“You have to look at Kenji’s emotional motivation in writing this story,” she said. underwent many different versions. Car 4 is also where the souvenir gift shop is located. “His sister died the year before [he started writing]. At Kamaishi Station, you will be welcomed by a toramai (tiger dance) performance. Along with his friend Campanella, he boards a magical train that soars into the depths of the Milky Way on its way to heaven. In the Japanese, Miyazawa inundates a reader with not only images but also sounds: the sound of fumbling indistinctness (bon-yari), the sound of a faint or dulled glitter (peka-peka), the sound of haziness becoming clarity (ha-kiri), and one sound that simply puzzles and seems to mean nothing in particular (rin). “There’s a mini-boom in Japanese literary translation,” he said. Perhaps the most popular creature is the kappa, which is said to be a water-dwelling troll that kidnaps and eats children. It certainly was to Sarah Strong, Professor Emeritus in Japanese Language and Literature at Bates College, who wrote a heavily annotated translation published in 1991. Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜, Ginga Tetsudō no Yoru? ) Selland believes the field is in a good place comparatively. Address: 1-125 Yumoto, Hanamaki-shi, Iwate 025-0304. In Car 3, there is a showcase of Nambu ironware pots. The various beautiful but flawed translations of “Ginga” are a part of its complex and ever-evolving identity. If you’re coming from Morioka, JR Shin-Hanamaki Station is only 10 minutes by bullet train on the Tohoku Shinkansen from JR Morioka Station. This Japanese anime film tells the story of a young cat-like boy's fantastic journey though the galaxy while aboard a magical locomotive. But Miyazawa lacks the fame, readership and scholarly emphasis in the West compared to authors of similar significance within Japan, like Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. On the night of a local festival, two boys take a ride on a mysterious train that travels across the galaxy. Not just an author, Miyazawa was also a philosopher who incorporated his ideals into his works. For Giovanni, the answer is as far away as the stars. Watch Night on the Galactic Railroad Night on the Galactic Railroad (Subtitled) on Crunchyroll. Tel: 6595 0600 The train heads towards the constellation of … A red carpet is rolled out in the middle of the aisle, providing a luxurious path to your seat. Does translating “Night on the Milky Way Railroad” seem daunting yet? Due to the large amount of resources required to operate the train, the JR East SL Ginga only makes a one-way trip for each day of operation, which is mostly on weekends. In the end, Night on the Galactic Railroad is not about suffering. “fourth dimension”). Death and reincarnation are perennial themes in his work.”. These performances are arranged by local volunteers, town councils and tourism committees, who are eager to welcome you to their cities. is not simply the addition of time to our three-dimensional universe. Follow his work on, It’s been both more and less than 85 years since Kenji Miyazawa’s masterpiece, “Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru. “How do you create a language that serves but isn’t written strictly for a younger audience?” You could translate “Ginga” a dozen more times and still not exhaust the challenges and possibilities. Once I boarded the SL Ginga, it felt like I had stepped back in time to the early 20th century, when Miyazawa Kenji lived. In this anime based on the classic Japanese novel, two kittens go on a metaphysical journey on a magical railroad train. A good translation does the same. “His sister died the year before [he started writing]. Miyazawa lacks the fame, readership and scholarly emphasis in the West compared to authors of similar significance within Japan, like Yasunari Kawabata and Yukio Mishima. A native of Iwate Prefecture, Miyazawa Kenji hailed from the region of Hanamaki, and the SL Ginga plies the route between JR Hanamaki Station and JR Kamaishi Station. Did you know? “Ginga” is ripe with Buddhist imagery and echoes of Miyazawa’s rural hometown in Iwate Prefecture, yet it seems to take place in Christian Italy. You can also make seat reservations for bullet trains, some limited express trains, and Joyful Trains online for free, up to 1 month in advance, here. Website (Malaysia). “He’s thinking about Iwate Prefecture as part of a multi-layered, multi-dimensional universe.”, The various beautiful but flawed translations of “Ginga”. The Fairy Tale Village is a 2-minute walk from the bus stop. But I won’t stoop to his level. Top 5 Things to Do in Wellington, According to A Local! Restoring it to a functional train still took considerable time, but thanks to the hard work of the crew, in April 2014 the train was reborn as the SL Ginga, making its debut to the delight of the local community. The Museum is a 10-minute walk from the bus stop. “Ginga” gives us all a way to escape the limitations of our time, our place, our ideology, our identity. What was sad? Night on the Galactic Railroad is a 1985 Japanese anime film directed by Gisaburo Sugii, based on the 1927 fantasy novel of the same name by Kenji Miyazawa. Once you enter the planetarium, it turns pitch-black and the show begins, projecting constellations and thousands of stars onto the ceiling. Feature image source: © Asahi Shinbu-sha / TV Asahi / Kadokawa Pictures, Eric Margolis is a writer and translator from Japanese. It is a delightful sponge cake filled with sweetened white bean paste, and coated with white chocolate, resembling the egg of a seagull, which is what its name literally translates to. Kenji is asking himself: where is she now?… He’s trying to place her within a Buddhist cosmology.”