Fuji and Chama in Kindergarten 1 page

The Naming of BoC

The Naming of Bump of Chicken

C: And then we started thinking about how to get a gig. Hide-chan found a leaflet advertising the National High Schooler’s Music Festival.

F: It was like Seinen no Shuchou [TR: an annual essay contest for young adults held by NHK] but the band version.

C: Fujiwara had just finished writing a wonderful song called Desert Country.

F: I wanted to write an original song, and I finally did over spring break between junior high and high school. Everyone wrote the lyrics together.

C: In my room.

F: We checked everything in an English dictionary. It was probably all wrong. I mean, our name is Bump of Chicken after all (laughs).

C: We decided we would enter the competition, but we needed to have a band name to do it. So we thought about it.

M: Since Fujiwara was really into blues he said we should be called Tractor (laughs).

C: I thought up Country Conveyer.

F: I was set on it being Tractor (laughs). “That’s horrible!” “Alright, how about Blue Tractor?” “It’s still lame!” you said. Then Hide-chan suggested that we make it three words, like something something something.

C: It was decided that we’d make it something that showed who we were. But we’re kind of…

F: We didn’t really do anything.

C: So we came up with ‘weak’ or ‘wimp’…

F: Coward.

C: That became ‘chicken.’ And then we wondered how to say cowards going GAAAN!!

F: So we looked up ‘collision’ and ‘crash,’ and we found ‘bump.’

C: Since ‘no’ means ‘of,’ ‘attack’ or ‘collision of cowards’ became ‘bump of chicken.’ Although unfortunately…

F: Unfortunately it has no meaning in English (laughs).

H: So for a little while we changed the name.

C: We changed it to ‘bump off chicken.’

F: ‘Crush cowards underfoot’ (laughs).

C: That didn’t last for long (laughs).

F: We were Bump of Chicken and we were so proud of the name we didn’t care what it meant.

H: I was really happy. I doodled it in my notebook.

C: I carved it on my bass right away. Anyway, we sent in a tape to the competition and passed the preliminaries.

Fuji and Chama in Kindergarten

Kindergarten

Chama and Fuji

Chama: When we were in the Chestnut class, Fuji-kun was our senior. An adult. When you’re in kindergarten, one month is a long time. There’s a huge difference. His birthday is in April, and mine is in October. So our six month difference was huge! He was a leader and he took control.

Fuji: I did?

Chama: You did. There was another guy who was also tall, and my first impression of you guys was that you were scary. One time when we were playing with blocks, our teacher told us to break apart what we built and to put the blocks away in the box. But Fujiwara put his entire creation in the box without taking it apart first! I said, “Fuji-kun, that’s bad!” He said, “I’m going to take it apart inside the box” (laughs). Even the teacher was at a loss for words. Turns out we didn’t have to put them away one by one after all.

Hiro: That was smart.

Fuji: I guess I was smart…

Chama: I think that’s my first memory of Fuji-kun.

Fuji: The teacher used to tell me that I had to behave myself better than the other kids. She’d say stuff like that to me all the time. Even though they were my classmates. I didn’t really understand why I had to do that. From then on everyone would tell me who was bullying them and the like. I didn’t know what to do about it! Anyway, Chama and the kids who lived close to the school would always get there before me, because my bus was fairly late every day. Everyone would play with the blocks and the tricycles before school started. When I got there, Chama would come running, saying, “I saved you some blocks!” There was a red cloth spread over the piano. He gave me the blocks he had hidden in there (laughs). It felt like he was giving me a nicely boxed cake. “Play with these,” he said, and I did. Kids scrambled to play with the blocks because they were popular, but Chama always saved some for me so I could play too (laughs).

ᚱѻʝ 1/2ѻѻ6 Part 1

What kind of household were you raised in?

It was a fairly strict environment. If I think about it now…Well, it was the kind of home in which if I had my elbows on the table or was resting my chin in my hands while eating, fists would start to fly.

Your father was strict?

You say “strict,” but I might have just been jittery (laughs). But my father, he was scary. In a motherly way, my mother was also…strict; that feels like the best word for it. Although both my parents had that kind of feeling about them, I always found it easier to talk to my mother than to my father.

