After our time in Tokyo, we caught a train to Nagoya where we would see Priya’s second cousin. I was looking forward to taking a short break from tourism to have a home cooked meal and enjoy a slice of regular Japanese life.
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Mt. Fuji?
Around midday we caught the high-speed train headed southwest. The route is gorgeous even if you have cloudy weather as we did. On a clear day it must be stunning.
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| Beautiful area even if we didn't get to see the full mountain |
Within a few kilometers of leaving Tokyo, you approach the foothills of Mt. Fuji to the north. The tracks weave in and out of towns and through the occasional tunnel. The ocean is to the left and hills are on the right. On this day, Mt. Fuji was obscured by clouds except for the base. We would need to return to Tokyo on this same train so we hoped that we might have better luck next week. Unlikely since rain is predicted and Typhoon Champi is headed straight for Japan. Seeing the famous mountain in all its glory may need to wait until our next trip.
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Kyoko and the family
Kyoko was waiting for us on the train platform in Nagoya. I have seen her on a video call, but we’ve never met. Priya hadn’t seen her for years. She’s not originally from Nagoya and has only lived there less than four years. She confessed that she doesn’t know the city that well.
Her grandfather and Priya’s (Katsuichi) were siblings and were born and raised in Wakayama (south of Osaka). Their mother apparently died young and their father was abusive. Katsuichi, the eldest of the brothers, born in 1896, apparently looked after his younger siblings, including Kyoko’s grandfather. Kyoko had such kind words to say, not only about Priya’s grandfather but also her mother and father.In fact, she had recently visited Priya's mother in the US fairly recently.
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Digression - The Story of Katsuichi
Katsuichi’s story is interesting enough that his personal journals were purchased by the Duke University archive of valuable documents (we accessed/scanned them a few years ago). I won't go into it too much here, and there's a lot I haven't researched yet, but it is worth mentioning given that his journey is an important backdrop to our trip to Japan. It is also something I intend to explore further more when I have time.
Japanese history, particularly from the 17th century onward is fascinating. It's even more interesting to me to explore my wife's family's connection to it. Very briefly, under the Tokugawa shogunate (Edo period 1603-1867) Japan enforced a strictly isolationist policy that completely prohibited Japanese from leaving the country and barred almost all foreigners from entering. In the latter part of the ban, a son of a samurai and budding scholar named Jo Neesima, inspired by what he had learned about the Western world, defied the ban to travel to the US in the interest of furthering his education. He spent ten years in America where he learned English, furthered his studies, and converted to Christianity (extremely rare among Japanese at the time). After the isolationist policies were lifted, he returned to Japan with the motivation of founding a university.
Katsuichi attended this new university and was inspired by Neesima to also immigrate to the US. He made the bold move in the early 1920s. I'm not sure exactly when but it had to have been prior to the US Congress passing the Immigration Act of 1924 which effectively banned all immigration from Japan until 1952.
It’s not clear where life began in the US but it was likely that it was either southern Idaho or northern Utah. It's also not clear why but it's likely that he was serving as a teacher to Japanese immigrants, particularly those who had relocated to the area to work on the railroads in the mines. It was an interesting choice given that sentiment towards the Japanese wasn't very positive during this time. Idaho was passing legislation to put restrictions on them, including an Alien Land Law in 1923 barring Japanese immigrants from owning land. It was there, in 1928, that he married Yoniko (aka Yone) Kawai. Though they were married near Ogden, Utah, the marriage certificate lists them as residents of Idaho Falls.
Priya's father was born in Idaho Falls later that year. It is a remarkable coincidence that Priya (born and raised in India) and I met in Tanzania, and her father (son of an immigrant from Japan) and I were born about 160 miles from each other. In 2008 I was able to take him to his place of birth for the first time in nearly 80 years. It was a bit underwhelming, as one might expect, given that the hospital is long gone. In its place is an LDS Temple.
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| 2008 |
In the mid-1930s, the family moved to southern California where there was a large Japanese immigrant population. In 1942, the dark chapter began as Katsuichi and his family, including Priya’s 14-year-old father, were uprooted by the War Relocation Authority (WRA) and taken to the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona during for the remainder of World War II where Katsuichi served as a Baptist pastor.
After the war, and their subsequent release from the interment camp, the family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. It is there that Priya’s father would pursue his medical studies at Case-Western University, eventually becoming a surgeon and subsequently practicing medicine in northern India for the next 30 years.
