Thirty years ago, I listened to the Japanese pop song "Mail Carriage" and came to Kyoto, surrounded by the mountains. "From the southern hillside, far away, the sound of the mail carriage, the message of happiness brought to us by the carriage, how crisp and loud the sound of the horse's hooves..." "The mail carriage" was first composed by the Germans, and then the Japanese changed the word and changed the score and poured it into a record. In the 1970s, the song "Mail Carriage" spread to China. By this time, people had used the mail carriage as a synonym for delivering a wonderful message.
I live in Higashiyama Nanjo Imakumino Higashiwacho, a small two-story flat-roofed building owned by the landlord Mrs. Ikeda, and I live upstairs with my wife, a graduate student at Kyoto Women's University, who is studying the Novel "I Am a Cat" by the Japanese writer Natsume Soseki. Haiku member nameplates hang in the small building, and there is a row of bookcases in the corridor with books on the Purple Department's "The Tale of Genji". There is a bronze mailbox with five Chinese characters engraved on it: "Postal News Received".
That year was the first year of Heisei, and on my third day in Kyoto, I found a job delivering newspapers at Fokoji Temple, which was the core area of the traditional scenery near Gion in Kyoto. Before dawn, I rode my bike and sprinted away, putting a copy of the Kyoto Shimbun into the Machiya mailbox. Kyoto residents have a habit of getting up early in the morning to get newspapers and milk. I had to deliver the morning newspaper before the people of Kyoto got up, which is called "news distribution" in Japanese. In the afternoon, I have to deliver the evening newspaper to each house, and Kyotoites have a penchant for watching events and lottery tickets in the evening. I paid special attention to the fact that whoever had a copper mailbox was "Post-mail News", presumably an old resident of Kyoto like the landlord.
A crystal clear Takase River with wooden houses with paper lanterns on both sides. There are usually three kinds of mailboxes in the wooden house where I deliver newspapers: the old house has two kinds of mailboxes, horizontal and vertical, which are embedded in the walls, and the apartment is an external combination mailbox. The mail fell to the bottom of the box with a "bang". Even though the mailbox opening has bitten my hand many times, I still like the wonderful sound of "bang".
Mailbox horizontal
Mailbox vertical
Delivering newspapers is hard, but one advantage is that you can take a copy of the Kyoto Shimbun newspaper and read it carefully to guide me to find Kyoto's places of interest and festivals. In 794, Kyoto imitated the Tang Dynasty's Chang'an City and Luoyang City to build the capital. This famous cultural city with a history of more than 1,000 years has maintained the traditional style of the city and has become the hometown of the Japanese soul.
Kamogawa (30 years ago)
Kamogawa (30 years later)
In addition to delivering newspapers, I often use my camera and camera to record the customs and customs of Kyoto, and I plan to broadcast and write article illustrations on the TV station "International Lookout" after returning to China. I am most familiar with the three ways of distribution in Kyoto, and the historical way of running horse-drawn carriages in the past.
The first is the Ninnin Trail from Maruyama Park to Kodai-ji Temple, where Ninnin was the wife of toyotomi Hideyoshi, a famous Japanese general during the Sengoku period, who assisted Toyotomi Hideyoshi in ending the war and ascending to the pinnacle of power.
The second is the philosophical way from WakasaKoji Shrine to Ginkaku-ji Temple, where the Japanese philosopher Kitaro Nishida walks along the water drainage channel and sparks philosophical thought.
The third is the Sagano Road under Arashiyama and Mt. Kokura, where the Japanese historical novels The Tale of Genji and The Tale of the Heijia family depict the life of the imperial family there.
My favorites are kyoto's three major folk festivals: the May Aoi Festival, the July Gion Festival, and the October Period Festival, which are fascinating historical scrolls and folk poems in Kyoto.
Gion Festival (30 years ago)
Gion Festival (30 years later)
Once, the Kyoto Shimbun newspaper published the news of the Kyoto Maiko Photo Contest, and I gladly participated. Maiko, a traditional girl artist unique to Kyoto, can sing and dance and can play shamisen. On that day, kyoto's only twenty or so dancers poured out to show off their presence in the Yasaka Shrine to the Ninninomik Trail. The contest asked for enlarged photos, I gritted my teeth, spent ten thousand yen to put a large photo, submitted for the competition. Not long after, I heard "bang" at my old house in Towacho, and a letter of notice of the prize for a photography contest fell into the mailbox, which was also the happy news brought by the mail carriage.
