Sunday, November 20, 2005 Like footprints along a lifetime journey, the people we meet leave us with enduring, sometimes long lived stirring impressions that open doors to worlds we never imagined. Each person I met in Japan could be a chapter in this little book. That’s it! I’d like to write a book about each person I met.
These are the remarkable people I met once upon a time in Japan. In gratitude the Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund which sponsored my first trip to Japan.
2:30 pm. Kyoko Jones was the first Japanese official to speak to our group of 200 American Educators, a total of 600 this year alone. Kyoko was the JFMF Program Director of our 20 day fellowship. We were clueless, she was patient, a model of good teaching.
At one of her many engagements with us she picked up the microphone to assist our learning of correct Japanese pronunciation:
“these words end with a long e sound like in Edward: karyoke, sake, karate.”
9:30 am Friday, November 25, 2005, 3rd Floor Tokyo Prince Hotel: Peace Education Seminar in the Golden Cup Meeting room.
Tomoko Yanagi, Teacher, Hiroshima Misuzugaoka High School.
It would take me 10 years to finally arrive in Hiroshima but it all started with Tomoko and Koji Ikeda’s presentations on Peace Education.
When I posted my Hiroshima video to YouTube I said: “Every politician in the world must visit Hiroshima Peace Park before taking office.”
Click on the video below.
Mr. Koji Ikeda
10:40 am. Since I was seated in the first row and since tears were streaming down my cheeks, I wanted to turn around to see if I was the only one crying. So I did.
8:16:02 am August 6, 1945
Koji Ikeda had just picked up his crying and always hungry baby. His wife had gone into the city, on her morning walk for groceries, she’d be back soon. It was August 6th, that moment a blast wave shattered his Hiroshima home. When he regained consciousness... “Where’s my baby?” “What happened to the house?” and “How long was I out?” and All that remained was piles of splinters and chards of wood where once stood his home. “Where is my baby?” Searching through the broken timber, Koji finally found his baby, but the hillside was a neighborhood of rubble.
Koji Ikeda Hiroshima Survivor, Keynote Speaker.
List of Articles to Read:
2005 Family Stay: 200 Japanese families host Japan Fulbright participants overnight providing American visitors with an enlightening experience with a Japanese family.
My first Family Stay was in Ohda Japan with Miyuki Hadano and her family.
Miyuki is an Anatomy Professor and Nurse, seen here with her children Kanae and Kazushi. Looking back at the 20 days of my first journey to Japan, the most memorable part of my experience was my stay with her family.
Miyuki arrived at our Japan Fulbright Family meeting in Ohda. Kyoko made announcements, and introductions were made. I was teamed with Miyuki because she taught anatomy to nurses and I taught Anatomy and Physiology at the high school level. It seemed we were all about to do something strange and new... seasoned with wonder. In a few minutes we were on our way to her home. For the first time in Japan I felt a sense of the unknown I’d never felt before. At that moment, Miyuki pulled off the street: “First we must stop to for sweet pastries.”
SIPPING TEA WITH BUDDHA
Miyuki’s Parents: Tokuji-san and Okuko-san were a authentically welcoming experience. I was seated warm and cozy on the floor, under their “kotatsu” at their family dinner table. (View an example of a kotatsu in the photo below. Now imagine it's heated fabric draped over your lap, inviting all to stay and bask in it's warmth.)
Tokuji-san motioned for me to follow his movements. He took a sip of tea. Then a nibble of pastry. I did the same. He said: “Tea bitter,” and another bite of pastry. He repeated the pairing. “Bitter... sweet. Like life.” Ah... so this is having tea with Buddha. I'd never imagined Buddha at home with a complete family, but it makes sense.
Photo credit: https://japanobjects.com/features/kotatsu
Miuki’s dad Tokuji-san with his grandson son
Miyuki Black BeltYoshihiro Morita, Science Teacher at Nara Super Science High School and ____ _____ also at the same school.
2006 Akiko Murakami
2015 Yoshio and Akiko Murikami
It was Akiko who I asked if she knew how I might find a Home Stay near Nara. She mentioned my request to her father Yoshio (photo left) who knew exactly where I should go for my home stay.
They picked me up at the Nara train station and drove me to the Tanaka Family Stay in Asuka Village about 40 minutes south of Nara station. The city scape becomes the country side, moves more fluid like. We pull up to a large home even though I’ve been told that Japanese homes are tiny. This home is not.
Takako and Yuji Tanaka move at the center of this family and when their daughter got married, they built an adjoining home so the grandchildren are part of a three generation household. Across the lane is their families vegetable garden. I will see Yuji and Takako tending to their garden in the years to come. That’s the way life ought to be.
Starting with my HomeStay in Asuka Village near Nara Japan.
Megumi Matsukawa (seated), and her dad Yuji Tanaka (standing), receive me with an earnest and warm welcome. She teaches junior high school, he’s on the board of education. The family gathers, they listen closely as I share my mother’s story and my quest to find the land of her ancestors.
After dinner I show their family my mother’s family tree. At the end of the evening Yuji asks to borrow that document.