Your father was reticent?

It was more like he talked with my sisters a lot, but hardly ever with me (laughs). Even so, I think I put a lot of effort into trying to communicate with him. Maybe he tried to reciprocate. I used to want to avoid my father at home and go the whole day without seeing him (laughs). I meant to explain first, though, that we’re really close now.

Did you do things like play catch?

Ah, we did that. On Sundays, he would say, “I’m going to teach you how to play baseball,” or “I’m going to teach you soccer,” so we would ride our bikes to the neighborhood park or the elementary school and play baseball, or soccer, and generally be in high spirits… But if I couldn’t hit the baseball, he’d get mad. If I didn’t kick the soccer ball like he showed me, he’d get mad. It was a rather brutal atmosphere (laughs).

It was more of an intensive training session than it was game playing (laughs).

Before long it became intensive training, yeah. We didn’t often hold a conversation. It was only him getting angry at me. I had fun, but he usually ended up frustrated and we would go home.

How was your mother strict?

Looking back on it, it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. It didn’t used to make sense to me at all. We argued all the time. She often told me that I had a comeback for everything, although I never planned on having one. After I got old enough, she said, “Even though you were a little brat, and I had reason to scold you for all of the bad things you did, every one of your excuses were quite interesting” (laughs).

If you include your two older sisters, it was a family of five?

Yes, a family of five. My oldest sister is seven years older and the other is three years older.

Were you close with your sisters?

I was extremely close with the second one when we were kids. We played together. She made me play house with her. Naturally, I would bring a robot or something into the mix about halfway through. When I did that she went along with it (laughs). There weren’t many toys at our house, so we devised ways to get around that. If we didn’t use a robot or something our pretend story wouldn’t go anywhere. We also used stuffed animals. We would say, “This is so-and-so’s pet Chappy.” Chappy was a gift that my grandpa bought for me; I thought it was a bear for the longest time growing up, but I looked at it the other day and realized that it’s actually a dog (laughs). It has a rescue dog’s barrel hanging around its neck; the kind wine was put in- that’s a dog. We pretended Chappy was a pet, even though he was about five times bigger than the other toys (laughs), even bigger than dolls like Rika-chan. I played with my friends from kindergarten too. I played a lot, with anyone, really. Even with kids I just met for the first time. I would also get into fistfights with kids I had just met.

Were you particularly lively?

I think I was, yeah. My hair a long time ago was about as long as it is now. I kind of looked like Oni Tarou.

(Laughs)You rarely cut it?

While I was growing up my father always used to reprimand me for glaring, so I ended up keeping my hair long enough to cover my eyes. I loathed the barbershop, honestly. My mother would always be nagging me to get it cut. But since I was a kid I’ve always thought my eyes were scary. Put simply, the way my eyes are makes it look like I’m glaring, and that would cause people to dislike me. In my childlike judgment I thought covering them up was best.

You romped around with long hair?

Yep! I didn’t understand at the time, but because I was born in April I was treated as an older brother in kindergarten. My teacher would say things like, “You’re the older brother! Why aren’t you stopping everyone from fighting?” By the way, we were in the same kindergarten, all of Bump of Chicken. Masu was the only one who I didn’t know. The other members also didn’t know him. I’m pretty sure Masukawa and Chama were in the chick class. I got along best with Chama. He had one chopstick in his backpack that he put it in there without a case or anything. I thought that was weird. You’re supposed to put two chopsticks together in a case, so when I said to him, “Isn’t doing it like that bad?” he said “If I have this one, then if I forget one of the other pair, I have one here that I can use, so it’s OK.” I thought that was rather contrived but I didn’t say anything. Oh yeah, his real name is Naoi Yoshifumi, but I thought it was Yoshiumi instead of Yoshifumi.

Hahahaha.

I called him Yoshiumi. Chama arrived at kindergarten before me in the mornings. Everyone who got there first would play with blocks while they waited for class to start. I lived far away and was one of the last to arrive. The blocks were popular, so he would gather some up and hide them under the red felt cloth used to cover the piano keyboard; he would say “these are special” as he gave them to me (laughs). Masukawa’s voice was super high-pitched. The only impression we had of him was ‘the guy with the high-pitched voice’ (laugh). I remember our teacher made him wash off his whole body with the water from the spigot. He wet his pants a lot (laughs). Oh, that’s right! I forgot, mud dango were popular.

