Kenju's Forest Playground & Ame-ni-mo makezu

Ame-ni-mo makezu & Kenju's Forest Playground

  Tales from a Japanese Dreamland: Book 1

  by

  Kenji Miyazawa

  Copyright Paul Quirk 2013

  Translated from - Kenju koenrin by Kenji Miyazawa

  Ame ni mo makezu by Kenji Miyazawa

  Cover image: Wheatfield with Cypresses by Vincent Van Gogh

  Discover other titles by Kenji Miyazawa and Nankichi Niimi published by Little J Books at https://www.littlejbooks.com/

  Please note, copyright on the original works have expired, however, Little J Books holds all copyrights for these translations. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. The moral right of the translator has been asserted.

  License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. However, if you would like to use any of the stories that make up this ebook for business or educational purposes, please contact Paul at the email address below. We look forward to hearing from you.

  This book is published by Little J Books

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  Website: https://www.littlejbooks.com/

  Contact: [email protected]

  Postal mail: 394-2 Kubohara, Yamaoka-cho, Ena-shi, Gifu-ken, Japan, Postcode 509-7601

  Note on these translations

  Where necessary chapters have been added to make navigation easier in an ebook format. Further notes on the translations will be added to the www.Littlejbooks.com website over time. Please email me if you have any questions!!

  This series is dedicated to my wife Yuuki, who has provided me with the support and encouragement to make this project a reality.

 

  Contents

  Kenju's Forest Playground

  Ame-ni-mo makezu

  About the Authors

  About Little J Books

  Other Titles by Little J Books

  Kenju's Forest Playground

  by Kenji Miyazawa

  Kenju wore a rope tied around his waist, laughing as he walked slowly through the forest or between the farmers' fields. He got great pleasure from looking at the green thicket in the rain, and if he was staring wide-eyed above his head and found a hawk soaring endlessly across the clear blue sky, he'd leap into the air and clap his hands to let everyone know.

  But all the other kids used to make terrible fun of Kenju, so he started pretending that he wasn't laughing at all. When a gust of wind would blow the leaves of the beech tree and make them flicker in the sun, Kenju would be so happy that he couldn't stop laughing to himself, so he'd open his mouth as wide as it would go, and laugh only while he was blowing outwards so no-one would notice, as he stood looking up at that beech tree forever and ever. And sometimes, he'd rub the corner of his wide-open mouth with his finger, as if it was really itchy, laughing only when he breathed out.

  From a distance someone might think Kenju was scratching the side of his mouth or maybe yawning, but of course up close they could hear him laughing while he was breathing, and they could see his mouth twitching, so the children made fun and laughed at him for that too.

  If his mum asked him to, he'd fetch five hundred buckets of water. And he'd spend all day picking a bucket full of weeds from the field. But neither his mum nor his dad ever really thought about asking him to do those kinds of things.

  Well, right behind Kenju's house there was an open field about the size of a large playground that had yet to be cultivated. One year, when the mountains were still covered in snow and the grass in the fields had yet to send up any new shoots, Kenju raced up to where the rest of his family were plowing the rice field, and said,

  "Ma, can you buy me seven hundred cedar seedlings?"

  Kenju's mum stopped swinging her forked hoe that was glittering in the sun, and looked directly at Kenju,

  "Seven hundred cedar seedlings! Where are you going to plant them?"

  "In the field behind the house."

  Then Kenju's older brother said to him,

  "Kenju, if you plant cedar seedlings there they won't grow. Why don't you give us a hand plowing the field instead?"

  Kenju fidgeted restlessly, looking down at his feet.

  Just then, Kenju's dad, working a little further away, stood up straight, wiping sweat from his face as he did so,

  "Go buy 'em. Go buy 'em. Kenju, you've never asked for anything in your life. Go buy 'em," and Kenju's mother laughed as if reassured.

  Kenju was overjoyed and ran straight toward the house. He then grabbed a hoe from the shed, and chipping away at the grass, he began to dig the holes for the cedar seedlings.

  Kenju's older brother followed him over to the field, and when he saw what he was doing, said,

  "Kenju, for cedars you don't dig the holes until you plant 'em. Wait 'til tomorrow. I'll go buy 'em for you."

