A Night Station around Tokyo
"the corn fields on the sabbath day"
(A Writer and Rider)
Currently due to a grave economic slump, it is said that more and more young Japanese have come to read works by Takiji Kobayashi (1903 - 1933), a Japanese author of proletarian literature who joined the Japanese Communist Party before WWII, but was killed by special political police who hated communism.
Especially, Kobayashi's "Kanikosen (Crab-Canning Boat)" has recently become a best-seller among young and poor Japanese.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanikosen
Nonetheless, it is said that young author Takiji Kobayashi had once taken Naoya Shiga as his teacher.
"Naoya Shiga (1883 - 1971) was a novelist and short story writer active in TaishÅ and Showa period Japan."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoya_Shiga
Naoya Shiga was born rich and raised rich to live a long life while enjoying the title "God of Fiction" (Shosetsu no Kami-sama ) bestowed by his fans and the media.
Yet, when he was young, learning in the Imperial University of Tokyo, Naoya Shiga took Kanzo Uchimura as his teacher, since Uchimura was a notable Japanese author, Christian evangelist, and the founder of the Non-Church Movement (Mu-Kyoukai) of Christianity in the Meiji and Taisho period Japan (1868 - 1926).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchimura_Kanz%C5%8D
Yet, Shiga left the university as well as famous scholar Uchimura, to be a successful novelist. Shiga's works are said to be influenced not only by Buddhism but also Christianity implicitly, though the background of the era in Japan was featured by "Taisho Democracy" (a civil movement toward democracy before WWII or the Great Depression era in 1930’s in the Empire of Japan).
Anyway, Naoya Shiga wrote one of the most successful novels in the Japanese modern literary circles, titled "A Dark Night's Passing (Anya-Koro)" (which however I don't think I ever read).
Though Shiga's works are often introduced in school text books, there is one, seldom focused on, which he wrote after WWII on his memory of a bicycle he had used in the early 20th century.
When Naoya Shiga was low teen (of a very rich family), he had a British bicycle, for he loved to ride on a bicycle so much like other rich boys in Tokyo in those days. But, he wanted to replace his old bicycle one day; so he went to a bicycle shop his friend had recommended to make a deal to sell his old bicycle and buy a new one.
The owner of the shop said that he would buy the boy's old one at 50 yen and sell a new one at 170 yen, immediately offering 50 yen which boy Shiga took with him, going back home. All he had to do was to get necessary money from his home, come back, and complete the deal.
But, walking on his way home, he found a more attractive U.S. bicycle at a different shop. Naoya without hesitation started another negotiation with a shop owner to buy the American bicycle at 140 yen. So, the enchanted boy delivered that 50 yen he had received in the preceding deal, which was yet to be completed, to get the sleek American bicycle and rode on it back home being accompanied by an employee of the shop to pay the rest of the price.
Naoya Shiga in his thirteen was very happy with a high-performance American bicycle until he heard a rumor that a certain bicycle-shop owner was telling people that he had been practiced a deceit on by a certain boy.
"Deceit!" A rich boy started to feel troubled and annoyed, which could not be solved though he even listened to a preacher in a church. He could not even sleep at night.
Finally, he asked 10 yen from his grandmother, went to the shop where he had sold his old bicycle, and extended it to the shop owner.
Yet, the shop owner said, smiling, "As I am a businessman, I have never made a deal disadvantageous to me. You don’t have to behave like this with such consideration."
But, the long-suffering boy handed the money to the bicycle businessman forcibly, though just five yen as discounted due to the firm refusal of the bicycle shop owner insisting to receive nil, and then went back home riding on his great American bicycle, feeling like a kind of hero.
Great Novelist Naoya Shiga recalled, after WWII, that in those days when he did that bicycle deal, 10 yen had been sufficient for a month living. And, in those years, no Japanese bicycle makers were available, since it was the end of the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) or early 20th century in Japan.
*** *** *** ***
The CBS TV news program, as observed around Tokyo before this noon, reported that more than 30 states of America are suffering a huge deficit in their governmental account, totaling to more than $40 billion.
Now, American people must start to turn to literature.
It is so, since many, poor, young Japanese are nowadays reading a work of proletarian literature written 80 years ago by a tragic communist author, Takiji Kobayashi, who once followed Naoya Shiga, God of Fiction in Japan or a great rider of an American bicycle called Cleveland 100 years ago.
(A lesson of today is of course that a tiny ethical incident that happened when one was young could sometimes decide the fate in his later life.)
Mar 2:23 And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn.
Mar 2:24 And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?
Mar 2:25 And he said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him?
Mar 2:26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him?
Mar 2:27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: