Food and the Heart

1

The 1931-year retrospect will leave a lasting exhilarating impression on our academic history. Most thankfully, not content with the whimsical and piecemeal collection and research to date, plans to try new systematic observations and records have appeared unexpectedly all over the country. The name one-nation folklore is something that I have hesitated to propose many times, but today there is no concern that it can be described as bold and presumptuous, and it seems that we can pray and hope that the new study of this name will be reflected in Japan in the future. In other words, it is the responsibility of the pioneers to first clarify their scope and goals.

retrospect（名）回顧

exhilarating（形）陽気になる

whimsical（形）気まぐれな、風変わりな

piecemeal（形）断片的な

presumptuous（形）おこがましい、図々しい

scope（名）範囲

Considering the meaning of the term "local study," it is understandable that it was decided to include many non-folkloric subjects. Although our idea of using this name at first was not in any way different from that of today, it cannot be denied that this represents the whole knowledge of the local area in today's Japan, where the word 'study' is somewhat widely understood. Therefore, it also became necessary somehow to qualify it more appropriately. Our local studies required, first of all, "new questions." I confessed that it started out as a distrust of old theories. Japan is not a country where old theories about villagers are scarce. There may have been many people abroad who were cold and indifferent to them, but the locals were always filled with people who were proud of their experience and tried to explain it politely. Even with such an opening now, all that's new is a signboard. The trouble is that, as time went on, the difference between what our forebears were trying to teach us and what the people of later times wanted to know became even greater. Unprepared answers are filled with dogma, and the result is that the desire for knowledge and the reasoning of nature are stimulated. In short, this is the gateway for new local studies to be required.

understandable（形）理解できる、無理もない

qualify（動）条件を付ける、制限する

distrust（名）不信

indifferent（形）無関心な

forebear（名）先祖

dogma（名）独断

reasoning（名）推理

Therefore, our second requirement was "in a new way." This may be gradually revealed by the conventional methods, but it would be a relief if this could be proved separately by very different means and materials, and if the results of the two were not in agreement, the fallacy of either of them should be considered further, and if possible the reason for the fallacy itself should be clarified as a phenomenon of the human world. This has been our intention from the beginning. The most remarkable feature of this method is the comparison. Until now, in history, one fact had one meaning and a lesson, so that not only infinite effort was spent in elucidating it, but also critical thinking was added to the election. What is said to be sufficient to hand down is always a major affair and other ordinary and common cases of daily life have been deliberately omitted from the subject of study. However, questions that emerged in the new era began to emerge mainly from this aspect. The things that have been ignored by the traditions that the Japanese of the previous era were aware of are the only things that bother us now. All these facts of life are trivial, and even if they had been preserved, it is natural that each one of them has no exemplary value, but it is of great significance that the same state was repeated consistently tens of millions of times throughout the country over generations, and at the same time there are important traces that must not be forgotten where they gradually change and become rare while they are considered ordinary and commonplace. As for the relics and remains of the ancient and unenlightened world, while men already understood the value of these accumulated and minute historical facts, many still believed that our lives should be revealed only by the records of the so-called Dark Ages after the Middle Ages, perhaps because they were dazzled by the abundance of historical books. That superstition has been slowly waning lately.

conventional（形）慣習の、伝統の

fallacy（名）誤謬

comparison（名）比較

elucidate（動）解明する

sufficient（形）十分な

affair（名）出来事

deliberately（副）意図的に

exemplary（形）模範となる、例となる

consistently（副）一貫して

commonplace（形）当たり前の、普通の、平凡な

superstition（名）迷信