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Diary: written by Bas Valckx (Japanese and Dutch languages)

Saturday July 1st, 2000

Arrival in Hirado: After the long flight and the unexpected matter which occurred at Osaka, everybody was tired. Therefore it was a good thing that we were able to get into a boat which transported us from Sasebo to Hirado. We crossed the 99 islands, a beautiful area with lots of strangely shaped islands. As we were leaving the harbour the speed of the boat was still relatively low, but as soon as we we got on the open sea, the thing charged and off we went. Due to the high speed and the cool wind, everybody was wide awake and getting excited over arriving at Hirado, of which we had no idea what would be waiting for us there. As it turned out, there was a whole welcoming committee standing in the harbour, about 30 people and a brass band. A high placed guy delivered a speech welcoming us to Hirado, on which I delivered my speech thanking them for welcoming me. And after that it was of to the museum of Hirado for a welcoming party, which in the Japanese case stands for exchanging businesscards, drinking a lot, eating little and meeting a lot of people of whom you won’t be able to remember the name in one time.

Sunday July 2nd, 2000

In this entry I will introduce the people who I am working with for one month (and 10 days). My host is mr.Kuga who is the assistent curator of the museum of Hirado, he’s a very nice guy and is working his butt off to have every settled for me. Originally he’s from Hirado, and lived there during his youth. He went to study in Kyoto, but eventually returned to Hirado as he could find work here at the museum. It seems as if everyboedy eventually returns to this beutiful place. He knows an awful lot about the history of Hirado. Next to that he likes to laugh and drink a beer, so what more can one ask? Next we have mr. Kida, who has been working at the museum for over 25 years and is known to be the man who can locate every kind of historical material out if his out, without checking up in catalogues. His dialect is rather tough, which makes it sometimes difficult to understand him. When he’s trying to speak normal Japanese, you can tell from his face he’s making an effort to do so. The director of the museum is mr. Matsura, who’s a nephew of the present heir of the Matsura clan, which has had control over Hirado from almost the beginning of time. The man is very concerned with the dilapetation of the Japanese culture. The other day he told me about his biggest worry which was the almost non-existence of communication between parents and children in the Japanese society. A sign of adolescence? No, he said, a sign of the time, the present society. He said we would talk more about that when we would meet again. I am curious to whta more he has to say. Last but not least the ladies who work at the museum. All of them very cute and interested and in for a little chat when I am around. Thums up to all of them.

Wednesday July 5th, 2000

This morning I have been sight-seeing with my host mr. Kuga. First, off to the northern part where there was a beautiful spot from which you could see most of the island stretching out before your eyes. After that we drove through the country side of the island, and all the while Kuga was telling me ghost stories and some things about the history of Hirado. One of the more interesting parts is that of the ‘kakure kurishitian kyou’ ( the faith of the hiding christians. Half 17th century, christianity was abolished by the feudal authorities as it was deemed to be a threat to society. Christianity became punishable by the death and its believers went into hiding, instead of betraying their god. They devised very cunning ways of hiding rites and statues which would give them away. For example, the Holy Virgin, would be made in a statue which looked like a buddhist god, and altars where made camouflaged as buddhist ones. The same goes for rites, the death ceremony would look like a buddhist one but inside the deceased’s mouth a little cross would be put, making it a christian one. Devised under the pressure of the government this style however exists to this day. The pressure is gone, but the close contact with Shinto and Buddhism has caused an assimilation, which has made it impossible after governmental recognition to untangle different rites and reinstitute the ‘original’ christian belief among its believers who until today have no ties with the christian church.

