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	066.Dr. Inazo Nitobe Museum in Hanamaki

This is the Nitobe Inazo Museum　in Hanamaki. Dr. Inazo Nitobe was born in Morioka city near here. For a long time from Edo period, the Nitobe’s family house had been formerly located in the countryside of Hanamki here, the south　of Morioka. Do you know who the Inazo is? Yes, he is a distinguished scholar, an educator and a world-famous diplomat who had a great influence in the world by his pioneering activity in the Meiji, the Taisyo and the early Syowa era. It is easy to understand for everyone if I would say that his portrait was on the ￥5,000 bill of Japan. Now, one day my English teacher Babu-san talked to me that why we don’t have the Jaja-men, K-syan. My name becomes the K-syan every time when he pronounces it. The Jaja-men is the local food getting popularity among the people these days. They say that it ranks with other specialties in Morioka like the Rei-men and the Wanko-soba. I thought that he suggested trying the Jaja-men with me when I heard about it first, but I realized that his real intentions were to visit the Ninobe’s birthplace. He recently started reading the book “BUSHIDO” written by Dr. Nitobe, and had recognized that this author’s birthplace may be in Iwate-prefecture. I thought this is a good chance to practice English speaking for me, so made a visiting plan. And then immediately I confidentially started to prepare studying of the “BUSHIDO.” However these English articles were very difficult to understand for me. Rectitude, Courage, Virtues, Benevolence, Politeness, Sincerity, Honor, etc. those words were going on and on. We could get the Japanese version translated by the renowned linguist Mr. Tatsuya Naramoto, but also these articles of the book are not easy Japanese for us. This is filled up with the words, Gi, Makoto, Yu, Jin, Rei, etc. that had left aside for a while in Japan. It is a long time since these words didn’t work well on our lips though it might have been underlying philosophy of living of the Japanese. And then I noticed that even now the booklet has been obtaining by the Gaijin for their understanding of Nippon. It is said that the first edition of this “BUSHIDO” was published in the US about 100 years ago. It shows us this book has been keeping it’s position highly for long time. It seems as if there was no book that could be a substitute for this one. They say that his word was “I wish to become a bridge across the Pacific.” I was much impressed what a marvelous his thought was, where it was brought up. By the way, there was a very long line at the Jaja-men shop, so we gave up our first plan having the Jaja-men. Thus we both have never tried the Jaja-men produced in Morioka.

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