A new essay translation from Maaya's essay book 'I.D.' for you to enjoy. Certainly I really enjoyed translating this one. When I read them straight up I get what's going on but when I don't understand one word I won't spare the time to look it up. By doing these translations you really get into the meatiness of the essay. a bit like going through Shakespeare line by line at school! Hope you enjoy it.
Note: Maaya says the woman is wearing a pink 'matsuri' which means festival, but I thought the alliteration of pink parade invoked the spirit of matsuri ^^V
Dance! Expertly parted from my money
I.D Essay Book
Today when I went shopping I happened to come face to face with a really depressing scene.
Even though I’d been scheduled to have my photo taken for a magazine, I’d accidentally forgotten my accessories when I left the house. This story is something that happened when I nipped out to a department store in a spare moment because, as I’d feared, the balance was off without some accessories.
I went into one shop and I caught sight of a display of various items, grabbed something and went off to the counter to pay. While the shop assistant was away from the till calculating my bill, I milled around, the change in my hand, ready to pay. As I was doing this, suddenly in front of me a mirror door opened to reveal an office lady-type coming out from a changing room. No sooner had she stepped out of the changing room than a shop assistant rolled up saying “Wow, that’s so cute on you!” Now, excuse me for saying this, but it was not cute. The woman was wearing a glossy, sleeveless pink dress and a see-through pink shawl. Put this together with the pink bag and the pink mules she was sporting and the girl having a pink parade.
Now, I am of the opinion regarding clothes than if the person truly likes what they are wearing then good for them, they can wear whatever they want. I have no idea what is in fashion and I think it’s pointless to wear designer clothes if they do not suit you. It is no fun if everyone is wearing the same clothes just because it’s the latest trend. I shouldn’t criticise without giving someone a chance, as there are many people in this world, and many different tastes in clothes; why did I feel such a strong sense of displeasure when I set eyes on this girl?
I think that more than what she was wearing, it was her complete demeanour that was the problem. Despite not looking especially young, her voice was so high-pitched that for an adult it was embarrassing; it was also extremely loud. What got me the most was the way she was standing: her feet were planted really far apart, and when she put the mules on she made a clip-clop noise when she walked. With that kind of form you will not look beautiful to an onlooker no matter what you wear. Add all this to the pink parade the woman had dressed herself in and the situation was hopeless.
“It won’t do if the ceremony is held in a cold hall, how about this jacket as well?” The jacket picked up was, of course, pink.
“Recently a lot of people are wearing black to weddings, you know. So if you pick a bright colour then…” The shop assistant was in full flow.
A man who was probably the pink woman’s boyfriend was hovering nearby, silently watching, and seemed like he wanted to say something. Well, of course you would. You wouldn’t be able to tolerate turning up to a party with someone who made such a bizarre impact on your arm. However, what he finally came up with was: “It really suits you”…is that what one would call kindness? “Really? Oh I don't know…what if I end up overshadowing the bride?” cried the woman in pink, her voice echoing around the shop…so that’s what it comes down to. The shop assistant’s perfectly insincere smile was in place.
When a shop assistant has said “That really suits you!” even I’ve gone, “Oh, you really think so?” when trying clothes on in a changing room, and start to feel the same way. But even when someone has said this to me, it’s almost 100% certain that it is nothing but shameless flattery, just like the situation with the pink woman. For the other party, this is business. There is no way that they always, always tell the truth to the customer.
Even when I bought some black trousers recently, I was politely declining with “Well, my butt is quite big so I think I’ll leave them…” when the shop assistant shot back with “It’s not big at all! You are wearing an extra small size there, so I don’t think you can say that at all.” And I bought the trousers: “Yes, you’re totally right!”
But I know my own butt more than someone who I’ve just met for the first time. Even though my butt has been big since the day I was born, why on earth did I believe someone I’d never met before when they said ‘no, it’s not’. The fact that it was an XS size pair of blank pants has no relation at all because the most important thing is the balance of the whole body. Did this mean I was manipulated just like the pink woman?
Was there someone, another customer, close by, looking from time to time, and thinking to themselves ‘Oh my god, that butt is huge’? Was the shop assistant quietly laughing to herself after I’d gone home: ‘alright, a stupid customer!’?
Since eventually my bill in this shop was paid and I left, I don’t know whether the pink woman bought everything she tried on or not. But I think I’m leaning more towards her buying everything.