. Here you can get your fix of exclusive SL Ginga-themed items to bring home for your family and friends (or for yourself). Secure advance seat reservations for free up to one month before departure so you won’t have to deal with peak tourist seasons once the holiday rush sets in. The wireless device works as a communication with Earth, almost to the point of heralding when another passenger might arrive. Awe, reverence, wonder, the search for meaning...yeah, this is an entirely different train ride. What’s more, all JR East shinkansen, express and regular trains, and even Joyful Trains within the valid area are available to travel on! The plot might draw clear parallels to The Polar Express (and that's a subject worth exploring), but its agenda is much deeper. Sonic energy defines Giovanni’s passage into a new world. Night on the Galactic Railroad is a 1985 anime film directed by Gisaburo Sugii based on the 1927 Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa. , Japanese entrance hall and veranda respectively, both unfamiliar to western audiences, seem like a walk in the park (or a walk to the temple). “You have to look at Kenji’s emotional motivation in writing this story,” she said. The title, variously called “Night on the Galactic Railway” or “Fantasy Railroad … Giovanni’s errand to retrieve milk for his sick mother somehow finds him on a train to the heavens and back. And the entire novel is underscored by his nuanced concept of a Fourth Dimension, the daiyojigen (大四次元, lit. Miyazawa is referred to as a children’s author, but surely we can’t translate him that way, not once we become aware of all these complexities. Miyazawa’s fierce preoccupation with death is enough to defy the book’s common label as children’s literature. Press | Send us your Press Releases & Media Invites. It is said that water boiled in Nambu ironware pots are extra delicious due to the iron and minerals that get released into the water. To Harry Potter fans, it might even remind them of the Hogwarts’ Express. One of only two steam locomotive (SL) trains running in the Tohoku Region, the magical SL Ginga (SL 銀河) brings to life Miyazawa Kenji’s beloved classic “Night on the Galactic Railroad”. Sonic energy defines Giovanni’s passage into a new world. JR EAST PASS is offered by the East Japan Railway Company for tourists visiting Eastern Japan. In August 2019, I finally got to ride this much-loved train—my first ever SL train experience. Also read: Rail-ly Fun Rides: Your Comprehensive Guide to 13 JR East Joyful Trains! His best friend Campanella happens to ride with him in … If you are a fan of Miyazawa Kenji’s works, then you would not want to miss these two places, which are both easily accessible from JR Shin-Hanamaki Station. Due to his adult responsibilities, Giovanni never has any free time and is ridiculed by his peers, making him something of a social outcast. In a special collaboration, you might spot this limited-edition SL Ginga version of Kamome no Tamago, which has a chocolate filling and dark chocolate coating instead. Night on the Galactic Railroad” and “Night Train to the Stars. Linguistic challenges begin with divergent grammatical structures and Japanese’s persistent lack of subject, the “you” or “I” central to any English sentence. All seats on board this special train require reservations, which can be made here. You can also find items associated with Miyazawa’s beloved Tohoku region on display. There are abundant roadblocks to. In Car 2, there is a small library corner where you can read some of Miyazawa Kenji’s works. “Sometimes I translated too far away from the text,” Strong said. There are abundant roadblocks to translating Japanese literature of any kind. Miyazawa (1896-1933) wrote, rewrote, and wrote it again, and again; the version commonly used by scholars is at least the fourth version that he composed. “Ginga. Running along the JR Kamaishi Line in Iwate Prefecture, the SL Ginga was restored from the C58 239 SL train, in order to revitalise the disaster-stricken region after the 2011 Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. “How do you create a language that serves but isn’t written strictly for a younger audience?” You could translate “Ginga” a dozen more times and still not exhaust the challenges and possibilities. It wasn’t translated into English even once until 1996; since then it’s been translated at least four times with dramatically different tones, registers and styles. On the night of a cat village's Festival of the Stars, a kitten and his friend go on an celestial journey on a magical space locomotive. Inside these capsules are pin badges with quotes from Miyazawa’s literary works. Another popular souvenir from Iwate is nanbu senbei, which also has a limited-edition SL Ginga version. For avid rail travellers, ekiben (lunch boxes for eating on trains) is an essential part of the train ride. You can even witness the cars decouple and couple as the train is refuelled at this station. Check out the timetable and schedule here. This night One holy night On the galactic railroad Only you can decide When your journey ends As we make our way Across the astral plane All our memories fly away The sparks we leave behind Will give the stars their shine As our pain is washed away Down the river we flow Till there's nowhere to go Then we fall to earth newborn And live again Giovanni is the main protagonist of the anime film Night On The Galactic Railroad. Why does Zanelli have to talk to me like that? What is true happiness? Address: 1 Chiwari-1-36 Yasawa, Hanamaki-shi, Iwate 025-0011. ). Once you get on the train, head over to Car 1, look for the attendant on duty and ask for a ticket to the show. She said that she focused on the, behind the piece. This article was brought to you by JR East (East Japan Railway Company), and was originally published on JR Times. gives us all a way to escape the