A Walk to Kobe

image from Granta

A Walk to Kobe is a 2011 short story by Haruki Murakami. You can read it online here. It begins,

In May of 1997, two years after the massive earthquake in Kobe, I hit upon the idea of taking a leisurely, solitary walk from Nishinomiya to Sannomiya in downtown Kobe. I happened to be staying in Kyoto at the time for work, and continued on to Nishinomiya. On the map it’s about fifteen kilometres west from there to Kobe. Not exactly a stone’s throw away, but not such a gruelling distance, and besides, I’m a pretty confident walker.

I was born in Kyoto, but soon afterwards my family moved to Shukugawa, a neighbourhood in Nishinomiya. And not long after that we moved again, closer to Kobe, to Ashiya, where I spent most of my teenage years. My high school was in the hills above the city, so naturally downtown Kobe was where I headed when I wanted to have a good time, specifically around Sannomiya. I became a typical Hanshin-kan boy, the term referring to the area that lies between Osaka and Kobe. Back then –and probably nowadays as well– this was a great place to grow up. It’s quiet and laid-back, with an open, relaxed feeling about it, and it’s blessed with the ocean, mountains and a large city nearby. I loved going to concerts, hunting for cheap paperbacks in used bookstores, hanging out in jazz cafes, and enjoying Art Theatre Guild new-wave films. My favourite look at the time? VAN jackets, of course.

But then I moved to Tokyo for college, got married and started working, and seldom travelled back to this strip of land between Osaka and Kobe. There were times I’d return, of course, but as soon as I finished what I had to do I’d always hop on the bullet train and head straight back to Tokyo. I had a busy life, and I spent a lot of time abroad. And there were a couple of personal reasons as well. Some people are constantly being pulled back to their home town, while others feel like they can never go back. In most cases it’s as if fate separates the two groups, and it has little to do with how strong your feelings are towards the place. Like it or not, I seem to belong to the second group.