Grateful To Be In Japan Because...

Firstly, I'm now on the AJET team. Thanks very much to Gillian, Loz & Sarah for all they have done! I'm taking a big breath and hoping I can do my best. Anita and Steph are awesome people and I know we'll have a lot of fun. Onegaishimasu!

Secondly, I wanna recount a story I got told tonight. We walked into Mosburger and who should be sitting there but Horinaga-san, a good friend of ours who comes to Dan's eikaiwa class at the Hagi Community Centre. He's in his 70's now, he has really good English which he learned from his days living in the Middle East working for an oil company after he graduated from Japan's top university. So we order a burger and go sit down to have a bit of a gossip. The subject gets around to the current state of relations between Japan, China and Korea. For him it bought up memories of the past.

Hori-san comes from a wealthy landowning family in Hagi. During the second world war when he was a child, he and his father and mother were sent to Korea as many Japanese people were. His father was the Chief Engineer overseeing the Manchurian Railway Company. He was held as a refugee and lived in very harsh conditions for part of his time in Korea.

He told us how he remembered clearly the night of August 8th 1945, once the clock struck midnight and it became August 9th, the aeroplanes came dropping bombs. They knew America had taken Okinawa and thought they had advanced north. Then they realised it was the Russians. Hori-san said, "never trust the Emperor". After Japan surrendered they felt abandoned by their Emperor and lived in limbo, waiting and worrying - how would they get home? He was 10 years old at the time. He said he saw many friends die.

Hori-san told us they finally left Korea a year later thanks to the Americans who took them by boat to Hakata port in Fukuoka. He told us the port was busy with weary people returning to Japan, taking homebound trains in every direction. He and his parents boarded a train for Shimonoseki. When they got to Shimonoseki station, there were no lights and the land was pock-marked from the bomb raids. There was no connecting train for Hagi. There was nowhere to sleep but the bare station floor. Hori-san said "We slept very comfortably. There may have been mosquitos, but we didn't feel them. We were happy to be back in Japan". After they got back to Hagi their lands were dispersed in the regulations following the war.

Hori-san told us because of this experience he is able to fully appreciate the comforts of the 5-star hotel he stays in when he visits his son in Cleveland, Ohio. His son is now a successful doctor with a family of his own in the states. This was Hori-sans dream come true.

I love this story because Hori-san still has a sparkle in his eye. His story is just one of many war stories but I think of what he has been through as a child and I remind myself to be thankful for everyday we live in peace and comfort. And I hope I am a good-natured old person one day like him! It is so cool that I get to learn about history like this not from a boring textbook but from a wonderful person like him.