蜜柑 (Mikan)、by 芥川龍之介

I have recently completed an original English translation of Mikan, a most fine short story by Akutagawa. Dictionaries, both print and digital, were consulted, but what you are about to read is 100% AI free. Mikan It was an overcast evening in winter. I was sitting in the corner of the second-class carriage of the up-train from Yokosuka, vacantly waiting for the whistle to signal departure. The car’s electric lamp was already on, and strangely, I was the only passenger in the compartment. Peering outside, the darkening platform was oddly deserted, without a trace of anyone come to see off travelers. However, there was a cage containing a small dog which from time to time raised a pitiful howling. These things in some weird way mirrored the state of my feelings. I was indescribably exhausted and weary of everything, and a shadow of gloom was falling on me like the snow-portending clouds from the sky. My hands were still stuck in the pockets of my coat, as was the evening edition, but I couldn’t summon the interest or energy to peruse the paper. But, at last, the sound of the whistle. I was dimly aware of a feeling of relief, and leaning my head against the window frame, I wasn’t so much waiting for the objects before my gaze to begin to move backwards as somehow lying in wait for it to happen. However, from the direction of the ticket gate I thought I heard the clacking of geta, following on the heels of which the voice of the conductor, scolding, accompanied by the door to my carriage being roughly opened by a lass of thirteen or fourteen who, flurried, burst into the car just as it swayed heavily with the movement of the steam train slowly getting underway. The platform piers that, one after another, caught my eye, the water car that seemed forgotten in place, the red cap offering polite felicitations to someone on the train… all seemed to be leaning backwards unwillingly through the sooty smoke beating against the carriage window. Gradually I began to feel composed and, whilst lighting a cigarette, first raised my languid eyelids to glimpse the face of the girl sitting opposite. Her unwaxed hair was done up in the style called ichougae, and her cracked cheeks, which bore traces where she’d drawn her nails across them, were a disgusting shade of scorched red. Everything about the girl suggested she was an thorough country bumpkin. Moreover, the bedraggled shawl of sickly green around her neck trailed loose threads to her knees, atop which was perched a large bundle tied up in a furoshiki. The frost-bitten hand holding this bundle also clutched a red third-class ticket as if for dear life. I disliked the coarse features of the maiden. Her unclean attire was likewise displeasing. Finally, it annoyed me to no end that this benighted girl could not even tell the difference between a second and third-class ticket. And so, to blot out the presence of the lass, I lit a cigarette and casually spread the evening edition across my knees. At that very moment, the ray of outside light playing across the newsprint was suddenly replaced by the light of the electric lamp in the carriage, with the smudged print of several lines of type becoming unaccountably bright and floating up before my eyes. The train was now entering the first of many tunnels on the Yokosuka Line. However, though by the light of the lamp I scanned the newspaper expecting my melancholy to lift, the mundane and frivolous affairs described therein left me apathetic. There were death notices and wedding announcements and reporting on the armistice and a political scandal… the instant the car entered the tunnel I had the illusion the train had reversed direction. In this state of mind my eyes moved mechanically from one dreary article to another. Of course, through all this the girl, with her coarse facial expression, remained unaware that I was sitting across from her. The train in the tunnel, the rustic girl, the evening edition buried in inanities… if not a symbol of something, what was it? If not symbolic of the enigma, vulgarity, and ennui of existence, what? The whole thing wasn’t worth worrying over. Tossing away the unfinished paper, I leaned my head against the window frame and, as one dead, closed my eyes and nodded off. A few minutes passed. Suddenly, with a vague sense of dread, as though in some unaccountable way I was being oppressed, I opened my eyes and peered around. Unnoticed, the girl had moved from the seat opposite to sit next to me and was now trying repeatedly to open the window. The heavy glass window wouldn’t budge, though. The girl’s cracked cheeks grew redder, and from time to time she made sniffling and gasping noises which resounded in my ears. It would be a mistake to say a part of me didn’t