Haruki Murakami’s early novels are Japanese novels, yet they feel like American ones. You could say it’s John Cheever mixed with Jack Kerouac and topped with Richard Brautigan’s humor, and I loved that chic style, so I read him a lot from my high school days on. The later he goes, the more that mood shifts toward something weightier, like Raymond Carver.. Anyway, when I was young I really loved those light stories. Maybe my cool personality comes from that experience..
Most of Haruki’s novels are set from the college years onward, and high school only shows up now and then. Hear the Wind Sing has a lot about his hometown, and Norwegian Wood touches a little on life before moving to Tokyo, but it’s South of the Border, West of the Sun that describes the narrator’s high school life in detail. I’d always been a bit curious which high school he went to, but I’m not that interested in writers’ private lives, so I just let it go. Then, while planning this trip, I happened to learn that Haruki grew up in Ashiya, next to Kobe, and that his alma mater is Kobe High School (Hyogo Prefectural Kobe High School), perched on a hill a few stops away. It was on the way from Mt. Rokko to central Kobe anyway, so I took a little time to stop by.
Kobe Port seen from afar
Just as I’d heard, they really did carve it out of the mountainside. Totally terraced.. It’s a school lined with classic buildings, with a view over all of downtown Kobe and the port. In South of the Border.. there’s a scene where they throw an LP record like a discus, and seeing the actual school, I got it. It looked like it would fly a long way. By the way, my own university was built the same way (and it even has a view over all of Seoul!), so it felt really familiar. Although my school had buildings that were falling apart, not classic ones. Not many girls, either..
Inside, it looks like this..
No entry for unauthorized persons, so I couldn’t go in and only took pictures from outside.. Maybe because it was the weekend – no, it must have been school vacation – I didn’t see a single student.
The sports ground and downtown Kobe
It doesn’t look very big or well equipped, but I salute them for building a sports ground on top of a hill. It makes the view even better. I was dying to know what the night view is like, but it was raining anyway and I didn’t have much time.
The school building nicknamed the Tower of London
Apparently it was completed in 1935. The school itself has 115 years of history, so of course it has that old-world feel.
The way to school
That’s roughly how steep it is. If I lived in Kobe, I’d get a motorbike license at 16 and ride to school – not only convenient, but I bet I’d be super popular. Taking a girl down to the harbor for a date in front of Kobe Port Tower sounds fun. And once in college, spending the whole summer shelling peanuts and drinking beer at a bar run by a Chinese guy seems like a good choice too.
The school entrance
Since it’s on a mountain, there’s more than one entrance. This one seems to be the closest to the main gate.
A staff-only building, maybe..
This is the building at the very bottom. It might be the auditorium, but it looked a bit small for that. It was raining that day, so I didn’t wander around observing things all that carefully.
The sports ground seen from below..
Just a snapshot.
Looks like a church bell tower
Buildings like this make me think about what it means to create a meaningful building for people to live their lives in. Cheap isn’t always good. If it’s a building where people will spend a long time, it should have a charm of its own.
Close-up
Putting a school visit into the travel schedule turned out better than I expected. It made me want to reread some Haruki after a long time. Though it’s literature from the bubble era, which doesn’t really fit hard times like these, so the younger generation probably won’t feel much for it.