自然が嫌いな日本人

やっと新しいパソコンがなんとか使えるようになって、もうそろそろヨーロッパの楽しいリポートを書こうと思っていたところ、とんでもない緊急事態が発生した！なんと、９月（つまり明日）から、長年住んでいたアパートの隣に、しかも玄関から１メーターしか離れていないところに、いわゆる「公共事業」が始まります。しかも、なにかを作るのではなくて、「防災」の名目の環境破壊なんです！
そんなことを先週はじめて知った僕が１月中旬までの４ケ月間もの昼間（８時～１７時）には家にいることがほぼ不可能になって、睡眠・仕事・生活のものすごい障害と経済的な損になるという個人的な問題はもちろんのこと、税金の無駄使いになるし、そして環境に対する犯罪なんです。あまりにもばかげていて、ひどいんですよ。
家の隣には昔から崖とその上の小さな「山林」がある。それを今突然誰かが「危険」だと決めつけて、「県」という暴力団が建設会社に発注して、その崖を丸刈りすることにした。ところが、僕が２０年もここに住んでいるが、落石なんか見たことないし、向かいの家の人は子供のころから半世紀もここに住んでいて、落石が起きたことがないって。ここはぼろぼろのアパートだが、唯一の魅力は静さと豊かな緑だ。しかし今は４か月の騒音のあげく、その緑がなくなってしまう。そんなことが許されるんですか。

The green slope right next to my apartment today...

... and THIS is what the prefectural authorities want it to look like!

実は、今年の春に１００メーターぐらい離れたところに似たような工事が行われた。数カ月にわたって、緑をはがして、山を削って、コンクリートを流した、といった、そこまでは日本の代表的な「公共事業」のパターンだが、最後に飾りとして型で使った、真っ白のコンクリートの偽物の「石」を付けて、立派な看板を立てた。できた日こそはピカピカだったが、三週間たたないうちに、中から流れる汚れた水で公衆便所としても恥ずかしい、写真にご覧のようなありさまになった。でも県の連中はそれに何の違和感も持っていないみたい。「今のほうが安全だからきれいだ」、と本気でいっているみたい。冗談じゃないでしょう。やっぱり日本人は自然が大嫌いだね、と再び確認した。おまけに、以前はみどりが日陰になっていたのに、今年の夏はその「石」がオーブンのように温まって、温度は５度ぐらい上がってしまった。「温暖化」とか「エコ」とか「環境保護」とか、そんなのを聞いたことないの？

不思議なことに、この工事は県が勝手にやっているわけじゃなくて、なんとここの町内会がお願いしたそうだ。最初は信じられらかったが、ちょっと調べたら実はそうみたい。数年前、なにかの説明会があったそうで、年寄りたち（ばかり）はこんな工事を望んでいたが、もうちょっと若い人たちはそうでもなかったらしいんだ。「一人でも反対したらやらない」と県の人が言ったそうだが、本当は反対した人でも「近所付き合いのため」とか周りの圧力で署名せざるをえなかったんだ。そして今は県が偉そうに「皆の依頼でやっています！」というが、一番近くに住んでいる僕の意見なんかは一切聞いていないし、その町内会のメンバーに誘われたことないし、その数年前の説明会のことも先週始めて知った。和風の民主主義だね。そして今になって、もともと反対した人もちょっと反省した人も「もう県が決めたからしょうがない」としか言わない。本当に情けない。
しかも矛盾だらけです。ここの大家さんも今は「落石が怖い、怖い！」といっているけど、本当にそう思っているなら、どうしてこんな場所にアパートを建てたのだろう。また、「怖い」という年寄りたちは毎朝早くその「怖い」緑の下に集まって大声でしゃべったりして、僕を起こすんだが、別に恐れ恐れにそこに集まるわけじゃなくて、そこが一番涼しくて気持ちいいからなんだ！何を考えているのだろう。
自然の大切さは誰一人も考えていない時代遅れの人ばかりだ。

Dangerous flowers are to be replaced...

