今日の英和対訳天声人語（おじさん的英語習得法、若い君ならもっと簡単かも。）

Author believed Edo ways best suited Japan

　僕は英辞郎を使って英語を読みまくり、インターネットラジオのNHKのラジオジャパン英語ニュース< /a>で時事英語を聞きまくってます。（＾＾；また、VOAでヴォイスレコーダーにDLしたMP3音声とテキストも楽しんでます。 参考「こんな感じで英辞郎を使ってます」

Author believed Edo ways best suited Japan

07/28/2005

By her own account, author Hinako Sugiura, who died last Friday at the age of 46, loved things associated with life during the Edo Period (1603-1867).

She loved kumade (bamboo rakes), yuya (bathhouses), mimikaki (ear picks), shakushi (ladles), kotatsu (foot warmers), kaya (mosquito nets), ohaguro (dyed-black teeth), ohitsu (rice tubs), zukin (hoods), and sugoroku (a Japanese variety of the Parcheesi dice game).

The list is taken from a series of essays Sugiura wrote for a local edition of The Asahi Shimbun under the title of "Inkyo no Hinatabokko" (Basking in the sun after retirement).

It gave readers some ideas about Sugiura's peculiar world-a leisurely, yet sad and potentially dangerous cosmos.

Besides being a manga cartoonist and essayist, she was known for her studies on Edo Period manners and customs.

2005年07月27日（水曜日）付
【天声人語】

　くまで　ゆや　みみかき　しゃくし　こたつ　かや　おはぐろ　おひつ　ずきん　すごろく。

　４６歳という若さで亡くなった杉浦日向子さんが、本紙の地域版に連載した随筆「隠居の日向ぼっこ」の題の一部だ。のどかで、かなしくもあり、こわさをも秘めた独特の世界の入り口が見える。日ごろ江戸の町家に住み、時に現代に通ってくる女性の浮世絵師といった風情があった。

Referring to the Edo Period in "Oedo Kanko" (Doing the sights in Edo), a book published by Chikuma Shobo, Sugiura wrote:

"I have no intention of singing the unabashed praises of the modern feudal system (that marked the Edo Period). But it was clearly different from the feudal system that existed in the Japanese medieval period or the European feudal system. I think the modern feudal system in the Edo Period was more open and more orderly. The nation's social structure was better attuned to it.

　『大江戸観光』（筑摩書房）で江戸時代をこう述べた。「近世封建制を手放しで礼賛する気はありませんが、かといって、中世封建制やヨーロッパのそれとは明らかに違う、もっとひらけた、秩序的にも社会構造的にも明快なものと思います」

"I cannot help thinking," she went on to say, "that the lifestyles created during the Edo Period were just the styles that fitted Japan's climate and the characteristics of its people."

Touching on the fact that Japan incessantly waged war after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, she wrote, "The only reason I can think of is that we were overreaching ourselves."

Her belief that overexertion was a universal vice apparently led to her surprise decision to retire as a cartoonist while she was still in her 30s.

　「風土・民族に適合した生活様式であった筈（はず）」で、明治以降の、絶え間なく戦争をしてきた近代日本は、「やっぱり無理をしているとしか思えません」。無理をしない心の構え方が、漫画家からの３０代での「隠居宣言」にもつながったのだろうか。

In 1988, Sugiura was awarded the Bungei Shunju Cartoon Prize for "Furyu Edo Suzume" (Folks of refined taste in Edo), a series of comic strips dealing with poor but proud men.

She wrote a senryu humorous poem for each segment, and these poems made a sublime combination with the pictures.

I remember two poems, one of which went: "Having nobody to think about/ The person puts up a mosquito net." The other poem read: "Hailed as a hero/ The man can do nothing/ When his wounds smart under falling snow."

As for the pictures, I was captivated by her depictions of life in Edo tenement houses and river snowfall scenes.

　８８年に文芸春秋漫画賞を受けた「風流江戸雀」では、一話の首尾に配した川柳と絵との絡みが絶妙だった。「物思う相手がなさに蚊帳を釣り」「男じゃといはれた疵（きず）が雪を知り」。長屋暮らしや、雪もよいの川端の一景に引き込まれた。

Like a native of Edo, her favorite food was buckwheat noodles. More precisely, she liked to visit buckwheat noodle shops. In "Motto Sobaya de Ikou" (More relaxation at buckwheat noodle shops), a Shincho Bunko book, she recommended such shops as a place for people to visit for temporary relaxation.