  Kenju reluctantly put down his hoe.

  The next day there was a beautiful clear sky, the snow on the mountains shone a brilliant white, and the skylarks flew high, high in the sky, singing chee-chiku chee-chiku. Grinning as if he were about to burst, Kenju started digging holes for the cedar seedlings just as his brother taught him, this time from the northern boundary. He dug them in a perfectly straight line at very precise intervals. Kenju's brother planted a seedling in each of the holes.

  Just then, Heiji, who owned the farm land to the north of that field, walked up with a pipe in his mouth, his hands in his pockets and hunched over, as if cold. Heiji did a little farming, but he also worked doing something else - something people hated. Heiji called out to Kenju,

  "Oi! Kenju, you'd have to be stupid to plant cedar trees here. For starters, it's gonna block the sun from my field."

  Kenju's face turned red and he was about to say something but no words came out, and he stood there fidgeting.

  Just then Kenju's brother called out,

  "Mornin' Heiji." and stood up from where he was working, so Heiji trudged off, still sulking.

  It certainly wasn't just Heiji who ridiculed the idea of planting cedars in that field. Everyone said that you couldn't grow cedars there, that the soil was hard clay, and that fools would be fools. And that was exactly how it turned out. The green heart of the cedars shot straight up towards the sky for the first five years, but afterwards the tops of the trees became more and more rounded, and by the seventh and the eighth year, the cedars were only around nine feet tall.

  One day as Kenju was standing in front of his forest, a farmer said to him as a joke,

  "Hey, Kenju. Aren't you going to raise-prune those cedars?"

  "What's raise-pruning?"

  "Raise-pruning is when you take a hatchet and knock off all the bottom branches."

  "Maybe I should raise-prune them."

  Kenju ran off and grabbed a hatchet.

  Starting from the edge of the forest, he began chopping off the bottom branches one at a time. Because the trees were only around nine feet high, Kenju had to crouch down to get beneath the branches.

  By evening every one of the trees had been stripped of all but the top three or four branches. The grass below was completely covered by the dark green branches and the small forest had become light-filled and bare. Seeing it suddenly so bare gave Kenju an awful feeling and a sad look came over his face.

  Just then, Kenju's brother returned from the field and came up to where Kenju was standing, but burst out laughing when he looked at the trees. Then he remarked encouragingly to Kenju who was standing there looking miserable,

  "You've made some good firewood. Let’s pile up the branches. The forest looks great."

  This finally put Kenju at ea
se and together they ducked beneath the trees and gathered up all the cut branches. The grass below was short and neat; the kind of place some old wise men might play at chess.

  However, the next day, while picking out rotten beans in the shed, Kenju heard a great ruckus coming from the direction of the forest. Kenju was startled by the sound of orders being given this way and that... an imitation of a trumpet... feet stepping in time... and shrieks of laughter that were enough to send all the birds scattering from the trees..., and he went over to take a look.

  To his amazement, at least fifty children had gathered on their way home from school and were marching in step between the cedar trees, all in a single line. No matter which way they walked, every row looked just like a boulevard. The cedar trees appeared as if they were dressed in green and walking together in a line, which had the children beside themselves with laughter, and they screamed like Bull-headed Shrikes and their faces turned bright red, as they marched down the rows of cedars. Each of the rows were quickly given names such as Tokyo Boulevard, Russia Boulevard and Western Boulevard.

  Kenju was ecstatic and, hiding behind a nearby cedar tree, he opened his mouth wide and laughed and laughed. From then on the children came to play every single day. The only days they didn't come was when it rained. On those days Kenju stood alone by the edge of the forest, soaked completely through, as the rain drizzled down from the soft white sky.

  "Hey Kenju. You standing watch over the forest again today?" joked the people walking by in their straw rain-capes. The cedar trees had borne red-brown fruit and the cold crystal clear drops of rain dripped slowly down from the tips of the magnificent green branches. Kenju would stand there forever and ever, his mouth wide-open, laughing and laughing in between breaths, steam rising up from his body in the rain.

  There came a day when there was a thick fog. Kenju ran into Heiji near the field used for thatching rooves. Heiji looked carefully around, and then made an angry face like a wolf,

  "Kenju, cut down those cedars," he barked.

