{"id":1943,"date":"2014-04-05T11:12:28","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T00:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/?p=1943"},"modified":"2014-04-05T11:16:56","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T00:16:56","slug":"napowrimo-day-5-onsen-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/?p=1943","title":{"rendered":"NaPoWriMo Day 5: onsen song"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"id_533f482150fb66910010368\">Had a spa the other day and this memory floated to the surface:<\/p>\n<h4>onsen song.<\/h4>\n<p>we exhaust his few words of English and my Japanese in the first minute.<br \/>\nhis thin eighty year old naked body next to my potbellied western<br \/>\nversion in the public bath at Taisho Pond. He tries to ask me questions<br \/>\nin nihon-go and I eventually shrug shoulders protruding from the<br \/>\nsteaming waters. \u201c<em>Gomenasai.\u00a0Nihon-go\u2026 muzakashii!<\/em>\u201d<br \/>\n(Sorry. Japanese \u2013 too hard!)<br \/>\nHe replies. \u201c<em>No. English muzakashii!<\/em>\u201d We laugh and<br \/>\nlapse into a comfortable silence. Then he drags<br \/>\nhis old body from the supporting arms of water<br \/>\nand squats on the stool, scrubbing himself all<br \/>\nover yet again. And begins to hum what I<br \/>\nguess is a Japanese folk song. Before long he is<br \/>\nsinging full-throated and his thin speaking voice has<br \/>\ntransformed into a baritone reverberating around<br \/>\nthe stone walls of the onsen as it may have hundreds<br \/>\nof years ago. I try to memorise the notes to<br \/>\nreproduce it later, but the song now is just<br \/>\na memory drifting upwards,<br \/>\nimpossible to hold,<br \/>\nlike steam from<br \/>\nbathwater.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<form id=\"u_0_2v\" action=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ajax\/ufi\/modify.php\" method=\"post\" data-ft=\"{&quot;tn&quot;:&quot;]&quot;}\" data-live=\"{&quot;seq&quot;:&quot;10152328801758398_29945809&quot;}\">\u00a0<\/form>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Had a spa the other day and this memory floated to the surface: onsen song. we exhaust his few words of English and my Japanese in the first minute. his thin eighty year old naked body next to my potbellied &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/?p=1943\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1948,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1943\/revisions\/1948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.robwalkerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}