"If you have something to do today, you can do it tomorrow," Sugiura wrote. "You will have to live until you die." Then a punch line: "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

　江戸っ子らしくソバ好き、というより「ソバ屋好き」だった。『もっとソバ屋で憩う』（新潮文庫）では、ソバ屋でのいっときの安らぎを勧めている。「今日できることは、明日でもできる。どうせ死ぬまで生きる身だ」。その先の一行が、目にしみる。「ソンナニイソイデドコヘユク」

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 27(IHT/Asahi: July 28,2005)

Nationality should not be taken for granted

　僕は英辞郎を使って英語を読みまくり、インターネットラジオのNHKのラジオジャパン英語ニュースで時事英語を聞きまくってます。（＾＾；
参考「こんな感じで英辞郎を使ってます」

Nationality should not be taken for granted

04/16/2005

Article 22 of the Constitution stipulates: "Freedom of all persons to move to a foreign country and to divest themselves of their nationality shall be inviolate."

This inspired novelist and playwright Hisashi Inoue to write "Kirikirijin" (People of Kirikiri), a novel set in a remote village in northeastern Japan. Disgruntled by the government's farm policy, villagers declare themselves an independent nation. But they also opt to keep to the letter of the Constitution.

2005年04月15日（金曜日）付
【天声人語】

　――何人も、国籍を離脱する自由を侵されない。この憲法２２条に着目したのが、井上ひさしさんの小説「吉里吉里人」だった。農業問題に不満を持った東北の寒村が、日本国憲法をそっくりもらい日本から分離独立してしまおうという話だ。

In real life, giving up one's nationality is not a decision to be made lightly, nor without considerable preparation. On the other hand, there is a steady stream of people applying for Japanese citizenship today, reflecting society's moves to integrate into the world community.

　現実の世界では、国籍の離脱には相当の覚悟や準備が要るだろう。一方で、国際化を反映して、日本の国籍を求めて訴える人が続いている。

The Tokyo District Court ruled Wednesday that a provision of the Nationality Law, which requires the parents of a child seeking Japanese citizenship to be legally married, violates Article 14 of the Constitution that guarantees equality to all under the law.

　両親が法律上の結婚をしているかどうかで子どもの国籍取得を区別する国籍法の規定は違憲とする判決を、東京地裁が出した。法の下の平等を定めた１４条に違反する、と。

The plaintiff, a 7-year-old boy, was born to a Filipino mother and Japanese father. The presiding judge noted: "Even though the boy's parents are not living together all the time, they are in a common-law relationship, and they and their child should be considered a family. In this day and age of diverse values, it can no longer be said that families whose parents are legally married are normal but common-law families are not normal."

　訴えた男児は７歳、母はフィリピン人、父が日本人だ。「３人は、完全同居ではないものの内縁関係にあり、家族としての共同生活と評価できる」とした。「価値観が多様化している今、『父母が婚姻関係にある家族こそが正常で、内縁関係は正常ではない』などと言うことはできない」とも指摘した。国籍認定の幅を広げる判決だ。

The verdict may help open the doors wider to people seeking Japanese citizenship. Before the 1984 revision, a child of an international marriage could not be granted citizenship unless his or her father was Japanese.

The revised law grants citizenship "if either father or mother" is Japanese, but even this has been in effect for only a little over 20 years.

This law is very much like a mirror that reflects Japanese society.

　国籍法は８４年に改定された。それまでは条件の一つは「父が日本国民」だった。「父または母が」となって２０年ほどにしかならない。日本の社会と時代とを映す鏡のような法律だ。

In an Asahi Shimbun interview some time ago, Inoue said in reference to "Kirikirijin" that: "We are free to choose not to be Japanese. ...To put it the other way round, we must reaffirm our nationality if we do remain Japanese."

For many native Japanese, their nationality is like air-something they have always taken for granted. But if they have to reaffirm their citizenship, perhaps they can begin to appreciate its "weight."

　「私たちは国籍を、日本人でないことも、選べる。逆に言うと……日本人であることを選び直さなきゃだめなんですね」。井上さんが以前、「吉里吉里人」に込めた思いを本紙に語っていた。多くの日本人にとっては、生まれて以来の国籍は、空気のような存在だが、選び直すと考えれば、その重さが少しは実感できる。

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 15(IHT/Asahi: April 16,2005)