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Taken in Brugges during my first afternoon walking around there. I found a great deal of gorgeously blooming wisteria on my travels-- I never knew it smelled so nice. Sensei spent some time trying to get me to say “藤” and “藤壷” correctly. You’d think it wouldn’t be that hard, but I had a terrible time . . .
Transcripts of my writings from my recent trip to Ghent, Brugges, and Leiden.
26 April 2011
On the train between Brussels and Ghent, enjoying the musical mixture of Flemish and French that drifts through the carriage. At the station I picked up a cheap baguette-- the ‘Touriste,’ since it had my name on it-- and a macchiato, both excellent. I’m tired from insufficient and uneasy sleep, but happy. Looking into the windows of strangers, my own shadowed eyes reflected in the train window, the narrow unfamiliar buildings, adverts not meant for me-- happy.
I’m in motion once again, the sky is bright and blue, and I have two cities to explore. Only a week to do it in, but that’s a week of living in a continuous now, the no-mind of travel. A week free of the anxiety that’s been haunting me, concerns for the future, constant and crushing feelings of inadequacy. In motion I am free, and there is no challenge waiting for me here that I cannot overcome. For a whole week, I cannot fail.
It’s the right attitude for visiting a country. I’ve been in Belgium only a few hours, but already I have an inclination to love it. The countryside passing by, full of cows and fields broken up by stands of tall and somewhat narrow trees, feels familiar despite my never having seen it before. Thinking about it, it’s probably due to the hundreds of Flemish paintings I’ve seen over the years and somehow internalized without being aware of it. I can’t think of ever having experienced this sense of strange-yet-familiar before, but then few other places have been so prolifically depicted in Western art.
Amazing that such tiny countries managed to produce so much. Amazing that they had such a disproportionately large presence on the world’s stage.
Another thing-- I’m not worried about offending someone every time I open my mouth. I make at least a token effort to speak the local language wherever I go, but it’s rather challenging in a place with three (or so) languages on offer. What’s likely to come out of my mouth when I speak to people here will be a pidgin of English, Flemish, French, and Japanese (which comes out whenever I’m trying to speak a foreign language, now. When I try for pure French I have a Japanese accent. It confuses the hell out of people). But remembering my once-upon-a-time Belgian friends, who spoke together in English to avoid offending each other (and thus provided the rest of us with no end of amusement), I’m not feeling so preassured to avoid English. I don’t feel like doing so will make me one of Those Hated Tourists.
Ghent itself seems to be undergoing a good amount of construction-- there are streets torn up, buildings half knocked down, a large hole in the ground near St. Bavo’s.
But the city centre does not disappoint-- not perfectly medieval, but sufficiently so, with gothic revival, classical, and sometimes art nouveau thrown into the mix.
Prices are higher in the old part of the city, as one would expect. I forsee a lot of sandwiches in my future, but at least my hotel (very much a converted convent) provides breakfast.
I’ve already stuck my head into St. Bavo’s. The red brick between the marble columns and ribs made me blink in surprise, but the result, while strange, is not unpleasant. And with a day so bright, the whole place is flooded with light.
27 April 2011
On the train between Brugges and Ghent this time, not a very long trip. Running a little late to meet Sensei for dinner, but I’ve already called him to let him know (I shudder to think of what my next cell phone bill is going to look like).
Ghent is medieval, Brugges even more so-- better preserved, more vibrant, and also a great deal more tourist-oriented. It seemed like everyone there was from somewhere else, which makes me wonder about the locals-- where are they, and what does it feel like to be one? Well, at least they are rewarded for suffering through the world’s endlessly shifting migratory population with a lovely city and lots of great restaurants.
The city is a bit more confusing than Ghent, since the interesting part is a bit bigger and the streets meander in a thoroughly medieval way.
Lately my body punishes me, and promptly, if I eat anything too rich. My normal diet, while filling, is fairly simple-- soup, pasta in tomato- or pesto-based sauces, grilled or baked meats, veggies, light stir frys. I don’t like cooking so I keep everything simple. I’ve listened to many of my mom’s lectures on dieting so I’m sparring when it comes to heavy ingredients and sauces. I haven’t even bought myself ice cream lately, sticking to occasional rice puddings and dark chocolate when I want dessert.
So my stomach was not prepared for tonight’s Belgian specialty, watersooi. A cream-based soup with about a quarter of a chicken in it, along with lots of hearty veggies, potatoes, and spices. Mine came in a huge bowl with two small breadrolls and butter. And then beer on top of that.
Wow. My slow metabolism ensures that I would not survive living in Belgium. My digestion isn’t pleased with me at all. I hope Sensei’s okay.
He was in fine form at dinner tonight, and kept me riveted with many stories. One thing he told me was that momentous things happen to him every eleven years, and he wrote it down on a napkin to explain to me, as follows:
b. 1949
11 1960
22 1971
33 1982
44 1993
55 2004
66 2015
“When I was eleven years old, I got my glasses. Very big change. Before that, my face was like this--” he took his glasses off to show me. “After like this--” he put them back on. “Very big change.”
