ABSTRACT
This past April, I toured Japan for two weeks as the guest of the magazine Bungei shunju (Springs and autumns of the literary arts). Following a whirlwind visit to Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Osaka, and Kobe, the other two Chinese writers and I were taken by our hosts to the hot springs resort at Hakone for a day's relaxation. I opened the French windows of my room in the Scandinavian-style mountain inn where we were staying and stood on the balcony, which looked out over the rippling blue waters of Lake Ashi. The lakeshore was surrounded by rolling green hills covered with clumps of peonies—red, purple, pink, white. Gabled roofs of gothic European buildings and the flying eaves of Shinto shrines peeked through the stands of trees, while out on the lake, cinnabar-colored pleasure boats made their slow way back and forth; though the boats were the old-fashioned, multimasted type, they were outfitted with all the modern conveniences.
