YM COLUMN ARCHIVE

April 4, 2007

Let’s step forward together!

In my junior high school there was a teacher of national language by the name of Akinobu Hira. I heard he died some time before. Since he was pretty fat (he may say, “you, too, fat; don’t you ever say that”), we used to call him “Debira” (pun combined from “debu” meaning “fat” and his family name “Hira”). His national language class was just superb. When the poem “coconut of palm tree” composed by Tohson Shimazaki was in the textbook, he did not only read it aloud but sang it himself and told us to sing it one by one. I vividly remember his excellent ability in making congenial atmosphere.

When the “cherry blossom” happened to become a topic of conversation in a classroom, he told us a historical story about Takanori Kojima. He was a samurai warrior from Bizen (present Okayama pref.) in 14th century and was frequently referred to as a loyalist to Emperor in pre-mid war days under the prevalence of imperialism but now he is almost forgotten. Teacher “Debira” was politically inclined to right wing, so he must have had a special attachment to Takanori Kojima.

I leave your interest in Takanori Kojima for more detailed information to inter-net, and now back to the Debira classroom. Teacher “Debira” sonorously chanted Chinese poem that is said to have been engraved onto the cherry tree by Takanori Kojima near the rest house of Emperor Godaigo at Tsuyama after his failure of rescuing the Emperor who was on the way exiled to Oki Island.

The poem means, “The heaven never forsook King Gou Jian of Yue in ancient China, likewise the heaven will never forsake Your Majesty, there will appear a loyal subject like Fan Li to rescue Your Majesty out of difficulty.”

Sorry for a long preamble. To put aside what kind of influence I was given from this historical event in my boyhood, the main subject this week is about the town called Shaoxing, the capital at the time of Gou Jian dynasty in Chunqiu era. Rather I should say it’s about Shaoxing rice wine originated from the town. Shaoxing now belongs to Zhejiang province. In this town of ancient China, when King Gou Jian of Yue was suffering from shortage of food in a battlefield, someone gave him rice. If it is North Korea today, no one knows where it will be supplied to, but King Gou Jian combined the rice with hundreds times more of water and took a sip of the soup together with soldiers. When he was given rice wine, he poured it upstream of the river and drank it at downstream with soldiers. I’m sure even the smell of wine was gone, nevertheless it is recorded that the soldires’ spirits were greatly elavated.

I’ve never been there myself, but I heard that the town is filled with the spirits of wine all around the area. It’s not really too good for a diabetic like me. Incidentally, Shaoxing is a hometown of Lu Xùn and Chou En-lai.

When a conference was held in Beijing about a decade ago, I happened to meet with a rocket engineer from Shaoxing. He told me a very interesting story that people bury a jar deep into earth with rice wine stored inside when a baby girl is born. When the baby has grown up to marry, they give her to take it to bridegroom family with engravings of flower design on the surface of the jar. They call it “flower engraving”. Come to think of it, there is some kind of Shaoxing rice wine labeled “flower engraved wine”.

Shaoxing wine is not usually shipped out of warehouse at least in less than 5 years, so the later the girl gets married the better the quality of the wine will become being long buried under the ground. This Chinese friend of mine said that the best quality wines were shipped to major cities of China or abroad and only low quality ones were available in the northeast district of China. This is the reason that Japanese put the sugar in the low quality wine to make it better tasted in those days of Manchukuo military occupation, which has become a common practice today to put the sugar in even the best quality imported wines as if to know the right way of tasting the wine.

After all, there are many valuable lessons worthy enough to learn about the anecdotes of King Gou Jian of Yue. We must try to learn as much as possible from the lessons succeeded from ancient to modern times.

I welcome your opinions on this column to the following E-mail address.
matogawa@planetary.or.jp