What new translator are you using? If you can translate all of
3-hajime and zip the files please do so because frankly, the fish is
killing me...I'll never finish babelfishing the entire site.
See I was thinking if in fact the kenjutsu tournaments in the TMPD
were in the process of "converting" to modern kendo it seems that they
would be using some new rules such as time limits. In modern
tournments there are set time limits---but back then there were no
stop watches?!? The fact that the TMPD adopted a kendo ranking
system, used till this very day in mainstream kendo, implies that
their tournaments MUST have had modern restrictions. Fujita Goro may
not have been able to land a decisive strike in the eyes of the
referee. It seems that Fujita Goro's opponent was from a different
department/ward so perhaps the opponent's buddies weren't happy. In a
kendo book I read, the tournaments were also used to encourage
vigorous training in the dept.
The problem I have with Saitou being that severely injured at
Toba-Fushimi is...he walks with a very impairing limp which to me
would be far too dangerous to send a guy to the Seinan war with that
"handicap" to begin with. The newspaper article clearly narrates that
he was actually on the field with whatever battalion he was assigned to.
The wrapping a towel around the head/neck...I see you haven't "let go"
of this detail either ^_^...I was thinking back to the film Bakumatsu
Mono....and the main character's stomache wound was aggravated by a
practice session and he ends up wrapping a towel around his neck. And
didn't someone say that guys did that to maintain their health or
something? I don't have my copy of Shinsengumi Kepp. with me but
towels called tenugui are wrapped around your head before you put on
the "men"/helmet for kenjutsu practice...but in this case you HAD to
wrap the towel around your head (looks easy but it ain't trust
me)...because the towel is supposed to prevent you from stinking up
the helmet. I think after the guys take off the "men" they still kept
the towels around their head...some will even wipe their faces with it
(eeeeeewwwwww). Hmmm so -wouldn't- he wrap a towel around his
neck/head. I think we have to ask momoiro about this question ^_^
--- In SHQ@yahoogroups.com, "warg3791" wrote:
> Ok, I just looked at the www.3-hajime.com site with a different
> translator and it offered a different interpretation of the first
> police kendo competition that Saito competed in. According to this
> translation the victory was actually awarded to him, but there were
> some who spread the rumor that the fight had actually ended in a
> draw.
>
> I've also been considering the whole thing about him never wrapping a
> towel about his neck. So far I've come up with two new clues that
> have led me to a conclusion about what they mean. The first is the
> fact that the word "neck" is not necessarily the correct translation.
> The evil goldfish also has a tendency to say "neck" when it's talking
> about Kondo's beheading. So it could actually be talking about his
> head, not his neck. The second thing I found was a reference to
> a "worktowel" that people wore wrapped around their head to keep the
> sweat out of their eyes. It was in a book on the Edo period and
> mentioned that people took these off in the presence of someone of
> higher rank. As I recall, in the Shin Kepp miniseries many of the
> scenes that featured training in the dojo showed the Shinsengumi
> memebers wearing just such a towel on their head. So my conclusion is
> that this is in fact the "towel" that Saito never wore around
> his "neck" (or rather his head).
>
> And I found another reference to Saito being wounded at the battle of
> Toba-Fushimi in the 1to5.net notes. He went to a medical place at the
> Kando Izumi bridge on the 19th it says. The assumption made was that
> it was for treatment of injures substained during the battle. I just
> finished watching "When the Last Sword is Drawn", courtesy of Barb.
> In that movie, Saito is wounded in the leg in the Toba-Fushimi fight.
> Coincidence or is this based on fact? I note that the movie also had
> Saito referring to Kondo as a "snob". This becomes VERY relevant in
> light of the info we just received about Kondo's attitude problem and
> the quarrel within the ranks because of it.
>
> -MissBehavin