I first heard of Humbert Humbert a few years ago when I went back to my parents’ home, where my brother with the guitar and my niece with the toy piano played and sang the song “Same Story”. It was so tempting that my tears came out after a good song like this.I keep listening while in movement and at home.And, finally I went to see Humbert Humbert’s live performance.
It was my first time to listen to their live, and it was the best.The song was, of course, great, but the ambiance between the two singers (TN: now married with 3 kids) was also very good. The entire live house was surrounded in such a good atmosphere.They made seamless transition in between talk and song. As the song began, it seems the conversation continued as it was. I was so impressed that “There is such a way of getting into a song”.Although there was a time for us to take pictures, unfortunately I didn’t know who made my mobile camera shot completely white out.
But in any case, that moment was clearly engraved in my memory.
And, I went to Onoda Tofu Shop in East Nakano after a quite while the other day.
I bought a lot of different tofu, but the expiration date is so short that I ended up eating tofu in days.
Oh, I didn’t mean the “Soybean” as “Days”. [TN: both pronounced similarly in Japanese]
The one made by native species soybean from Ibaraki [TN: the lower right corner in Photo] is so delicious. I bought both deep fried and fried tofu and baked it with radish seasoning with soy sauce. The fried tofu was so delicious that made my view to it totally changed.
I also bought Japanese soybean cake as well as roasted soybeans.
By the way, I threw them in my mouth thinking this is for the holiday for end of winter. Yes, I ate them all….!!!
As Onoda Tofu Shop uses native species soybeans, I read a book related to this (TN: “Who is species” by Mr. Hiroaki Okamoto”).
So far, I have read quite a few books about species and seeds. But this one, with the story and dialog of species experts, is really fun to read.
I also learned something that I misunderstood, from warmerwarmer’s Mr. Takahashi (TN: an organization to protect and sell native species and organic vegetables), that “agriculture” and “farming” is different.
Because what we are doing is “farming”, various words not existing in today’s arrangement and system were encouraging.The power of the seeds of native species and fixed species have been connected all the time. It has so much power that even human beings can’t touch or modify it. I will believe that power as well.
By the way, some story written in this book, is very similar to what I learned during my disassembling class. I am not too sure if I successfully introduced this, but it is such a story. With genetic modification and genome editing, F1 seeds (TN: the 1st generation after crossbreeds) will share uniform phenotype, such as growing at the same speed, or with the same traits and the same resistance to diseases.
However, in the natural way, the vegetable species and seeds were connected, and they memorize and get adapted to the land. That way, you will get a variety of one native species from all over the country. Even if they belong to the same native species, they will grow in different speed if planted in the same place. In the event of major natural disaster, there will be plants that suffer and go extinct, while there will be some others that survived.
Same as human beings, in order not to be extinct, we should follow the nature and let everyone to have different characteristics.
Even it is not as serious as extinction, with diversity, we can help each other, with the things in which we excel, in various situations,
内山隼人
Hayato Uchiyama
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Kindly Translated by: Flo C (Thanks a lot!)
For Diary in Entry in KOREAN click HERE