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→■ TOMATO by Teruyo Karakida
→■ BUTTERFLIES SEEN IN YOKOHAMA IN 2005 by Yukiko Sugo
→■ SIGN OF LOVE AND COMFORT by Yukiko Sugo
→■ I AM A CAT by Teruyo Karakida
→■ I AM ANOTHER CAT by Teruyo Karakida

■ TOMATO
　　Teruyo Karakida

　“Tomato” is not a Basic Word. The Basic words grouped under food are bread, butter, fruit, jelly, meat, milk, rice, salt, soup, sugar, wine (400 General), apple, berry, cake, cheese, egg, fish, fowl, nut, orange, potato (200 Pictured) and beef, chocolate, coffee, tea, whisky (International Words). “Fruit” is on the list, but “vegetable” is not. The only “vegetable” on the list is potato.
　What sort of food do you have everyday to keep you healthy? How do you say about what food you took the night before? It seems an interesting attempt to put it in Basic English. Without taking in different sorts of enough good food, we will not be able to keep healthy and do any good work.
　Tomato is not on the list. But I am hoping to do some writing about the tomato.
　One day in May this year when I was reading a book on gardening, I came across some pages about the tomato plant. I got some knowledge of it. The book said that tomato plants have a full growth in the very heated and dry place and that strong wind does not do serious damage to them. It said in addition that you are able to have a taste of your tomatoes even in the heated town through the summer. That’s it! I said to myself. In the spring of the year 2000 we came to the present living place which is on the 8th floor of the building in the town. I see a great number of buildings in every direction. Here wind is blowing almost all the time, sometimes very strong. It makes the air and earth in the planters very dry. In the summer the walls and the floor of the small terrace keep the heat of the daytime through the night. Some flowers and plants which I had had love for became worse and seemed crying for help. Some of them went to their death. I had had the question what sorts of plants are good at this place.
　After reading the book, I got five young tomato plants which were about 10cm tall at the store and put them in the planters in the middle of May. As they got taller, the stems got thicker. The leaves became greater. After a time I saw some small yellow flowers on the stems. Then small green balls were seen after the flowers went off. Looking at their growth morning and night and watering them was a great pleasure. At last at the end of June some tomatoes were ready. Red, hard ones had a good smell and taste. It seemed very probable to be able to get enough tomatoes for two of us through the summer as the book said. But at the end of July beautiful green was changed into brown and leaves didn’t seem healthy. They kept giving me their fruit but little by little they went to their end. They seemed to have got some disease.
　While watching the changes, some questions came into my mind and I am looking for the answers. One of them is about the young plants which I got at the store this year. The price of one plant was 100yen! Was it not enough for getting a good plant? Another is the place. The terrace was kept heated all through the day and night. Was it hard for them? Was the amount of water which I gave them was enough? I am hoping to do another attempt in the summer after about half a year from now on.
　Today the tomato is very common food at almost all parts on the earth. Where and when did it come to Japan?
　The Andes Mountains in South America have seen a full growth of different sorts of natural tomatoes for about four thousands years. Men and women living there have been making tomatoes year by year. As some men made a move to Mexico or North America for their new living places, tomatoes made the journeys with them and saw new places and persons. It did not go to Europe till the early 1500s when some men from Spain took the seeds back from this place. Then it was taken to different places in Europe. The weather in the south of Europe was specially good to the plant and a great produce has been seen. Potato was as well taken to Europe from the Andes Mountains at the same time. It went to the north of Europe where the cold weather made its growth good.
　When the tomato first went to Europe and North America, it was planted only as ornament. Specially in North America it was a common belief that the tomato had poison. In the years 1900s it got to their knowledge that the tomato is a good food of great value in Europe which was a new light to North America. Then more and more produce has been seen there.
　It was first taken to Japan about 330 years back, in the years of Edo. It is said that it came to Nagasaki from Europe by way of China. It seems to have been used as medical substance or ornament. The second time it came to Japan was in the early years of Meiji. It came straight from Europe. The government made an attempt to make it common food in Japan. But its strong acid taste had no attraction for the persons. In the early time in Showa another sort was taken from the U.S.A. The taste was better than the one which had come from Europe. It was to the taste of persons in Japan. As time went by the number of persons taking the tomato got increased. Now it is one of the most common foods in Japan.

