The past two days began a thorough search for Kenjiro’s grandmothers, thanks to Hiromi Hotta’s cousin, Yoshi Kumamoto, and his wife, Kaoru. (shown with Pearl at the Hokkaido Tower at the top photo above). Yoshi is a recently retired architect who worked for Ito on projects such as the tunnel that connects Hokkaido and Honshu, plus the Tokyo Westin Hotel, our residence in Japan, where we house our suitcases and will return to for the final three days.Yoshi and Kaoru drove us to every possible potential source of information involving the keywords: roots search, Kenjiro Takahashi, Utashinai (from where Kenjiro was sent to American in the 1890’s), coal tunneling, Otaru (where he was born and potential home of his grandmother from his father’s side) and Hokkaido lifestyles from 1800 to 1900.
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The next three photos are Hiromi at Kushiro's, a comparative population table of Otaru and Sapporo (right-most column) and Pat at the Sapporo Beer Museum. The final three photos are Pat at the Historical Village of Hokkaido, Okurayama Ski Jump and Pearl, Kaoru and Hiromi at a snow pile at the Sapporo Dome.
The search started at Hokkaido University, where we visited their museum, library and archives. With the help of the library staff, Hiromi and Yoshi initiated a computer search for books in Japanese. They found a couple of leads, which will later be traced in the archives. I did an English computer survey and found one book on folklore written in 1930. But there was no hint of a possible female samurai.
The most important person in Sapporo appears to be William Smith Clark (former president of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst), an American agriculturist, who helped start Hokkaido University in 1876, the first modern college in Japan to award bachelor degrees. More noteworthy, perhaps, is Governor Kiyotaka Kuroda, who was a co-founder of the university, but also inspired the colonization of Hokkaido.
We then went to the Sapporo Dome, an enclosed stadium that changes the field for their professional soccer (Consadole Sapporo) and baseball (Nippon Ham Fighters) teams, where it is grass for the former and artificial turf for the latter. The top of the stadium is also a tourist attraction with spectacular views. Next was the Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium used in the 1972 Winter Olympics and 2007 World Nordic Ski Jumping Championship. Odori Park is just a park over which the ice sculptures are built for their winter festival. By the way, there are still huge mounds of ice all over the city, and it is almost May. The day ended with a lamb (which is the epicurean meat of choice) barbecue and Sapporo beer at the Sapporo Bier Garten. (We had Sapporo ramen for lunch.)
The next day we went to the Historical Village of Hokkaido, which features actual homes and recreations from the mid-1800’s, many from Otaru. The photos, depictions and lifestyle descriptions will be very useful to portray the time of Kenjiro’s grandmothers. We followed with several museums in Otaru (half an hour drive from Sapporo), again providing invaluable visuals of life from 1800 onwards.
The one fact that caught my attention was that in 1870, the population of Sapporo was 13, while in Otaru it was 3169. Today, Sapporo has nearly 2 million and Otaru something under 150,000. In the colonization of Hokkaido, it was decided that the site of Sapporo was more defensible, but people came by boat, first to Otaru, then, eventually to Sapporo. The city of Sapporo was established in 1868. Kenjiro was born in Otaru, moved with his family to Sapporo, then on to Utashinai. More likely, though, his grandmother from his father’s side almost surely lived most of her life on Honshu, as did the mother of his mother, who was from Akita. Thus, the prospects of finding anything in Otaru should be low.
We are staying at the Okura Grand Park Hotel (former Hilton), located in the general neighborhood where Kenjiro lived in his youth. A shrine is in close walking distance where we hope to search through their archives tomorrow, while the Otaru City Office is also nearby. We had zaru soba (70% buckwheat, 30% wheat) today, followed by shellfish and beer. Otaru is noted for sushi, glassware and shoyu containers that do not drip.
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The search started at Hokkaido University, where we visited their museum, library and archives. With the help of the library staff, Hiromi and Yoshi initiated a computer search for books in Japanese. They found a couple of leads, which will later be traced in the archives. I did an English computer survey and found one book on folklore written in 1930. But there was no hint of a possible female samurai.
The most important person in Sapporo appears to be William Smith Clark (former president of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst), an American agriculturist, who helped start Hokkaido University in 1876, the first modern college in Japan to award bachelor degrees. More noteworthy, perhaps, is Governor Kiyotaka Kuroda, who was a co-founder of the university, but also inspired the colonization of Hokkaido.
We then went to the Sapporo Dome, an enclosed stadium that changes the field for their professional soccer (Consadole Sapporo) and baseball (Nippon Ham Fighters) teams, where it is grass for the former and artificial turf for the latter. The top of the stadium is also a tourist attraction with spectacular views. Next was the Okurayama Ski Jump Stadium used in the 1972 Winter Olympics and 2007 World Nordic Ski Jumping Championship. Odori Park is just a park over which the ice sculptures are built for their winter festival. By the way, there are still huge mounds of ice all over the city, and it is almost May. The day ended with a lamb (which is the epicurean meat of choice) barbecue and Sapporo beer at the Sapporo Bier Garten. (We had Sapporo ramen for lunch.)
The next day we went to the Historical Village of Hokkaido, which features actual homes and recreations from the mid-1800’s, many from Otaru. The photos, depictions and lifestyle descriptions will be very useful to portray the time of Kenjiro’s grandmothers. We followed with several museums in Otaru (half an hour drive from Sapporo), again providing invaluable visuals of life from 1800 onwards.
The one fact that caught my attention was that in 1870, the population of Sapporo was 13, while in Otaru it was 3169. Today, Sapporo has nearly 2 million and Otaru something under 150,000. In the colonization of Hokkaido, it was decided that the site of Sapporo was more defensible, but people came by boat, first to Otaru, then, eventually to Sapporo. The city of Sapporo was established in 1868. Kenjiro was born in Otaru, moved with his family to Sapporo, then on to Utashinai. More likely, though, his grandmother from his father’s side almost surely lived most of her life on Honshu, as did the mother of his mother, who was from Akita. Thus, the prospects of finding anything in Otaru should be low.
We are staying at the Okura Grand Park Hotel (former Hilton), located in the general neighborhood where Kenjiro lived in his youth. A shrine is in close walking distance where we hope to search through their archives tomorrow, while the Otaru City Office is also nearby. We had zaru soba (70% buckwheat, 30% wheat) today, followed by shellfish and beer. Otaru is noted for sushi, glassware and shoyu containers that do not drip.
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