Dango that were made out of mud?

Yes. Everyone made mud dango. You have to harden them. Make them firm. They were really cool!

Did you combine the mud with water or something to harden them?

Yes, we did. The last thing we did was put, well, we called it white sand but it was actually just dry sand, we coated the dango with it. There were a couple different ways to make them.

What did you do with them?

I wonder (laughs). If they started to crack or break, we’d get close to tears. Then our male teacher said, “If you put so much work into them make it into a competition.” The sand pit was like a half pipe for skating; we dug it out, made a ditch. We would let our dango roll from opposite edges of the ditch, and whoever’s broke when they crashed into each other was the loser. Our teacher’s was the strongest. Even though everyone did their best to win, the teacher’s dango was always the strongest. Then one day, I made a forbidden dango (laughs). I surprised myself. You know that thing that paints white lines? If you put the red stuff in it makes a grinding noise – is it limestone? It’s all spread out by the shed. I remembered there was a lot of it there, so I went over there and pretended to put it in a bag. I put it on the dango instead. I had a great feeling about it as I stuffed it into my backpack. I carried it home carefully. I of course thought that if I brought the dango inside the house with me, my parents would get really mad, so I took it out of my backpack and put it outside the entryway, where it was exposed to rain. I’m an idiot, though, and completely forgot about it (laughs). After about three days there was only a round stone left. It was the dango! It had become a stone, somehow. It had hardened. It was really strong. I couldn’t lose, really.

You won against your teacher too?

I won, I won. Although they called foul play. It was close to cheating. That wasn’t limestone, maybe. I wonder if it was concrete powder (laughs). I don’t even know how, but it became a stone. I was surprised. Another thing is that I was close to my grandpa. I couldn’t help but look forward to going to Akita. He took me with him to the mountains, and other places too. Man, he was a really cool grandpa. He wore what looked like a sleep shirt, and really dirty pants that were all worn out. The cuffs of his boots were turned way down inside them. He had the appearance of a hiker. He carried a dirty backpack and wore a beret. He had a moustache. He didn’t have a beard, though. Only a moustache. I liked to play with it and pull it. Because of that, he kept his moustache. He said, “Because Motoo-kun likes it, I’m keeping the moustache.” He smoked Lucky Strikes. He was untidy, but I loved him. Wherever he was, he would paint pictures. If our family went on vacation or we went to the mountains, he would paint; even if we went to the park he would paint. He would take out a sketchbook and a collapsible pallet from his bag. He always walked around with water. He put water in a little bottle, like the kind you keep shichimi in, and dissolved the powder for the paints in it. It was like magic. He was really good at it! He studied plants and looked at a lot of old documents. He was also an expert on insects. He knew everything. He caught caterpillars and killed them with the palm of his hand. He caught bees and wasps and killed them too; he said it was because they were dangerous.

You’ve said before that you were raised singing songs from when you were very small.

I sang a lot. I sang duets with my sister. We all played piano. A foreigner who was running a piano class moved into the house two doors down from ours. I learned piano there. All my siblings learned it there. Our teacher was called Lewis Redmond.

So, when you were all home, the three of you sang?

Yeah, we were always singing really loudly.

Did you have a favorite song?

I liked the songs I made myself best (laughs). “I made a new song. I made ‘Tankobu no Uta’,” I said. Even now I remember Tankobu no Uta perfectly, and I think my sisters do too. They nearly split their sides laughing when I taught it to them. They cried laughing, didn’t they, asking, “What is this?”

It was your first hit (laughs).

Something like that (laughs). We also sang songs from anime. I loved using the piano as if it was a toy. I was aware it was an instrument, though. I liked to see if I could make the sounds I wanted, but isn’t that a way of learning? I hated the first things I learned. The songs were boring. There wasn’t any need to play them perfectly since they were just Bayer and beginner songs, and it was absolutely boring. I had to practice making my hands into the right shape. He told me to make my hands circular, as if I was holding an egg. I was supposed to open up that space and put my hands on the keyboard. My hands fell asleep really fast. There were thumbtacks on the edge of the piano. When I thought about that I didn’t want to play it! I had to set up the thumbtacks myself at the beginning of the lesson, and when the lesson ended I had to remove them. I thought it was ridiculous (laughs). I eventually stopped playing around first grade. My teacher moved again to a place that was a little too far away.

