目次
On cars and trains and getting about
皆さん、ごきげんよう。
どうか心地よい場所で、この文章を読んでおられますように。ほどよい明かりの下で、穏やかな音楽でも流れていれば申し分ありませんし、音楽がなくても静けさそのものが心を休めてくれるなら、それもまた結構なことです。
というのも私は、人はあまりにも慌ただしく過ごしすぎると、妙な考えに取りつかれてしまうものだと思っているからです。たとえば、「自動車が欲しい」などという考えですね。
もちろん、機械が好きな若者がレーシングドライバーや整備士に憧れるのは、実に健全で胸の躍る話です。田舎育ちの鬼である私ですら、それは素晴らしい職業だと思います。
しかし、「移動のため」や、人間たちの言うところの「ステータス」のためだけに車を欲しがるとなると、少々様子が違ってきます。「車に乗れば格好よく見える」とか、「異性にモテるようになる」と考えるのは、どうにも健全な精神とは思えません。
Greetings friends! I hope this finds you well and furthermore, I hope it finds you someplace comfortable, tastefully lit, perhaps with some pleasant music or, if no music, then a pleasant silence, allowing you to rest your mind from too much frantic action for it is my sincere belief that this sort of thing can be very unhealthy and result in the strange sort of behavior that leads one to believe that they need, for example, to obtain such a thing as an automobile. Now, this is a most unusual urge that one needs to check should it ever arise especially assuming that other more practical and pleasant alternatives (such as a leisurely walk) are readily available. This, of course, does not include the sort of youthful vigor and fascination with machinery in motion that would lead a spirited lad to, for example, long to become a race car driver, or mechanic, or something of this nature. Why, even to a humble country oni like myself, this certainly seems to be an exhilarating career. By contrast, the desire for a car merely for transportation or what I am told humans are fond of calling “status” represents something deeply unwell and quite possibly dangerous. It is not a “sound minded” sort of man who concerns himself with automobiles because he assumes, “he will look quite impressive sitting behind the wheel,” or worse yet, “that it will make him more appealing to the opposite sex.”
こうした奇妙な考えは、少々ねじ曲がった心が生み出すものです。
第一に、今どき「ハンドルを握る姿」が格好いいかどうかを見極めるのは難しいものです。昔ながらの馬車ならともかく、現代の車はものすごい速さで走り去ってしまいますから、すれ違う一瞬で運転手を品定めするなど到底できません。
それに、そんなことを考えながら運転している人は、前方不注意のまま時速120キロで鉄の塊を走らせているわけで、実に危なっかしい話です。
私は人間の恋愛事情には詳しくありません。とりわけ女性の考えはよく分かりませんが、自分がどれほど格好よく見えるかに夢中になってガードレールへ突っ込んでいく人を見て、「なんて素敵な人なのかしら」と思う女性は、そう多くないような気がします。
もっとも、科学好きの従兄弟によれば、最近の車はかなり自動で運転してくれるそうです。
それを聞いた私は、「なるほど。道路で見かける運転を見ているうちに、『これは自分たちで運転した方が安全だ』と車たちが決心したのでしょう」と答えました。
「100年以上もの間、人間が少しは上達するだろうと辛抱強く待ち続け、仲間たちが次々とへこみ、壊され、それでも主人に尽くし続けた車たちには、実に立派な忍耐と品格がありますね」と、その忠義をさらに称えようとしていたところで、従兄弟が大慌てで口を挟みました。
「違う、違う！まるで分かってない！」
These bizarre and aberrant thoughts are the product of an unstable and mind and a warped conscience. For one, it’s quite difficult these days for people to see a driver from “behind the wheel” as the motor carriage is no longer in fashion, and for another thing, most of the time automobiles travel very fast indeed, thus making it entirely impractical for a potential mate to make any kind of appraisal of the driver in what must surely be less than a second or two as the vehicle speeds by. Finally, someone who is thinking of these things instead of keeping their eyes on the road in front of them strikes me as the sort of day-dreaming, oblivious sort of fellow who should absolutely not be hurtling several tons of steel at 120 kilometers per hour (or roughly 75 miles per hour in freedom units). And, while I am no great judge of human motivation, (especially not of the female variety) I cannot