INDEX
From Final Draft to Mountain Peak: The Day After!
Okaya: If you work that hard, don’t you ever get the feeling that you’re going to be sleeping all day after you’ve finished the book?
Gao: What I often do these days is to go mountain climbing the day after the manuscript is finished [laughs].
Okaya: What!
Gao: Recently, I’ve become very fond of Mt. There is a new hot spring facility at the station on Mt. Also, the specialty of Mt. Takao is Tororo-soba (grated yam and buckwheat noodles). I love both tororo and soba, so I always climb to the top of the mountain, take the lift down, eat tororo soba for lunch, take a hot spring bath, and go home and sleep soundly every month.
Okaya: Wow, your stamina is amazing. The density of what you and I do is completely different.
Gao: When I’m working on a manuscript, I’m at home for days in a row, so when I finish a draft, I just feel like going outside. While I’m climbing mountains, I don’t have to think about anything, and it’s like a conversation between my body and nature, and it feels really good.
Okaya: Wow. I only go to Mt. Takao for the beer garden (laughs). You often draw plants as well, don’t you?
Gao: Yes, I do. I love plants. I think it is very interesting that when you live in a foreign country, you can feel the atmosphere of the city differently because of the different plants. In Japan, plants are like members of society (laughs), and they are well organized.
Okaya: Working people?
Gao: In Taiwan, for example, a balcony is like a forest. In Japan, you cut them down so as not to bother your neighbors.
Ocaya : Yes. You mean in Japan, they cut them down as soon as they grow, so that they don’t enter the neighbor’s property?
Gao: Oh yes, even the plants are polite (laughs). Everyone in Japan is really serious and proper. I think it must be stressful.