feel for the girl. However, it appeared the train was just then approaching the mouth of the tunnel, for the twilight assumed the color of decaying leaves as the flanks of the mountains on either side pressed against the windows, and the moment when the meaning of this peculiar episode would be revealed seemed to be at hand. Yet all the while the young girl continued to struggle with the window, and for the life of me I couldn’t fathom her fixation. No, the only explanation I could settle on was that it was some freakish whim. As before, I was aware of a pitiless feeling building in the pit of my stomach as the girl with her chapped hands entered into a desperate pitched battle with the window that wouldn’t move, and I prayed fervently that she would wrestle with that stubborn window ineffectually through all eternity as I glared at her with evil eye. Presently the carriage resounded with a dreadful noise as the train hurtled into the tunnel, and at that instant the window, now all but opened, at last fell with a crash. Just like that it became difficult to breathe in the carriage as smoke that resembled molten soot suddenly came rushing in through the square hole, the thick black fog completely filling the compartment. I suffer a congenital tracheal complaint, yet there wasn’t even time enough to cover my face with a handkerchief as the carriage became a sea of smoke, owing to which I was seized with a fit of violent coughing that left me gasping for breath. However, the lass showed no indication of being aware of me as she leant through the open window, hair blowing in the darkness of the tunnel whilst she stared intently in the direction the train was moving. As I watched the girl through the light of the lamp and sooty smoke, already it began to grow lighter and lighter outside, and had the cool odor of soil and dead vegetation and water not come rushing into the carriage, allowing me at last to recover from my coughing fit, even had I berated this strange girl and made her shut the window, it would have made no difference in the end. However, the train was at that time gradually exiting the tunnel through a narrow gap between mountains covered in withered vegetation, passing a level crossing outside some poor town. Nearby, hovels with roofs of thatch or tile were packed closely in suffocating squalor. I expected to see the gatekeeper waving his signal, but there was merely an off-white flag flapping idly in the gathering dusk. At last it seemed we had exited the tunnel, and at the moment of passing this lonely crossing I beheld, on the far side of the fence, three young red-cheeked boys standing cheek to jowl. It seemed to me they were cowering with hunched shoulders, pressed down by the weight of the leaden sky. Moreover, the boys were wearing kimono whose color matched the dismal scenery of this forsaken place. As with raised heads they followed the passing train, hands lifted swiftly in unison, innocent young throats thrown back high, the boys burst into a joyous shouting whose meaning completely escaped me. Whereupon, it was really a matter of the briefest instant. The girl, who had thrust half her body out the window, suddenly extended her chapped hands, appeared to twist vigorously let to right, and without warning, as if to cause my heart to dance, some five or six mikan dyed in the warm tints of the sun rained down here and there over the boys who had come to see the train off. Involuntarily, I gasped. Then, a flash of apprehension, and I understood everything. The young maiden, likely on her way to take up some post as a domestic servant, this young girl had stored the mikan in the sleeves of her kimono and tossed them through the window in thanks for the solicitation shown by her younger brothers in making a special journey to this desolate crossing to see her off. The dusk enveloping the lonely scene, the voices of the boys as of young birds, and the dazzling color of the mikan as they fell haphazardly from the sky- all seen through the window of the train in a brief instant, and then gone. This affecting scene created the most vivid impression, as if seared into my heart. And then I was aware of a mysterious sense of cheerfulness welling up from within me. Elated, I raised my head and gazed on the young girl as if she were someone else. At some time she had returned to the seat opposite, her chapped cheeks were again buried in the yellow-green woolen shawl, the furoshiki once more held in the hand that clenched the green third-class ticket. This occasion marked the first time in my life that I was able to forget a modicum of my indescribable weariness and ennui, the sense of life’s inscrutability, its monotonousness and absurdity. Brian Southwick Copyright August 27, 2026