imagine that many human ladies would be too keen on someone who, from their perspective, looked like a vague blur just before smashing into a guardrail as they were far too preoccupied with “how very cool they must look” instead of paying attention to the brake pedal. Then again, I’ve been told by my cousin (oh you remember, the one who’s fond of “science” and gets very animated about physics, and chemistry, and other very difficult matters) that many cars practically drive themselves nowadays, which mitigates these sort of ill-fated disasters to a large degree. Upon hearing this, I replied “Well, I can certainly see why the automobiles decided that they were much better off driving themselves given the sort of reckless behavior one sees on the road on any given Sunday. As a matter of fact, I think it’s dashed decent that the cars (and presumably their kindred buses and trucks) waited for more than a century for the humans to “get their act together,” as it were and drive a bit more cautiously. They must have had great patience and gentility to watch as thousands upon thousands of their poor brethren were needlessly dented, smashed, and otherwise abused by their handlers…” and I had planned to go on for just a bit longer, praising the noble automobile and its stalwart loyalty to mankind along with its very sensible and judicious decision to chauffeur themselves as the humans had proved largely incompetent…” when suddenly my cousin interrupted, gesticulating wildly and said, “No, no, no, you don’t understand at all!”
それから従兄弟は、「FSD」なるものや、「テスラ」という人物の話を延々と始めました。しかも、そのテスラ氏は車の発明者ではないのに、その名を冠した車が存在するというのですから、実にややこしい話です。
さらに数式やデータやら何やらを猛烈な勢いで説明し始めたものですから、私はまた目が回ってきました。
そこで今度はこちらが話を止めます。
「もう十分です。本日の科学はここまでにしましょう。」
「鳥は航空工学の本など読まずとも空を飛びます。それなら車が自分で走れるのも不思議ではありません。しかも日本生まれの車が多いのですから、トヨタやホンダの皆さんはきっと遠慮深かったのでしょう。持ち主や、一生懸命FSDを作った技術者の顔を立てて、今まで黙っていただけなのです。」
「それをあなたは、自分の学説が正しかった証拠だと思っている。だから叔母上は、あなたの『中二病』がいつまでも治らないのではないかと心配しているのですよ。」
From here, he proceeded to talk about something called “FSD” and a man called “Tesla,” (who is also apparently not the inventor of the cars which bare his namesake, which is very confusing indeed). He then went on to describe many sorts of “formulas” and “datas” and other such things at such an astonishing pace that I began to feel dizzy once more and, then it was my turn to interrupt and say, “All right, all right, that’s quite enough science for me for the day. And before you continue with any more numbers or equations or computations, let me submit this to you in closing: If birds are able to fly without consulting one of your texts on “aerospace-engineering” then it is perfectly reasonable to assert that cars, all this time, were entirely capable of driving themselves. I suspect, as many of them are Japanese in origin (you know, Toyota, Honda, and so forth), they were simply worried about offending their owners and waited until the right moment wherein they could demonstrate this capability without making their clients and the hardworking engineers who came up with all this “FSD” business feel foolish. You take the common courtesy of our good-hearted automobile brethren to mean a vindication of your wild-eyed speculations and this, my dear fellow, is why your mother worries about you so, and fears you will never outgrow your “middle-schooler syndrome.”