You started elementary school; how was your life at school?

Waking up in the morning was a struggle for six years. I had to run there every morning, going “Crap, crap!” My elementary school and middle school were in an area that was farthest from me. I wonder why… They would get mad at students who were late and I thought it was a bit unfair.

(Laughs)Did you want them to exchange the distance for time?

I thought they should give me extra time. I should’ve be given five bonus minutes depending on how many extra meters I had to go.

How were your classes?

In my elementary school classes, I got perfect scores even though I didn’t do anything; they weren’t especially interesting. I read illustrated encyclopedias on my own and I found that more interesting. My classes were very tedious. Because I was bored I developed an attitude, and my teachers got super angry with me. I felt that some classes were full of contradictions. We had a writing class, did we not? Although that turned into a calligraphy class in third or fourth grade. We worked on printouts in accordance with the workbook. If you made a mistake you weren’t allowed to erase it. I didn’t understand why then, but I do now. The sheets of paper were given out for a contest so they were important, and you couldn’t use an eraser. The way you had to hold a pencil; anything and everything was really unpleasant! I really thought there wasn’t any meaning to it. We wrote the characters we could read; I tried to write them neatly but I always had to do it over. I didn’t get why I had to do it over. I didn’t understand for a long time, even when writing class became calligraphy class. My teacher told me she wouldn’t give me any more paper after I made two consecutive mistakes. I would apologize for my mistake when I brought my teacher my paper, and she would say, “Next time don’t make a mistake,” as she gave me a new piece. Then I would mess up again. She got mad; “I won’t give you another piece!” So I thought, well then, I won’t write! (laughs)

They often became angry with you?

They got mad at me all the time, and I remember that it was not often that I gave an honest apology. It was because I didn’t misbehave that often. When I did misbehave, I apologized. I truthfully did. When I messed up in writing class, I went to the teacher and asked, “Can I please have another piece of paper? I’m sorry,” and when she wouldn’t give me one I didn’t write anymore. Since I couldn’t write, I drew pictures in my notebook, but when I did that she would get angry with me. In those days there wasn’t as much freedom in education as there is now, so you’d get hit or slapped in the face. That kind of thing wasn’t looked down upon back then (laughs). I don’t really care either way. During art class, I drew pictures. In calligraphy class, I wrote in accordance with the workbook. Each and every class was a contest. In short, they were fine arts. I wasn’t once able to express myself as an individual. Everyone painted like the textbooks told them- in the same colors, in the same style; they tried their absolute hardest to mimic the textbooks. Isn’t that the strangest thing?

Yeah.

Isn’t that not art? If I painted how I wanted, with the colors I wanted, it would be pinned up on the blackboard and the teacher would say, “Point out the bad parts of this painting.” Others would say, “I think the style is bad,” “I think so too,” “I agree!” Or “Tap the brush like this, the textbook says to do it like that, so you must do it like that,” “I agree!” There were kids who said, “I have something to add” (laughs). “I think you should hold the brush diagonally when you paint that part,” “I think so too,” they would say.

It steadily became mindless, didn’t it?

Yes, yes. And you could win first or second place, if you did it well enough. Really, all it was about was to what extent you could mimic the example. There isn’t any value in that. There’s absolutely no value in that. It was a mimicry contest. I had bad handwriting. But if I put my mind to it I could draw. Once, I got fed up and thought, “Enough of this. I’ll place this time. That’ll shut them up!” It took only one round for me to place. I then, from that one round, understood the criteria you had to clear in order to place. The color scheme, the way you arranged the things you wanted to draw, the brush style. The placement of the lines. The outline. Even as a kid I understood that those were the criteria that must be cleared. I thought that if I painted within those guidelines, I would definitely win first, or win something at least, so those criteria decorated my paintings. I didn’t think they were good paintings at all, though. I thought it was idiotic. They were for Unisef or something or other. The paintings were hanging in a department somewhere. I get angry remembering it now, truthfully.

