At the end of last month, I went to the Kameido Tenjin Shrine for seeing the wisteria flowers. When I was heading for the main building of the Shrine, I heard a big voice, coming from the corner of precincts. "Our life is just like walking a long way with carrying heavy burdens." I found that it was the Chinese-poem recitation. There was a small stage in the precincts, where an old man, wearing the Japanese traditional kimono, was reciting the poem. As it was very wonderful, I sat down on a seat for hearing it. One of these poems was as below. Instructions by the late General Ieyasu -- Our life is just like walking a long way with carrying heavy burdens. -- So we should not be in a hurry -- If only we would get used to live with lack of goods, we could live enough. -- When we will think of wants, we should recall when we were poor. -- To endure is the key of success and to get angry is your enemy. -- If we would get win all the time and do not know how to get lose, finally we would face the most difficult situation. -- We should blame ourselves. We should not blame others. -- To be short is better that to do too much. All of these words are very instructive and wonderful instructions to our lives. With forgetting time passing I concentrated into hearing several poems. The persons, who recited them, were comprised of two men and one woman. I think the woman's voice was also matching to the atmosphere of the Chinese poems. With hearing them, I thought my mind had been refreshed completely. I think this is the good tradition, which is in danger of vanishing. We adults should convey these wonderful traditions to the next generations. I recalled an episode of 31 years ago. It was the welcoming dinner for the freshmen to my Ministry. On the way of the course dinner, a typical Japanese style, someone urged the freshmen to sing a song, Karaoke. Each freshman sang some songs by turn. The nest turn was Mr. N. He said "I can not get used singing a song. Instead of this, I will recite a Chinese poem." He started to recite a poem. His voice was strong, matched to the content of the poem. We enjoyed in hearing it. Since then we have been respecting him. Mr. N had already retired from our Ministry and he is now one of the key persons of the Japanese Automobile Industry. I think he would recite the Chinese poems in front of people of Toyota, Nissan and Honda. I believe he can cope with them. (June 1st 2005) |
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