The Forgotten Japanese. Tsuneichi Miyamoto

in 1894 or 1895 [the years of the Sino-Japanese war], a big wind blew. I’d never seen a wind like that. Little Azamo is in a hollow so it wasn’t hit so bad, but in Naka Azamo the wind was channeled right in, and a lot of houses were blown over. I heard tell of a family who was sitting by their hearth when a huge gust suddenly came, picked their house up, and carried it eight to ten yards. The house was flattened. It’s said that the family suddenly realized they were sitting outdoors. That’s just how bad the typhoon was.

      Well, things couldn’t go on like that. Typhoons would come again in the future, and stronger homes had to be built. There’s a place called Sare, near Okikamuro, and we brought a tile maker from there and had him make roof tiles. While there were stone roofs in other parts of Tsushima, this was the only place with tile roofs from early on. Tsushima was known for its hawks, crows, and stone roofs, but only here in Azamo we had tile roofs and plaster walls and rows of nice homes. People came from Tsutsu to have a look.

      People really started to settle here late in the 1880s. In those days one could often see fox fire burning over on the other side of the inlet. It was rather unsettling. And on a really quiet night, there was sometimes a sound like the world being torn apart. People said this was probably Priest Tendo taking flight. By the late 1890s, the number of houses had grown to a hundred, and about seventy boats came from the Kii Domain to fish yellowtail every year. The harbor became lively, and we stopped seeing the fox fire or hearing the sound of Priest Tendo in flight. It seems that in this world we live in, people are at the top.

      Around that time I got married and decided to live out my life here, and because we couldn’t get by on fishing alone, I taught my wife what I’d learned as a boy about how to make sweets. I’d go out to sea while my wife made sweets at home and sold them. In that way, we made a humble living.

      There was a lot that was interesting and much that was sad. But as a person with no talents, fishing was about all that interested me. As for what was sad, the time when my wife suffered a loss was about all. Fifty years living with her, that was the happiest thing of all.

      I’ve been talking for quite a while. Shall we take a break?