Thursday, February 16, 2006

An Apocalypse Oddly Leading to 2001

An Apocalypse Oddly Leading to 2001

Ryotaro Shiba, who died in 1996, was not awarded the Nobel prize for literature, but he is still the most popular writer among the Japanese from ex-prime ministers to students.

It is said he adopted the pen name in order to show his respect to Si-ma Qian (called Shiba-Sen in Japanese), the best historian in China who lived and died in the 1st century BC and whose history book can be virtually comparable to the Bible from a view point of literature.

The pen name “Ryotaro Shiba” means that he humbly admits that he is very inferior to great Sima Qian, but has his own vision in literature and history.

There are two interesting incidents the eminent writer Ryotaro Shiba once reported:
* * *

In early 70’s, a Japanese husband and wife was traveling in Afghanistan during their wandering journey over the Eurasian Continent.

In a village, when the couple was standing with their baby girl in their arms, here coming was a man riding on a horse and scurrying like a caballero in the Middle Ages. The country caballero on a horse quickly took up the baby from their arms, holding her up in the air, running several times around the couple so astonished, and dashing to a certain direction to disappear from their eyesight.

The husband and wife got terribly shocked, understanding that their baby was stolen, and kept just standing there in void of the village.

When a certain time elapsed, here coming back was the man riding on a horse and scurrying like a caballero in the Middle Ages. The country caballero gave back the baby to her parents still standing at the spot.

Later, the Japanese wandering man and wife moved to New York, and their daughter grew up in the city.

In early 1990’s when the eminent Japanese writer visited New York, he met the very wandering husband, and thus the above odd memory was recorded.

At that time, the eminent writer also met two Japanese in New York: a professional painter and an editor of a publication company.

One day the painter and the editor went to Williamsburg, a neighborhood in northern Brooklyn, to paint the street. While the two were making a sketch, an old lady, who apparently looked to be Jewish, came to them, unfriendly saying, “What are you doing here?” Their exchange of words unhappily did not end with only this barbed question. She tried persistently to show her hostility and contempt to the two Japanese cultural figures who happened to be making an innocent sketch of her residence area.

(It was almost a year before 1993 when the first World Trade Center bombing attack was conducted by a terrorist group.)
* * *

In a village of Afghanistan in early 1970’s, there was an extraordinarily uplifted man, on a horse running around a village, who shocked a Japanese man and wife with their baby in their arms.

On a corner of New York before the first terrorist attacks, there was an extraordinarily alerted, old Jewish lady who unpleasantly embarrassed a Japanese artist and an intellectual.

As New York was severely attacked in 2001 by terrorists who were instructed by their leaders hiding in Afghanistan and supporting anti-Israeli terrorism, the above two incidents might be interesting to some readers.

But the eminent Japanese writer did not formulate a story linking two incidents as a kind of apocalypses, to my chagrin.

“WHO WOULD RATHER PUT A CANDLE UNDER THE BED”