My childhood was filled with endless days of play, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that I grew up freely and unrestrained  in the rural countryside of western Shizuoka Prefecture. As I mentioned before, I truly believed that foxes could trick humans. This was because the adults around me enjoyed telling convincing lies to scare us. For example, they would say things like this: “Not long ago, someone went up the mountain to collect firewood and loaded it onto a cart. They started heading home, but no matter how far  they walked, they never reached their house. When dawn broke, they realized that they had been going in circles the whole time, and the tracks left  on the ground formed a perfect loop.”

“I must have been deceived by a fox.” Or, “An old lady living nearby stepped into a cesspit, saying, ‘The water is just right.'” Hearing such stories, I truly believed that foxes were terrifying creatures—the most fearsome beings in this world. I became so frightened that I told my father about it, and even he said, “That might be true,” which pushed my fear to its limit. Seeing my distress,  my father finally scolded me, saying, “How could a four-legged creature possibly deceive a human?” Even so, I remained half-convinced, and since the idea of being tricked still scared me, I made sure to always return home before nightfall.  My friends, who also feared foxfire, must have felt the same way, always heading home as the sun set.

I clearly remember visiting the Hamamatsu City Zoo when it first opened, around the time I was about to enter elementary school. I went there with  my cousin, who lived in the city, and an aunt from my extended family.  As a child, I was amazed to see so many different kinds of animals existing in this world. As we walked through the zoo, observing one creature after  another, I suddenly noticed smelly and filthy small animal. When I asked my older cousin what it was, she told me it was a fox. I had never been more confused than at that moment.

Thirty years passed, and after temporarily returning to Japan from South America, I got married and went on my honeymoon to Kyoto and Nara.  During the trip, we stopped by a shrine. At this Inari Shrine, foxes were enshrined with great dignity as messengers of the gods.  As I kept looking at it, I started to feel irritated. So, I took the shrine guidebook I was holding in one hand and slapped the  side of the fox statue’s face with it. My newlywed wife, witnessing this, was utterly shocked. Seeing her reaction, I began telling her just how much trouble foxes had caused me in my childhood For some reason, she listened to my ridiculous story with a surprisingly serious expression.

Since then, my wife has accompanied this ridiculous husband without complaint, even on trips to South America and Oceania. From her  perspective, it might very well be an enormous inconvenience. However, this way of life, rooted in nature, is my basic. Gathering deadwood in the mountain to make charcoal, then grilling the thigh meat of  a freshly caught edible frog—such flavors were so unbelievably delicious that I could hardly believe anything in the world  could taste better. It is an experience I will never forget.