Don’t know what a 52 Fuji is? Check out this page.
I didn’t just come all the way up north to visit Fujinami – although, honestly, it would have been worth the journey just for that. There was another Fuji up here too, in Toyama: Fujikoshi. A Fuji with a colourfully convoluted history when it comes to nomenclature.
Fujikoshi Station is right next door to the Nachi factory… except Nachi isn’t the complete company name. They’re registered as Fujikoshi, and, usually, go by Nachi-Fujikoshi. I bet answering the phone there is a breeze.
So far so Fuji. But why all these names? Well, “Nachi” is just a trademark, adopted after the Showa Emperor paid a visit to Osaka a hundred years ago. The Emperor was tootling around Japan aboard a Japanese cruiser, the Nachi, itself named for the Grand Shrine – Kumano Nachi Taisha – and so some enterprising person decided to name a sawblade in honour of the Emperor’s cruiser named after the Grand Shrine in Kumano and then the company was named after that sawblade which was named after a cruiser that was named after a shrine…
I told you it was convoluted.
The convolution doesn’t stop there either. Want to try and figure out what Fujikoshi actually means? Cool. Me too.
It’s the only Fuji on the list with these kanji: 不二越
The first two are the ‘Fuji’ part, so we know they don’t mean wisteria and they don’t mean the mountain. (Although I read somewhere that the first of these at least is part of older kanji for the mountain.)
If you go onto the company website in Japanese, you find out that the company founder, giddy with patriotic spirit, set up Fujikoshi so that Japanese industry would have some homegrown tools to better support it. So he chose the name “Nachi-Fujikoshi” to ‘express this goal’. (Never mind that the company was established one year before the Showa Emperor Nachi visit, but eh.)
It goes on to explain that the Fuji in Fujikoshi comes from Buddhist scripture and is way out of my comprehension zone, even with a dictionary and the best machine translation no money can buy. The vibe I’m getting is one of strength in adversity.
Putting all this together, then, Fujikoshi is basically an invented name that’s essentially like saying ‘This part of the world shall conquer all difficulties thrown at it.’
‘Koshi’ by contrast, is relatively easier to understand: it’s just the old name for Hokuriku, the region in which Toyama is situated.
I think. Anyone who can actually read is free to correct me as long as they do it nicely.
So with that out of the way, what can I tell you about Fujikoshi station?
Not much, to be honest. It’s a little one platform station run by Toyama Chiho Tetsudo who have some pretty funky looking trains; they also run the trams in the city. The public transportation was perhaps the most surprising thing about Toyama — there are three or four companies running services here (depends how you count the two JR companies, who are technically different entities, although that’s not always apparent.) Then there was the bewildering crisscross pattern of lines and directions to pay attention to: I got on the wrong train to get to Fujikoshi, had to double back, make a transfer and in the end, the connection gap was so long I just decided to walk a mile or so to get to my final destination.
Toyama itself was in full cherry blossom season, which brought a little bit of pink inflected cheer to an otherwise dull day. The park which surrounds the replica castle (now a museum) were a delight to wander around, after I’d decided to take a quick tram ride about the city. It’s a funny little place, Toyama; it feels like a small town that’s been smeared across an area that’s too big for it. It’s not an unwelcoming or unappealing city, even with the windchill. Rather, it just feels like it has its own peculiar rhythm that would take a while to get used to.
It would turn out that we’d all have to get used to quite a lot of unexpected things after Fujikoshi, as simultaneously everything and nothing changed.
My plans did a sharp right turn as British Airways would, not long after this trip, cancel my flight back to the United Kingdom. I was told I could rebook, but I couldn’t get an assurance that that flight wouldn’t just get cancelled too.
My doctor recommended I stay put due to some underlying health issues, so I took a look at my savings, my situation & state of mind and came to the conclusion that I was luckier than most.
So it would end up I’d have even more time to tackle the other six Fujis.
On the other hand, the uniquely Japanese lockdown that soon came into effect meant that it’d be another 4 months before non-essential puttering around the country seemed safe enough again.
#54 FUJIKOSHI GALLERY
FUJIS LEFT AT THE END OF MARCH 28th, 2020:
6/60
CityHillsAndSea 