Posted by Peter Dowden on November 24, 1997 at 12:48:20:
I have just returned from the Ten Gong Festival, the tenth anniversary of Arthur Ransome Club. Japan's ARC is the oldest group of Ransome enthusiasts, senior to TARS by three years. Their generous and loyal support of TARS and the restoration of three ships, Amazon, Coch-y-Bonddhu and Nancy Blackett are well known.
The festival began with the AGM, dealing with native matters such as magazines, membership. I was there but I'm sorry to say I didn't follow the meeting very well. I hope somebody can help with a better report later. At one stage Alan Hakim, who was in Japan as TARS's envoy to the festival, gave a good background of the latest news about Nancy Blackett and her planned cruises next [northern] Summer.
After lunch we had an afternoon of games. The British team of Alan Hakim and Woll Newall won a round of a wonderful board game based on Ransome's Lakeland. Alan introduced us to a complicated card-game, Kaboosh, enjoyed by AR in his day. Other games were the Scotland Yard game, chasing george Owdon around Norfolk and a traditional Japanese literary card game, using Ransome's stories as its text.
In the evening we had a Feast. The ARC Sea Shanty Club sang and we met Dr Jingu, the translater of the S&A books into Japanese. It was very interesting to talk about language issues with him, for example, Japanese writing uses fewer pronouns, like "his, she, her", so no indication of Polly's gender is included in the Japanese. many Japanese readers are surprised to discover that Polly is a boy-parrot. Another language difference is that in Japanese it is normal to refer to a brother as "older brother" or "younger brother" so Dr Jingu had to work out which of the two Captain Flint was, and plumped for younger brother. I was surprised by this at first, but I can't think of any evidence that says Jim is definately older than Molly Blackett.
After the feast many people went out for drinks, and there were a few drunken sailors around the place "early in the morning" the next day.
The last morning of the festival was quite a formal event. First the Ten Gong salute was sounded and there were exchanges of gifts between members of ARC and TARS, and some messages from abroad were read. Then we had a dramatisation of the scenes on top of the Matterhorn in 1901 and Kanchenjunga 30 years later. We learned the full history of the Club in the form of a slide show.
In a moment loaded with emotion, Tamami Nakayama, a founder of ARC was thanked and presented with a huge bouquet. We all sang "Supein no Shikujo" [Japanese "Spanish Ladies"] and the Festival was complete.
After the festival and on my way home, I considered how firstly Ransome's books, and their translations, and the hard work of people like Tamami-san and Christina Hardyment and many others has led to the making of so many wonderful new friendships, crossing right around the planet.
An important anniversary like this is like that quiet moment at the top of Kanchenjunga: for people to look around at the great landscape of Arthur Ransome's creation and think about what its immense beauty means in our native world.