limitations of our time, our place, our ideology, our identity. , sometimes translated as Milky Way Railroad , Night Train to the Stars , or Fantasy Railroad In The Stars , [ 2 ] is a classic Japanese novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. Thank you for visiting. Give them a wave back when you see them! Night on the Galactic Railroad (銀河鉄道の夜, romanised Ginga Tetsudou no Yoru) is a 1927 novel by Japanese children's book author Kenji Miyazawa.Considered a classic in Japan, it has since been adapted into an animated film and numerous stage plays. it’s that we should refuse to settle in one place, time or ideology. “How do you render the story not just as children’s literature?” he asked. As the SL Ginga runs in Iwate, many of the ekiben feature seafood caught from the Sanriku Coast. ), sometimes translated as Milky Way Railroad, Night Train to the Stars, or Fantasy Railroad In The Stars, is a classic Japanese novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. 3 (『宮沢 … about these issues. Uncertain setting, nuanced tone, resounding sonic energy, a backdrop of tragedy, confounding religious allegory. For a while he watched as it pulsed on and off like a firefly. “It’s surprising because his work travels so much farther than his local region.”, Translating “Ginga,” where and when you can. I needed to get as close as I could to really understanding the writing.”. is ripe with Buddhist imagery and echoes of Miyazawa’s rural hometown in Iwate Prefecture, yet it seems to take place in Christian Italy. His shadow extends not just over Japanese literature, but over film, anime, manga, art and agriculture. The planetarium shows are free, but tickets are required (first-come-first-served). Roses are in season from late June to September, when some hotels even have rose baths. Taking inspiration from Miyazawa’s works, the train’s exterior is a deep galaxy blue emblazoned with stars and constellations. are a part of its complex and ever-evolving identity. Meanwhile, cultural challenges start with simple but untranslatable differences like how college students in Japan take long vacations from January to March, not June to August like they do in the western world. Access: The Tono Monogatari no Yakata is an 8-minute walk from JR Tono Station. Page 54. Night on the Galactic Railroad. Keenly focused on the provincial and natural world, Miyazawa once said that his writing wasn’t his own creation — that the words came to him from the landscape. These ¥150 tickets allow them to enter the platform and get close to the SL Ginga, even if they are not going to ride the train. The nine-chapter novel was posthumously published in 1934 as part of Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa Vol. Be dazzled with stunning sights from Hanamaki and Tono while enjoying the luxurious comfort of this JR East train! Did we mention you also get free rides on the uniquely-themed Joyful Trains, like the SL Ginga mentioned in this article, with a JR EAST PASS? Website (Singapore) It provides great discounts on train fares and flexibility through unlimited access. It gradually, grew more and more distinct until at last it stood tall and motionless against the deep steel-blue, In the Japanese, Miyazawa inundates a reader with not only images but also sounds: the sound of fumbling indistinctness (, ), the sound of a faint or dulled glitter (, ), the sound of haziness becoming clarity (, ), and one sound that simply puzzles and seems to mean nothing in particular (. “Night on the Galactic Railroad” is a deeper, dreamlike tale about a troubled boy riding a train from earth to the heavens and back. “His popularity does not at all rub off in the US, despite translations of his poetry becoming widely available since the 1960s,” said Hoyt Long, Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of Chicago. “It’s great to see the variety of writers and genres that are being given a chance to find a readership in the West,” he said, “though it is still a challenge to promote writers that are new to Western editions and publishers.”. Night on the Galactic Railroad is perhaps Miyazawa’s most well known work, but was not actually published until a year after his death. Many Japanese SL enthusiasts buy special entrance tickets that let them enter Tono Station when the SL Ginga stops there. Strong’s translation is beautiful and not inaccurate, but does not capture this dimension of the text. Night On The Galactic Railroad is hailed very highly in Japanese culture and it's excellent reputation has since made it sought after by many others. The beauty of translation is that it connects the contemporary place and time of the translator to the foreign, distant place and time of the author — a Four Dimensional line, bridging the gap between two worlds. Giovanni’s errand to retrieve milk for his sick mother somehow finds him on a train to the heavens and back. She said that she focused on the feeling behind the piece. For a 251km round-trip, the SL Ginga consumes 34 tonnes of water and four tonnes of coal, more than it can carry. He's from a poor family, who works delivering papers to feed his sick mother (who has contracted an unnamed disease). “Some people feel that there isn’t enough women’s writing out there, but because of that concern this is actually the area that’s growing the most.”, Gabriel added that the recent winners of the most prestigious literary prizes in Japan — the Akutagawa and Naoki Prizes — were women, and that all the nominated novels were written by women. Access: From JR Shin-Hanamaki Station, take a 2-minute bus ride to Miyazawa Kenji Kinen-kan Bus Stop. Translating Kenji’s layered Mahayana Buddhist imagery makes translating. As the adventure continues, the train begins to travel through time as well as space. 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