木村：ずいぶん古い型のファックスを使っていらっしゃいますね。
田中：ええ、このごろ故障ばかりしていて、いよいよがたがきた
ようです。
Gata ga kuru
Kimura: Zuibun furui kata no fakkusu wo tsukatte irasshaimasu ne.
Tanaka: Ee kono goro koshoo bakari shite tie, iyo-iyo gata ga kita yoo desu.
Kimura: That fax you're using is quite an old model, isn't it?
Tanaka: Yes, it's always breaking down on me lately. Seems as
if it's finally on its last legs.
Gata ga kuru is what happens to machines when they get so old that theyno longer work properly and break down. This phrase is said tohave come from the onomatopoeic expression gata-gata, the noise made by hard things knocking against each other. In my family, we bought a fax machine before they really became as popular as they are today. We paid something like \8,000 a month for five years, which amounts to over \400,000 in the end.
It wasa good machine and served us well, but toto gata ga kite shimatta (it eventually gave up the ghost). One day, the power suddenly went off in mid-fax, and it never moved again. When we took it to be repaired, we were told, "Gata ga kitara, kai kaeta ho ga toku desu yo" (When they get old and unreliable like this, you're better off buying a new one).
I was told that it would cost around \30,000 to get it repaired. Gata ga kite wa suteru shika not (When they start breaking down, you can't do much other than throw them out). I know it was only a machine, but I somehow felt kind of sorry for it when in the end we had to throw it out.
Looking around the shops, though, I was surprised to see that fax machines are available from \40,000 these days. That's one-tenth of the price we paid for ours. And what's more, they come complete with built-in answering machines and various other functions. Fax machines are said to be most popular in Japan.
The expression gata ga kuru can be used to refer to people, too. It would sound very poignant, for instance, if someone complaining of back pains were to say, "Ningen gata ga kitara oshimai desu ne" (When your body starts giving up on you ifs the beginning of the end, isn't it?)
Like machines, all human beings get old. But people cannot be replaced with others, which is all the more reason to care about one another.