... with beautiful concrete

やっぱり日本人は自然が嫌いだ。花も蝶々も鳥も、そんなのが聖なる公共事業の邪魔なら「しょうがない」としか言えない民族だ。
僕は仕事でときどき観光パンフレットなどを翻訳することもあるので、「日本人ほど自然を愛する国民がこの世の中にいない」のような自画自賛の文書をうんざりするほど翻訳してきた。でも本当はその正反対だ。日本人は自然が怖くて大嫌いなのだ。好きなのはもっぱら整ってある庭園やテーマーパークのような人工的な偽物の「自然」で、本当の自然やその大切さには何の興味もない。ここの金沢区にも、バブルのころだったっけ、自然の森を剥がしてその代わりに「自然公園」というのを作った。整った列の名札付きのかわいい木や茂みに人工の池とかそういうの。そして案の定、メンテナンスのお金がなくなって、今は半分以上が誰も行かない、さびれたさびしいところになってしまった。

でもここのことに戻ろう。明日以降は家にいられるかどうかわからない。えらい迷惑をかけるくせに何も知らせてくれなかった県のほうは「ご協力お願いします」としか言わないで、僕にとってものすごい精神的なプレッシャーや（たぶん）数十万円の金銭的な損傷になるのに、損害賠償を払う気が全くないらしい。緊急に引っ越しするという話も浮かんできたが、書籍などのものも多いし、ボツくんのこともあるしそんなに早く引っ越しできるわけがない。それにかんしてもまたちょっとひどい話になった！多分親切のつもりだと思うが、かなりお節介な大家さんは僕を助けるために近くのほかの物件を紹介してくれたが、ほとんどのところは汚くてしょうがない。みんなあんなところに住んでいるの？と僕がちょっとショックを受けて大家さんに聞いたが、「まあ、学生さんはしょうがないね」と。でもあんなところに住みたくないよね。今のところは古くてぼろぼろかもしれないが、全然汚くはない。「やっぱりそんなにすぐに引っ越しできないよ」と僕がいうと、大家さんがいきなりサラリーマンの突然の転勤や兵隊の突然の派遣命令のような話を持ち出して、日本ではそんなのが当たり前だ、のような、まるで「平の人は素直に企業のわがままやお偉いさんの気まぐれに従うべし」といった大金持ちの人の特有の封建主義的な考え方が丸出しだ。ちょっと頭にきた。もちろん、日本のばかげた得意技である「我慢比べ」の話もでた。いやだな。だからこそ僕はサラリーマンなんかやりたくないじゃん！

とにかく非常に困っている。この１週間は怒りと戸惑いでほとんど寝ていないし、これからの数カ月もおそらくちゃんと眠れない。

The Nature-Hating Japanese

For the past 20 years, I've lived in a tiny, crammed apartment on the outskirts of Yokohama. Apart from habit, the merits aren't really that many: it's comparatively cheap, I can stand up straight in the bathroom (this is very rare in Japan!), but not least it's quiet and peaceful, and there is a lush, green slope just outside the door, providing shadow and cool in the summer.

But not for much longer. Now suddenly the prefecture in its infinite wisdom has declared this slope "unsafe" and decided to ruin my life by spending the next four months cutting down said greenery, shaving off the rock underneath, and pouring concrete down the slope. The din will basically make my home uninhabitable from 8 to 5 every day, making it impossible to work, or sleep, or do anything else really, as the 130 dB noise will occur just about 2 meters away. Apparently this project had been decided upon already several years ago, but nobody had bothered to inform me, even though I'm the one who lives closest to the site. I only found out last week when some workers were lurking around outside my door, inspecting the location, that not only are they going to make a mess of the place, but the works are going to start already this week!

This kind of environmental damage and waste of tax payers' money is very typical of what passes for "public works" in Japan, but what is truly astonishing in this case is that the work is being done according a request by the local community! I couldn't believe my ears, but it turns out that indeed, a group of elderly landowners had lobbied some politicians to take care of all those dangerous cliffs around here as well as the trees that create a nuisance due to falling leaves (I kid you not). Now, while I certainly understand that the Japanese have a healthy respect for cliffs and mountains - after all, dozens of people are killed every year in landslides - no rocks have fallen off this particular cliff during my two decades here, and according to one of my neighbors who has lived here for over fifty years, it hasn't happened during his lifetime either.

Apparently there was a community meeting some years ago (to which I, as a renter and not a land-owner, was not invited and which of course nobody told me about afterwards either) where the prefecture's representative explained that the works would not take place "if even one person objected." This was dealt with in the traditional fashion: my neighbor and anybody else who was really opposed to the project were fooled with false promises of keeping some of the greenery and forced to sign through peer pressure and "for the sake of the community" - and now the prefecture has the temerity to say that the works are being done "on EVERYBODY's request". Japanese democracy in a nutshell.