In the morning, over breakfast Yuji Tanaka gives me a brilliant conceived introductory document written in Japanese, with an infographic showing me and my mother and Jotaro and Taka Kobayakawa, whose families I’m hoping to find. It’s a long shot at best, but as I was soon to discover, it was an amazing key for my quest. You see, my command of Japanese is so scant, making genealogical headway would be one millimeter short of impossible. Instead Yuji-san and given be the clearest single page document in Japanese that all I had to do is hand it to the clerk at the counter or anyone else and they would instantly know what I needed without me stumbling through a linguistically foggy explanation. If you know of someone tracing their geneaology in Japan show them this page, Finding Your Japanese Ancestors.
The next morning Takako Tanaka drives me to Asuka Train Station and I’m off for Niimi, in the prefecture of Okayama, the land of my ancestors via the city of Okayama where I find the hotel Shinichi has reserved in my name just a short walk from the Okayama Station.
Documents in hand, I board a train. All I know is that the next step of my quest requires a visit to Niimi and the word 市役所 shiyakusho.
Shiyakusho is the Japanese word for City Hall where I hope to find geneaological links to my ancestral family. I present my family document to a clerk who points me to the correct window where I present it again. Soon Sohji Ishihara is called from upstairs because his English is excellent. He tells me right away that his Ishihara family is not related to my mother’s Ishihara family here in Niimi. His ancestors are the Okinawa Ishiharas.
It takes four hours to find a connection.
I want to thank the four researchers, but it would be impolite to invite the three ladies to dinner. So I turn to Sohji and tell him I want to take him to dinner. He pauses for a few seconds and says: “No.”
“I’ll take you home, we’ll have dinner with my father.” A door to my future was about to open.
Yuji and Sohji Ishihara, his colleagues and family
Yuji knew that we could find land ownership historical documents at Niishi City Hall in the next little town. After breakfast, and a short drive, Yuji presented The city clerk with my genealogy documents who was quick to bring out out archival large format property maps books from the early 1900’s. We found Jotaro and Taka Kobayakawa’s land and were given directions. The house had been replaced by a large rice field but this was definitely the land where my grandparents walked. This photo captured Yuji saying: “This is the land of your ancestors.” I looked up at the forest covered mountains surrounding the valley and thought: “This is what my grandparents saw when they lived on this land. This is the land I came to find.”
Yuji Ishihara was a genius who like Sherlock Holmes knew how to introduce me to this man who would literally point me to the building where I’d find the first member of my ancestral family living in Japan
Click below for Yuji’s short documentary.
Kyoko Kobayakawa listens as Yuji explains our visit.
Kyoko Kobayakawa (lower right) and family
Today I met eight descendants of my mother’s ancestral family. “Where ever buddhists go, where ever she is, she’s happy to meet them with me.”
In a few days I will meet Mio in Hiroshima and Kimiko Nakada in Tokyo. She will introduce me to Masuo Kobayakawa and family
Ninjaologist Hiroshi Ikeda joined us at the Tanaka’s Home Stay in Asuka Village. From him we learned about the real side of Ninja’s.
Hollywood ninja images are incomplete and therefore off the mark. For example: “only the inept ninjas fight, the good one’s are invisible, they slip into your village unheard and never seen” and are gone without a breeze. This episode of Japanology Plus features Hiroshi. Click HERE for an informative 27 minute Ninja video.
2019
2020
Nine trip summary.
- Japan 1. November 20-December 8, 2015 Japan Fulbright Fellowship (20 days in Japan) Tokyo, Ohda schools, and first ryokan.
- Japan 2. July 2006 International High School Science Collaboration with Nara Super Science High School. Kyoto and Nara where we meet Akiko Murakami.
- Japan 3. August 19-September 8, 2015 The Ancestral Journey. Narita, Nara, Akido, Asuka Village, Okayama City, Hiroshima, and Niimi where I meet Sohji, Yuji and their family and 9 descendants of our ancestral family.
- Japan 4. October 21-October 30, 2015 Tokyo, Asuka Village, Niimi, Ishihara stay, Tatara Samurai Festival.
- Japan 5. January 18-27, 2016 Pre Honeymoon Trip with Patricia to Tokyo, Shinjuku Kabukicho, Mori & Nezu Museums, Akiko and Tonpopo, Miwa Mountain of 1,000 shrines, Asuka Village, Atami and on to Sydney.
- Japan 6 March 30-April 8, Tokyo, Okayama, Niimi Kobayakawas, Kurashiki, Ueno and Tokyo where Kimiko Nakada introduces me to Masuo, the 9th descendant of our ancestral family.
- Japan 7. March 17, 2017 Proposal Trip with Patricia, Osaka Mokumeganea Ring, Asuka Kimono, Nara Knife Store, Kyoto Heian Shrine, Kurashiki and last visit with Yuji Ishihara and the new baby, back to Tokyo to visit Tama and Musashino Universities. Second Masuo family visit with luncheon, resized engagement ring from Kyoto finds us in Tokyo.
- Japan 8 April 2018 with Patricia to Tokyo 8 days, + Niimi visit Yuji’s graveside w Buddhist priest. and visit w Futoshi Kobayakawa and family.
- Japan 9. March 30-April 9, 2019 Wedding trip Patricia, Chuckie, Jim, Bill, Alexandra, Sakura Shinto Wedding with Megumi, Sohji and Masuo’s family.
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