You might be wondering what it is I’m getting at. What I’m saying is that in the end fashion is nothing more than an ornament, and if there’s nothing on the inside then it’s meaningless. I’m also saying that my butt is really big. And then there’s also the fact that part of a shop assistant’s job is to sometimes put on a wonderful act, employing the art of flattery. This would be impossible for someone like me who shows everything I’m thinking immediately on my face.
It is like the work of a Buddhist monk, swallowing down everything you want to say in one gulp. However, I am not deceived by these shop assistants. They are probably making these innocent faces to play their customers, then once the customer has gone home, using what happened as conversation material with their colleagues to laugh about. Both ’that’s the last one in stock’ and ‘that’s something new we got in today’ are suspicious.
I know these tactics, but I’m still taken in.
Sunday, 29 August 2010
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
I.D Essay Book - By mistake: Handball Club
Wow! Do my eyes deceive me? Is this a new essay translation from 'I.D.'?? Yes! It is! Unbelievable. It's true, this is the next essay in Maaya's book of essays to be translated. Maaya recalls her encounters with sports. I do like this essay, I hope I've managed to do it justice. Maaya has a really nice sense of humour in her writing, I hope that it comes across in my translation. Enjoy!
By mistake: Handball Club
I have dreadful reflexes.
When I say that, generally the look on the face of the person I'm saying it to will be ‘Isn’t that because you don’t put the effort in?’ Or, it will be a boy who says ‘That’s normal for girls’.
However, only someone who has truly awful reflexes can truly understand the feelings of their inept fellows. When I want to hit a ball really far, why does it hit the floor at my feet with such conviction? If I try table tennis or badminton, I lose without even gaining one serve. When I’m running so hard that it feels like my feet are going to fall off, people get angry and shout ‘Run properly!’ I carry these experiences as a great burden, these dark traumas from my days as a student.
Elementary school. If the teacher said ‘Let’s play dodge ball!’ the kids in the classroom would go crazy. But I would suddenly feel gloomy. It was time to start the team selection process of doom (see note below.) The team members were chosen in order by the two team leaders selected from the class by the teacher. In other words, the kids whose sportsmanship would be an asset to the team were chosen first, and the kids left until the end were basically branded ‘dead weight’.
Naturally, I was the type who was chosen last of the last. When it got down to the last five people to be chosen for a team the leaders' attitude was that of ‘I don’t care who we get now.’ These men who, when they grown up, say things like ‘It’s cute when girls are bad at sports’ were the one's who were completely indifferent to these girls in elementary school! Saying that things like 'it's cute' now won’t help; I won’t ever be able to forget this bitterness!
And the relay race where everyone has to participate, why on earth is that included in sports day? Ridiculous! ‘Who shall we put in front and behind slow-poke Maaya Sakamoto?’ was the topic of class meetings! It would always end up being the fastest people in the class who were put in position in front and behind me for the race.
Which is why even I’m surprised that I ended up belonging to a handball club.
A shiny-new first grader in high school, a student in the year above who was a childhood friend got her hands on me, me, the girl who didn’t know left from right. I joined because she’d said ‘We don’t have enough new students, would you put your name down to get our numbers up? Or even just be a manager for the team’ but actually, they only had two first years including me join the club. And then the other new girl quit after just two months complaining that her ‘feet hurt’.
So, this left the handball club with seven members. The number of team members necessary for a hand ball team to play a match is seven. So without me officially saying whether I’d be a member or not, I ended being a regular.
It was too late to say: no one asked me! If I was to quit now then the girl’s handball team would have to be disbanded because they wouldn’t have the required number of members to play a game.
What? Is that a threat?
All the older girls were really nice, great people, but I found it difficult to cope with the pressure being put on me. It was around the same time that I debuted as a singer, so I was rather busy. If I can’t attend team practice I’ll be letting them down, but I have to go to work - I often found myself torn between these two commitments.
However, it is a fact that I enjoyed myself.
We were a pretty poor team, so our ‘practice’ was rather half-baked. Our sessions consisted of lots of ambiguous activities along the lines of ‘Let’s recite the stations on the Yamanote subway line while passing the ball to each other, then when you hit it back, you have to rush forward and shoot.’ We often had a lot of days off because we were ‘fatigued’ from training. Only our official training camp had a rather spectacular four nights and five days of continuous practice. Going to get a drink of water was somehow a group activity, and seemed to coincide with staring at the boy’s basketball team practicing. We were usually tired out from laughing too much rather from doing exercise. We were always laughing.
