英語の後に日本語が続きます。
The loquat (Eriobotrya japonica) is native to China but now can be found across Japan. The plant produces flowers from November to February and fruits from May to June. The fruits are orange and shaped like a Chinese lute or pipa (枇杷), which is why the plant is called as such, "pipa" in Chinese while "biwa" in Japanese. The same Chinese characters but are not pronounced the same. Although the flowers are plain, the fruits are so orange, and sweet and juicy that the trees in my neighborhood produce many fruits every year but I've never had a chance to taste them.
By the way, loquats always bring back fond memories of my childhood.
When I was a second-grader, I lived in a town in southern Japan where there were many wild Amanatsu orange and loquat trees. One day my baby brother and I decided to go on a loquat picnic - just the two of us. I got up early and prepared lunch boxes, and after breakfast, we left home for a place with many loquat trees a few kilometers away. As soon as we got there, we started picking these orange fruits, and after that, had lunch there while talking about the harvest that day, i.e., about 20 fresh big loquats, and brought them home.
Looking back, however, something is bugging me. Were these loquat trees wild? Might they be planted trees in a loquat farm? I remember a couple of people there staring at us, not saying anything.
Now I'm pretty sure that that was a loquat farm and they were loquat farmers who were kind and generous enough to let local kids pick the loquats they'd grown without saying anything. I no longer remember exactly where that was, but these orange round fruits always remind me of this small adventure.
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| 202511/28 |
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| 2021/5/27 |
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