参考文献
1. 「趣味の園芸」2005年5月号　日本放送出版協会
2. 『トマトの絵本』　農山漁村文化協会

ベーシック・イングリッシュ学会研究紀要No.13（2005年）から
Copyright (C)Teruyo Karakida 2005. All rights reserved.

■ BUTTERFLIES SEEN IN YOKOHAMA IN 2005
　　Yukiko Sugo

　It is August now. Every day I see some butterflies in Yokohama. In July I saw a butterfly, I have never seen before, in my garden.
I saw its picture in some books and a design of the butterfly on a scarf before. The living one was beautiful, going up and down in a delicate motion from one leaf to another. The chief color was yellow. The edges of the wings were blue and black. The top of the front wings had white part among the blue and black colors.
　In the science writing of the Asahi of July 17, 2005, there were some pictures of butterflies going up to the north part of Japan. Among them was the one that I saw in my garden this year. Its name is “Tsumaguro-hyomon.” “Tsumaguro（褄黒）” has the sense that the edge is black. “Hyomon（豹紋）” is the pattern of a *leopard, black small marks on yellow base. The one I saw was a she-butterfly. In addition there was a picture of the butterfly worm on a leaf of *pansies.
　One morning I saw a brown worm with a bright orange line from its head to back end on a pansy’s leaf in my flowerpot. Oh! It will be a “Tsumaguro-hyomon.” So I let it be there. My pansies have a number of holes in their leaves and some have no leaves at all.
　The writing says “Thumaguro-hyomon” are noted in *Kansai. They are strong enough to go far up north. In the fall they are able to get to *Tohoku. But it is too cold for them to go on living through the winter there. I saw another picture of black butterflies “Nagasaki-ageha” in the writing. They came to *Kanto from *Kyushu and *Shikoku between 1999 and 2000.
　Sometimes I see two sorts of black butterflies in my garden, one with white small marks and the other without white marks on their back wings. Are they “Nagasaki-ageha”? I will take a good look at the butterfly worms on the leaves of a Chinese lemon tree in my garden. These days I see uncommon insects near my house.
Is this an effect of the Earth Warming?

Science writing:
　Asahi Shinbun & Science of July 17, 2005
　　「南国の使者ご近所に」

Notes:
butterfly: an insect with four colored wings and long feelers
leopard: a great animal of cat family with a dark yellow skin and black marks
pansy: a small garden plant with wide flat flowers
Kansai: the place round Osaka
Tohoku: the north part of Honshu of Japan
Kanto: the place round Tokyo
Shikoku: the island in the Inland Sea between Kyushu and Kansai

ベーシック・イングリッシュ学会研究紀要No.13（2005年）から
Copyright (C)Yukiko Sugo 2005. All rights reserved.

