Kasai Bridge

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. Kasai, Katsushika district .
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Kasai Bridge (Kasai bashi)

***** Location: Tokyo, Japan
***** Season: Non-seasonal Topic
***** Category: Humanity

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Explanation

Kasaibashi 葛西橋 Kasai Bridge



A bridge over river Arakawa and Nakagawa, in the Koto district of Tokyo.
The new bridge is 280 meters long and was finished in 1963.
In summer, there is a firework over this bridge, less crowded than the Sumidagawa fireworks.

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HAIKU

立春の米こぼれをり葛西橋
risshun no kome kobore ori Kasaibashi

beginnig of spring
rice spilled
over Kasai bridge

Ishida Hakyo

This Haiku was also written after WWII, in 1946, after few months of the Japanese capitulation. In this sense, hope for the arrival of light that warms our hearts, hope for the end of food scarcity was probably in the thoughts of Hakyo.

Ishida Hakyo (1913-1969)

At that time, soon after World War II, the food was very scarce, so people must to go suburbs to buy rice. On the bridge police man guard to prevent to bring the food into Tokyo City.
The rice on the Kasai bridge tells us something trouble happened between poor hungry people and policeman.
Sakuo Nakamura
Translating Haiku Forum

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鶯やかさい訛りもけさの空
uguisu ya kasai namari mo kesa no sora

nightingales --
country accents, too
in the morning sky

Or: "a nightingale--/ a country accent, too・ Issa leaves to the reader's imagination whether there are one or many nightingales in the morning sky. The bird or birds have "Kasai accent" (kasai namari).
A subway stop in Greater Tokyo today, in Issa's time
Kasai was a farming village east of Edo.
Tr. David Lanoue

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Related words

Placenames in Japanese Haiku

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. Kasai, Katsushika district .

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