What was your life with your classmates like?

It didn’t change much from kindergarten. I got along with everyone alright. The teachers thought I was the leader figure in groups because I was friendly with most people. Although I don’t have any decent memories of elementary school, I did my best (laughs). I had to. If you look at it from the teacher’s point of view, there were a lot of times when I wouldn’t shut up, but I had a lot of things to say, so I said them. I feel like a balance was struck. We put on plays all the time. Everyone started to join clubs around third or fourth grade, so some of my friends suggested that we join a drama club that was made entirely of girls, just for laughs. I thought it was an interesting idea, so I signed up. It was good we had something to do but I thought it was lame. It was embarrassing that we had to perform a play about Tanabata. We started to think that we should try and make it more fun so we could also enjoy it. The four of us boys pleaded to the girls, “If we did a traditional Tanabata story about Orihime and Hikoboshi it would be way embarrassing. Let’s write our own script,” but we didn’t have much influence in the club. “It’s only the boys saying those kinds of things! So you can’t be serious after all!” “Shut up!” they would retaliate, and we ended up fighting a lot. We also had a fight about why we had to do a Christmas play (laughs). We had to go to the library and pick a storybook. We memorized it and that was our play. I didn’t think it was very interesting. We were only in the drama club for one year; we felt sorry for the trouble we caused and joined a different club. But lastly, before our group in the drama club left, our teacher suggested we split into different groups and put on a recital. The boys were kind of irritated. But when she said, “Surely now is the time for the boys’ request to be honored,” we thought, oh, that’s right. We thought, “Alright, let’s do it for a little while!” Naturally the four or five of us boys formed one group. The girls dissolved their group and joined ours instead, apparently because they thought we wouldn’t be serious enough. We were so angry at them!

Hahahahaha.

I wish those girls would look back on it now. We were the ones who took nearly everything the most seriously. I did do it! I performed properly. I sang a parody of last years’ play. I sang it as if Hikoboshi was riding in a taxi. Like he was going to meet Orihime, who was calling, “Taxi!” It was at that level, but it was seriously funny. Everyone thought up material we could use for jokes. We didn’t know how much of the play we would have ready before the performance, because we only had a week. We couldn’t believe we only had a week. It seemed that the girls only had a week too. We met every day until it got dark. I explained to my parents, “I’m going to be presenting so it’s an important time!” (laughs) They understood, and all the parents called around and made sure we could stay until eight or so. We prepared until after dinner. We made really detailed props, and we made as much of the costumes as we were able. It was finally the day of the performance. I don’t know if it was good or bad luck, but when we drew lots to determine the order we would perform we drew last. The girls and everyone were looking at their lines while they drew. They would forget when their own turn came up; “So-and-so chan, it’s your turn!” “Ah!” they’d say while reading. They looked like they were about to cry. Our teacher tilted her head to the side and asked, “Did you practice like you were supposed to?” After three or four performances, it was our turn. Everyone was roaring with laughter. Everyone from the illustration club in the classroom next to ours came to watch; they were telling us how awesome our performance was. We felt really accomplished. We told jokes about our teacher too, and it was pretty funny. Even though she told us to stop, her expression betrayed the fact that she didn’t mind. In the end, there was consideration. Our teacher said, “The boys were the ones who tried their hardest. Even though the girls said horrible things to them every time you had a meeting, the boys were the ones who did it properly.” I think that was the first time we were praised like that. Anyway, when we entered the fifth grade our classes changed. My fifth and sixth grade class was pretty good. Well, that was the time when I misbehaved the most (laughs). We had parties in class about two or three times. Our group of close friends got together and did a series of plays (laughs). It was risky (laughs).

Were they original?

They were absolutely original! We wrote them. They were interesting.

Can you talk about the content?