■ SIGN OF LOVE AND COMFORT (Needlework Today and Past)
　　Yukiko Sugo

　There was the tenth international* meeting on AIDS in Yokohama from Aug. 7 through Aug. 12, 1994, which was the first meeting on AIDS in Asia. In parallel with the meeting baby quilts* and memory quilts were put on view publicly.
　The baby quilts were bed covers made by warm-hearted hands for the babies with HIV*. All the memory quilts had on them the names of the dead from AIDS. Their families and friends made the works together with the clothing of the dead. Probably they had been talking about the memories of the dead while their fingers were working on the covers for stitching together the quilt top, the lining and the quilt back. The works were signs of love and memory and something more than that.
　Needlework itself has a long history. All handwork came out of a man's basic need. In the early stage of development on the Ganges, the Euphrates, and the Nile, the first cloth was made. The birth of thread and cloth was the doorway to different sorts of needlework.
　The art of quilting* first came into existence in Persia. They made thick wool quilts for making request to God.
　In the eleventh and twelfth hundreds the Christian* kings and their men made a discovery of quilted materials in the Middle East and took them back to Europe and British islands, having them on under their metal covers for fighting.
　In the fourteenth hundreds there was a great change in winter weather. Rivers like the Rhine, the Rhone and the Themes which had never iced before were covered with thick ice for a long time. The cold weather kept up year after year.
　How to keep them warmer - the art of quilting was one answer. The women of Europe made use of it specially for bed covers. At first the stitching was in simple straight lines but it was not long before it became more complex.
　Every woman did the learning of quilt when she was young. At Hardwick Hall in England we are able to see the quilts which Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, made when she was in prison there for so long. She did the learning of the art while she was living at the great house of Catherine de Medici in Italy when she was young.
　For the marriage of Maria Antoinette with the French king, the ladies* at the great house of Maria Theresa of Austria made the quilt for her. Eight years and much money were needed in the making. She was so wasting money that she was taken before the judge at the French Revolution*.
　The great William Shakespeare gave Ann Hathaway, his wife, his "second best bed, bed covers and side curtains" at his death in 1616. In those days the "first bed" was put in the best room, and it had more ornaments but never gave comfort.
　From the fifteenth through the seventeenth hundreds, the art of quilting was at the highest point. The designs of the stitches were handed down from the mother to the girls. When housekeeping was done, the mother made an order to get the frame ready and in the long English afternoon or even in the evening by wax-light, gave the girls teaching of the art, which the mother got from her mother when she was young.
　In the seventeenth hundreds the English, Dutch, French and Swedes went west by ship. With them their art and handwork went across to the new land of America.
　The Puritans in New England, Dutch and English in New York, Swedes, Quakers and Germans in Pennsylvania, and noble families throughout the South, all kept their needlework in their life.
　It is not certain when and where patchwork* made a start. Probably it had a connection with the conditions of their life. There was no industry at first and getting new cloth became harder as they went west and west farther from the harbors in the East. Keeping small bits of new cloths after cutting dresses and getting cleaner parts from old clothing had been done to make a bed cover for cold winter nights.
　In another place on large farms in the South, lots of Africans were working hard for their masters. African women did needlework for the masters' families with silk and other good materials. After the long hard work they did needlework again for their loving family under wax-light in a dark corner of the small roughly made house. It took a long time to make one by putting small edges of cloth together. But needlework for their family was a pleasure. It was their belief that with bright colors and new designs the bed covers kept the bed spirits from their loving ones through the nights.
　Patchwork quilts are the family records of good days and bad days - pictures of the past for young ones and in addition they are signs of love and comfort and support.

Note:
*international: (an international word)
　in existence, done to do with relations, between different nations.
*AIDS: (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) 　後天性免疫不全症候群
*quilt: a thick bed covering, made from two layers of material with cotton or wool between.
*HIV: (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) 　ヒト免疫不全ウイルス
*Christian: having belief in the Christ religion
*hall: great public room, the largest room in the large house of a great person
*ladies: woman of good families, women in waiting on a Queen
*French Revolution (in 1789): complete change of government through use of force in France
*patchwork: bits of cloth of different colors and sizes together

List of Books: 　
Ickis, Marguerite (1959) The Standard Book of Quilt Making and Collecting, Dover Publication, Inc., New York. 　
ABC QUILTS (1992) Kids making Quilts for Kids, The Quilt Digest Press, California. 　
婦人之友8月号 (1994) 「個」を縫いこんだ掛けぶとん

ベーシック・イングリッシュ学会研究紀要No.3（1994年）から
Copyright (C)Yukiko Sugo 1994. All rights reserved.

