faded_lace | [translation] Karafuto Ojisan

Karafuto Ojisan
by Chon Wishin

Tohru: Inoo Kei
Gorou: Masu Takeshi
Hitomi: Matsunaga Reiko

"What could it be that we lost on that day..."

(translated from the July 2015 issue of 喜劇悲劇 by

faded_lace)

Ten years ago, there was a great earthquake in that town…

The town and the lives of the people who live there were irrevocably changed by that earthquake.
From the people of that town, their homes, the alleyway on which their homes stood, the tobacco shop on the corner, the bath house they often visited, the pub they always visited on Friday nights, the okonomiyaki¹ shop they sometimes found their way to in the early afternoon on Sundays, the little park with the little bit of shade… all the places filled with memories of their daily lives were snatched away…
And their fathers, their mothers, their children, their grandfathers, their grandmothers, their friends, all the people they loved… they were all snatched away…

Ten years have passed since that time…
It’s now January of 2005.

There’s a small factory tucked away in the corner of that town.

The play opens in “Hoshiyama Factory.”
There are lathes in various places.
The machines are dusty and seem as if they’re not operated very often, if at all.
The large industrial iron door in the front of the ironworks factory and the surface plate set out on the floor are covered in rust.
Upon surveying the room, it has an atmosphere of having fallen into ruin.
Around the steel work desk and the sofa, the room is expectedly cleaned up, but the sink area behind is piled full with dirty plates and bowls, and the garbage bag is carelessly dumped on the floor.
Next to the sink, a crooked curtain hangs in a doorway. It seems that beyond is the living area.
Beside the industrial door is a washing area, and next to that is a rusted bicycle.
From a radio dangling from a pillar, hit songs from ten years ago are playing.

Perhaps for the sake of the memories that must not be forgotten…

Scene 1: Friday evening
Scene 2: Sunday morning
Scene 3: Monday night
Scene 4: Wednesday evening
Scene 5: Thursday night
Scene 6: One week later; morning

Translator’s Notes
→ There are numbered footnotes at the end of each scene (footnotes for the introduction are lumped in with scene one), so please check those if there’s any confusion!
→ I translated Tohru’s Kobe dialect as a generic low-class American Southern accent. I’m not from the South and I’m not very well versed in Southern American English, but I wanted to do something to show that the way he speaks is linked to where he lives. My apologies for anything that’s incorrect, but I hope that it at least gets the idea across.
→ The formatting (including the spacing and line breaks) is directly carried over from the original. It deviates from normal English play format, but I wanted to maintain the feeling of the original.

This translation is meant for personal use only; it is not for sale and is not official. I am not a native speaker and there may be some mistakes. I am also not a professional translator nor have I studied translation theory; this is my best effort to maintain the style and feeling of the original. Scenes will be linked to this post as they are completed. Please enjoy!