白い旗: 出発

Camp Commandant: "You are the last reserves being sent to Iouto (Iwo Jima). Men, bear up in defeat, die with resolution and dignity!"

漫画家 水木 しげる: 白い旗

From "White Flag", by Mizuki Shigeru. The main characters are former comrades in arms: "鬼軍曹", or sergeant from hell (now a woodcutter), and "椿兵長"、'camellia' special private, a high-ranking kendo master in civilian life. The previous day both received the dreaded 召集令状、or mobilization order. Our hero knows that this single scap of paper, with its authority to send the mobilized to the battlefield, where one's personal fate is completely unknowable, will decide his own destiny: ill-fated, and he'll never see his family again. "Rumor has it we're all being sent to Iouto", observes Camellia. Sergeant Oni: "We won't be coming back alive, I reckon". The year: 1945.

The Featured Character

蜻蛉 虫 is the radical and means insect; 青 is blue, and 令 is command. So, 蜻蛉。 Hint: In the misty past Japan was called "The island of (this insect)". The limk: https://share.google/xd8a0jHHPbJ9JrmSJ

Some Good News For Certain Permanent Resident Visa Holders and Applicants

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/28140118b7e97518cd47bedcc89572ed427000e6 The key takeaways from the Sankei article are the following: 今回示された指針は、手数料の減額対象者の要件について「生活保護法の要保護者に準じる程度の困窮」かつ「人道上の配慮が必要」と明記。要件を満たせば、在留資格変更・更新で1万円、永住許可で2万円に手数料が減額されるとした。 人道上の配慮については、難民認定者や難民申請者、人身取引の被害者、日本人の配偶者、日本人や特別永住者の子供をひとりで育てる外国人－など12類型を明示した。 Essentially, if there are extenuating circumstances (paragraph 2), you may qualify for reduced fees (10,000-20,000 yen). 人道配慮 is the key term. Lately there hasn't been much of this coming from the government.

Foreign Workers Abused

Horrific story out of Hokkaido. 特定技能外国人を虐待か「日本は安全と信じていたのに…」暴言・暴力・セクハラが横行する農業法人から脱出したミャンマー人、専門家「あり得ない」北海道京極町 | TBS NEWS DIG https://share.google/ps0SR8szAsa4GusXa One suspects this is not an isolated case. While the Takaichi government has been turning the screws on foreigners, administratively and rhetorically, some employers of trainees and specialist workers from overseas have felt emboldened to withhold wages and abuse their foreign staff, so far with impunity. "Who's the Daddy?" Is Kimi (halfie Immigration Minister who clearly enjoys turning screws) asking tough questions and holding Japanese participants in the employment scheme accountable? (Rhetorical)

Those Who Don't Know Their Own History Are the Real Danger

From the Asahi: 昨年11月末、仙台市の中心街で小さなデモが行われていた。 　「移民×土葬×反対」と書かれたのぼりとともに、日本国旗が揺れる。 　移民政策が「日本を崩壊させる」と書いた紙を持った人もいた。 https://www.asahi.com/sp/articles/ASV3K2HYCV3KUTIL01DM.html I'm not Japanese, didn't graduate from Japanese schools. But I'm interested in history, and I know more about some aspects of 日本史 than some Japanese themselves. Particularly people like the yobbos holding banners reading "No Immigrants, No Burials". One of my first neighbors in Niigata City was a woman from Sanjo, Niigata, who once told me (and I've never forgotten) that interment was formerly a common practice in her area. Indeed, and not just there: 日本における土葬の歴史古代・飛鳥時代：上層階級で仏教伝来に伴う火葬が始まったものの、一般庶民は土葬でした。中世・江戸時代：鎌倉仏教の普及や江戸時代の寺院制度により火葬も一部で広まりましたが、全国的には土葬が主流のままでした。 The best is last: なお、歴代天皇は後光明天皇以降 (died 1654)、土葬が伝統となっており、1989年に崩御した昭和天皇も武蔵野陵で土葬されています。 It's Muslim corpses they're morbidly afraid of, apparently.

Mizuki Shigeru and War

While 漫画家 水木 しげる is best known for ゲゲゲ鬼太郎 and 妖怪 characters, he also wrote about WW2. NHK recently aired a special about 白い旗、or White Flag, his manga about 硫黄島、or Iwo Jima. I myself am not a reader of the genre, but I was so impressed I had to have a copy. It was not easy to find, I struck out at three used bookstores in Kanazawa before getting lucky at the fourth. From what I can tell, the manga hasn't been translated into English. I'll select a few scenes to translate and share them along with photos of the artwork. First, the jacket of the volume including 白い旗.

