In search of TABI NI

I have in my possession one of the most wonderful books ever written. It is a children's book called Tsumiki no Ie. The first word, tsumiki, means building blocks and it's supposed to evoke an image of a house that is built of many different things put together. It's translated at The House of Small Cubes, or in French, La Maison en Petits Cubes. Since that's the translation of the creator, you can hardly argue with it.

The book is actually based on this short animation here:

As you can see, there is no surprise why this won a lot of awards. Strangely, and maybe this is because I'm so in love words I ought to just get it over with and marry them, I prefer the children's story... with... you know... words.

Unsurprisingly, that's where we are going to find our grammar point! If you chose not watch the video, I'll put the story in a nutshell. An old man's house begins to flood, and he has to build another house on the roof of his old one to stay dry. He drops his pipe and he has to go scuba diving to find it. In the children's book, it's the tools he's using to build the house though I'm exactly sure why there was a change. While he dives, you discover that this is not the first time he has built on top of his former house in an effort not to drown. As he goes through each level of his former houses, he remembers what had happened in them. The book has more detail for each level, such as a carnival, the day his daughter married, and the day they lost their family cat. Every scene, with it's simple wording, it filled with such nostalgia. I'm not ashamed to say that this book makes me cry every time I read it.

Okay... I'm a little ashamed. But not much.

But if you're wondering if the book is no good since it's based on an animation, like all of those awful Disney novels, I have to stop you! And it's all thanks to speaking French! I knew EVENTUALLY that would come in handy.  The credits at the end say that Kenya Hirata came up with the idea for the animation. When I look at the cover of my book, it says he wrote it (and it very specifically says 文). Thus, I must suspect that this was the original concept with the conceptual illustrations before it was made into a silent film, where the lack of words really brings home how alone the old man is.

For those of you who haven't peeked at the blog post's title yet today's grammar point is TABI NI. And it is found on this page:

Do you notice something... a bit odd? Like the fact that there are spaces... and no kanji? This is the typical way to write children's books. Unfair. I know, right? We at this level have to deal with kanji. But, since reading hiragana by itself is quite confusing, they added spaces in so you could know where the words were instead of trying to piece it together yourself. When you think about it that way, you start to get a little grateful for kanji.

So the sentence says:

したのいえへ　したのいえへ　
もぐっていくたびに、　
どのいえにも　どのいえにも
おもいでが    のこていました。
Shita no ie he Shita no ie hemogutteiku tabi ni,dono ie ni mo dono ie ni moomoide de ga nokoteimashita.

TABE NI means "whenever", as in "Whenever I study, I get hungry" (which is true, by the way). The translation of the book definition is "When you do something, this always happens". The way you use it is:

• Dictionary form of verb + TABI NI

or

• Noun + NO + TABI NI

Now that that's out of the way, let look at the line that has the grammar point:

もぐっていくたびに
Whenever he dove.

Easy, right? Let's add on the next bit that's important:

おもいでが のこていました。
The memories would go with him.

So, the whole page would sort of go like this:

Lower and lower. Whenever he dove to the houses below, no matter which house, no matter which house, the memories would ride with him.

Not as pretty in English, but still quite beautiful right? I'd love to translate the whole book, I really would, but something tells me that's copyright infringement. So, take what you have, and enjoy the animation, okay? Maybe, some day, you'll see this at stores with my name as translator on it. Unlikely, but a girl can hope, right?

I should also mention that I do think that this is some sort of comment on global warming, despite the fact I have no evidence my heart and my gut to back that up. Sadly, those two are not always reliable, especially one one of them (I won't name names) is hungry. It is either that, or a metaphor about rural towns where the youth all move away, leaving the towns to their ghosts. I should know... I lived in one of those. And the worst part is knowing that the places where I worked, and the people I knew, most of them are no longer there... I wonder if I don't feel a little like the old man.