Sado island - toshiyuki ihira (cool books to read txt) 📗

judgement on what she said, true or false. This trip is for fun. Let's have fun.” (“I am interested.”)
“When you are happy, I am happy.” She turns her face to look at me. (“Thank heavens, she still likes me. She shows no sign of disdain.”)
I spend rest of the trip to the mine in a haze. My mind is filled with the thought of the lord who set out to oppose Spanish all on his own, and succeeded in some respect. Spanish, the Spanish Crown was going through bankruptcy one after another, true. Even without this local lord's meddling in their money making plans, they would have gone bankrupt yet again.
Finally we are at the gold mine. Its entrance is made like those of samurai estate. A wall, not a part of the building, more than 2 meters high with white stucco finish stretching in both ways and tile roofed entryway in front of you. Strange entrance to gold mine. With this type of presentation this mine is not producing now for sure. Everything is for show. I see the mold for silver ingot. It is just placed among other items used for mining and smelting. No special placard to explain its significance. Only if I can look at the silver ingot Chinese were passing around and compare them, having them both in my hands, I can rest easy without this nagging, … nagging to find a meaning to this lord's life. Larger than life, really. He didn't just lived and died. He made a difference, even a little bit. I am craving for that kind of life. And here is a girl, young enough to be a girl, being a tour bus guide telling us this story.
After the gold mine it's a shorter trip to the history museum and we have a break. Stretching my legs some more and sipping green tea freshen me up. I start to look for that girl. I head for the bus parked in the museum's parking lot. Yes, she is there. She is cleaning the bus for us. I don't want to seem like a come-on trying to talk to her, with her being so young and all.
“Hi, can I ask you about the story you were telling? About the Spanish and their influence here in Asia and the lord who tried to head off that influence. I saw the mold for the silver ingot on display and they look nothing like I have ever seen, triangle trough shaped and all. How do you know all that?” I say that in a quick one breath speech. I look for a “I don't want to be bothered” sign from her. No, she is fluttered. She is starting to smile.
“About that. Are you complaining?”
That's a strange thing to say. “No, I am not complaining. What makes you say something like that?”
“I had people who didn't want to listen to a made up story. So, they thought that's what I was doing.”
“Was that a made up story?”
“No, I don't go around telling lies to my customers. I get fired if I did something like that. They didn't like things out of ordinary. The story I told isn't in the brochure. … But, my company boss let me tell it anyway. I convinced him and the rest of people at the company.”
(“She has a story of her own here. That's interesting. Two stories.”) “Why do you decide to tell the story? And how did you find out about it? I betcha it isn't there waiting for someone to look at it.”
She looks around the inside of the bus and sits down in the driver's seat. She extends her hand to motion me to a passenger seat across the aisle. I step up one last step into the bus and sit down, facing her. (“Ooh, this is kind of intimate, isn't it? If I am not attached, I will ask her out. I don't care about the age difference.”)
She smiles and her smile beams wider and wider. “I saw an exhibit at the local library. You know, traveling exhibits that come and go. There were documents, papers and journals of the lord who ruled this island. This island used to be a penal colony and you know what people say about us living here. Descendants of thieves and all that. It's not true, of course. We have nothing to do with things that happened so many years ago. My family didn't come here until recently. People say that because there is really not much here and you have to be some kind of outcast to even want to be here. That's what people say. Some part of it is true but not all of it.”
“Were you born here?”
“Yes, … and I grew up here … and noticed people from the mainland look at us in a peculiar way. They come here to tour a penal island of yesterday. That's their mind set. They connect their idea of penal island to us living here today. … When I saw the papers I had to read it and find out how things were. How people lived. And mostly how they died as convicts, most of them. When the shogunate wanted more hands to mine gold, they picked up people for a smallest of offenses. Even a jaywalking would have gotten you here for a time. But, that was in 1600s. The papers and journals were written in 1500s. He talked about how he didn't care for Europeans to come here and have an influence over the commerce and have a say and power over people living here. Possibly changing how they lived and they wouldn't have a control on how that change might be. So, he found out what Europeans were up to and decided to head off their plans. He shipped quite a bit of silver to China at much cheaper price, undercutting Europeans. They went bankrupt, didn't they?”