戦争という悲哀の虚実 "Sifting the truth about the pathos of war." Maybe "Is war really all that bad?" would be better.

PM Takaichi, Her Silly Mantra, and Death by Overwork

Contrast the Takuboku poem (previous post) with Takaichi's chirpy declaration on being named former PM Ishiba's successor: 働いて働いて働いて働いて働いて(tail end of the video). (I'll) work work work work work. https://youtu.be/I1h3pbljeuQ?si=e8Vu7HX9I-MYS_qF Nauseating. And concerning, as labor rights activists and those who have lost loved ones to karoshi warned, as they had only recently begun to see a shift from Japan's engrained work-life imbalance to modest government limits on overtime to counter stubbornly high numbers of 過労死, to name but one social ill associated with traditional Japan's elevation of work above all else. And then comes this muppet with her 働いて。 More than anything, Takaichi is shallow and stupid. That doesn't mean she isn't dangerous. Surprise, surprise: the Takaichi regime has announced it is scrapping the current 45-hour monthly overtime limit from this September. (Apparently she thinks her own lifestyle- up to three hours of sleep per 24, no more!- should be adopted by the rest of us. Deluded, stupid, dangerous.) 45時間超の残業は「例外中の例外」　一律抑制取りやめ、反発広がる：朝日新聞 https://share.google/8tuB7oQzKZue37JXB

A Poem by Takuboku

はたらけど はたらけど猶わが生活楽にならざり ぢっと手を見る [生(く)活(らし)楽(らく)] ぢ (じ) I work and work, still, life doesn't get any easier; I stare quietly at my hands

A Monkey, A Man, A Forest: Video

I uploaded an English translation of Ishikawa Takuboku's サルとヒトと森 over several posts in July and September last year (2025). A new video provides a summary of the story, context and commentary. https://youtu.be/e4trmzGDvCg?si=gvoUPUvciZbZS82-

Nietzsche in the Bokuchi

-Desire and hope have drowned/ Smooth lie soul and sea 凪 (なぎ; calm, lull); the semi-enclosure is the radical and represents wind, the character within means stop (as in wind and waves, in this instance). A complete idea, mood, atmosphere. Such beautiful economy.

Lighter Stuff: 猿蟹合戦 (Updated)

The Deadly Feud of Monkey and Crab, a story by Akutagawa, is not so much a retelling of the children's tale as an imagining of what happens off-stage. Before sharing a truly hilarious passage from his text, I suggest reading the original children's story. A Japanese version: 芥川龍之介 猿蟹合戦 https://share.google/Jq2tHo4pH9Y8Myool English: https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/72/japanese-fairy-tales/4848/the-quarrel-of-the-monkey-and-the-crab/ (I chose "feud" rather than quarrel or battle because, in the Japanese version linked above, Crab Sr's murder by monkey is avenged by Crab Jr.) Jr is arrested and, after a brief trial, condemned to die as the criminal mastermind. The co-conspirators (a bee, chestnut, mortar, and kelp) receive life in prison. There is no sympathy shown for Crab Jr. Rather, he is roundly criticized for his atrocious crime in the press and the court of public opinion. Except that a lone advocate comes forward. From Akutagawa: 。。。たった一人、蟹の為に気を吐いたのは酒豪兼詩人の某代議士である。代議士は蟹の仇打ちは武士道の精神と一致する云った。しかしこんな時代遅れの議論は誰の耳にも止まる筈はない。のみならず新聞のゴシップによると、その代議士は数年以前、動物園を見物中、猿に尿をかけられたことを遺恨に思っていたそうである。 A dissipated poet- parliamentarian, sole public supporter of crab, asserts that crab has avenged his master's murder in good Bushido fashion. However, this appeal to outmoded ideals falls on deaf ears. Not only that, but a tabloid reports that the gentleman appears to have held a grudge against monkeys ever since being urinated on by one of that tribe during a zoo visit years earlier. The Akutagawa story (in Japanese). 芥川龍之介 猿蟹合戦 https://share.google/ELCJBnCaml51nB3wC