ABSTRACT
IT rained fire one night when we were in the capital. The air was full of flying shingles all ablaze. A beautiful sight to those with tile roofs over them, but hardly so if one were under thatch. “Tokio no hana,” said Okashi, who had appeared the day before to ascertain our whereabouts. Translated literally, “Tokio no hana” means “Tokio’s flower,” translated freely, it means “fire.” Fire is the flower of Tokio. Any Japanese carpenter will tell you that, and the bigger the hana is the better he likes it, for the more work there will be for him.
