==JAPAN: KM== [Family]

I am walking in the green, going through the weeds and looking around very carefully especially around the trees which were rotten or nearly rotten. Then I suddenly hear someone yell. Where did the voice come from? I wonder what has happened or if he or she has found something strange or good or bad, so I go toward the voice, going up a steep path where a lot of tall weeds grow. As I get near the voice, I find a few people gathering there who were picking up something. When I recognize the voice, I realize that it is my grandmother's and she is with my relatives and family. Then she says with a smile, "I found a group of mushrooms "Nezuminote" here so there may be more of this type. Let's look around for more mushrooms." Again, we go off to another place for hunting.
Every autumn all my family, my relatives and my grandmother go to the mountains where we have often gone. It sometimes takes us 2 or 3 hours to get there. Why are we so interested in mushrooms?
About 15 years ago, one fine day in autumn my uncle named "Niiyan" said, "Would you mind going with me to Mt.Omine for picking mushrooms?" Then, we did not know about mushrooms and we were not interested in them but we had no plan that day so we decided to go with him. He was born in the peaceful country around the mountains. He said, "As a child I often would go fishing in the river, climbing mountains to pick up something to eat, for example "Akebi","Kiichigo",c,etc. He loves his natural environment and his hometown so he has studied and gotten a lot of knowledge about the sea, rivers mountains, and history of the area where we live. And he also has a good knowledge of mushrooms! So he wanted to take us out to mountains, pick up mushrooms with us and try to tell us something very important. He told us about many kinds of mushrooms, for example, Nezuminote, Aburashimeji, Tengutake, Iguchi, Hokoritakec, etc. He was our teacher. Every time we found a new mushroom, we took it to him and asked whether it was edible or not and what it was called.
He usually knew what kind of mushroom it was or had eaten it before, but as we went many times, we sometimes found mushrooms that he did not know or he was not sure about. So we began to study by ourselves by consulting dictionaries about mushrooms. Then we became what I call "students of mushroom". As we got more knowledge, we knew that most of the mushrooms were unknown to everyone. Each mushroom that we can eat is very healthy and has its own flavor. For instance, the Iguchi, whose top is brown, is bitter when it grows up. But when it is small, it is not so bitter and we like the small ones. After we eat mushroom, we will be in good shape. They make a lot of powers available to us. Mushrooms are not so investigated, so there are a lot of possibilities that attract us very much.
I have gotten three things from going mushroom hunting in the mountains. First, we enjoy picking up many kinds, sometimes coming across strange types. For instance there's the Hokoritake which is white but after a few days turns gray and discharges something like dust if we pluck the top off. In this way, various kinds catch our interest. What I get from mushrooms is pleasure, pure and simple.
Secondly, as we usually go deep in the mountains, we often run across some wild animals. We have gotten a lot of knowledge about the patterns of animal behavior. After a rainy day, snakes are likely to hide in the weeds and I can distinguish the tracks of monkeys. So even if such kinds of animals are near us, we know what we should do to protect ourselves from them.
Thirdly, we can get deeply in touch with our natural environment and know about life in the mountains. If I had not gone picking up mushrooms, I would not know about or have gotten interested in the living things in the mountains. Mushrooms gave me a chance to realize how great the natural environment is. In a particular spot we will find nothing, but if we go back just one week later, some mushrooms will magically be growing there.
Now I realize that what my uncle wanted to tell me is how great the beauties of nature are and he gave me a hint for living a rich life!


"Getting It Together"

We usually have some experiences other people don't have. I thought it would be a good topic, because many people don't know about mushrooms so much and it could attract their attention. When we write the essay on this kind of topics, we must describe the details because many people have no knowledge of the subject. However, as many people don't know about them, we need good expression skills and adequate knowledge of the topic. So I wonder if my essay is good or not. It is very difficult to write the essay of this kind. But I got a great satisfaction from writing if. And I got confidence in writing English!