Radishes
Photograph and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
This house was just across the road from the park, and I used walk past it all the time. I say I used to because this week when I walked my dog there it had been demolished.
I used to think that houses like this were the spirit of my neighbourhood. It looked like such a lovely house, and there were chickens, you could hear them in the mornings. Not only was it a breath of old Hakodate, but it had a garden, there were always delicious looking things growing there in the summer. Here, they are hanging out their daikon radishes to dry in late autumn, in preparation for pickling.
It was a fine old wooden house with a verandah and glass doors along one side, looking out onto that fine garden, and at the front was a sturdy stone fence and solid gates. Just up the road from the post office. The post office is a new building built to look a little antiquey. Soon it will be the most authentic old building in this neighbourhood.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
My friend Wojciech is visiting me. He is reminded of his little boy’s word for grasshopper…arsegropper. š
In my own family, my older son nicknamed his baby brother “bubby pins” and that was too good to not name every baby we saw the same in private converse. š
LikeLike
Pulling down old buildings and building soulless modern boxes has risen to the level of an art form in Sydney. Our population grows by about 1,000 people per week – which explains (along with a complete lack of infrastructure development for nearly 20 years) why the place has become so crowded, so expensive and so frustrating to live through. But shortage of housing and the high labour costs associated with renovation make demolition and reconstruction understandable – if not especially desirable when one has a sense of connection with landscape built decades ago.
It puzzles me a little to understand what motivates a demolish and rebuild situation in Hakodate, Lehan. You have said that the population there is ageing – that young people move away – suggesting to me that there is no particular pressure from growing population in your city. Are the buildings less durable / climate much harder on the built environment ? I do get the sense that recycling materials when a building is demolished is a bigger phenomena where you are – or is that mainly on the personal level ?
LikeLike
As impressive a rack of radishes as any I’ve recently read about, Ms Ramsay! Rots of ruck!
š
LikeLike
When ever Sche and I are out and about and we see something “hot” in the cultural sense, could be anything really, a car, a person, a building or billboard, we cry out “wasabi” and point at the thing in question.
We alert ourselves to those things which are just as interesting but in a negative way by crying “prakash”. There are degrees of “prakash” from slightly to completely.
This expression was adapted from the name of an SBS reporter of years gone by, Prakash Mirchandani, who always seemed to get either military and conflict related stories, or stories characterised by a high degree of disjunction and confusuion.
Tearing down the old building is completely prakash, while your alerting us to it is entirely wasabi; and we get the bonus of a radish reference, though sadly the wrong kind of radish for Wasabi Paste. Wouldn’t that have been perfect.
LikeLike
I nearly Daikoned laughing with the Prakash and wasabi lines, Waz. One of the little treats of intimacy is the private language a deux. FM and I use the term “Houston” – to signify a person with malodorous breath.
It comes from an old joke my Dad played on his boss, Dave Fraser. Dad worked with a Greek guy called Con. Con used to eat rather heavily garlicked sausages and Dad’s joke was to get Con to ask Dave what was the capital of Texas. Dave of course did not know – so Con had to tell him – with an emphasis on the HOOOO ston.
Now I’m racking my brains for all the other langue a deuxes we share.
LikeLike
I’ve mentioned Chauncey before, of course. You remarked on it once Emmjay. I got it from the film ‘Being There’ with Peter Sellers. Derivations are: chauncified or chauncyish. Beware they are everywhere. Although someone who is a touch chauncyish, may just be OK, but a little vague or strange.
There is a word we got from Java: susah (not susu, which is milk). It covers perplexing situations and hiccups. Small problems, like a taxi turning up to the wrong house, or a misunderstanding. One can also have a big Susah; prounounced Soosah. IE , the insulation scandal.
Another good word is Bonxsy, coined by my sister, when she was about 5 yrs old. Covers bad tempered people.
Radishes:
One of the best vegie patches that I have seen, was in my Mum’s garden in Nepal (Kathmanduh). The climate there was just superb for growing all manner of root, bean and leaf crops.
There garden was about 200metres from the small Gurkah barracks there. Well mor of a compound really. They weren’t warriors, but pleasant, friendly civil servant type Gurkahs.
On could see Mount Everest clearly from the garden. I must dig out some old photos.
LikeLike
I do like “Bonxsy”, VL. It reminds me of “Antsy” which in my tribe means being cranky and contrarian. I was surprised to hear it used by First Mate, so I suspect that it might be in wider circulation amongst anglo aussies.
I went to Nepal a very long time ago – maybe 6 or 7 years BFE (before first Emmlet). Since E1 is 22 1/3 ……. you get the drift. It was a great experience, only slightly diminshed by needing to take handfuls of anti-run pills for a case of giardia I got in Bangladesh on the way. I imagine Nepal has changed quite a bit recently at least politically, if not much else… with the assassinations amongst the royal family and the rise of Maoist political groups.
I work with a guy who organises annual visits to Nepal with a surgical team who go for a couple of weeks and collaborate / teach local surgeons reconstructive plastic surgery for burn victims (remarkably common with dung and wood-based fires for cooking and heating). They also do some truly amazing cleft palate / hare lip reconstruction. The logistics of getting maybe a dozen or so specialist surgeons and nurses and all the gear there – and convincing doctors who normally are booked months in advance and who make serious money – to work for free under very basic conditions – is a wonderful achievement. The before and after photos of the patients say it all.
LikeLike
It’s all very sad, Lehan, nice old buildings disappearing…
Hope they will keep growing those lovely Daikon Radishes, how huge they are!
LikeLike