28 April 2011
“When I was 22 I became president of the Music Society. Only at my university. But at that time I formed relationships with many other musicians. Now they are very high, very high. I am not so high. But my career as a professional musician started from this point.
“When I was 33 I got married. My life became more terrible.”
“But Sensei,” I protested, “I like Ayako-sensei. She’s a wonderful woman.”
“Thank you very much,” he said, and bowed his head.
“At 44 I played the Tooru concert. Very important concert. I accompanied a great koto master. It was her retirement concert. She was 92. She played koto. Of course she asked her best student to play shamisen-- of course. She asked her student, ‘Who played Tooru at that concert, before?’ She didn’t remember my name! But her student was my friend. He said, ‘Wasn’t it Mr. Kurahashi?’
“Tooru was the piece composed by that koto master’s father. But shakuhachi part is composed in Tozan-ryu style. I played it once with her student. But that koto master found out I would play it. She was very much angry. ‘Kinko-ryu player! A Kinko-ryu player will play my father’s piece!’ She demanded that I should play for her. So my friend called me. ‘I am sure you are very busy tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But please you must cancel everything and come to my master’s house to play.’
“When I came there we went to the second floor of her house. There was nothing there. Then she opened a Buddhist shrine and put a picture of a man there. She said, ‘My father is here. You must play for him.’ I was very nervous but I played. And for some reason I was able to play very well. After I finished, that koto player nodded. ‘Now I see,’ she said. ‘My father’s piece was meant to be played by Kinko-ryu player.’
“So I could play in that concert. But before the concert that koto master called many of her friends, many Tozan-ryu players. ‘You must come to my concert,’ she said. ‘A Kinko-ryu player will play my father’s piece. You must study. So I felt very much pressure.
“But because of that I could play in that koto master’s final concert. 10 years after that she died. She was 102 years old. Do you know what her final words were?
“Do you know my father’s final words? On the day he died my father had interviewed with Japanese man-- he was a reporter from the BBC. He came to my house. No one was there, only my father. My father spoke to that reporter. Then he felt a little tired. ‘ちょっとまってください,’ he said. ‘Please wait a moment.’ Then he laid down on the tatami, like this--”
Sensei rested one elbow on the table and leaned his head on his fist.
“Then he died. After a little while that reporter came over to him. ‘Mr. Kurahashi? Mr. Kurahashi?’ No answer. That man called the police. ‘Excuse me, please come. I think Mr. Kurahashi is dead.’ But he didn’t know the address. He had to go outside and get a neighbor to come give the address. Then the police came and took that man away. He had to answer many questions so they could make sure he didn’t give my father some poison! Very unfortunate.
‘But ‘ちょっとまってください’-- I like those last words. That koto master-- on the day she died her students gathered around her. That day was September 11th, 2001. It was evening, and there was a TV in that room. Because of the time difference, it was morning in the USA. On that TV her students saw the planes hit the Towers. They were all watching the TV. That koto master said, ‘Look at me!’ Then she died. ‘Look at me.’ I don’t like those last words.”
“‘ちょっとまってください’ is much better,” I agreed. “Was that the same koto master who made a speech at her own funeral?”
“Yes, the same one. Her son brought a tape to the funeral. ‘If you don’t mind, my mother would like to speak to you,’ he said. Then he played the tape, and we heard that koto master’s voice. We were very much surprised. ‘Hello, all of you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming to my funeral. Now I am on my way to Paradise. If you like, please come join me. But don’t hurry. Please come slowly.’ And we all laughed. We laughed at a funeral!
“So that was the Tooru concert. After that, I could become like a shakuhachi master. Not a high master. Low-level master.”
30 April 2011
Sensei told me that the next thing to happen to him occurred when he was 55, and that was when Ronnie Seldin invited him to New York to teach and give a concert. But looking at the dates he gave me I realized that it didn’t quite fit in with his 11-year event schedule. He told me that he received the invitation in 1994 and went to New York City for the concert in ‘95-- but that would mean he was 45 and 46 years old when it occurred. What happened was he miswrote the dates that he gave to me-- he wrote 1949, 1960, 1971, 1972, 1983, 1994, 2015.
That invitation to New York launched Sensei on his current trajectory, and it was from then that he began teaching and playing concerts around the world. So it was indeed a significant event, one of the most significant in his musical career. But it wasn’t one of the 11-year events.
What significant event occurred when Sensei was 55, in 2004? I couldn’t figure out a way to ask him.
But he was right when he said that he would be 66 in 2015. “What will happen then? I don’t know. Maybe I will die.” The idea seemed to please him very much.
I very firmly told him that he was not permitted to die, but it reminded him of something else. “When I was a university student I visted some kind of student fair. There, many student clubs had set up tables. One table was the fortune telling club, and a woman was there. She looked at my palm. Then she asked me man questions-- my birthday, my father’s name, his birthday, my mother’s name, like that. Finally she told me she had very bad news-- at 48 years old I would die.
“At that time I was very young, maybe 20 years old. So I thought, ‘Oh-- 48 years old. That is very far from now. Mm, that is okay.’ And I didn’t worry about it. Then maybe after that I forgot.