Being busy, not really being good at hand ball, getting suntanned, all this was crammed into just one year. After that one year, the senior students would graduate, so whatever happened, the club was to be disbanded. I don’t think there are any other clubs which are as easy-going or as fun as that handball team was. I really loved the girls who were above me.
One day, when that one year had passed in one way or another, something which I had feared since day one came to be: the next handball match was scheduled to take place on a day when I had work.
…I had always known that there was a possibility of this happening but…
I was supposed to be dubbing a Western film on that day, and I was the lead. But for the seniors in my team, this match was their farewell game, and if I wasn’t there then they wouldn’t be able to take part in the game at all.
I played in the match.
After agonising over it for a long time, I chose to participate in the handball game. I caused a lot of trouble for the people at work, and the game finally ended in complete defeat - which meant that we truly were a team who had never won a match. But I think I made the right decision.
I now belong to a gym. I’m actually paying to do sports, something which I thought I hated. Unbelievable. But it’s probably all thanks to that handball team that I’m able to say the words ‘It feels good to move my body.’
Fin.
(Note: Maaya says ‘team selection process of tears’ in the original but I thought DOOM would be a better English equivalent to get her point across)
By mistake: Handball Club
I have dreadful reflexes.
When I say that, generally the look on the face of the person I'm saying it to will be ‘Isn’t that because you don’t put the effort in?’ Or, it will be a boy who says ‘That’s normal for girls’.
However, only someone who has truly awful reflexes can truly understand the feelings of their inept fellows. When I want to hit a ball really far, why does it hit the floor at my feet with such conviction? If I try table tennis or badminton, I lose without even gaining one serve. When I’m running so hard that it feels like my feet are going to fall off, people get angry and shout ‘Run properly!’ I carry these experiences as a great burden, these dark traumas from my days as a student.
Elementary school. If the teacher said ‘Let’s play dodge ball!’ the kids in the classroom would go crazy. But I would suddenly feel gloomy. It was time to start the team selection process of doom (see note below.) The team members were chosen in order by the two team leaders selected from the class by the teacher. In other words, the kids whose sportsmanship would be an asset to the team were chosen first, and the kids left until the end were basically branded ‘dead weight’.
Naturally, I was the type who was chosen last of the last. When it got down to the last five people to be chosen for a team the leaders' attitude was that of ‘I don’t care who we get now.’ These men who, when they grown up, say things like ‘It’s cute when girls are bad at sports’ were the one's who were completely indifferent to these girls in elementary school! Saying that things like 'it's cute' now won’t help; I won’t ever be able to forget this bitterness!
And the relay race where everyone has to participate, why on earth is that included in sports day? Ridiculous! ‘Who shall we put in front and behind slow-poke Maaya Sakamoto?’ was the topic of class meetings! It would always end up being the fastest people in the class who were put in position in front and behind me for the race.
Which is why even I’m surprised that I ended up belonging to a handball club.
A shiny-new first grader in high school, a student in the year above who was a childhood friend got her hands on me, me, the girl who didn’t know left from right. I joined because she’d said ‘We don’t have enough new students, would you put your name down to get our numbers up? Or even just be a manager for the team’ but actually, they only had two first years including me join the club. And then the other new girl quit after just two months complaining that her ‘feet hurt’.
So, this left the handball club with seven members. The number of team members necessary for a hand ball team to play a match is seven. So without me officially saying whether I’d be a member or not, I ended being a regular.
It was too late to say: no one asked me! If I was to quit now then the girl’s handball team would have to be disbanded because they wouldn’t have the required number of members to play a game.
What? Is that a threat?
All the older girls were really nice, great people, but I found it difficult to cope with the pressure being put on me. It was around the same time that I debuted as a singer, so I was rather busy. If I can’t attend team practice I’ll be letting them down, but I have to go to work - I often found myself torn between these two commitments.
However, it is a fact that I enjoyed myself.
We were a pretty poor team, so our ‘practice’ was rather half-baked. Our sessions consisted of lots of ambiguous activities along the lines of ‘Let’s recite the stations on the Yamanote subway line while passing the ball to each other, then when you hit it back, you have to rush forward and shoot.’ We often had a lot of days off because we were ‘fatigued’ from training. Only our official training camp had a rather spectacular four nights and five days of continuous practice. Going to get a drink of water was somehow a group activity, and seemed to coincide with staring at the boy’s basketball team practicing. We were usually tired out from laughing too much rather from doing exercise. We were always laughing.
