Story #6: [Passage of Time] Urashima Tarō, the boy who left home for three hundred years

There has been a surge in the popularity of time travel stories in recent movies and online fiction. Typically the main character is magically transported back in time to the past or a major historical event. The story then follows the actions of this character who now has the benefit of hindsight; on how they will use their knowledge of the future to extract revenge or to seek redemption from their greatest regrets.

It is perhaps superficial, but reading a few of these online novels started me thinking about my own life. What if I was given the chance to re-live the past couple of years again? Do I regret anything? Would I act in a different manner? My answer can only be an unequivocal “yes”.

Yes, I would have treated some people better and in a more considerate manner. Yes, there are other things more important to me than my pride. Yes, I would have approached my career differently. But sadly unlike those fictional characters, I cannot travel back in time to change the past. My only comfort is that I can still change the future. And that is what I am determined to do, hopefully as a wiser and kinder person.

The story that I want to share today is the famous Japanese folktale of Urashima Tarō, which I think shares a few similar points to the American tale of Rip Van Winkle.

This story begins with a kind hearted boy (Urashima Tarō) rescuing a magical turtle from being stranded ashore when he was fishing one day. In gratitude for saving his life, the turtle carried the boy on his back to the underwater kingdom below to give him a tour of the underwater world. When wandering around, he met a mermaid princess and fell in love.

Enraptured by the wonders of the deep and out of love for the mermaid princess, he decided to remain for three days to see the rest of the underwater kingdom. On the third day, the mermaid princess wept and begged for him not to leave but to no avail. When she realised that he was determined to go, she handed him a tiny box studded with precious stones and told him to carry the box with him at all times when he was back on land but warned him to not open the box or a terrible misfortune will befall him.

Bidding the mermaid princess farewell, he hopped on the back of the turtle again and arrived back to the same beach that he left. Strangely although the physical landscape looked familiar, he could not recognise the buildings or any person in his village!

He started to ask people on the street whether they knew where his family now lived or whether they had heard of his name. Astonished by his questions, people told him that nobody with that family name now lived in the village — the last time a family with that surname lived there was at least a hundred years ago! As for his name, the villagers scratched their heads and said that they vaguely remember that a boy with that name had gone missing and vanished without a trace a few hundred years ago.

Finally realising that each day he spent in the underwater was the equivalent of a hundred years passing in the human realm, he returned to the beach and threw himself down in despair. Remembering he still had the box that the mermaid princess gave him, he opened the box despite her warnings. As soon as he opened the box, he is instantly turned into an old man because it was Age itself that was trapped inside the box.

The folktale ends without further clarity or explanation on what the moral of the story is. But I think it is this: time passes and things change regardless of whether you are aware of it or not. It’s neither a good nor a bad thing, it is merely that — it happens.