“Yeah, but they went bankrupt so many times that you couldn't possibly tell if shipping all that silver had an effect, could you?”
“It had to have some kind of effect. Ships they used to transport silver from America were repossessed. Captains of those ships didn't want to turn the ship over back to Europe, demanding that they get paid before they turned the ships over. I don't think it was a coincidence.”
“ … Yeah. That's right. That's in the history book, isn't it? … Wow, you looked, … researched all that. … You know … I think you are right. Things kind of fit like a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe not all the bankruptcy they had but one, he did have an effect. Well, for a time at least, you know. Europeans overran us anyway later.”
“Ha ha ha. Yes, I know. But, he lived and made his mark, I think. All on his own, too. And this island had a part in it. I think that makes people lived and worked on the mine had a part in it, too.” She has a very nonchalant smile on her face now. It is a smile of satisfaction.
(“Wow, how wonderful to be young. She is radiating.”) … “Yeah. That's a good story. … You know I came here to look at how those miners lived and died here. I can add your story to my memory. … Is there any chance your story will get into our history books? I think it's worth at least a footnote, if not outright paragraph there.”
When she hears me say that she looks away from me a little and takes a slow deep breath and lean back in the driver's seat. Her smile turns into a scrunch of dismay for a second and disappear.
“I talked to local school teachers and college professors on the mainland but they seem too busy to care about what I have to say. I got tired of it and I stopped.”
“That's too bad. I don't think it is that difficult to look over the papers and confirm your point. You have done the most of the work already. All they have to do is spend their time to write postulating papers and submit them to a publication. … Maybe, that's what makes them hesitant. They want their own original ideas on their papers, mostly. I am a writer. I know those things. In this case, you would be the principal instigator and they would just be scribes. On top of that they would be rocking the boat of establishment a little. These things don't get settled right away. It takes a protracted back-and-forth argument. It seems hardly worthwhile to them, I guess. If they are to take the whole credit for their effort, that will give them a motivation to work on it. … See, I can get into their head. I am a writer. I think what you found out is definitely worth a mention in a history book.”
“I never thought of it like that. … You know, I was disappointed at first, but my boss told me I can tell my story to our customers. I decided I would be happy with it. … But, they don't seem to welcome anything that is not in the brochure. And I was, … am starting to drop the whole thing and forget about it.” Seeing her shoulders slump down almost nothing but I can notice they did.
(“Oh, I can't let her down like this because I let her talk to me.”) … “Yeah, people who take a tour don't want to think and much less don't want to start an argument over what is real and what isn't, especially over things they come here to see. They are just looking for a neat package they can stomach and spend their time away. But a guy like me come around every now and then and listen to your story. One out of a hundred isn't bad.”
She just looks at the floor of the bus for awhile. … “I guess you are right. … I am glad I talked with you.” Her smile is back on her face now.
(“I am glad to see your smile, too.”) I say quick “see you later on the bus” and start off to find my partner. If she sees me chatting with that young girl with a grin on my face, I don't know what she will do to me. She is in the museum's cafeteria, sipping green tea. She sees me come in and gives me a - found a missing person - look.
“I was talking to the bus guide about her story. You know about the local lord who shipped silver to China.” I take a seat next to her. I try to avoid facing her across from the table. I feel my face will betray me and I want to keep grinning a little longer.
“You enjoyed her company.” … (“Ooh, she is too sensitive.”) … “What did you find out?”
“Yeah, she went through quite a bit. There are old papers written by the local lord way back. She read them in the library when these papers were exhibited. What she said is genuine I think. I trust her. She couldn't get people interested and take notice of these paper's significance though. She ended up telling the story to her tour bus customers, like us.”
“What significance? … Spanish bankruptcy? That's the only thing big enough to take your notice, right?”
“No, no. Not that. Spanish were going through bankruptcy like going to an amusement park back then. No. I mean the local lord's intent on standing in the way of Europeans encroaching in East Asia. All on his own, I may add. He didn't like what he saw and he went out to thwart their plan by dumping silver to China. You know, we came