Aoi Hitorigoto n.60 - BLUE - TRANSLATION-
AOI HITORIGOTO #60
- 藍天群青 BLUE -
By Kato Shigeaki
藍天群青・・・ (Indigo ultramarine)
As the color of a sunny day (藍天) and the dark blue of a night sky (群青), an example of counterfeit.
From Kato Shigeaki's dictionary*
At last we came to the final essay. It's hurtful but let's keep a playful heart. I always used a character as title for my essays so in this last one I'll try to write using all those 60 words in order.*
If by any chance these 60 essays would be turned into a book I'd put on the title page a picture of myself holding a pen (even though I always wrote them with my notebook), and I'd talk about the style of the work as a professional. Until now I did nothing than writing as a show-off and stuff myself with words, please forgive me. I'm sorry.
I've always wanted to write essays that are like a kaleidoscope. If you look through them, in front of your eyes different single things will be lined up in a geometrical beauty, you just need to turn left of a degree and another different splendour will appear. While you're staring at it you'll wonder "What scenery will I reach next?". The readers couldn't help but expecting the next issue, inside everybody's heart this thought would spread like a ripple in the water. When something like this is accomplished there isn't a biggest happiness for a writer.
Excuse me if I talk about personal questions but let me mention a person of the staff. I introduce you the nurse, the person who always carefully stuck plasters to the wounds of my essays, I'll never thank her enough. I'm sure that sometimes you must have thought that these compositions, in which I poured the tears and laughter of my already late adolescence, were a little impudent. I always wanted to beautify them, you must have also hated me for this several times. Well, even if exaggerated I never lied in these essays. Even if I can't understand if they reached you or not, just like the sound of a bell in a place full of gorgeous evergreens, I can say for sure that I always did my very best thinking every time with all my seriousness. I'm truly grateful to all the staff that believed in me.
Good, let's do things properly until the end. I have an essay to write, don't I?
Talking honestly, the grass is always greener on the other side to me. Not only the color, I also bet that its smell is nicer. Regretful of my own grass, I'm inclined to escape from this double pain and I'd want to run into the neighbor's lawn. I'm jealous of other people, of anybody. If you don't remove this kind of scum floating on your heart it'll turn into serious envy and the filth will be shown more and more. In the end, it could become your everything.
The only effective remedy to it is to look inside ourselves without questioning, I guess. We must take the point of view of the people who usually observe us. It's only us who can remove the astringent taste and add flavor in us. Of course it's also ok to stir the seasonings as we like. Sometimes we need to answer our own questions. I really wish that you'll be able to accomplish the hopes and dreams you have.
After all, under the neighbor's lawn there's sand, above it there's the sky. If it rains it'll get wet just like ours, when the rain stops the kids' eyes will sparkle in the same way, in a far away sign a rainbow will appear. If we are going somewhere it shouldn't be to the neighbor's lawn but we should try to run towards that rainbow. Until the sole of our shoes will be worn-out. Let's put an end to this farce, it's no occasion to sleep. If you're tired just read your favorite poetry. Maybe we'll get a little superstitious. Without being selfish. Trying our fortune catching the bride's bouquet can be left waiting for a while.
I'm astonished. The time...not that, I have no more space. I have 11 characters more to use. Let's go on together.
Let's image that on the contrary the grass on the other side looks all brown and dead. In that case we could accept everything.
You would share your grass with starving, drained people. You would never curse them. And then, we must also be like translators. We must listen carefully to people who can't express themselves well, interpret them and help to convey their words to other people.
Doing it, we'll revolutionize our times. We must always be the ones who cause the change, not the ones inside it. Because it's only us who can create such an impressive future.
Oops, the last character is near. To those who autumn...sorry, I mistook to transform the word*. For all the readers who read until now without getting tired, I'm full of gratitude. If I was able to communicate something as a man who's living at your same time, I can say with all my heart that I'm glad I'm born.
The scholar may be better than the master*. It's surely like this. If my words had even only one echo inside one heart, now those words of mine are yours. In these latter days natural disasters happen, I believe that collecting everybody's soliloquies, our voices will turn into a group of falling stars that will fly in the night sky making it bright.
Who knows if we won't meet again that day. "Blue", "To meet", "To match", they all have the same reading.*
And like this, it becomes a 藍天群青.
Notes:
*The first composite of characters doesn't exist. As explained he put together the kanji for indigo, sky and ultramarine blue. A counterfeit because it may seem real but doesn't exist in reality. They are two completely different things because there's no way a very light blue and a dark one can be mixed together without change. His point is that dark and light blue are only a little different in shade but they are two completely different colors. That's what he means when he put that word inside the essay.
On the first essay the theme was 藍 (Ai), then it was 天 (Ten), 群 (Gun) and this last one is 青 (Ao)
*At first I wanted to put the kanji of the previous essays' titles beside the translated word. But often he used those kanji in composite words, losing their original meaning. So in the end I didn't, it was too confusing.
*"Autumn" and "Get tired" are read as "Aki" and "Akiru", Shige had to use the world Autumn so he faked that he mistook transforming the hiragana into kanji with the computer :P He used this trick also in the "Autumn" essay (#55), remember?
*The saying in Japanese is: 青は藍より出でて藍より青し. Literally is something like "The blue can be more blue than indigo". With it he used two of the last characters he had to use: 青 and 藍.
*When he said "we'll meet again" he wrote that as 青う which doesn't exist, he played with the readings of blue, meet and match.
Members' comments:
Yamapi: Otsukare, Shige!! You worked hard!!!!!
Koyama: From now on you won't have to do soliloquies, open your heart to everybody!
Tegoshi: Otsukare! Let's go to a future project!
Ryo: I really loved Shige's essays. Is this over for real? I always thought that the power of Shige's compositions was impressive. He's got sense, he writes like a person who reads books, I'm sorry this has to end... Well, I think that writing these essays he learned to write well so next time interview me and then write a good book!
Massu: Since the title is "Soliloquy" I thought that reading them it wouldn't be like that anymore so I tried to not read them as much as possible. Anyway once I couldn't resist and I read one, I remember it was really interesting. I can't wait for a new project! Next time don't talk by yourself though, you can work with me too! (lol)
We came to the last one. It's really late and I'm tired, I'd like to comment properly, I think I'll edit the post tomorrow, I'll just say that this according to me his its masterpiece, there are many beautiful images and the meaning conveyed is so strong and inspirational...I'm deeply moved :) Otsukaresama Shige!!