Along the Naka River

 I reached Nakagawa, the Naka River, and found that there was much more water than usual. You can see something in the water just below the middle of the picture. This is a little tree that is growing on what is usual an fairly large island. The concrete wall on the right is a recent addition that was constructed last year to contain future flooding. There was a very bad flood along the river the summer before we arrived here and they have spend much of the last two years working on the river banks and putting in moveable dams.

Nakagawa does not seem to have very many fish in this area so this is a rather unusual sight.  I think the reason for the lack of fish is that the depth of the river changes so much and so frequently. There seem to be more small fish in the river at the point where it comes out of the hills and more larger fish closer to the ocean, but few along this stretch.

North along the river - a new walk

 I walked west from home but found some roads I had not yet taken. This house was rather amazing. The roof is so complicated and the little balconies are so solid looking that I found the entire house surprising, not at all like the other house in the area.

I reached the river, if I can call such a small stream a river. It was the last days of September so there was still many flowers and lots of green. I decided that I would follow the river north, toward Fukuoka city, and go to a riverside park that I had passed a number of times but never entered.

The Japanese verb 'suru', to do.

This was in the newspaper. The specific article is the one with the bar graphs and it discusses how many people are starting to abbreviate suru to just ru attached to a noun. The examples given in the bar graphs, reading from top to bottom are chin-suru,  a cash register making a noise; jiko-ru, having an accident; not sure of the pronunciation but probably koku-ru, to proclaim your love; and taku-ru, to ride in a taxi. The red areas are the percentage who use the form, the yellow are the percentage who have heard the form, and the grey is the percentage who have never heard the form.

In language school I learned these as chin-suru, jiko-suru, koku-suru (although not used) and takushi-suru. Actually in language school these all required the particle wo between the noun and suru but this is omitted in casual conversation.

This is just one more example of how the Japanese language has been rapidly changing since after WWII. Forms are being reduced (suru to ru) and many restrictions are being removed. For example, in school about 40 years ago I learned that zenzen, meaning not at all, had to be followed by a negative verb. However, when I got to Japan I found that a few people were using it with positive verbs to mean all or every or completely. Now, most college students do not even know that there used to be such a restriction on the use of zenzen.

My last posting on the 13 kilometer walk - a watercolor sketch

Just before exiting the valley and entering the rice paddies, I stopped for a rest and did this 10 minute postcard-size watercolor sketch of the river. While I did oil paints when in school and more recently pen and ink, I am now learning to do pure watercolors. As you can see, I am finding them challenging to say the least, but I do believe that I am gradually improving.

While doing this sketch, I sat on a bench under a small roof next to some sort of equipment related to the river. I think that it may have been a pump to bring water from the river up to the level of the paddies, a vertical distance of less than two meters.