Mabuta # 15
Kanoma's notes in parenthesis ( )
Translator's notes in brackets [ ]
15th installment
Adulthood?
Some time ago, upon coming home I glanced at the mail and saw that a postcard had arrived, notifying me: "You have successfully passed to the next level." It was a notice informing me that somehow I reached the final selection stage of a haiku contest.
A few months ago I searched for "poetry" on the Internet, and after getting back everything from A to Z, I saw the guidelines for this contest, and I thought about all the things I've tried to write. At that time I had some things up on Fatima's website, as well as the Oricon site that were open to the public, but this contest was limited to work that no one had seen, and so I just felt like giving it my best. Honestly, I haven't done a contest like this before, and this was just a trial, but I didn't think that my literary style would be fitting for this certain contest. I submitted countless poems. And just as I thought, the poem that was selected was not like my style at all. I got the feeling that the contest preferred poetry with a more relaxed feel from a haiku that was printed on the promotional package I received from the contest.
Somehow I've made it to the final selection stage; I'd really like to try and see if I can win. Since it's not my actual writing style, I'm not too anxious about how they'll judge it, but if I win, it'll be my first time doing so. In elementary, junior high, I don't have any memories of winning any contests to do with writing or penmanship, (I haven't really entered too many contests before but ...) but if somehow I'm selected for this, it will just increase the number of valuable life experiences I've had.
In the middle of July I'll know whether I've been selected, or whether I've been rejected. And so in the SHOXX on sale on August 21st, I'll report the results. Even if I've been rejected, I'll report it like a man.
Suddenly changing subjects, but I can't drink beer. It's not anything constitutional, it's just that whatever I do, I can't grow to like the aftertaste. When I want to drink, I can drink alcohol by halving it with juice, or things like cassis, and I can also drink umeshu and Smirnoff Ice. Basically, sweet things are good. Towa, drinking draft beer at a restaurant, and once, seeing 4ge drinking beer by himself at a hotel while on tour, seeing these things made me think I was seeing adults.
Beer is just one example of something that has a bitter aftertaste. Whatever reason, I just can't understand how some people can think bitter things taste good. For the same reason, I don't really like coffee, bell peppers, or goya. To those of you who say 'But they're delicious!' I just have the same question: just at what time did that bitter taste turn into a delicious taste for you? If I had been forced to eat bell peppers when I was a kid, I probably would have gotten used to the taste. But there probably aren't many people around who drank beer and coffee when they were kids.
I think that what usually happens is that people try their first sip of beer because they're trying to conform to what others around them are doing, or because they're trying to look like an adult. But isn't the first reaction to beer always, 'This is gross'? However, once reaching the legal age, a lot of people just come to like the taste of beer. It's weird. Once, the same people thought the taste was gross, but where do you cross the boundary that the taste becomes delicious? On that day, does your sense of taste suddenly change? If that's so, does the bitter taste disappear? Or else, does it become an incentive to have that "bitter" taste, and does that change in feeling happen often? Whichever it is, that change hasn't happened to me.
Of course, there aren't that many people who like the taste of bitter medicine. In other words, that bitter taste isn't something obviously tasty.
In the first place, the character for "nigai" [ bitter ] uses the character that is in "kutsuu" [ pain ]. And if you think that's okay, it's as if you're a masochist isn't it? You can say the same thing for "karai" [ spicy ]. I just can't understand people who like things that are extremely spicy.
I'm going to write down some specifically spicy things.
First off, wasabi, hot things like that. If it's a small amount, wasabi can soften the smell of food by giving it "wafuu" [ Japanese-ness ], but if it's added in an excessive amount the olfactory nerve is hit with a bang, and tears start to spill, and depending on the degree, the nose, throat and tip of the tongue hurt.
Next up is the chili pepper. It doesn't do much to the sense of smell, but it can bring about numbess and pain in the tongue and lips. Also, once it's inside your body it can make you feel hot and start to sweat. If you eat an excessive amount, it can cloy up the stomach and give you the runs. Compared to things like wasabi, it gives you more of a direct pain.
Writing it like this, isn't it obvious that it is categorized as painful? "Karai" [ bitter ] is written the same as "painful" [ tsurai ]. If you think that's okay, then you're a masochist, right?
When you're a kid, you don't like bitter or spicy things, and then once you become an adult you do. Does that mean you become a masochist? No, somehow that's not right. Definitely not.
When will the change to liking bitter and spicy things happen to me? Once it happens I wonder if I'll be able to understand those that like those sensations. And then surely I'll think, "I've become an adult now."
