Beautiful Seto Naikai
2011年07月30日
In Japan tsuyu(梅雨), rainy season in early summer of mainland Japan, ended as early as the first half of this July.
It was a very early ending of rainy season compared with usual years.
After the end of tsuyu, intense summer sunshine extensively covered Japan.
I went on a trip in the first half of this July to western Japan, from Hiroshima City in Chigoku region(中国地方) to Matsuyama City in Shikoku Island(四国).
It was a short trip, so I dropped myself at Hiroshima in the morning, held a meeting there, and in the afternoon got on a ship bound for
Matsuyama City.
I got on the tram train from center of Hiroshima City to Hiroshima port.
At three afternoon I and my business partner Sumida got on a ferryboat at Hiroshima port.
When at Hiroshima, I felt scorching sunbeam. But after having launched myself into the sea, I saw seawater gently reflect the lights and on
board I watched beautiful landscape of Seto Naikai (瀬戸内海, Seto Inland Sea) around me.
The ferryboat went through a range of islands, had a short stay at Kure port, and after that it managed to proceed a very narrow strait called Ondo Seto (音戸瀬戸).
After having got though the strait, it sailed for Matsuyama port, during which I met and passed handful of big and small islands in my view.
From Hiroshima port to Matsuyama port it took less than 3 hours.
But during its course I enjoyed beautiful landscape of sea of western Japan so much.
Shiba Ryotaro(司馬遼太郎, 1923-96) was a famous novelist and essayist.
He referred to, in an essay, a student from China who told him that there is no ‘river’ in Japan.
In his opinion, Japan has only brooks.
For Chinese such as him, ‘river’ means much greater flows than Japan’s ones, for example Yellow River or Yangze River in his home country. It is true that we have no ‘river’ in Japan, if we accept his definition.
On the other day, however, the student met the essayist again and revised his previous opinion, after he went on a trip in western Japan.
- I must say that Japan has quite a beautiful ‘river’, I found out!
In reality he saw Seto Naikai.
So what he saw on his trip wasn’t a river, but a sea. Seto Naikai is a sea by definition.
But the landscape I saw on the ship was really enough to make travelers deeply impressed, I thought.
The strait is really like a great river flowing generously, whose water is clear.
On the course of the flow, many green islands build up here and there, which give passengers a lovely natural beauty.
Once I had an experience to travel along Nakdong River of South Korea (洛東江).
There I highly appreciated the river’s landscape on which large water threads through steep mountains.
But in Seto Naikai I could enjoy a landscape which has more large and clear water flowing through pretty green islands.
It was really a harmony between water and mountains.
Seeing beautiful scenery, I picked us a paper and wrote down haiku(俳句), that I made on my own:
夏の瀬戸 Natsu no Seto
海から山が Umi kara Yama ga
生えている Haete iru
- I’m in Seto Naikai of summertime, where mountains build up right from the sea.
Now islands on Seto Naikai don’t seem to be regarded as important traveling destinations by Japanese people.
I told Sumida:
“Making a second life on such beautiful islands, and spending days with fishing and cultivating crops. That is quite good, isn’t it? If developed
wisely, these islands can turn into a paradise of going a slow life for people.
So they might be able to be transformed into a splendid traveling destinations.
But in reality they are being almost deserted now. How regrettable…”
Seto Naikai has quite a few islands on it.
And many of them suffer from depopulation problem, and now they fail to make their blueprints for the future development.
Beautiful sea of Seto Naikai has already been severely spoiled by excessive exploitation of industrial materials such as deep sea sands.
Japan has already got into post-industrialization stage.
It must create new industries for the future generation.
Now we have beautiful Seto Naikai, that surely has a promising potential to be a resource for tourism.
Japanese people have called Seto Naikai “Aegean Sea in Japan”.
But why should we compare our own beautiful sea with a foreign tourist spot?
It is a treasure of Japan, and it can be shown proudly to outside world if polished well, I think.
The evening came, and the ferryboat was about to reach its destination.
I made another haiku:
目の前に Meno Mae ni
瀬戸の夕凪 Seto no Yunagi
他に何ある？ Hoka ni Nani aru?
- I can see an evening calm of Seto Naikai in front of me. What can we need more?
The evening calm of Seto Naikai had little wind. All was quiet and still.
I couldn’t help feeling that I had forgotten another beauty of my own country until my trip this time.
(Oda Mitsuo)
SEE OUR VIDEO FOR PENSION'S LUMP-SUM PAYMENT!
