3·11大地震十周年:一个被抹去的村庄

A Village Erased
3·11大地震十周年:一个被抹去的村庄

KESEN, Japan — For centuries, this village rode the currents of time: war and plague, the sowing and reaping of rice, the planting and felling of trees.

日本气仙——几个世纪以来,这座村庄随着时代的洪流起起伏伏:战争和瘟疫,水稻的播种与收割,树木的种植与砍伐。

Then the wave hit. Time stopped. And the village became history.

然后海浪袭来。时间停止。这座村庄成了历史。
 



When a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami struck coastal Japan on March 11, 2011, more than 200 residents of the village, Kesen, in Iwate Prefecture, were killed. All but two of 550 homes were destroyed.

2011年3月11日,一场灾难性的地震和海啸袭击了日本沿海地区,岩手县气仙村200多名居民遇难。550栋房屋中,只有两栋幸存。

After the waters receded, nearly everyone who survived fled. They left behind their destroyed possessions, the tombs of their ancestors and the land their forefathers had farmed for generations.

洪水退去后,几乎所有幸存者都逃走了。把他们被毁的财产、祖先的茔墓和先人世代耕种的土地都留在了身后。

But 15 residents refused to abandon Kesen and vowed to rebuild. Twice a year since 2011, Hiroko Maisuke, a photographer for The New York Times, has visited the village to document the survivors’ all-but-doomed mission of remaking their hometown.

但还有15位居民拒绝放弃,他们誓言要重建气仙。自2011年以来,《纽约时报》摄影师益池博子(Hiroko Masuike,音)每年两次造访这个村庄,记录下幸存者们几乎注定失败的重建使命。

“Our ancestors lived in this village 1,000 years ago,” said Naoshi Sato, 87, a lumberjack and farmer whose son was killed in the tsunami. “There were disasters then, too. Each time the people stayed. They rebuilt and stayed. Rebuilt and stayed. I feel an obligation to continue what my ancestors started. I don’t want to lose my hometown.”

“我们的祖先一千年前就生活在这个村子里,”87岁的佐藤尚志(Naoshi Sato,音)说。他是一名伐木工和农民,儿子在海啸中丧生。“那时候也有灾难。每次人们都留下来了。他们重建完留下,重建完留下。我觉得有义务将祖先开辟的家园延续下去。我不想失去我的家乡。”

Many of those who remained, including Mr. Sato, lived for months without power or running water. For a year, Mr. Sato camped in the fetid wreckage of his home. For a decade, he has dreamed of Kesen’s rebirth.

包括佐藤在内,许多留下的人在没有电和自来水的情况下生活了好几个月。佐藤在他家臭气熏天的废墟中露宿了一年时间。十年来,他一直梦想着气仙的重生。

Every day of that first year after the tsunami, he trekked into the woods, and by himself chopped the trees that he used to rebuild his two-bedroom house. When only two other families followed his lead and rebuilt their homes, Mr. Sato’s wife and daughter-in-law realized the futility of his plan and left him behind.

海啸后的第一年,他每天都在树林中艰难跋涉,独自砍下树木,用来重建他的两居室房子。只有另外两个家庭追随他的脚步重建屋宅,佐藤的妻子和儿媳意识到他的计划只是徒劳,于是离开了他。

Those who chose to stay in Kesen were old in 2011. Now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, they are older still. Slowly, over the past decade, a grim reality has settled over this place: There is no going back. Kesen will never be restored. This emptiness will last forever.

那些选择留在气仙的人在2011年就已经老去。现在他们更老了,已至耄耋之年。在过去十年,一个残酷的现实慢慢在这里落地生根:没有回头路了。气仙不可能恢复了。这种空寂将永远持续下去。

Mr. Sato is resigned that his mission may have been for naught. Three houses have been built and he has kept his former neighbor’s farmlands from deteriorating, but he concedes that without new residents, the village will die.

对于使命可能化为乌有的结局,佐藤的态度是听天由命。他已经建起三栋房屋,让从前邻居的农田不再退化,但他承认,如果没有新居民,这个村庄将会死亡。

“I am very sad,” he said. “I regret that people will not come back.”

“我很伤心,”他说。“人们不会回来了,我好遗憾。”

He blames the government. It took nine years and $840 million for the authorities to complete a project in which the high ground above the village was converted to land for residential construction.

