(the) Road to the Deep East

Generally speaking, a person has a book that has changed his/her life.

Some might say “I don't”, but look back your life more carefully. Even if it is not published as a book, there is a story which influence you the most and give some hints, desire, or hunger, to make up your life. Even comics or games can be counted in. That's the human beings in post-modern days, after the end of a grand story.

When I look back two years in the previous blog and think of what the hell made me spend such a long time in return for a plenty of the precious moments from my hair-existing-days, I can remember that kind of book for me.

It is an essay named “Subarashii Nihon Yakyuu” (“A Wonderful Japanese Baseball”), written by an American folklorist, William C. Flanagan. In this book, Flanagan gives us the great explanation on Japanese culture, focusing on baseball, with tons of insightful observation on Japanese unique customs and a lot of quotation from Japanese documents from philosophy to an article of gossip magazines.

But for Japanese eyes, as many as those significant points, there are some awkward and nonsense interpretation in this essay. According to Flanagan, Enatsu Yutaka, a representative pitcher from NPB at that time who was as famous as Dice-K Matsuzaka today, is fat, because he used to be a sumo wrestler, and it was the technique which stabilizes his curve ball. 'Yakyu' originates from 'Yagyu', a famous samurai clan, and hence Japanese baseball think the spiritualism important in the games.... ans so on.

Naturally, when this essay was published in 80s, it surprised Japanese and raised a huge controversy. "Which baka gaijin wrote this shameful essay??" And media began to find who actually wrote this essay. But nobody could find out where Mr. Flanagan is. It was natural, because it was the translator who fabricated this essay.

The translator and writer, Kobayashi Nobuhiko, wrote this essay in the name of Flanagan to highlight unique products or customs which are familiar to the people in this island, but never be recognized by the people in other coutries. (It is the story of over 20 years ago, so the people at that time would never imagine that Japanese culture would influence the world as it does today.)

And the sequel of this "subarashii nihon yakyu" is "Chihayafuru Oku no hoso michi", and in this long essay, Kobayashi a.k.a Flanagan left a great but bizarre humorous analisys on Basho's "Oku no hoso michi"("the Narrow Road to the North"). And its fake English title is "Road to the Deep North". Needless to say, the new title of this blog is dedicated to this work.

It was almost 10 years after their first presses were published that I read these books from Mr. Flanagan first, but I was impressed by his sense of humor and very unique viewpoint. The things which look ordinary can be a surprise for foreigners, or I can think like that. It's the unseen beginning of my weird cosmopolitan outlook - or, self-isolation.

And subconsciously, I began to think like this whenever I encounter the bizarre Japanese culture or unreasonable customs: “What would a foreigner say if he were here??” And little by little, the little foreigner grew up in my brain like Billy Milligan, and when I recognized him, it seems he has already took over my body instead of me.

Anyway, now what I'd like to do in this "Road to the Deep East" is: Unleash this gaijin, who maybe will call himself santos26, and let his gaijinness more freely. I think he'd already done, but not only music, he will attack more fields around from now on.

So, this new blog, Road to the Deep East will feature more:
-Japanese News
-Japanese Tradition
-Japanese Culture
(for instance, manga, anime, music, sports, and most importantly,Sex.)
...and whatever he is interested in.

But... well, as you see, to be frank, nothing gonna be changed, actually. I just write and post the entry on what I wanna tell, just like I sometimes did for ISA.

However, more seriously, I'd like to grow up my eyes of gaijin. To be honest, I think my point of view got rusty after 3 years as a non-popular idol otaku. Through this little serious approach , I'd like to sharpen up my sword in my heart again. It's not titled Samurai heart, but Gaijin Heart.

And if I can serve you a wonderful and exciting moment I experienced when I read Kobayashi's essay ten and few years ago with this new project, that's my goal.