hundreds of railroad stations...
and millions of kind and polite people...A Town Difficult to Find in Europe
(une ville difficile à trouver en Europe)
Once a Japanese businessman was driving from Milan to Modena in Italy.
He lost his way and could not find how to get to his destination, a hotel in a town near Modena where he was to see an Italian businessman.
What caused a trouble, however, is that he had only taken note of a name of the hotel but not a name of the town.
Yet he had a certain clue to the town. So, in a village he was then passing by, he asked a villager: "Is there a town where a church, the tallest building in the town, is at its center?"
The Japanese had been working in Germany. He had often lost his way driving in Germany. Most of German people living in a local village did not speak good English. But, he had been able to manage the situation. So, he was confident this time, too, in Italy.
Though the Italian villager did not understand English, he tried hard to understand what the Japanese traveler wanted. Meanwhile, other villagers came around them and argued what the Japanese was asking for.
Only one of them could speak English, though not fluent, but he also could not get what the Japanese was looking for: a town where a church, the tallest building in the town, is at its center.
Then some of them took a sheet of paper from him on which a telephone number of his destination hotel was put.
They made a phone call from a nearby house to the hotel and found where the hotel was: it was in a town adjacent to the village.
What's more, the English speaking villager offered a voluntary guide service to the town, saying that he happened to have business there today. The Japanese sensed that the villager had actually no such business, but he was very kindly willing to guide him to the town. So, the Japanese politely accepted the offer. They together drove to the town, and the villager soon went back home, of course without asking for any service charge, after their arrival at the destination hotel.
* * *
The Japanese has written that as he recalls the incident now, he can understand why villagers could not easily find what he meant.
It is because a town where a church, the tallest building in the town, is at its center is everywhere in Italy or Europe.
He has also recalled that even in Germany a town where a church, the tallest building in the town, is at its center is everywhere.
In Europe, towns were built each around a church which was usually the tallest building in a town.
Anyway, people of the Italian village were extremely kind. Their gestures and attitudes really amused the Japanese.
He reckoned that as it was very rare for them to meet a Japanese, they must have been so kind. Even after they found the location of the town where he wanted to reach, the villagers tried to persuade him to have more time in the village and exchange further conversations though they could not speak English well or the Japanese could not speak Italian.
He has also written that people living in a local village are unbelievably kind all over the world.
But, now he cannot recall the name of the Italian village. He has checked a notebook and only found his writing of the day: "Via Sigonio 50 Modena."
http://www.geocities.jp/hatanero/itary2.html
* * *
In Europe, towns were built each around a church which was usually the tallest building in a town.
Indeed, the best part of Europe is not London, Paris, or Rome, but a local village where people still live around a church.
Then, what do you think the best part of Japan is?
(In a certain survey conducted by a US media company a few years ago, New York was assessed as the city where there were kind and polite people more than in any other big cities in the world.
But, probably most of Japanese would find a fault in the method of the survey. Good manners are not a policy adopted by a cold mind.
Love a local town in Italy than New York, since it was built around a church which was usually the tallest in the town.)
"...The King will reply, 'I tell you, whenever you did this for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for me!'...."