Being busy, not really being good at hand ball, getting suntanned, all this was crammed into just one year. After that one year, the senior students would graduate, so whatever happened, the club was to be disbanded. I don’t think there are any other clubs which are as easy-going or as fun as that handball team was. I really loved the girls who were above me.
One day, when that one year had passed in one way or another, something which I had feared since day one came to be: the next handball match was scheduled to take place on a day when I had work.
…I had always known that there was a possibility of this happening but…
I was supposed to be dubbing a Western film on that day, and I was the lead. But for the seniors in my team, this match was their farewell game, and if I wasn’t there then they wouldn’t be able to take part in the game at all.
I played in the match.
After agonising over it for a long time, I chose to participate in the handball game. I caused a lot of trouble for the people at work, and the game finally ended in complete defeat - which meant that we truly were a team who had never won a match. But I think I made the right decision.
I now belong to a gym. I’m actually paying to do sports, something which I thought I hated. Unbelievable. But it’s probably all thanks to that handball team that I’m able to say the words ‘It feels good to move my body.’
Fin.
(Note: Maaya says ‘team selection process of tears’ in the original but I thought DOOM would be a better English equivalent to get her point across)
Sunday, 1 August 2010
I.D Essay Book - When I was a Child Star (Final)
Well, here it is. The final part of Maaya's first essay in the book 'I.D', 'When I was a Child Star'. It's been a long time, but I've finally finished it. I apologise for the long wait. I hope that you will indulge me in reading the whole thing from the beginning on one go at some stage. It was long. I hope you enjoy the last part!
When I was a Child Star (Final part)
After All That
It’s been three years since I graduated Komadori.
Nishimura-sensei still, as ever, has a loud voice. Sometimes we go for dinner and she’ll treat me but we’ll argue for some time about whether to have udon or zousui (rice and vegetable porridge) after our hot-pot. Whenever I get in touch to say, ‘Come and see my play, ok?’, she’ll reply with something like ‘I don’t know whether I’ll be alive or not then so I can’t make any promises.’ It’s ok, you definitely have another twenty years left!
With my theatre troupe comrades it seems that there have been various changes over the years. Well, I suppose it has been the same for me, and until you get used to a new environment you are bound to feel full of anxiety. Because of that we often went out drinking together, to share the latest news in our lives, and to encourage each other with whatever we were doing. Recently we haven’t gotten together as often as we used to, and I wonder whether that’s because we’ve all settled down in our various walks of life. But even now when something happens I immediately want to call them up and see their faces. Unfortunately, all of us are very busy.
It was only the other day that I received a call from Nishimura-sensei saying ‘Come and pick up the things you left here.’ It seems she’d started to clean up the old training room.
Several other former members of the troupe and I went back to Komadori for the first time in a long while. Even though she complained about her ill health, ‘recently it’s just…’, Nishimura-sensei’s booming voice remains unchanged.
While sorting out lots of different boxes, we uncovered a large amount of photographs. Photos of when we were children, lots of photos of the children who had been above us, even old black and white photos; an expansive collection telling the story of Komadori’s long history. Looking at the photos, saying ‘Wow! Oh wow!’, even photos of Nishimura-sensei during her youth were discovered. Photos taken before the era of her famous bandana. Her hair cut in a short bob, wearing a dress, the most cheerful face in a long line of people, with an impish smile. This was a photo from when the previous generation were still together, when the troupe had hundreds of members.
I've tried to imagine Nishimura-sensei’s life. She oversaw Komadori’s interviews from when she was around twenty years old. She was just one of many managers at the beginning. I wonder if she ever had any idea that she would be the only one to remain out of the previous generation, continuing on alone. Since it’s Nishimura-sensei we’re talking about, I bet she said with great emotion, a sense of justice, and with guts: ‘We will continue on!’ I imagine that for more than twenty years she has given everything she has to continue to protect the troupe.
It must have been hard work. It must have been tough. I’ve even said some pretty impertinent things to her in the past…
Nishimura-sensei doesn’t have any children. But, myself included, there are a lot of people who think of her as their mother. So in one sense, I think Nishimura-sensei does have a lot of children.
Looking at the photos, I thought how much they looked like a family photo album. A record of all the children growing up into adults, there are also photos of weddings and newborn babies. This is the Komadori inheritance.
