A Boat Thinks That...
The following speech won 1st place in the Honjo Yuri Recitation and Speech Contest 2018. It was written by Shinsuke Kijima from Honjo Higashi Junior High School. (All grammatical mistakes are in the original.)
A Boat Thinks That...
Hello, everyone. I'm a white boat. I am a boat for racing, and about 7 meters long. I have a friend, Shinsuke who is a boat racer of 15 years old. You can find us on the Koyoshi River practicing boat racing. We live in Honjo which is called "A Town of Boats", however many people in this city have never tried boats and don't know anything about them. In Shinsuke's school, not only the students but also their teachers and parents have never tried it. Although there is a boat building, Aqua Pal, how many people try it? Why our town is called "A Town of Boats?"
Boats were historically important in Honjo. In Edo Period, my ancestors were once trading boats, which carried a lot of products from Yashima using the Koyoshi River, Honjo was a very important hub for trading. For example, the big trading ship called Kitamae-bune from Hokkaido often came to the Furuyuki or Ishiwaki Port carrying a lot of herrings. If people could trade something, the port could welcome that ship. Also the other Kitamae-bune from Osaka which carried sugar, salt, old clothes, reached there. Instead, they had to carry rice and wood as a tribute for the emperor. The Koyoshi River was the most convenient way to carry them from Yashima to Honjo.
After the Edo period, the style of boats had amazingly changed. People did not use boats anymore, because they used the new road instead of boats. In the 35th year of the Meiji Era, the first boat club was established in Honjo High School because boats were still familiar with people in Honjo. They began to use boats, not for trading, but for racing. The students have practiced racing on the Kiyoshi River, and became much stronger, eventually winning the national high school championship 16 times! Shinsuke's father was one of them. I'm very proud of that, and now I think Shinsuke has a chance to inherit the dream from his father. I was born for their dream.
Shinsuke started rowing me 3 years ago. His father always teaches us using a motor boat following us. Shinsuke likes to see a lot of wildlife from me, such as birds catching fish, or snakes swimming in the river, and look up at the bridge from there. Training for boat racing is very hard; Shinsuke usually rows 9 kilometers a day, even if it's really hot, cold, or windy. When the weather isn't good, he has to do weight training inside, such as 3 reps of 10 pull ups, 100 sit ups, and using a rowing machine for 20 minutes. But almost every day, we have a great time together and share the same goal: to become a national champion.
Do you know anything about boat racing? If you use two paddles, you say "Scull". If one person rides on a boat, you say "Single Scull", and if two people ride on it, you say "Double Scull". Shinsuke is a Single Scull racer. Single Scull is more dangerous because it's difficult to balance properly. In July, Shinsuke finished his last race. To be a national champion, we needed to finish in 3 minutes 40 seconds, however we finished in 16th place; in 3 minutes 56 seconds. Because he rowed at too fast a pace, he felt so tired that he lost speed and gave up in the middle of that race. He cried and cried because he felt very disappointed. I felt sorry that his dream didn't come true this year, but I hope he'll try again in high school.
Now he has another dream that more people living here become interested in boats. If 5 members go to the Aqua Pal, the boat instructor will teach "Knuckle 4" which is the easiest boat for beginners. Also, he hopes that the Koyoshi River will become a famous leisure spot for boats which families or tourists can enjoy boat riding on holidays. Shinsuke and I want to help. I'm a racing boat. Shinsuke and I will continue to compete in the boat race next summer, and we'll continue rowing together carrying our new dream, in "the Town of Boats".
