The day of May 20, 2005 was very special for me. Many people came to Nara for attending the party that celebrated the award I was given last year by the Japanese government. The award is called Bunka Kourousya, its literal translation would be a person who has performed distinguished services in the field of culture. The reason why I am writing this blog in English is to convey my deepest and sincerest thanks to the five foreign attendants (including two symposium speakers) who perhaps did not understand the content of my short speech in Japanese at the end of party.
The one-day international symposium on the study of Life Inheritance and Its Future before the party was truly excellent. The majority of speakers were former (and present) students or visiting scientists to my lab in the past, and topics of the other speakers were closely related to my current research interests. I must confess that I was extremely happy to spend one whole day with friends and colleagues. Many former students came back from North America and Europe for this gathering.
Synopsis of my speech at the end of party is as follows (according to my memory as it was improvised).
I was delighted and felt strongly hazukashii (meaning be ashamed) when I heard about the announcement of this award given to me last year. The delight and hazukasii were words reserved for honeymoon brides in ancient Japan, and I being too distant from that situation felt possibly similar emotion by the very different reason that I was not deserved for such most respectful award in this country. In my own judgment, bunka (culture) and kourou (distinguished service) have been so scarce in my sixty-four year old life.
I have been immensely happy today. Such happiness should not last longer than one day. It is too luxurious. If this kind of party was held in the period of Edo, it means that I should die less than one year as I took so much time of many people who made a special trip to came and see me. But in this modern time in Japan, please give me a little bit of chance for prolonged life longer than one year.
I like to tell you just my feeling after the retirement from Kyoto University. I retired last March, but strangely I am still going to the same lab every day. Somebody asked me how many days you go to lab in one week, and my answer of five days upset him. I am now indeed a daily-employed researcher. To be honest, I feel I am like a zonbi, as a half-dead researcher, every morning walked out from my coffin and go to the lab for work. It is really strange feeling to continue the research under this current situation. Anyway I hope sometime in future I like to come back to an ordinary man.
PS. I asked Professor Toshio Yokoyama after my speech, whether we had a zonbi-like person in Japanese history. He told me that we do have one very famous man in the Heian period, Onono Takmura, who every night went to and back from the Meikai (Hades) and made fantastic accomplishments in the Hades. In my second thought after hearing this, I am beginning to think about the continuation of this zonbi-like researcher life.