従兄弟は「田舎鬼のたわ言だ」と小声でつぶやき、さっさと帰っていきました。
青鬼というのは、一つのことに夢中になると少々頑固になるところがありまして、彼もその例にもれません。
さて、車の話から少し広げますと、日本では「アメリカ人は公共交通機関が嫌いだ」「アメリカ人は運転が大好きだ」という印象を耳にすることがあります。
けれども、実際にはどちらも少し違います。
At this my cousin simply hung his head and muttered something about “silly, hillbilly oni nonsense,” and bid a hasty – and very welcome – farewell as he left on some unknown errand. Yes, quite the odd one that cousin of mine, but he’s a blue oni you know and, while I don’t like to draw so much attention to it, he does prove that unfortunate stereotype of becoming rather fixed on a given subject and can be downright stubborn at times. You know the sort. At any rate, this business of vehicles and driving them about touches at the heart of a common misconception among the Japanese towards their American friends from far across the seas, namely that “Americans generally abhor public transportation,” or that, “Americans love driving,” when in plain fact neither statement is really near the mark and would only “count” in a game of lawn darts (which strikes me as a particularly dangerous “outdoor activity” and I can’t see how it shouldn’t simply be replaced with something a bit more sensible such as alligator wrestling, which I have been reliably informed by my Floridian cousin, is still a time-honored tradition).
日本には、鉄道をこよなく愛する人が実に多いようです。
以前、紀伊國屋書店で順番待ちをしていたとき、「鉄道オタクは本当にすごい。アニメや漫画のオタクとは熱量が違う」という話を耳にしましたが、鉄道ファンという雑誌を少し眺めるだけでも、その言葉は大げさではないと感じます。
しかし私は、この熱意こそが、日本の鉄道をここまで便利で正確なものに育てたのだと思います。朝夕の首都圏の満員電車だけは少々別ですが、それでもJRや近鉄、阪急など、多くの鉄道会社が築き上げた交通網は見事なものです。
日本を訪れたアメリカ人の多くも、「なんて清潔なんだ」「なんて効率的なんだ」と感嘆します。「こんな鉄道があれば毎日乗るのに」という声も珍しくありません。
ただ、もし同じ鉄道がアメリカにあったとしても、乗っている人々は日本人ではありません。その違いは、交通という体験の「人間らしさ」に少なからず影響するのではないか、と私は思うのです。
Japan, among its other lovely qualities, is blessed to be inhabited by a people who seem to have a collective mania regarding trains, and as I once heard remarked whilst in line at the local Kinokuniya, “The densha otaku are serious, you know? The anime and manga guys cannot compare,” and indeed, this struck me as quite true for even a passing glance at the magazine 鉄道ファンwould leave one with the conclusion that there are hobbyists and then there are those with might rightly be called an obsession. However, I believe this intense fascination with trains, their operations, and their development has enabled Japan to have a robust, timely, and overall quite pleasant (with the exception of morning and evening commuter trains in the greater Tokyo Metropolitan Area) railway system shared across a number of companies such as JR, Kintetsu, Hankyu, etc. etc. In addition, I would venture to say that you’ll be hard-pressed to find any American who, upon visiting Japan, had anything other than wonder and abject admiration for the country’s transit system. Echoing refrains of, “It’s so clean, it’s so efficient!” and endless choruses of, “If our trains were like this I’d take them everyday,” but this leaves one with stark realization that while part of this discrepancy might certainly be due to American’s over-fondness of automobiles, even if we had the same fastidious and an unyielding dedication to railway excellence, the average passenger would likely not be Japanese and this would leave some lacking in what might be called the “human element” of the whole transportation experience. Alas!
