記憶 Kioku , 思い出 Omoide /Memory

Abstract

記憶 / Kioku / 思い出 / Omoide / Memory Mariko Asano Tamanoi “Wanted: Your memories of (what happened on) August 5 th ” (hachigatsu itsuka no kioku motomu). Some time in early September of 2004, while walking near the train station in suburban Tokyo, I caught this phrase, written on a poster pasted to a glass window of a small police box (kōban). Apparently, a mother and her daughter were gruesomely murdered on August 5 th , yet the suspect had not been apprehended: hence, the reason that local police officers were still in search of witnesses who could provide their kioku— memories—to them. Imagine that a witness responds to this poster and visits the police station to be interviewed. His or her narratives will appear most probably fragmentary. Nevertheless, the one who hears this witness, a police officer, and eventually a prosecutor or a lawyer, will record his or her memories in quite a different language from the one that the witness used—definitive and causal statements that have claim for truth. Kioku, then, are more likely the fragments of the witness‟s memory in this case, the reason why the term generates such combined words as kioku yōryō (the amount of kioku to keep), kioku sōchi (the device for keeping kioku), or kioku jutsu (mnemonics). Kioku, however, represents only one term that suggests “memory.” Another is omoide, which usually presents a seamless narrative of the person who remembers in an open-ended manner. Omoide belongs to this person even though he or she can share it with his or her audience. Yet, both kioku-suru (a verb form of kioku) and omoidasu (a verb form of omoide) signify “to remember.” English too has terms other than