stood up in surprise and took a bottle of ammonia from the shelf behind him, so that he could bring Tortoiseshell to. However, Tortoiseshell soon awoke on his own, and abruptly, in a fit of confusion shouted, “Soot! You are a rat! How dare you shove me!”
This time, the manger was quick to calm Tortoiseshell. “No, Tortoiseshell, that was your fault. Soot merely stood to do you a favor, not to do you any harm. Still, it’s not that big a deal. Anyway…ummmm…Santontan’s change of address…yes…” and he quickly returned to his work. Left with no alternative, Tortoiseshell also went back to his work, now and then glancing at Soot with a sinister gaze.
So, this was the way of things quite distressing for Soot Cat.
Soot, trying so hard to become and “ordinary cat”, took to sleeping outside the window of his shack, but the night was much too cold and he couldn’t stop sneezing; so there was no choice but back to the oven. Why did he get so cold? Well, it was because his skin was rather thin, the reason being that he was born in midsummer. When Soot thought about all this, how hopeless it was and that there was nothing he could do about it, his round eyes filled with tears. Despite all this, the manager was quite kind to him, and he was happy to think that his colleagues at the office held such prestige in the community; so even as he cried, Soot clenched his fists and thought to himself, “No matter how hard it gets, I won’t quit! I can make it through this!”
Be that as it may, even Manager Black Cat could not always be counted on. By virtue of being a cat, although he seemed wise, he really was a fool. Once, Soot Cat caught a bad cold and the joints in his legs swelled up to the size of softballs, so that he couldn’t even walk and had to take a day off from work. He didn’t even try to put up a fight; he just lay in his bed and cried and cried and cried. While watching the yellow light that streamed in through a little window in his shed, he rubbed his eyes and cried the whole day through.
Meanwhile, back at the office:
“My goodness! Soot still hasn’t come in today. He’s terribly late,” said the manger between tasks.
“Oh! He must have goon off to the beach to play or something,” said White Cat.
“No, I’ll bet someone called him off to a party somewhere,” said Tabby Cat.
“There’s a party going on today?” the manager asked with a start. He didn’t think that there was any cat in the town who would throw a party and not invite him.
“I heard there was a school opening ceremony or something going on up north.”
“Oh, I see.” Black Cat grew silent and began to brood.
“Why on earth,” said Tortoiseshell, “is Soot Cat being invited to so many places these days? I hear he’s been saying that no matter what, he’s going to be the next manager. So some worldly fools are trying their hardest to curry favor with him.”
“Is this true?” shouted Black Cat.
“It is indeed true. Go see for yourself,” Tortoiseshell said with a frown.
“Inexcusable…that cat has been eyeing me a lot. Alright, I have a thought of my own!”
The office was deathly silent for some time after that.
The next day, the swelling in Soot Cat’s legs had finally gone down, so he woke up bright and early, and walked to the office through a howling wind. When he arrived, his beloved notebook, the cover of which he would stroke each morning, was no longer on top of his desk; but instead, its contents had been divided up between the desks of his three colleagues.
