Farewell
Two years ago, I set off from Shanghai and boarded a cruise ship bound for Japan. I bought a first-class cabin with four beds, including mine, and three of us were staying in the room. Unfortunately, we encountered severe turbulence not long after our journey began. Despite being relatively healthy, I threw up everything I ate before boarding. After resting for a while, I went to the service desk on the first floor to ask for seasickness medication as I felt my body swaying back and forth in the bedroom on the second floor. After taking the medicine and returning to the bedroom, I fell asleep. When I woke up, two meals had passed. I ate some snacks I bought before boarding and ran to the deck with the girl in the same cabin to admire the stars and breathe fresh air. Taking pictures of the moon was so much fun.
The two people staying in the same cabin with me were a girl from Hiroshima University and a woman who lived in Kyoto. After disembarking, I had a few days before leaving school. The woman from Kyoto invited me to her home, so I canceled my youth hostel in Osaka and took her car from Osaka to Kyoto.
Eating life
When I first arrived in Japan, supplies were abundant. With a Japanese government scholarship in hand, I spent money freely on fruits. Fruits in Japan are very expensive and considered a luxury item. Among them, the most expensive is fruit, followed by vegetables and finally meat. The food supply in supermarkets was abundant, and even during the pandemic, only the Chinese would hoard rice and toilet paper.
The Japanese attitude towards the pandemic naturally affects me, but being in a foreign country, my feelings are different from the Japanese whose home and loved ones are nearby. My complaints and thoughts cannot be expressed normally, so they naturally come out in my dreams. I dream a lot, mostly of common snacks in my hometown's night market.
When I was in China, I never went hungry. Compared to the diverse dishes in China, my diet in Japan is considered "westernized". Not only is the price much higher, but even ordinary dishes like fried chicken, fried chicken pieces, and beef rice are enough to eat one day. Later, I mainly cooked for myself three meals a day, and thankfully, my cooking was also delicious. The homesickness gradually disappeared in my mouth and tongue.
Two Seasons
If the northeast land is like the passionate symphony of melancholy, then the mountain forests of Eastern Guangdong are Mozart's nocturnes.
The mountains in Eastern Guangdong are not high peaks of bizarre rocks, but rather, there is more soil than stone. During the seasons of continuous rain, when clouds rise and the peaks are shrouded in clouds, there is a flavor of Penglai Mountain. The mountains surround the farmer's fields. Unlike China, farmers in Japan are considered to be a wealthy class. Every semester, a grandpa in Taguchi will hold a barbecue party and provide free drinks and meat and venues. People from all over the world and students from different departments will come to greet them, sit around the barbecue stove, talk and laugh, as if they were old friends.
In the summer, there is a lot of rain in Eastern Guangdong. The already green grass and trees are soaked, making them even denser and more attractive. Everywhere is green. The forest is shrouded in silky fine rain, and walking in it, you feel as if you have achieved the Buddha's "heaven and earth, only I am supreme" by not being aware of other things.
The cherry blossom is Japan's national flower. The first spring I came here, I was surprised by the number of flowers. Every household has cherry blossoms in their yard, and the cherry blossom forest in the campus is even more pink with entire trees. Walking on the cherry blossom road, petals will fall on your head and body when the wind blows. People and scenery seem to merge into one. In a moment, I have seen such a scene several times and have lived in this city for so long. "Let's live life carefully from now on." Although we live every day, we do not know how life is going.
"My Teachers"
Memory of people is a strange thing. There are things in the big and small things that we have encountered that we later think are extremely important, but at the time seemed very important, but soon after we forget, it takes a lot of effort to recall. But there are things, at the time, later they are thought of as nothing, after a long time, they can always clearly appear before our eyes.
The first Japanese teacher I thought of was Teacher Aoki, who was a professor of aesthetics at the university. He had an old partner who was Korean and was said to be beautiful. The two lived in a small two-story building near the school. Teacher Aoki took in many Chinese students and when he had a meeting every week, more than 20 Chinese people sat in the room. The content of the meeting was mainly for each person to report on their paper achievements.
I only went to the teacher's house once, on a winter night, to get my graduation thesis signed. At that time, the teacher was returning from a business trip from Zhejiang University in China and was sitting in the study room with a cold, covered with a thin blanket, and the fire was burning. The books on the bookcases on the four walls all shone red. He talked to me and coughed, the lofty stand of the professor was gone, and I only felt the lonely and desolate late years of the old man. At that time, the epidemic in China had just spread, the teacher poured me tea, I did not drink it, I only took a piece of chocolate before leaving.
The teacher who was closest to me in Japan was my co-advisor Mary, who was probably around 40 years old, from Romania, and was someone who was good at five languages. Because of the same research direction, I had more opportunities to contact the teacher. Professor Mary was not very successful at Hiroshima University. At one point, she told me that she would eventually leave Japan. The Japanese friends she made when she was a student mostly got married, and the topics of conversation were mostly not speculative. She also did not understand the thinking of Japanese people, such as even if the other party strayed, they still maintain their families. But she likes Japanese culture very much and has been to many temples and shrines in different parts of Japan.
The third teacher I think of is a female teacher from Taiwan who graduated with a master's and PhD from Hiroshima University. She is of medium height and thin, with a well-kept hair style and dressed appropriately in suits when seen. Her husband is Japanese and also works at Hiroshima University as a civil servant. She is satisfied with her current life and tries to downplay the difficulties she has faced to get here. She has worked at Kyushu University and other schools for many years, but after marriage she commuted between Hiroshima and other schools for ten years, going home to Hiroshima every weekend to cook for her husband and daughter and putting the meals in the refrigerator with labels. She would then return to school on Monday. During the big earthquake, the airport was destroyed and she switched to taking the train, which was a ten-hour commute each way, just to be able to spend two days at home. She said she once wanted to give up, and told her mother-in-law she wanted a divorce, but in the end she persevered. She said that her parents were happy when she married a Japanese man, but if she had to choose again, she wouldn't do it. I asked her if she ever misses Taiwan, and she said that after her parents passed away, Japan was her only home and she didn't really feel anything about it anymore. As the Buddha stated, monks should not stay three nights in one mulberry grove, as it may cause attachment and hinder their practice. Reflecting on two years ago when I first arrived and participated in activities, I met friends who have now all gone back to their countries and contact has been mostly lost. All of this seems like a fleeting spring dream, and time has flown by.