Pine trees and lawn create a silent landscape
皇居の前に、黒松がたくさんあって、芝生は広いです。空っぽな感じがします。こんなに完璧な芝生を見ると、使われている有害な農薬のことを考えてしまいます。活気のない印象があります。
On the East Side of the Imperial Palace, there are hundreds of black pine trees in a vast field of lawn. Although the surrounding streets are full of cars, there’s an eery silence and emptiness in the park. Maybe it’s also the perfect quality of the lawn that also strikes me as life-less and full of harmful chemicals.
Your last sentence reminds me of how I feel while hiking in a monoculture sugi forest. No birdsong, no insects to be seen. It is little wonder that there have been an increase in bear and boar encounters with farmers. Little wonder the increase in fencing around rice and vegetable fields. The forests have been manicured to the point that there are no natural food sources for the bigger animals anymore. Sad.