“Ah, they must have been busy yesterday,” he said to himself in a hoarse voice, his heart pounding.
Click! The door opened and in came Tortoiseshell.
“Good morning,” Soot stood and greeted him, but Tortoiseshell just took his seat quietly, and then leafed through his notebook as if he was incredibly busy.
Click! Slam! In came Tabby Cat.
“Good Moring” greeted Soot as before, but Tabby wouldn’t even look his way.
“Good morning,” said Tortoiseshell.
“Morning. Some wind out there, huh?” said Tabby as he began leafing through his notebook without delay.
Click! Slam! White Cat entered the office.
“Good morning, “Tabby and Tortoiseshell greeted in unison.
“Oh! Morning! It’s quite windy out today.” White also took up his work. Soot stood languidly and silently bowed, but White Cat acted as if he didn’t even know him.
Clack! Smack!
“Whew! My goodness it’s windy.” In came Manger Black. “Good morning.” The three other cats quickly stood and bowed while Soot stood in a daze and bowed, averting his gaze.
“Seems to be a storm, yes,” said Black Cat, not looking at Soot. Soon afterward, he began his work.
“Well, we should continue yesterday’s inquiry of the Anmognac brothers. Second Clerk, which of the Anmognac brothers went to the south pole?”
And so began the day’s work. Soot watched them quietly. He had no notebook to work with. Even if he wanted to say something, he could not bring himself to speak.
“It was Pan and Polaris,” replied Tabby.
“Alright, tell me more about Pan and Polaris,” said Black.
“Oh, but that’s my job! The details…the details!” thought Soot, now on the verge of tears.
“Pan and Polaris perished on Yap Island, while returning from an expedition to the South Pole. Their frozen remains were buried at sea,” the First Clerk, White Cat, read from Soot’s own notes. Soot was sad, very sad, and his cheeks began to droop; but he watched them and endured it, holding back the tears.
The office steadily became busier and busier, and the work rolled along. Once in a while, each of them glanced Soot’s way, but they never said a word.
Noon came along. Soot didn’t even eat the lunch he had brought with him, he just sat patiently and watched; his hands in his lap. About an hour later, Soot began to sob. He cried on and off for the next three hours, until the sun began to set. Still, the others continued their apparently interesting work, as if they did not notice him at all.
About that same time, although the cats were not aware of it, a lion’s austere golden face was watching them through the window behind the manger. The lion had watched them suspiciously for some time; and then without warning, pounded on the door and came into the room. I probably don’t have to tell you how very surprised the cats were. The lion sauntered around the office lazily. Only Soot stood to greet him, drying his tears.
The lion spoke in a loud, stern voice, “Just what do you think you’re doing? You cats have no need for geography and history! Cease this at once. Humph! I’m closing this place down!”
As it turns out, and as you might suspect, the lion was from the very highest levels of government; and thus, the office was disbanded.
I half-agree with the lion.