It’s a lineage that shifts from one continent to the next, from a man raised in Japan, to a son raised in the US, to a granddaughter raised in India, to great-granddaughters raised in East Africa. And we come full circle to our girls to travel to Japan to explore the world of their great-grandfather.
End of digression.
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Nagoya
After a brief greeting with Kyoko on the train platform, we began weaving our way through the train station crowds to our hotel, adjacent to the train station. Kyoko had kindly arranged it for us and it ended up being the ideal place for us to be based.
Nagoya felt bigger than I expected. Our hotel room was in a shiny, new building on the 18th floor. We checked in and quickly grabbed a taxi to visit the only tourist objective that we had for this stop – the Nagoya Castle.
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Nagoya Castle
We didn’t have much time given that it was already 3:40pm and the castle stops allowing entry at 4:30. We piled into two taxis and within fifteen minutes we were at the entrance to the castle. Part of the reason that we were trying to squeeze in the visit on day one in Nagoya was that it was expected to be rainy the next day (and indeed it was). The nice thing about visiting a tourist destination at the end of the day is that there are fewer crowds. There were no queues and few tourists getting in the way of the photos.
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The castle dates back to the early 1600s and the beginning of the Tokugawa shogunate. If you've read the book or seen the movie/series called Shogun, it's more or less based on this period. As I mentioned before, it was a fascinating part of Japanese history and I can see why it would provide inspiration for a book.
Nagoya sits on a narrow passage of the island and its geographical location was historically important as Tokugawa asserted control over all of what is now Japan. The castle grounds are among the largest in Japan.
The backdrop of WWII
Japan is full of wonderful historical areas that were flattened during World War II. You could spend a lot of time lamenting the poor leadership choices that led to what happened, but the bottom line is that the devastation wreaked havoc that is felt throughout the country even to this day, and not only for the country’s historical heritage.
In fact, Nagoya was considered to be a big target for allied forces due to the presence of the large Mitsubishi plant. Mitsubishi was a key player in the nation's wartime economy through its supply of ships, weapons and aircraft, including the famous A6M Zero fighter. Production of these armaments made Mitsubishi factories one of the main targets for Allied attacks, and in one factory the death toll among its workers amounted to 494 in a week. Mitsubishi Mining was also involved in the forced labor of Allied prisoners of war and people from Japan's colonies and occupied territories.
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| Nagoya after the 1945 air raids |
To make matters worse for the historical heritage, during the war the castle was used as the Tokai district army headquarters and the administration office of the Nagoya POW camp. The Japanese military mistakenly believed that Allied forces would refrain from targeting historical landmarks. There was no refraining as aerial bombardments of Nagoya by the US Army Air Forces brought destruction to the city, to the castle and much of the city's history.
Once again, the buildings are gorgeous but much of what you see today was recreated in the wake of the Second World War.
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Home-cooked meal
After the visit to the castle, we took a taxi back to the train station and then caught the train to Kyoko’s apartment near the outskirts of Nagoya. She rents in a very basic apartment building that was constructed after WWII in the push to provide much needed housing. She admittedly is happy to live simply and save some money to buy her own place in a few years, one that will take pets.
Prior to entering the flat, I was warned that the doorways are not made to accommodate people like me. Indeed, I needed to duck when moving from one room to the next. It was tiny but functional.
Kyoko is warm, interesting and has a sharp sense of humor. It was fascinating to get her observations about Japan and the Japanese. She has spent quite a bit of time outside the country. She worked for Nissan at their North American HQ in Tennessee. She spent time in Switzerland not far from where I used to live. I do feel as though it’s easier to reflect on your home country after spending time away from it. You see things that are difficult or impossible to see from within.
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| the second course |
The table was set when we arrived. She had done most of the food preparations in advance, so it wasn’t long before we were tucked in to a great meal of some sort of Japanese stew, rice, salad, etc. This was followed by some sushi that was delivered as we finished our main course. After sushi was a selection of wonderful fruit. We were so full we could barely walk.
Prior to leaving, I needed to make a quick stop to the loo. In the process, I learned yet another quirk of Japan. Not only are shoes not worn in homes, providing slippers near the door for guests, many homes have separate slippers to be used specifically for the washrooms. In the entire time we were in Japan, I never seemed to be offered slippers big enough for my feet preventing me from ever being fully compliant with my footwear.
After dinner, we made our way to the train station and headed back to our hotel in downtown Nagoya. The train was packed with tired-looking people even late into the evening. Japanese are notorious for working late hours.