Thursday July 6th, 2000

Yesterday evening I went out for dinner with my host, who wanted to introduce me to his family. His wife mrs. Kuga is a very gentle and quiet person, who is originally from Nagasaki. She’s house wife and the mother of a beuatiful and cute daughter (one-year-old) named Midori, (a name which indicates something like the beautiful color of the sea). The four of us had dinner in a little restaurant in Hirado and the style of the food I can only call ‘fusion food’ because it was a delicious mix between Japanese and European food. Which can also be said of the place itself as there was a Japanese guy in cook unifom behind a very typical Japanese counter. The place had also a lot of different wines which is very rare in Japan especially when you look at the amount, about 70? Since we were the only customers that evening the cook came from behind his typical japanese counter for a chat with us, in particular with me, because he wanted to know more about wine in the Netherlands, what do people like and what kinds are the favourites, not a question for a barbarian like me but I tried my best and told him what I knew.
This evening again out for dinner, however this time with all my collegues from the museum. We were off to the local ‘izakaya’ drinking and eating parlour, for a ‘nomikai’ a come-together-and-drink. I had a fun time, especially since I got a chance I getting to know the ladies of the museum a little better, because it had occurred to me that since I had arrived most of the time I had been doing international exchange with older Japanese men, and I must say my preference goes out to feminin beauty, which was very much present this evening. The recipe for the evening (and always a successful one I must say) was as follows; a lot of delicious Japanese food, even more beer, Japanese men who are getting very drunk, but hey who cares, and the ladies who are keeping the conversation at a decent level and keep pouring the men booze. After this we went to a ‘snakku’ a japanese bar, I will give a brief description of the atmosphere. You enter and you see; a counter with behind it a whole wall with the same kind of whiskey and name tags on it (the bottle keep) you see tables, at which little groups of people are seated, drinking and laughing and together with them one girl who is pouring them beer or whiskey, enticing them to eat, drink, sing. Also there will be an older lady, the mama san, who keeps a tight grip on the situation. Whether you come in as a group or alone everyitime one the young ladies will accompany the group or you, (notice: they are NOT prostitutes) . They keep people drinking and eating. The biggest feature of these kind of bars is that you can never be alone, always there will come somebody up to you and start a conversation, which can be an advantage or disadvantage.

Friday July 7th, 2000

A day in Nagasaki: Today was our little p.r. trip to Nagasaki, one of my favourite cities in Kyushu. I have been there before when I was staying in Japan for one year at Huis ten Bosch near Sasebo. Nagasaki is a big city, but it doesn’t have the atmosphere of one, which is a good thing to me as I myself am not from the big city. The people of Nagasaki are also of an open and more relaxed kind than those of bigger cities like Tokyo and Kyoto. From Hirado to Nagasaki was a rather lengthy trip, about two and a half hours but this the landscape made up for that more then enough. Japan’s nature, and in particular Kyushu’s nature is very beautiful, of a more varied kind than the Netherlands, I think. Mountains, rivers, valleys and even waterfalls; it’s all there. (There are however also some very ugly commercial signs, and cities, but they won’t spoil your opinion about Japanese nature.) Around twelve o’clock we arrive at Nagasaki, and things went a little downhill. First we went to the Nagasaki Holland Year Association, which provided the sponsoring fo this project. There we met mr. Kuraji, the leader of the pack, who I saw was a good guy, the moment I saw him. He introduced himself in very nice dutch, had a relaxed air around him and was chatting away about the time he had been to Holland. Very un-japanese like manager, I must say. Our next call was a visit at the governour’s office, of whom I would like to say that he succeeded very well at conveying to me the image of the uninterested bureaucrate who has to talk to some stupid foreigners because it’s his work. He wasn’t interested in the project, but what we thought about the food. After that we went to the studio for a programme where people have some time to advertise themselves for free. We were the guest of the programme so we got some more time and were also ‘interviewed’ by the presentator, who exceeded at asking me a question in Japanese which I could not understand at all, on which I tried to answer in my best Japanese, that I really loved Hirado (which is a fact) and that all these people are very nice to me (idem). I got my revenge when he asked about my activities over there and I answered in the dialect of Hirado, and which he couldn’t understand. Revenge is so sweet! My newly made friends in Hirado congratulated me using it. Smile.

Saturday July 8th, 2000

The big opening of my ‘Hirado dialect research’, throughout the first week, I had already become a little known with the dialect of Hirado, by talking to people I met, and I had already written down a lot of expressions of the dialect, but it wasn’t until today that I really went to see somebody with the purpose of speaking with her to ask about the dialect she spoke. The lady in question was Tae san, an 88 year old, good humoured lady, who lived in a big house near the sea at a spot which I can only call overwhelmingly beautiful. The lady herself was the most impressive for me that day, you caould call her history personified. She walked among things which one day long ago she had used herself or which she had seen being used by people who are know already decades and decades dead. The dialect in this case is one which was being used by woman who belonged to the samurai houses, so it’s an dialect originally used by the elite. It’s origins ly in Kyoto, but as there were samurai all over Japan, the dialect also spread over the whole of Japan, but also it assimilated partly with the local dialect. Tae san hadn’t used her original dialect since the second half of the twenties and she had forgotten already most parts of it, but still she was able to remember some endings of sentences which differed from nrmal Japanese and the dialect. All in all we found less than expected, but I can’t say I was disappointed. Meeting this woman, who had lived in a world I only knew from books, was already enough for me. She also showed photographs of almost 80 years ago. I like these healf brown, half black, pictures a lot. People already long dead and gone could be seen on them, people known to her. The garden and the house were as said impressive, to bad there is no one mending the garden or the house, so before this will all be gone, just like the old lady.