Are Japanese researchers of fauna and flora becoming more like their U.S. counterparts? They may well be. Some now talk about the environment, ecology and biodiversity only to disguise their anthropocentric expediency.

This thought occurred to me recently when I was checking a couple of things to revise a translation for publication. One of them had to do with the carp.

At one point in his childhood memoir Gin no saji ("The Silver Spoon"), Kansuke Naka (1885-1965) describes yoka-yoka-ameya ("yummy-yummy candy vendors") who went about in couples. With the man-and-woman duo who used to visit his neighborhood around 1890, Naka recollected, the man wore a yukata with the design of a carp leaping up a waterfall splashed across it.