Photo/Illutration A Japanese 1,000 yen bill and U.S. banknotes are seen in this illustration taken on March 10, 2023. (REUTERS)

“Did you really love me at all?”

This is the famous final line of “Orinposu no Kajitsu” (The Fruits of Olympus) by novelist Hidemitsu Tanaka (1913-1949).

Published in 1940, this tale of unrequited first love is my all-time favorite youth novel that tears at my heart every time I read it.

Set in 1932, the story unfolds aboard a passenger liner carrying Japanese athletes who will be competing in the Los Angeles Summer Olympics that year.

The protagonist, a rower nicknamed Daihan—a combination of “dai” (big) and how the first kanji character of his surname, Sakamoto, is pronounced—develops a crush on a female high jumper.

His clumsy puppy love of more than 90 years ago is still refreshingly endearing today.

When I reread it recently, my attention was caught by something I’d never paid mind to before.

It is a scene where Daihan misplaces his wallet containing 150 dollars, said to be about 450 yen.

Now that the yen is rapidly falling in value, I couldn’t help mumbling to myself, “Wow, a dollar was about 3 yen back then.”

Needless to say, a simple comparison is meaningless, and the currency value has changed drastically over time.

Back then, a carpenter’s daily wages were 2 yen in Tokyo, according to one book I consulted. And in the United States, a notebook bound in red chamois leather, which Daihan bought in Hawaii, cost 50 cents.

Come to think of it, money is a truly strange thing. It changes with time and generates value. Some people come into money without doing anything, while others lose it through no fault of their own.

In my case, I keep uttering sighs of resignation nowadays, seeing the prices of goods rising because of the weak yen.

In the book, Daihan composes a poem to this effect, “An apricot’s mildly bitter taste remains on my tongue/ Like my first love.”

Reciting this aloud with my eyes closed, I forget about the unpredictable fluctuations of foreign exchange rates for now and think about something that will never change over time.

—The Asahi Shimbun, May 1

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.