Japanese with anime voice: episode35
Hello, I’m Sachi.
April 19, today is Map Day. The name comes from the fact that Tadataka Ino, who made Japan’s first accurate map of Japan, left Edo (Tokyo) on this day in 1800 to survey the country. It took Mr. Ino 16 years to survey the whole country. He started working on the map, but the map was not actually completed until after his death. It is a pity that the map was not completed while he was still alive. Still, it is a tremendous achievement, and he is a very meritorious person.
I remember watching a movie about Mr. Ino or something like that a long time ago. I remember a scene in which a man wearing a kimono and a straw hat was walking along the seashore, surveying the sea. I think he was measuring the distance with his stride… But it was really amazing. In an age when there was nothing like today to easily measure distances or lengths, he set out on a surveying trip with nothing but his body. It is of course amazing that he completed the survey, but more than anything, it is amazing that he decided to do it. I wonder if he ever thought of quitting when it took him months to complete the survey.
I have plans to go shopping the next morning, but at the scheduled time, I change my plans to lunchtime, and when lunchtime approaches, I change my plans to the evening, and when 3:00 p.m. comes around, I have already changed my plans to the weekend. It’s usually Monday when I think that. But I don’t change my schedule to Tuesday or Wednesday, I make it the weekend. Unlike the days of Mr. Ino, I can easily drive there and back. I wonder how much of a hassle I am. As a modern person, I cannot imitate Mr. Ino. Mr. Ino traveled on foot for 16 years, and he did it while surveying, right? I can’t think of anything else to say but “awesome”.
Japan is so tiny on a world map, isn’t it? Everyone thinks it is a small island country. In fact, I thought so too. But in fact, the land area of the Japanese archipelago is actually much larger than it appears on a world map. It is said to be the 61st largest among the 201 countries in the world. Surprising, isn’t it? I once had a foreigner ask me about Tokyo as if he/she could get to Tokyo from anywhere in Japan, but now that I think about it, he/she must have thought it was not so far away because Japan is drawn so small. Actually, that is not true. From where I live now, it takes 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to Tokyo even if I take the Shinkansen. From my hometown, it takes two hours. It takes several hours even by Shinkansen for a distance of 200 km or 350 km, and if I were to walk, it would take 16 years. Even a distance of 200 or 350 km would take several hours even by the Shinkansen, so it is no wonder that it took 16 years on foot.
I wonder when I have walked the most in my life. I wonder how far I’ve walked. I have no idea. I live in the countryside, so I drive a lot and don’t walk at all. That’s why my legs and back become weak. I think people in Tokyo and other cities walk more. The transportation network is well-developed, so it is more convenient than driving. I think city folks have stronger legs and feet than I thought.
My partner says we need to walk for exercise, and I wonder how many years he has been saying that. I think it has been three years. We used to walk together every Saturday and Sunday, about six kilometers in the morning. But I don’t know how long we did that…maybe less than half a year. We stopped walking when it got cold or something, and ever since then, We’ve been telling ourselves we have to walk. When are we going to start walking again?
Where I live now, there is an elderly man who walks every morning. He walks every morning. When we were walking for exercise, we talked to him for a while and asked him where he walked, but the distance he walked was probably about 10 kilometers. Ten kilometers every morning. Isn’t that amazing? Even in the winter when we were cold and didn’t want to move, he walked without fail. It was wonderful. It really is.
