Spring Snow of 2008 | Naoyuki Agawa (Dean, Faculty of Policy Management)
February 14, 2008
Despite the clamor of voices worrying about global warming, this winter has been exceptionally cold. The weather has remained truly winter-like. I hear that in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, the temperature once dropped to minus 34.6 degrees Celsius. It's a cold beyond imagination. I wonder if Momo-chan, the orangutan at Asahiyama Zoo whom I visited last summer, is doing all right. I also wonder how my friend Professor T and his wife in Asahikawa, who showed me around, are doing. According to a letter from S-san, a member of my seminar group studying abroad in Michigan, she left her dorm window slightly ajar to air out the room, only to find it had frozen shut.
At the end of January, I went to Doshisha University in Kyoto to give a series of intensive lectures. For six days, including a weekend, it snowed flurries almost every day. On the first day of class, I took the subway from Kyoto Station and emerged at Karasuma-Imadegawa Station, where the university is located. Snow was falling even as the sun shone. A light dusting of snow settled on my shoulders. The air would turn suddenly cold when the sun hid behind the clouds, and the chill would ease with a sense of relief when it reappeared. Snow fell on the front garden of the Doshisha Guesthouse and on the dry landscape garden of the Kaisando Hall at Shokoku-ji Temple, next to the campus. The peak of Mount Hiei was also completely covered in white.
Over the weekend, I took the Kintetsu limited express to visit Nara with a friend's family who was visiting from the United States. In Nara Park, sparsely populated due to the cold, light snow occasionally danced in the air, and the deer huddled together, shivering. The Nio statues at the Nandaimon gate of Todai-ji Temple looked cold in their straw sandals on bare feet. My friend, who is a doctor, was strangely impressed, remarking, "The bones and muscles of the Nio statues' feet are anatomically quite accurate." Unkei and Kaikei, you two should be pleased. Inside the Sangatsudo Hall, the statues of Nikko Bosatsu and Gakko Bosatsu also seemed to be trembling. The other Buddhist statues were so cold they didn't move at all. We worshippers also breathed out white puffs of air inside the hall.
Stepping outside, we walked down the slope from Nigatsudo Hall. The tiles of the mud-plastered walls were faintly white with snow. The bare trees on the temple grounds, having shed their leaves, held their tight buds even tighter, enduring the cold. On several branches, *omikuji* paper fortunes were tied. When my friend asked what they were, I explained that in Japan, there is an ancient custom of tying *omikuji* to branches, or even tying the branches themselves, to pray for good fortune. That reminded me of a poem by Prince Arima in Volume 2 of the *Man'yoshu*: "I tie together the branches of a pine on the shore of Iwashiro. If I am fortunate, I shall return to see them again."
A few days after I returned to Yokohama, where it snowed again, turning the entire port white, a farewell party for my seminar group was held at a restaurant in Kannai. Unlike usual, the graduating fourth-year students were formally dressed. I arrived late after working at the university all day. Just as I had eaten and drunk a little and regained my energy, a commemorative DVD made by the junior students began to play. One by one, those remaining at SFC appeared on screen to say their goodbyes. Alumni also made appearances. I was told that a group led by S-san had worked through the night to edit it. The fourth-year students all looked deeply moved by the unexpected gift.
The DVD concluded with a slideshow of daily life at SFC, set to music. My cluttered office, the stairs of the κ (Kappa) Building: Classrooms and Research Labs, the shelves of the co-op store, Kamo Pond, a table in the student cafeteria, a corner of the Media Center—these everyday scenes looked nostalgic. Even more so, I imagine, for the graduating students. When the DVD ended and the screen went dark, a moment of silence fell.
The cold eased a little that night, and it was raining in Yokohama. From now on, the days will gradually grow longer, and the cold rain will become just a little warmer. Spring is coming, both for the fourth-year students who are leaving SFC to start on new paths, and for those of us who will remain at SFC for a while longer.
(Published February 14, 2008)