We did Medieval European swords and magic fantasies (laughs). But in the end, it was a foolish, incident-filled journey (laughs). We used to cut swords out of cardboard and paint them, but there was one guy in our class who knew a great way to make them, so we made him a member of our group. He said to take graph paper and cut a sword shape out of that, and then paste two of the cut-outs together with newspaper stuffed in- between. That way it would be three dimensional. Then we took aluminum foil and wrapped it around the blade. We wrapped tape around the part where you hold it. That’s honestly how we made them. I think I took one to keep. That term we made 50 or so swords, and that was only the swords. Swords and spears; no matter how many we had it was never enough. We even made armor (laughs), everyone worked hard. Oh and also, in elementary school, the girl I liked brought me a bento, but I hit my first ever home run and it landed in it (laughs).

ᚱѻʝ 1/2ѻѻ6 Part 2

What happened?

Everyone got together to play baseball in the park. We were playing against the neighboring class. I wasn’t really that good at it. It was a miracle if I even hit the ball when I was up to bat. The girls came to cheer for us, they even made us bento. There weren’t any benches or convenient places to sit, so they sat in the outfield. The girls who brought bento were scattered about out there. It was my turn up at bat and I hit a home run. It was my first ever and it was a line drive. It lost its momentum and plopped right into the bento on her lap. Then she started to cry. “I worked so hard making these rice balls…!” (laughs).

Did you know the girl you liked was sitting there?

I knew.

Do you think you might have subconsciously aimed in that direction?

I didn’t aim. I went, “Alright! Huh? Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no… Aah!” We ended up only scoring one point and we lost (laughs).

(Laughs)Did you drift away from music after you quit playing piano?

No, in my free time I sang loudly. I helped as much as I could around the house. From around when I was old enough to understand what was going on around me, doing the dishes and cleaning the bathroom were children’s jobs. Washing the dishes was especially a big deal for me. When I washed the dishes sometimes something bad would happen, like I would break something. Sometimes I would skip out on my chores, and then the dishes would pile up. At last my father would erupt, “When are you going to wash these?!” “I’m sorry,” I’d say, and I’d wash them. I have memories of crying while washing them. I never cried in public, really. But I probably cried about once a day at home. I think my father was usually the cause of my tears. But anyway, the dishes I had to wash piled up like a mountain. I thought I should at least try to enjoy it.

(Laughs)Of course.

I’d hum the music from Dragon Quest, sing the songs we learned in school, or sing songs from Saint Seiya really loudly, and my mother would praise me. Well, she said I was good regardless of whether she actually thought so. She said, “When you enjoy yourself like that, it makes me happy too.” That was a big deal for me. From then on singing was fun! (laughs) I’ll never forget that. When I was in elementary school, I was like an outlaw. I fought with my teachers so many times, especially when we were studying morals. In general, I found my classes boring, but I definitely understood why we had Japanese, arithmetic, science, and social studies. I kind of understood art and writing, but I really didn’t understand ethics. I couldn’t do anything about it though. We’d read stories, all of us. Then we’d have a discussion about our thoughts on the story, and there were times when we weren’t allowed to stop talking until we all agreed on one answer. It was a Saturday class, if I remember correctly. Although school ended in the morning on Saturdays and our ethics class was third period, sometimes our teacher didn’t get the answer she wanted from the students. She made each of us speak one by one. She was super angry. “Why are you guys only saying things like that?!” We had to stay until two or three in the afternoon. In short, someone does something bad to someone else, but they are forgiven out of kindness. We had to think about what the first person thinks about being forgiven; it was that kind of class. The majority opinion was that even though you did something bad, because you were forgiven, you would reflect and have a change of heart. Everyone pretty much thought like that. Our teacher got really mad, I don’t know why. Then, someone said, “They’ll wonder what they did wrong.” Our teacher said, “That’s it!” I thought, what, why that? She got really angry, “It’s really strange how you guys didn’t say that in the beginning!” I didn’t get it… I knew she used an ethics textbook. I could only imagine what was written in it. When the teacher wasn’t looking I found her textbook on top of her desk, and I looked at it. Just as I thought, “What did I do” was written in red, and it also said something about making the student realize that this was the right answer. That was stupid, really (laughs). That’s not how you’re supposed to teach a class. Isn’t it important to learn about each other’s opinions? It’s awful! Telling students they have to think a certain way (laughs). What I remember the best is…It might be a little dangerous to say, but please listen to a story from when I was an elementary school student. My opinion hasn’t changed much from back then. I must say that too. I’m sorry, but I had to preface it with that.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 965