The training room of what was once called the Children’s Theatre Troupe Komadori will soon disappear from the corner of that quiet neighbourhood in Shinjuku. It’s sad but a theatre troupe without any members cannot be left as it is. But I don’t think the end come with something as clear cut as taking down the sign, or putting a full stop at the end of such a long history. It might be taking a small vacation, but someday, somewhere, I can imagine a small training room opening, filled with a gathering of loud kids, snotty, cry-babies, naughty, all with loud voices. Until that day, we will all protect this treasure of photographs.
Even if a room which we call ‘Komadori’ does not exist on this earth, there is still a place where we can all return home to. Even when we live apart, family is still family. And when we remember the days we spent together, whenever we wonder how everyone from that time is doing, that place will be right there with us. Those things that we spent so much time building there were the things that cannot be seen with our eyes.
Fin.
When I was a Child Star (Final part)
After All That
It’s been three years since I graduated Komadori.
Nishimura-sensei still, as ever, has a loud voice. Sometimes we go for dinner and she’ll treat me but we’ll argue for some time about whether to have udon or zousui (rice and vegetable porridge) after our hot-pot. Whenever I get in touch to say, ‘Come and see my play, ok?’, she’ll reply with something like ‘I don’t know whether I’ll be alive or not then so I can’t make any promises.’ It’s ok, you definitely have another twenty years left!
With my theatre troupe comrades it seems that there have been various changes over the years. Well, I suppose it has been the same for me, and until you get used to a new environment you are bound to feel full of anxiety. Because of that we often went out drinking together, to share the latest news in our lives, and to encourage each other with whatever we were doing. Recently we haven’t gotten together as often as we used to, and I wonder whether that’s because we’ve all settled down in our various walks of life. But even now when something happens I immediately want to call them up and see their faces. Unfortunately, all of us are very busy.
It was only the other day that I received a call from Nishimura-sensei saying ‘Come and pick up the things you left here.’ It seems she’d started to clean up the old training room.
Several other former members of the troupe and I went back to Komadori for the first time in a long while. Even though she complained about her ill health, ‘recently it’s just…’, Nishimura-sensei’s booming voice remains unchanged.
While sorting out lots of different boxes, we uncovered a large amount of photographs. Photos of when we were children, lots of photos of the children who had been above us, even old black and white photos; an expansive collection telling the story of Komadori’s long history. Looking at the photos, saying ‘Wow! Oh wow!’, even photos of Nishimura-sensei during her youth were discovered. Photos taken before the era of her famous bandana. Her hair cut in a short bob, wearing a dress, the most cheerful face in a long line of people, with an impish smile. This was a photo from when the previous generation were still together, when the troupe had hundreds of members.
I've tried to imagine Nishimura-sensei’s life. She oversaw Komadori’s interviews from when she was around twenty years old. She was just one of many managers at the beginning. I wonder if she ever had any idea that she would be the only one to remain out of the previous generation, continuing on alone. Since it’s Nishimura-sensei we’re talking about, I bet she said with great emotion, a sense of justice, and with guts: ‘We will continue on!’ I imagine that for more than twenty years she has given everything she has to continue to protect the troupe.
It must have been hard work. It must have been tough. I’ve even said some pretty impertinent things to her in the past…
Nishimura-sensei doesn’t have any children. But, myself included, there are a lot of people who think of her as their mother. So in one sense, I think Nishimura-sensei does have a lot of children.
Looking at the photos, I thought how much they looked like a family photo album. A record of all the children growing up into adults, there are also photos of weddings and newborn babies. This is the Komadori inheritance.
The training room of what was once called the Children’s Theatre Troupe Komadori will soon disappear from the corner of that quiet neighbourhood in Shinjuku. It’s sad but a theatre troupe without any members cannot be left as it is. But I don’t think the end come with something as clear cut as taking down the sign, or putting a full stop at the end of such a long history. It might be taking a small vacation, but someday, somewhere, I can imagine a small training room opening, filled with a gathering of loud kids, snotty, cry-babies, naughty, all with loud voices. Until that day, we will all protect this treasure of photographs.
Even if a room which we call ‘Komadori’ does not exist on this earth, there is still a place where we can all return home to. Even when we live apart, family is still family. And when we remember the days we spent together, whenever we wonder how everyone from that time is doing, that place will be right there with us. Those things that we spent so much time building there were the things that cannot be seen with our eyes.
Fin.
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