*Oh, by the way. In case you are worried about whatever happened to Soot Cat, you needn’t worry. As was the custom, when one government office was closed, its personnel were placed with some other office that needed their talents of which Soot Cat had many.


_______________________________________________
“The Cat Office,” by Miyazawa Kenji, a new translation by Hayato Tokugawa.  Copyright © 2013 by Haytato Tokugawa and Shisei-Dō Publications. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States and Japan by Shisei-Dō Publications. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo- copying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

“The Cat Office” by Miyazawa Kenji, first published in 1926, is in the public domain.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

MIYAZAWA KENJI: Part I

Miyazawa Kenji: Part I


My wife Aoi and I are both students of Japanese literature. Of late, we have been interested in the literature produced during the Meiji, Taishō, and early Shōwa periods. One writer who unfortunately, I had not really taken much notice of until I received a book of his as a present — a children’s book titled Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten (注文の多い料理店), The Restaurant of Many Orders, is Miyazawa Kenji. A few evenings ago, I had been rearranging my bookshelves, in the futile hope of making more room for more books (my study is now a repository of books positioned in any place that I don’t step on) and took a few minutes to leaf through The Restaurant of Many Orders again. I very much enjoyed the book and wanted to share with you what I discovered about the author.
I think to most Westerners, the name Miyazawa Kenji either means not much; or more frequently, it is confused with Miyazaki Hayao, the creator of the now classic My Neighbor Totoro, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Kiki’s Delivery Service. Not at all the same man, but both have indisputably given us some treasures.
Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治) was born August 27, 1896 and is most noted as one of the premier writers of children’s literature of the early Shōwa period. He was also a devout Buddhist and in later life, a social activist.
Unlike what one might expect in many stories of the time, the Meiji period, Miyazawa was not born into a poor humble household; rather, he was born in Iwate, in the town of Hanamaki-shi, north-central Honshū, as the eldest son of a wealthy pawnbroker. Even though he was a child of wealth and privilege, he was bothered by what he perceived to be a great social disparity between his moneyed family and the disadvantaged, often insolvent, farmers of the region, whom his family profited from by lending them money.
The young man attended the Morioka Agriculture and Forestry College (Now Iwate University), graduating in 1918. Records show that he was a bright student; so bright in fact, that his academic advisor hired him as an assistant professor. That in itself should have made young Kenji very happy indeed; yet, a wide chasm developed between him and his father, primarily over religion. Kenji had converted to a modern form of Nichiren Buddhism, Nichirenism or Nichirenshugi (日蓮主義), becoming a follower of the radical nationalist leader of the Nichrensugi, Tanaka Chigaku[i], to the extent of joining Tanaka’s Kokuchukai or “National Pillar” organization in 1920. That, and his growing disgust for the family pawn business, led him to leave Hanamaki for Tokyō, and to give up his financial inheritance in a complete break with his family.
It was in Tokyō that he was introduced to the works of the poet Hagiwara Sakutarō[ii] and was himself inspired to begin writing. He spent eight months in Tokyō, where he primarily wrote children’s stories, but was ultimately forced to return to Hanamaki due to the illness and finally death of his younger sister, whom he had loved very much.
Back at home, on tenuous ground with his father, Miyazawa found employment as a teacher of agricultural science at the Hanamaki Agricultural High School (花巻農学校) at a meager wage; but still, he was able to set aside enough money to pay for the publication of his first collection of children’s stores and fairy tales, Chūmon no Ōi Ryōriten, mentioned earlier, as well as a small collection of free-verse poetry, Haru to Shura (春と修羅), Spring and Asura. Although neither work was what could be considered a commercial success, they did gain the attention of Japanese poets Takamura Kōtarō[iii] and Kusano Shimpei[iv] who in turn, introduced his work to Japanese literary circles. As a teacher, Miyazawa was viewed as a bit eccentric, but also as a man of passion. He taught that learning could only come through actual, first-hand experience rather than solely by scholastic effort. In keeping with that, he often took his students out of the formal classroom setting, sometimes for training, but often simply for enjoyable walks in the countryside. He also encouraged his pupils to put on plays which they had themselves written.
From 1926 until his passing in 1933, Miyazwa did all that he could in order to improve both the material and the spiritual lives of the peasants of Iwate-ken. He introduced new agricultural methods and new varieties of seeds and plants. He went so far as to leave his teaching position in order to establish the Rasu Farmers Association, which met in a small house on his family’s property. Not only did he teach agriculture but also encouraged the performance of plays, music and other cultural activities.
He also, at that time, studied Esperanto, a contrived, constructed language, more of a fashionable fad or experiment, very popular at the time, especially within European intellectual and pseudo-intellectual circles. Nitobé Inazō was another fan of this language and went so far as to attempt to have it adapted as “the international language” by the League of Nations.
Miyazawa’s later work (1926-1933) shows an acute sensitivity for nature, the land, and the people who worked it. He became a prolific writer of children’s stores, many of which might seem light, humorous, even capricious, but which all contained some note of moral education. He wrote not only prose but penned stage plays, a large number of tanka, as well as free-verse, much of which was not published until after his death from pneumonia resulting from chronic pleurisy[v] September 21, 1933
Besides the works previously cited, his other major works include: Gingatetsudō no Yoru (銀河鉄道の夜), Night on the Galactic Railroad; Kaze no Matasaburō (風の又三郎), Matasaburo of the Wind; Cello Hiki no Goshu (セロ弾きのゴーシュ), Gauche the Cellist; Taneyamagahara no Yoru (種山ヶ原の夜), The Night of Taneyamagahara; Vegetarian Taisai (ビジテリアン大祭), Vegetarian Great Festival; Ryū to Shijin (竜と詩人), The Dragon and the Poet.