他责怪政府。当局用了九年时间、耗资8.4亿美元才完成了一个将村庄上方的高地改造为住宅建设用地的项目。

By then, he said, it was too late. Almost everyone who left a decade ago has made a new home elsewhere. Unlike other nearby towns within the city of Rikuzentakata, which have also received government funding, the new elevated area above the destroyed village lacks amenities, including shops and a supermarket.

他说,完成之时已经太晚了。几乎所有十年前离开的人都已经在别处安了家。与陆前高田市附近其他得到政府资助的城镇不同,被摧毁的气仙村上方新建的高地缺乏便利设施,比如商店和超市。

“Right now, given the coronavirus pandemic, I’m lucky to live here,” Mr. Sato said. To make sure his wry joke was understood, he added, “The air is clean and there are not too many people.”

“考虑到新冠疫情,现在我能住在这里很幸运,”佐藤说。为了确保大家理解他的冷幽默,他又补充道,“空气很清新,人也不多。”

On the high ground, a handful of newly constructed houses have sprung up around Kongoji Temple. Like the mythic Ship of Theseus, whose component parts over time were all replaced, Kongoji is both the same temple that has been in the community for 1,200 years and an entirely new one built in 2017.

高地上的金刚寺周围建起了几栋新房屋。金刚寺就像神话中的忒修斯之船一样,随着时间推移,它的部件全被替换了,既是在当地存在了1200年的同一座寺庙,也是2017年建成的一座全新寺庙。

For centuries, the temple has served as a community calendar, marking time with 33 events a year. Those rites have effectively come to a halt, but on Thursday, Nobuo Kobayashi, Kongoji’s chief monk, will welcome the scattered members of the community to Kesen for a memorial service.

几个世纪以来,这座寺庙一直扮演社区日历的角色,每年有33场活动来标记时间。这些仪式实际上已经不再举行,但在周四,金刚寺住持小林信夫(Nobuo Kobayashi,音)将欢迎散落各地的气仙居民回到这里参加纪念法事。

Mr. Kobayashi has worked tirelessly to make sure the families have a place to mourn their loved ones, but he is realistic about the temple ever again echoing with sounds other than lamentations of grief.

小林在不懈努力地确保遇难者家属能得到一个悼念亲人的场所,但他也很清楚,除了哀悼,这座寺庙里可能不会再回响着其他声音了。

“Of course, I would like to rebuild the kind of temple we had before the tsunami,” Mr. Kobayashi said. “But people don’t want to come back to the place where they lost friends and family. And there’s the fear; people are afraid of another tsunami.”

“我当然希望寺庙能重建回海啸之前的样子,”小林说。“但人们不想再回到他们失去亲朋的地方。还有一种恐惧,那就是人们害怕海啸再次发生。”

An anniversary is an arbitrary but useful reminder of how time passes. Ten years is a satisfyingly round number, but it’s just one of many figures by which to measure the tragedy.

纪念日是对时间流逝主观但有用的提醒。十年是个圆满的整数,但也只是众多衡量这一悲剧的数字之一。

A decade feels like an eternity for those who lost a child in mere seconds, but it’s a brief moment in Japan’s history. It’s an even shorter blip in the billion-year history of the tectonic plates, whose grinding shifts triggered the earthquake and tsunami.

对于那些在几秒之内失去孩子的人来说,十年仿佛是永恒,但在日本历史上,这不过是一瞬间。在引发地震海啸的地壳板块研磨位移的十亿年历史中,则是个更短暂的须臾。

It’s that long view of history that gives the holdouts hope that Kesen will again rise from the wreckage.

正是这种历史远景,给了那些坚持留守的人以希望,相信气仙将再次从废墟中复兴。

Mr. Sato, the logger, will turn 88 next week. He awakes each morning at 6 and places a cup of green tea on his home altar — an offer to the spirits of his son and ancestors. And then, like his forebears, he tends to his rice field and vegetable patch.

伐木工佐藤下周就88岁了。他每天早上6点醒来,将一杯绿茶放在家里的祭坛上,献给他的儿子和祖先的灵魂。然后去照料他的稻田和菜畦,就像先辈一样。

“I’d like to see how this place will look 30 years from now,” he said. “But by then, I’ll have to see it from heaven. And I don’t think that will be possible.”

“我想看看30年后这个地方会是什么样子,”他说。“但到那时,我就得在天上看了。但那是不可能的了。”

来源:好英语网

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