Zhejiang Journalist Delegation Visits Fukui Prefecture

Many Chinese know that Lu Xun studied at Sendai Medical Academy in Japan and many know even know where the hometown of Lu Xun’s anatomy teacher Fujino Genkurou is: he was from Fukui Prefecture, a rural place located in Honshu Island of Japan. For most Chinese, however, that’s roughly all they know geologically about Lu Xun’s medical studies and his teacher. They hardly have any idea where Fukui is exactly located in Japan. In November 2010, a delegation of six journalists from Zhejiang, sponsored by Zhejiang Foreign Affairs Office, paid a visit to Fukui Prefecture for promoting exchanges between Zhejiang and Fukui. Zhejiang and Fukui have had the sisterly relationship for 18 years.

We landed at Komatsu Airport, which is about 40 kilometers from the city of Fukui, the capital of Fukui Prefecture. We took a bus ride along Hokuriku Expressway to reach the prefecture’s capital. It was an early winter day. The expressway was flanked by rolling hills featuring woods in flaming reds and yellows. The spectacle of the endless reds and yellows of the woods was amazing. A Chinese writer who lives in Japan wonders in an essay why Japanese people prefer the autumnal reds presented by the forests across Japan. His understanding is that the color red is something between green and yellow, a color that gives human beings a sense of warmth and that autumnal leaves showing a full range of delicate nuances in color and shape and size therefore appeal emotionally to Japanese people.

This explanation sounds convincing. In Japan, more people come out to admire the scenes of woods in reds and yellows in autumn than those who come out to enjoy the gala of cherry blossoms in spring. In the following two days we traveled a great deal around Fukui Prefecture. The woods in flaming reds were a phenomenal sight everywhere.

High on our visiting schedule was the Fujino Genkurou Memorial/Former Residence of Fujino Genkurou in Awara City, Fukui Prefecture. The memorial is a two-story structure that looks modern. Of the exhibits are the notes Lu Xun took while studying medicine at Sendai Medical Academy, the slides used in the class and a photo from his teacher. The photo is a copy of the original with two Chinese characters 惜别 (farewell) in Fujino’s handwriting. The memorial has a collection of the exhibits garnered from various sources. These exhibits portray the friendship between Lu Xun and his teacher. In addition to those valuable articles of history, there are quite a few exhibits showing the current ties between Awara City and Shaoxing City, the hometown of Lu Xun in Zhejiang Province. The exhibition convinced us that Awara city and people value the friendship between Lu Xun and Fujino Genkurou and the ties with China and Zhejiang.

In order to best receive Chinese visitors, the memorial has a Chinese woman work as a narrator. We learned from her that the memorial has about 1,000 foreign visitors per year. The number might be negligible if compared to the number of tourists crowding famous sightseeing attractions, but it means many Chinese visitors come out of their way to visit the memorial as Fukui is not on the usual itinerary for Chinese tourists. We learned that the majority of the visitors are scholars from colleges and research and culture institutes and students from middle schools and elementary schools. For a special museum, this counts for success.

The ties between Lu Xun and Fujino Genkurou have continued. In 1964, a monument of “Farewell” was erected in Fukui Prefecture. The two Chinese characters engraved on the monument are copied directly from the photo Fujino Genkurou gave to Lu Xun when the student left the academy. The inscription on the monument was composed and handwritten by Xu Guangping, the wife of Lu Xun.

In 1993, Zhejiang Province and Fukui Prefecture established friendly relations largely due to the ties between Lu Xun and Fujino Genkurou. Today, cooperation and exchanges between the twin regions have extended and deepened in various fields.

Our next visit was to Eihei-ji Temple, located about 10 kilometers east of Fukui City. This temple of Zen Buddhism has a special tie with Ningbo, a flourishing port city in Zhejiang Province. Over seven hundred years ago, a Japanese monk named Eihei Dogen came to study Buddhism at Tiantong Temple in Ningbo. After the completion of his studies, he returned to Japan and set up a temple at the invitation of Fukui Prefecture. In 1244, the construction of Eihei Temple started and two years later, it was completed. The architecture imitated Tiantong Temple in Ningbo. The temple, a cluster of over 70 buildings, regards Tiantong Temple in Ningbo as its ancestor. Master Eihei Dogen has been held as the father of Soto Sect of Zen Buddhism in Japan. The temple receives more than more than 1.3 million of pilgrims and visitors per year.

The temple, located in a valley, enjoys serenity and grandness. We were impressed by the temple and its surrounding: towering ancient firs touched the sky; the bright red colors of the woods in autumn were incredibly poetic; a stream zigzagged through the mountain. The halls stood in nice compliance with the terrain, all connected with sheltered corridors and thousands of wood steps. We were also deeply impressed by the utter spotlessness of the large compound. It was a winter day after a long rain, but the young monk who took us around was dressed in a single cassock and a pair of slippers. He was serene. Other monks we encountered during our visit showed a similar serenity. We saw monks bow most reverently to Buddha statues, their piety moving.

Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, located in Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture, was our next stop. One of the three greatest dinosaur museums in the world, it is famous in Japan as a treasure house for dinosaur fossil remains. In recent years the museum has set up a cooperative relationship with Zhejiang Natural Museum. Experts have participated in each other’s excavation and restoration projects as well as academic studies. In the corridors on the second and third floors, we see photos and texts that focused on the cooperation between the two museums.

In a special exhibition in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the establishment of Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum in July 2010, the museum set up a special section on Zhejiang Natural Museum. The section displayed the sites of dinosaurs across Zhejiang and research results.

Dinosaurs were first excavated in Fukui Prefecture in 1989. Following the excavation and study results, the prefecture government had this museum built to promote the knowledge of dinosaurs. Today two types of dinosaurs are named after Fukui. The museum, situated in a valley, takes the shape of a dinosaur. The four-story structure houses over 30 complete skeletons of dinosaurs and more than 1,000 specimens of ancient animals.

How time flew! Our two-day visit to Fukui Prefecture came to a close at Railway Station of Fukui Prefecture. It was late afternoon and dusk was descending. Officials from Fukui Prefecture Japan-China Friendship Association and Fukui Tourism Bureau came to see us off. They brought us meals packed in paper boxes. Inside were crab meat and rice, a tasty luxury of Fukui Prefecture we did not have time to enjoy during our two-day visit. Dusk had descended and lights were on as the train slowly pulled out of the railway station. The scene reminded me of a poem Lu Xun wrote in early December, 1931 for a Japanese friend who was to return to Japan. It was there and then that I thought I suddenly understood Lu Xun’s ties with his past in Japan the way I had never before. The early winter scenes Lu Xun describes in his poem were exactly what we had seen across Fukui Prefecture. The red maple leaves will be a precious part of my fond memory of this visit to Fukui Prefecture in November, 2010.