Hidemi’s Rambling No.446

by Hidemi Woods on December 17, 2012

MusicMarketplace.com

***** 88th Planet Project *****

During the trip to my hometown, I passed through the Osaka metropolitan area in western Japan by bus. I hadn’t been there for over twenty years and the area has deteriorated surprisingly. It may have seemed that way just because I moved into a quiet, rural town one and a half years ago, and got used to a pleasant view of rich nature and few people. Or, a decade-long stagnating economy has taken its toll hardest on western Japan. In either case, the area looked washed-out with shabby houses and buildings cramming. It wasn’t a city in Japan I know, and looked almost like a slum. Before arriving at Osaka, I took a train from the next city Kyoto where my hometown is located. The train ride was unbelievably awful. It was a full train extremely crowded, and we were crushed into it. I had forgotten what an urban jam was like because I had usually tried my best to avoid it even when I lived in the city. It was so uncomfortable to touch and be pressed against strangers for 25 minutes. The area and its people made me feel dirty altogether. Even their strong local dialect of western Japan began to sound cheap and offensive to me, although that’s exactly the way I myself speak everyday everywhere. I started to worry about how those who talk with me feel, now that I know how I sound. My dialect is too strong to be removed by these twenty years and I don’t think I can get rid of it. While I speak in the dialect of western Japan, I wonder why the metropolitan area is getting dingy and tasteless. It could be possible that it’s not, and simply that I have become a hayseed…