■ I AM A CAT
　　Teruyo Karakida

　It was a wet, sticky day. I was just walking about in the street, without any idea of where I was.
　Until some days back my mother had been with me at all times, giving all parts of my body a rub with her tongue. My brothers and sisters had been together with me, playing from morning to night.
　But very suddenly, I had no idea of the reason, I was all by myself, unable to see my mother or brothers or sisters. I had to go looking for food, which was very hard, and for place where to have a sleep at night.
　Crying for my mother I was very sad and tired, when a girl put out her hands and took me in her clean cloth, which she took from her pocket. Quite surprised I gave her hands bites and made long narrow wounds in her arms with my nails, attempting to go away from her. But she was stronger.
　I was taken to a house with the white door and the white walls. There I was put on a table and a tall man in a white overcoat saw me. I had fear, so I gave his hands bites. He took a good look into every part of my body.... ears, eyes, back, and front and a tail. Then he put something hard into a hole under my tail. All of a sudden I had a feeling of a pain in my neck. The man said something to the girl, which I had no interest in. The girl said, “It is very kind of you to have seen this dirty cat on Sunday. I am very happy. Good-day.”
　Am I a cat? Am I a dirty cat?
　The girl kept me in her arms tightly and said to me kindly, “You have a bad cold. Your blood is over-heated. You are certainly very ready for food. I’ll take you back to my house and give you some food and a liquid which will make you better. I’ll make you a bed. Poor little cat!”
　I was hearing her voice but it had almost no sense to me. Walking in the street to her house with me in her arms, she was saying to herself, “What will my father and mother say when they see you?”
　Taken to her house I was put in a cardboard box with a soft cloth under me. Quite tired and unable to keep my eyes open, I went in to sleep in a second, the girl putting some liquid into my mouth.
　This is the story of the day when I was taken to the Karakidas. It was September 1st, 1991. I was said, “Your birthday seems to be about two month back.”
　The girl was able to make her father who is given to changing his mind, and mother who is warm hearted, let her keep me.

ベーシック・イングリッシュ学会研究紀要No.1（1992年）から
Copyright(C)Teruyo Karakida 1992. All rights reserved.

■ I AM ANOTHER CAT
　　Teruyo Karakida

　I am the third cat at the Karakidas. I am a very young girl. My birthday and the birth place are not clear to myself or the rest of my family - father who is a very hard man in the morning and is bright at night after drinking sake, and mother who is a Basic English lover and takes a pleasure in teaching English through GDM, their daughter who is a third-year university student and got the first cat in the street and took him to the family four years back, and the *big boy cat who came to the family through the animal *doctor after the very sudden death of the first cat caused by an automobile very near the house.
　One cold and wet night in April, a girl named Etsuko saw me crying in the grass, running about attacked by some big cats. Feeling sad, she took me up and took me back to her house. But her mother did not let her keep me, and said, “You may put it (!)　here one day only.” She had no experience of keeping cats, so she had no knowledge of milk or food for very young cats. Though she put cow’s milk in a cup and put it before me, I was unable to take it in. I was only crying, desiring for “my milk”.
　Etsuko was greatly troubled and said to her friend, Akiko Karakida to keep a very small and young cat.
　On the day when I was taken here, the kind mother had got special tinned milk ready, which was as dear as 1500 yen, and the girl put warm milk into my mouth through a very thin pipe, which is like the way of drinking milk from a mother cat. I was not old enough to take in milk from a basin myself. My weight was 450 grams then. I went to sleep after drinking as much milk as my desire because I had had no milk for two days.
　The doctor and the rest of the family say, “It is certain that Etsuko took you up from the grass on the same day you were put away there. Or you would not be able to go on living”. I was so feeble and young.
　Since the first meal I am very quick at drinking milk and taking in food. Hearing the sound that the bag of our cookies is being taken from the drawer, I am by my mother in no time and say, giving soft blows to her legs with my tail, “Be quick! I have nothing in my stomach.” Mother gets two basins of cookies ready, one for my brother and the other for me. At first one basin was ready, but I was much quicker than my big brother and he was unable to take nay food. Now mother puts my basin outside the living room and she gets the door shut after I go running for my basin. Sometimes I get the door open with all my power and get into my brother’s basin and take some food. He is so slow at having food.
　My brother is big and has long white hair. He is slower than me at running and having food and almost everything. He lets me have a play with his long and thick tail, touching or biting or pulling it or sleeping on it. But when he is in bad humour he gives me blows, making some sound. Then I go running away from him. After a time I come nearer to him and have a sleep by his side. I am happy going after him with my tail straight up!

(*big, doctor … They are not Basic words.)

ベーシック・イングリッシュ学会研究紀要No.4（1995年）から
Copyright (C)Teruyo Karakida 1995. All rights reserved.