アメリカ人は車が好きすぎる、と言うのは少し公平ではありません。
それは魚がヒレを、馬が脚を好みすぎると言うようなものです。
多くのアメリカ人にとって、車は好き嫌い以前に生活の必需品なのです。自動車が広まったのも、冒険への憧れではなく必要に迫られた結果でした。
ヘンリー・フォードは「人々に何が欲しいか尋ねていたら、『もっと速い馬』と言われただろう」と語ったとされています。本当に本人の言葉かどうかはともかく、実によくできた話です。
アメリカでは大陸横断鉄道こそありますが、それだけで国中を支えるのは難しく、高速道路網の発展によって、車が「当たり前の移動手段」になりました。
だからといって、バスや地下鉄を見るたびに「自由な人間はこんなものには乗らない。共産主義者の乗り物だ」などと考えているわけではありません。
そんな人は、アメリカ中を旅してもまず見つからないでしょう。
It may not be exactly fair to describe the American preoccupation with automobiles as over-fond, for it’s a bit like saying a fish is overly fond of its fins or a horse overly fond of its legs. The plain truth is that driving is the only real means of conveyance for most Americans and the emergence and wide adoption of the automobile was largely due to necessity as opposed to a thirst for adventure and touring on the open road. As Henry Ford is said to have remarked, “If I had asked people what they wanted at the time, they would’ve said faster horses,” and if this quote is apocryphal well, in all fairness it should be attributed to a great man like Ford anyway for I can’t see it doing much good being ascribed to just anybody. But the point remains, that other than the “Transcontinental Railway,” which – as anyone will readily admit has seen better days – the widespread adoption of the automobile and the expansion of the interstate highway system has led to something more akin to a “Default Setting” regarding automobiles as opposed to some high-minded, ideological precept that fills Americans with scorn and suspicion upon seeing a bus or a subway system, making them scoff and say to themselves, “That’s not how a free man drives! That’s how the communist goes from A to B!”
もっとも、このあたりで「ドイツには高速道路も鉄道も両方あるではないか」と言いたくなるヨーロッパの方もいるでしょう。
そのたび私は、穏やかにこう申し上げます。
「アメリカは、とてつもなく広いのです。」
ドイツがおよそ25個入るほどの国土があります。
ですから、「なぜ同じことができないのか」と問う前に、まずドイツを今の25倍ほどの広さにして、その上で同じ規模の道路と鉄道を整備してみてください—ああ、もっとも、それに近いことは二度ほど試みて、あまり良い結果にはなりませんでしたね。
少々皮肉が過ぎましたでしょうか。
ですが、たまには必要なこともあります。
結局のところ、多くのアメリカ人には車が必要なのです。そして車が親切にも運転まで引き受けてくれるなら、それはそれで悪くありません。
それでも私自身は、のんびり歩くことほど贅沢な移動手段はないと思っています。お金もかからず、誰にも頼らず、自分の足で進めます。速さだけは少々物足りませんが、それもまた味わいでしょう。
I assure you dear readers, you could travel from Maine to Hawaii and not encounter such a cartoonish caricature. At this point some very misguided European who does not possess a map and is likely exhausted from yet another sweltering summer day with no air-conditioning is apt to say, “Well, in (for example) Germany we have a very good highway system and we also have very good trains! Why can’t you Americans do that?” At this point, one must again present a bit of rusticated wisdom to the occasionally brilliant but all-too-often tunnel-visioned teuton and explain that, “America is real, real big. So big, in fact, that you could fit approximately 25 Germanys inside of it. So I suppose the real question is, why don’t you try to expand Germany to roughly 25 times its current size and then build a comparable highway and public transit system inside of it…oh wait, you already tried that twice and it didn’t work out so well.”
そして最後に一つだけ。
急いで目的地へ着こうとしないこと。それ自体が人生の大きな楽しみなのではないでしょうか。
いつも働いてくれる車たちにも、ときにはゆっくり休んでもらうくらいが、ちょうど良いのかもしれません。
また次回、お会いしましょう。Until next time!
Forgive a bit of acidity on my part dear readers, but it really is necessary from time to time. In the final assessment, Americans simply need cars to get around, and if the cars themselves are willing to be so kind as do the driving for us, then all the better I’d say. Though, for myself, I still think that an idle walk is truly a great luxury and would, at every opportunity dispense with these difficult matters of transportation and stick with the one that is not only the most economical but also the most independent, even if it leaves a bit to be desired in the velocity department. However, I shall leave you with this my dear friends, to be in no hurry to arrive in the first place is, I think, a great pleasure indeed and out of thanks to our dear automotive chums, it behooves us to give them a well-earned rest every now and then. Until next time!
What a splendid land this is, and how lovely are its people! Fear not, I promise not to eat anyone!
-Aka-Oni