  "Why?"

  "They're blockin' the sun from my field."

  Kenju said nothing and looked down at the ground. If the cedars were blocking the sun from Heiji's field it couldn't have been any more than half a foot. If anything, they were actually protecting his field from the strong southerly winds.

  "Cut 'em down, cut 'em down! Are you gonna cut 'em down?"

  "No, I'm not," Kenju answered, looking up nervously. His lips twitched as if he were on the verge of tears. These were the only defiant words he'd spoken in his entire life. But Heiji thought that Kenju, the nice person that he was, was making a fool of him, and he flew into a rage, squaring off his shoulders and hitting Kenju in the side of the face. He hit him again and again and again.

  As he was being hit, Kenju held his hands in front of his face without saying a word, but eventually bruises began to show all over his face and he started to stagger. Then, appearing somewhat sickened, Heiji hurriedly folded his arms and walked abruptly off into the fog.

  Well, that autumn Kenju caught typhoid fever and died. Exactly ten days before that, Heiji also died of the same disease. Not affected by that in the least, the children still came to play in the forest every single day.

  Our story races ahead.

  The next year the village received a rail line and a station was built only three hundred yards east of Kenju's house. Here and there large factories were built for manufacturing chinaware and spinning silk. One after the other, the fields and rice paddies were all filled in and houses built on top of them. And all of a sudden, it was now a large town. But for some reason, in amongst all of that, only Kenju's forest remained as it was. The cedars were barely six feet tall, and the children came to play every single day. A school was built right next to it so eventually the children came to believe that the forest and the grass field to the south of it were an extension of their own playground.

  Kenju's father's hair had completely grayed. Why, that was only natural; it had been nearly twenty years since Kenju died.

  One day, a young professor who had left that village many years ago and was now lecturing at a university in America, came back to visit his hometown for the first time in fifteen years.

  Where were the reminders of the fields and forests from long ago? And most of these people had moved here from out of town.

  But one day, the professor received a request from the elementary school and gave a talk in front of all the students about life in a foreign country. After the talk, the professor headed out onto the playground together with the principal and other teachers, walking in the direction of Kenju's forest. The young professor was unable to believe his eyes, adjusting his glasses again and again, before finally mumbling half to himself,

  "Oh, this is exactly as it was. Those trees are exactly as they were. In fact, they look smaller. And the children still play. Ah! Perhaps I can see myself or my old friends in there."

  A smile suddenly spread over his face as if he'd just woken from a dream,

  "Is this now the school playground?" he asked the principal.

  "No, it's not. This land is actually owned by that household over there, but they don't mind the children playing here at all, so although it appears to be the playground of the school, it isn't actually so."

  "That's very unusual. What is the reason for that?"

  "After the town started to grow, there were a lot of people offering to buy that property, but apparently the old man told them that this was the only reminder he had of Kenju, so he could never bring himself to sell it, no matter how hard things might get."

  "Ah that's right, I remember, I remember. We always thought there was something not quite right about Kenju. He was the one that was always laughing out loud. He'd stand right about here and watch us playing. Apparently he was the one who planted all of these cedars. I guess you really can't tell who is smart and who isn't. The Buddha surely works in mysterious ways. This will forever be a beautiful park for the children. What do you think of this? We name this Kenju's Forest Playground and preserve it as it is forever more?"

  "That is a great idea. How happy that would make the children!"

  And that is exactly what happened.

  A blue stone monument with the inscription "Kenju's Forest Playground" was erected in the middle of the grass area in front of the children's forest.

  The school received an enormous amount of letters and donations from people who'd gone to that school many years ago, and were now successful attorneys, or military officers, or had small farms across the ocean.

  Kenju's family cried tears of joy.

  It would be impossible to guess how many thousands of people would be taught what real happiness was by the refreshing smells, the cool summer shade, and the moonlight colored grass beneath those beautiful green and black cedars in this forest playground. And just as when Kenju was alive, whenever it rained, the forest dripped crystal-clear icy-cold drops of water onto the short grass; and whenever the sun shone, the forest sent up a beautiful wave of fresh new air.

  THE END

  Ame-ni-mo makezu

  (I Won't Be Beaten By The Rain)

  by Kenji Miyazawa