/lit/ - Literature

>>23438192
When I spent a month volunteering in the Hokkaido countryside, one of the other non-Japanese people there was an Italian girl, who mentioned, very soon after getting to know her, that her middle name was Brunhilde because her dad was a fan of Wagner. She did have a certain Teutonic bulk to her.

I remember, as we sat at the outdoor tables by the life-size plastic Doraemon, how she brought out her English dictionary specifically to show me the entry for 'liberal'. 'Someone with progressive politics,' was the definition, and her dad had written 'Wrong!' in the margins. She seemed to think this was very profound.

The volunteering work was ostensibly about ecological improvement (we were literally picking up roadside litter on some days), so part of the programme involved a talk from this weeb expat scientist who worked on conservation in the area. When he briefly said something critical about nuclear power, she immediately, indignantly, objected, citing the arguments of her Wagnerian dad, who is apparently a high-level engineer in the Italian energy industry. I had visions of him standing fascistically atop massive dams.

One day we had no work scheduled, so she and I and an affable French guy decided to cycle up a steep wooded hill nearby. Before we left, the old Japanese man who was supervising us took me aside, very gravely, and said something to the effect of: 'Keep an eye on the fat girl. Make sure she doesn't over-exert herself.' But I was the first to get tired, and halfway up the hill I turned back and left them to continue the trail.

After the month was over, and we went back to our home countries, I saw on Facebook that she and the affable French guy had started dating. I wonder what happened up on that hill. Anyway, those are my memories of Brunhilde.