“But when I turned 48, I suddenly remembered that fortune teller. And I thought, ‘Oh-- this year I will die.’ There are 365 days. Maybe it would happen soon, maybe on the last day-- I didn’t know. But when I thought about that, I became very calm. No more pressure. I didn’t have to worry about anything.
“One by one the days passed. I didn’t die. On the last day I was at a party with some friends. At 11 PM I remembered-- ‘Oh! This is the last day! Maybe in this hour I will die.’ So I told the people at that party the story. And I said, ‘Today is the last day, so please stay with me this next hour.’ They were very sad. ‘Mr. Kurahashi, Mr. Kurahashi, you must not die.’
“And I didn’t die. But maybe after that they became angry. ‘That terrible man. A fortune teller said he would die-- pah! A stupid story. Because of him. I stayed up until 12 o’clock. He made me miss my sleep!’ Very angry.”
“Bah. Those people should have been happy, not angry!” I said.
Sitting in the guest house of the Anthropology Museum in Leiden-- Museum Volkenkunde. It’s the Queen’s birthday, Koninginnedag, and most everything is closed. I came back here with Sensei, who wanted to rest after we spent this morning walking around. I thought that I would go out and do something while he napped, but little by little I find myself not wanting to. I finished writing about the stories Sensei told me, I took a nap, I made myself a cup of tea . . .
As I didn’t bring a book to read, I thought I would come into the common room and watch TV. But now that I’m here I’m reluctant to disturb the peace of the guesthouse with electronic babble. Here, the walls are pained white. Abstract geometric patterns decorate the throw pillows, the carpet; the colors, while bright, are harmonious rather than jarring. The sofas, the floor, the cabinets, are comfortable shades of slate grey. Outside the constant wind blows the surrounding leaves into a chorus of gentle whispers. The nearby windmill turns and turns, Dutch flags streaming from the wooden arms.
I like them so much better in person than I ever have in art, in the thousand cliched blue-and-white pottery scenes. On the canal small motorboats pass by. The passengers in their orange shirts are smiling.
Sensei and I walked through the sunny town this morning. Everywhere there were people selling secondhand items on blankets, the entire city holding a yard sale, all on the same day. Children played instruments here and there-- an accordion, a violin, a trumpet, two recorders with a saxophone. Appreciative parents dropped coins into open music cases. One table sold small cakes the size of muffins, ½ euro each. On the main shopping street, old pump-organs fluted music from wooden pipes, primitive bellows-powered computers reading notes from folded cardboard punch-cards. Their keepers collected coins in metal boxes, shaking them rhythmicly in time with the music.
In the main square a stage was set up, but no one played there yet. Already the many small cafes/pubs were doing good business on their outdoor tables, serving up beer in plastic cups. Sensei and I stopped there for a while. He had a glass of Heineken, which he enjoys, while I chose a beer at random from the pump handles at the bar. The one I ended up with was Affligem, which turned out to be quite good. I drank about half the glass and gave the rest to Sensei.
We had lunch outside, too, in a bagel place. I ordered an everything bagel with chicken, pesto sauce, and pine nuts, and a hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was hot milk and a cup of chocolate chips to stir into it, as in Belgium. The bagel wasn’t a Real Bagel, by my standards, but it was “almost good,” as Sensei likes to say.
Has there ever been a more perfect day in the history of this world?
I can feel thoughts beginning to creep in, though, gnawing at the edges of this happiness, this time of peace. but I can hold them at bay for a little longer.
Sonnet XXX, by William Shakespeare (painted on a wall in Leiden)
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
“But now we are all, in all places, strangers and pilgrims, travelers and sojourners . . .”
~Robert Cushman, Pilgrim Leader, 1622
Poem 23, by e e cummings (painted on a wall in Leiden)
the hours rise up putting off stars and it is
dawn
into the street of the sky light walks scattering poems
on earth a candle is
extinguished the city
wakes
with a song upon her
mouth having death in her eyes
and it is dawn
the world
goes forth to murder dreams….
i see in the street where strong
men are digging bread
and i see the brutal faces of
people contented hideous hopeless cruel happy
and it is day,
in the mirror
i see a frail
man
dreaming
dreams
dreams in the mirror
and it
is dusk on earth
a candle is lighted
and it is dark.
the people are in their houses
the frail man is in his bed
the city
sleeps with death upon her mouth having a song in her eyes
the hours descend,
putting on stars….
in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems
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And poems painted on buildings! That is beautiful.
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They had lots of poems painted on buildings! I just put up two that I found-- the two that were in English. There were poems in other languages as well: Spanish, Dutch, Italian . . . just to name the ones I recognized.
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I love that they put poems on walls. Beautiful.
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I must come visit you! I know I wanted to come in April, but that just didn't work. However, June & July are looking promising. Any thoughts?
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And as for poetry on the walls, well, they're your walls, so surely you can do as you like with them? When I was younger I wrote my favorite poem on my bedpost. But I didn't have any walls, then . . .
Is possible, I think! My parents are slated to come during the last week of July, so not then . . . but before that should be okay.