Watch an old Japanese movie Tokyo Story 1953/Carlos Pueblo
An old
couple from Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, went to visit their children
and family
in Tokyo for the reunion in a long time. I check the location of this
small sea
port township of the Seto Inland Sea west of Fukuyama. I have visited
this area
several times and is familiar with the screen scenery on the movies,
railroad
trains and busy ferry traffic on the sea surrounded by two big Islands of
Honshu and
Shikoku. Their children include the elder son, the elder daughter, and
the widow of
their second son deceased during the War. The son is a pediatrician
and has a
home clinic to practice at an out skirt of Tokyo in an industrial
neighborhood.
His wife has several duties such as his help and manages two young
boys at
home. The two story frame house is not quite sufficient to host additional
two guests
permanent obviously.
The same
situation applies to the elder daughter, a hair dresser with an apprentice
working with
her at her residence down stair adjacent to their bedroom. Her husband
is a
salesman. There is a room up stair rented to a law school student. The widow,
daughter in
law, is working at a trading company and lives in a small room nearby her
job. The
room is small and can only host temporary one additional person at a time.
All children
like their parents to stay in Tokyo longer than just a brief visit of several
days. I can
see that they all love their parents very much, yet they are busy at their
work and
have their own life to manage with.
After the
elder daughter asks her sister in law to take off one day to show their parents
around Tokyo.
She arrange a retreat for the parents at Atami Hot Spring Resort with a
financial
support of her brother. I check the map of Atami, a famous hot spring resort
which is
very previous to Japanese, is on the Northwest part of Izu Peninsula east of
Shizuoka
where I have had an experience of one night stayed recently. The retreat stay
is
short due to
the noise of younger guests party activity at night. The elder couple decide
to end the
trip and go back to their home town. They run into the room problem for
their children;
therefore, they decide to make an arrangement for one night, let the
mother to
stay with the widow daughter in law and the father to visit an old acquaintance
in Tokyo and
expect to have that one night stay at his house. The drama end is that the
father and
one of his drunk friend are escorted by the police to his daughter’s home after
midnight.
The Mother
die very shortly after arriving home. All children come back home after
receiving telegram
from youngest sister, a school teacher, at home. It is a very touching
movie which
reminds me very much of my own and must of our Taiwanese family. I feel
that the
story has occurred in every Taiwanese family and the situation is even worse
than the
story in the movie. I firmly believe that all parties, parents and children are
all
very
reasonable and considerate. This is only happened in the financial poor family,
if the
situation is
happened to a rich parents, then the story would be very much depressed.
For example,
the money leave behind with or without will and the fight thereafter.
Most of our
generation realize that the children have no obligation to help us when
we get old;
therefore, there is a long time care either through insurance or financial
planning
while at a younger age. Of course, sometimes there is a situation that our
children are
worse off than us. We need to have another kind of movie story to watch.
I love to
watch Setsuko Hara’s movie, the actress of the widow, she is so beautiful and
graceful.
She is still alive at age 87. Fortunately, I love Japan and study continuously
to enjoy
Japanese civilization, automobile, enka, seafood, and old movies, etc. I still
can’t
find the original
movie of Making way for tomorrow which gives screen writer, Kogo Noda
, to persuade
the director, Yasujiro Ozu, to write and make this lovely movie. I am very
Impressed indeed.
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