[i] Tanaka Chigaku (田中智學) (1861–1939) was a Japanese Buddhist scholar and preacher of Nichiren Buddhism, orator, writer and nationalist propagandist in the Meiji, Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He is considered to be the father of Nichirenism, the fiercely nationalistic blend of Nichiren Buddhism and State Shinto espoused by such figures as Inoue Nissho, Ishiwara Kanji and Kita Ikki.
The 1890s saw Tanaka's spiritual philosophy evolve in an increasingly nationalistic manner, taking to concluding his works with the twin salutations of “I Take Refuge in the Scripture of the Wondrous Lotus Blossom” (南無妙法蓮華経, Namu myoho rengekyo) and “Imperial Japan for Ever and Ever” (日本帝国万々歳, Nippon teikoku ban-banzai). The decade saw him carry out extensive lecturing tours throughout Japan and establish his Nichiren study group, Rissho Ankokukai (立正安国会) from his new base in Kamakura. A noted anti-Christian and staunch opponent of Christian missionaries in Japan, he applauded Japan’s triumph in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, stating that “The war with Russia is divinely inspired to make Japanese citizens aware of their heavenly task.”
In 1908, he moved his base to Miho, Shizuoka Prefecture, where he would write his most famous work, “The Doctrine of Saint Nichiren” (日蓮聖人の教義, Nichiren shonin no kyogi) in 1911, in which he casts the radical 13th century priest Nichiren as the champion of the Japanese nation, and called for world unification through Nichirenism, with the emperor as its core. “Japan’s very purpose of existence,” he writes, “is the implementation of this plan, as a country conceived for building Nichiren Buddhism.”
In 1914, Tanaka amalgamated all of his followers into a single organization, the Kokuchukai (国柱会, National Pillar Society), based in Miho. He maintained a busy lecture schedule until illness curtailed his activities in the late 1930s, and travelled not only throughout Japan but also on speaking tours of Japanese-occupied Korea and Manchukuo, where he supported and gave lectures to Emperor Puyi. His nationalist and imperialist convictions only hardened with age, believing that Japan’s 1931 takeover of Manchuria was divinely ordained and part of a divine plan to spread the “true" Nichiren Buddhism throughout Asia. He even went as far as to compile diagrams of the states in which the “Nichirenization” of the world would take place.

[ii] Hagiwara Sakutarō (萩原 朔太郎, November 1, 1886 - May 11, 1942) was a Japanese writer of free-style verse, active in the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan. He is credited by some as having “liberated Japanese free verse from the grip of traditional rules,and he is considered by many as the “father of modern colloquial poetry in Japan.” He published many volumes of essays, literary and cultural criticism, and aphorisms over his long career. His unique style of verse expressed his doubts about existence, and his fears, ennui, and anger through the use of dark images and unambiguous wording.

[iii] Takamura Kōtarō (高村 光太郎 March 13, 1883 – April 2, 1956) was a Japanese poet and sculptor. His sculptural work shows strong influence both from Western work (especially Auguste Rodin, whom he idolized) and from Japanese traditions. He is also famous for his poems, and especially for his 1941 collection Chiekoshō (智恵子抄, literally “Selections of Chieko,” in English titled Chieko's Sky after one of the poems therein), a collection of poems about his wife Chieko Takamura, who died in 1938.

[iv] Kusano Shimpei (1903 – 1988) a poet who won the Order of Cultural Merit in 1987, was called “Mr. Frog” by the local people of Iwaki. The reason why he got this nickname was because, as a featured theme of his poetry, he often wrote about frogs. “Mr. Frog,” whose birth place was in Iwaki, is still talked about by its residents as a pure and honest person, almost childlike, how his facial expressions as a poet had some kind of attractiveness and so on. Locally, there are more legends of his unique personality. Shimpei was very poor when he married. He sent a telegram to a total stranger, Miyazawa Kenji, asking, “Would you please send us a bale of rice.” What he received from Kenji were thick books and a letter which said “You can exchange these books to money.” Later on, Shimpei opened a bar, which name was “Hi-no-kuruma” (hard up for money). However, the business did not go well because he started drinking with his customers.

[v] Pleurisy (also known as pleuritis) is an inflammation of the pleura, the lining surrounding the lungs. There are many possible causes of pleurisy but viral infections spreading from the lungs to pleural cavity are the most common. The inflamed pleural layers rub against each other every time the lungs expand to breathe in air. This can cause sharp pain when breathing, also called pleuritic chest pain.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

KUMANO SHRINE: The first of a series

KUMANO SHRINE. (Based on a photograph by Aoi Tokugawa). 


No one comes here any longer. 
The shrine slowly weathers and crumbles into dust.
 Are we so advanced that we can forget the kami?