scoobdog wrote:
Don't look too hard, that might ruin the Bebop experience.
I just get the feeling that the story isn't real because we hear so little of it. What little Jet gets to say before he is interrupted is just enough to be easily faked by the writers; a more elaborate story might be more obvious.
(First of all, to the Mods: If you think this is getting too far off topic, please just delete this post (or move it) and I'll repost in the Underlying Bebop thread. Please don't delete the whole thread again.)
::laughs:: Scoob, you're one to talk!
Nah, no chance of it ruining my Bebop experience - as Spike says, "Now this is the kind of stuff I
like!" For those who prefer to keep it superficial, well, you can always change the channel.
A little research has shown that the Tamatebako story is real, a folk tale called "Urashima Taro." I'm pretty jazzed about finding this, because I see now why it is so appropriate for "Speak Like a Child." Here's the story:
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"Urashima Taro is a young fisherman who lives on an island where everyone fishes. He lives by himself, with no parents, no wife and no children. Walking along the beach one day, Taro spots some young boys teasing a sea turtle they had captured, poking and beating it with sticks. He buys the turtle from them and sets it free.
"The next morning, Taro is out fishing and encounters the turtle again. The turtle is grateful to Taro and asks him to ride on his back to see Otohime, a princess at the undersea Dragon Palace Ryugujoh (alt. spelling). He finally agrees and is taken to a place of riches and wonders beyond his imagination. After three months of feasting and being attended by beautiful maidens, and enjoying the company of Otohime, he feels homesick and asks to go home. Otohime wants him to stay, but gives him the Tamatebako with the admonition to keep it to remember her and never open it (in some versions she tells him to open it in times of trouble or despair, which seems to be the version relevent to Bebop), and sends him back home on the turtle.
"When he arrives home, everything is different, everything he remembers is gone, and none of the people he meets remember him. One old woman recalls his name from her grandparents and says the man went into the sea 300 years ago and never returned.
"With nothing and no one left that is familiar to him, Taro feels lonely and lost. Then he remembers the Tamatebako and opens it. There is nothing inside but a white mist, which rises slowly into the air. He breathes it in and smells the mat in his hut, the salty wind of storms he had escaped, the fish he had cleaned, the wine he had offered at the shrines -- the box holds the 300 years Urashima Taro had lost, and as he breaths them in, he becomes a very old man."
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Tamatebako seems to just mean "box" or "casket." Since there is a bud-like camelia named Tamatebako, I suspect the fairy tale lends it the meaning of "treasure chest." In some versions there is also a crane feather, and Taro turns into a crane. Some versions include a tree in the Dragon Palace that rapidly grows leaves, which turn red and drop off, followed by new bud sprouts each day. A long version of it is here:
http://home.clara.co.uk/wabei/xlation/quilt/urashi
ma.htm
A Google search on "Urashima Taro" will turn up lots more.
But the connections between the story and Faye's circumstances are obvious to anyone who knows it (and most Japanese probably do). The cryogenic box is Faye's Ryugujoh (minus the feasts and maidens), and the tape, her Tamatebako full of the old life she once knew (except it doesn't make her old). I wonder if Jet and Spike saw the connection as well, having been talking about that story on and off all day.
Madness is not a place one goes, it’s a spider waiting to feel the tremble of the web. -- GuiltyRed
We're all mad here. - The Cheshire Cat
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