The problem is not just the noise. Actually, a similar project was completed just this spring about 100 meters away. Pouring raw concrete down the slope would be bad enough, but the prefecture had the bright idea to "decorate" the slope with (apparently quite expensive) molded white fake "rocks" that looked shiny for a day or two while they put up a plaque commemorating their wonderful efforts, but which after only a couple of weeks turned into something that would be a disgrace for a public toilet. The "concrete" photographs above are no joke: they are what those fake rocks put up there in March look like now. This is also exactly what the current grove (the green pictures) will look like in January. Another problem is that while the greenery used to alleviate the oppressive summer heat, the concrete instead serves to raise the heat by some five degrees! But now, at least, it's "safe" and "everybody" is happy. Global warming, anyone?

In a total conflict of interest of which they seem blissfully unaware, the old ladies who initiated the project tend to gather beneath the "scary" trees here, happily yapping away in loud voices, waking me up at six every other morning. Do they seem afraid that the rocks might suddenly start falling down upon their heads? Not at all, they gather there precisely because it is so cool in the shadow.

But why are projects like this allowed to go on in this day and age? Projects that make current buzzwords like "eco-friendly" or "environmental protection" seem like just so much (literally) hot air or empty sales talk. As a translator, I sometimes do tourist pamphlets and the like, and have long lost count of the number of times I have had to translate self-congratulating drivel like "no other people love nature as much as the Japanese." (It's somewhere up there along with the baffling but ever-persistent notion that "Japan is the only country in the world with four seasons.") But not so. On the contrary, few people HATE nature as much as the Japanese! While perhaps only few people positively detest nature with a vengeance, most Japanese have a profound distrust of nature, or simply couldn't care less. The only "nature" that the Japanese like is arranged nature, tamed nature, artificial or fake nature. From traditional landscape gardens and bonsai trees to Disneyland and fake rocks, the trend is clear.

For example, during the bubble years, Kanazawa-ku, where I live, cut down a real forest and replaced it with a “natural park”: neatly lined up trees with cute labels, concrete walking paths, an artificial pond, that sort of thing. Then, of course, the maintenance money was cut short, and now most of the park (apart from the zoo, which is a different story) is a sad and desolate mess. The last time I went, the pond was dried up and I didn’t see a single other person until I came all the way up to the main concourse where the bus stop for the zoo is.

But back to my apartment. All of a sudden, the next couple of months will be sheer hell, and when that is finally finished, it will be a much uglier place and then probably uninhabitably hot by next summer. But moving with one week’s notice isn’t such a simple option either, not with 20 years worth of accumulated stuff, thousands of books, and above all, my cat. My landlady in what I really think is an effort to help me but at the same time is extremely meddlesome has started to introduce other apartments in the vicinity. Unfortunately, most of them have been astonishingly filthy, and the single possible option had the disadvantage that the toilet was so small that my knees did not fit in when I sat down on the seat. Nevertheless, she seems to have decided that I ought to move there, without pausing for a second to listen to what I might think. While we drove around, she kept repeating how “scary” all those cliffs around here are – but if so, why did they ever decide to build apartments in this place?

When I finally managed to get a word in to say that moving was not such a quick and simple affair, not just because of all the stuff, but also because of the interruption in my work, all the unexpected extra expenses, moving phone lines and getting a broadband connection and then all the additional bureaucracy involved with being a foreigner in Japan, she started to regale me with shining examples of Japanese salarymen, who are frequently transferred to other departments across the country or even abroad with only a few days notice, or the military, who of course may be ordered to move instantly. Well, I’m neither a salaryman or a soldier, so please spare me this feudal rubbish. (“Landlord” – now, there’s a feudal term for you!) She also obliquely invoked the traditional but annoying Japanese virtue of gaman-kurabe, a contest of endurance which not only involves putting on a stiff upper lip and grinning and bearing it, but to positively masochistically wallow in your misery, rather like Monty Python’s Four Yorkshiremen. No thanks, please. As I said, she is probably really trying to be kind, but the very rich do not necessarily think like ordinary people do, or care what ordinary people (their servants, workers, renters, underlings, feudal subjects) think.

So now I’m fucked, basically. Should I stay or should I go? Either alternative involves a severe financial loss for which nobody will compensate me, as well as tremendous stress. I need time to think and to consider other options (for example, if I have to move anyway, there are more attractive places than Kanazawa Hakkei) but I haven’t had any chance to look around yet. In fact, I’ve hardly even been able to sleep for the past week.