Maiko (30 years ago)
Maiko (30 years later)
I was going to return to Kyoto after delivering newspapers for a year. Before parting, the university teachers and landlords walked for us, and everyone sang the "Mail Carriage" together: "On the country road where lemon blossoms bloom, the mail carriage gallops to the ranch, and the carriage will bring happy news to our hearts..." Professor Huang Jifu, provost of the university, said: His hometown is in Gifu, in the fields of Quemo, and he is most looking forward to the arrival of a mail carriage every day, hoping that the distant letters will bring great joy. Mailbox is a symbol of civilization, letters from distant relatives, university admission letters, visa and permission notices, there will be unforgettable expectations for mailboxes in life. The landlord, Mrs. Ikeda, gave us the "Tale of Genji" from home. Mr. Honda and her daughter kept us at the Osaka pier and witnessed the Kanjin ship slowly setting sail offshore.
Thirty years have passed, and Kyoto is often haunting my dreams. Last year, I returned to my hometown in Kyoto twice, looking for the faint memories of the old days, and the tune of "Mail Carriage" echoed in my ears: "We concentrate on listening, listening, getting closer and closer, mail carriage, yearning carriage ..."
I remember that thirty years ago, the maple leaves were gradually red, and I went to the Tofukuji Tongtianqiao Red Leaf Hunt and took a picture of the autumn leaves of the mountain stream. Today, I have stepped onto the sky bridge and taken photos in the same location. Only to see the layers of forest, the covered bridge looming mountain stream, two pictures of the autumn leaves of Dongfu Temple that have traveled through thirty years, very similar. I went to Arashiyama to take a picture of the Dayan River and the Togetsu Bridge, and compared it with the photo of thirty years ago, the Mountain River Bridge, which highly coincided.
Tsutenbashi autumn leaves (30 years ago)
Tsutenbashi Autumn Leaves (30 years later)
The landscape has not changed, nor has the cultural landscape changed. I turned back to the foothills of Dongshan Mountain, and the street lamps, stone walls, and wooden houses on the Stone Road were still the same. I found that a five-needle pine photographed by the stone road around thirty years ago, the short pine tree shape is still exactly the same as in the past, stretching out the pine arm to greet you. I was surprised that in thirty years, small pine seedlings would also grow into large pine trees. How do Kyotoites control the growth of a pine tree and keep it the same for a long time? At that time, there was a small shop on the Way of Philosophy, and the feature film "Sister Slope" was filmed, and there was a line in the film that was widely circulated: "What slope, sister slope." After walking through this slope, there is hope in front. "I found this small shop in the philosophical way, the layout is still the same, but the movie posters that used to hang in the store have been removed.
The traditional style has not changed. The landlord shrine next to Kiyomizu-dera Temple has a love stone, which is a sacred place for young people to seek marriage. The girls closed their eyes and groped forward for more than a dozen steps, some of them walked accurately, touched the love of the stone, and were overjoyed; some walked obliquely, lost their arms, and looked frustrated. This custom has remained unchanged for hundreds of years, and the stones, wooden signs, and hanging flags in the photos are still the same. Gion Festival, each neighborhood launched a parade of flower caravans, still luxurious and beautiful.
Koi Fortune-Telling Stone (30 years ago)
Love Zhanshi (30 years later)
The most amazing thing is the old house in Towacho, and I can't remember some details of the house. However, from the comparison of photos taken around thirty years ago, although the old house has changed owners, the canopy is still rose red; the color of the next-door neighbor's canopy is blue and white, and it has not changed for thirty years. Kyotoites try to keep their houses as original as possible, and neighbors will supervise them.
Towa House (30 years ago)
Towa House (30 years later)
Kyoto, Pangu unchanged is the norm. Kyoto legislated the Ancient Capital Preservation Act in 1966, and later enacted regulations on the protection of wind-oriented areas, street landscapes, overlook landscapes, and cultural relics management, and made exquisite plans for the layout of the city and skyline. In 1994, 17 of Kyoto's places of interest were listed as World Heritage Sites. The people of Kyoto take pride in preserving the cityscape and traditional skills.
Nowadays, the song "Mail Carriage" is no longer popular, and it is difficult to see horse-drawn carriages on the streets of Kyoto except for festive parades. I searched repeatedly in the past newspaper delivery area, but I couldn't find the Foguang Temple newspaper delivery shop, and it was estimated that it had closed long ago. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that in front of the wooden fence of the old house of the machiya, there was still a bronze mailbox with the "Post News" inlaid. "Boom", the old residents of Kyoto are still there, and the folk traditions are still preserved.
Every year on October 22, Kyoto holds the Times Festival, and among the masquerade parades departing from the Kyoto Imperial Palace, there is a column of postal carriages, postmen in modern uniforms who walk and convey good information to people, the band plays the music of "Postal Carriage", and the street tourists sing songs happily together: "The vast pasture is noon, behold, gradually walking in, the mail carriage, the beloved carriage ..."
(Editor of this article: Xu Yunqian.) Inner text photo courtesy of the author)
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Yong Text Editor: Gu Yong Title Image Source: Visual China Picture Editor: Xiang Jianying