Mr. Yamashita

Author: Isamu Hayashi

It was in 1985. The location was in Asahi Chinese Culture College inside Shinbashi building near Hatomori entrance of Shinbashi train station in Tokyo. At that time I was the teacher of short term Chinese summer class of that college. That day all the students had come to the class and most of them were the students of my regular Chinese class that I was teaching there as well. Among the students there was an elderly person whom I was not familiar. He wore a sallow brown suit and went into the class with a kindly smile. After the class began I explained the text and asked the student to answer my questions as usual. When I asked this new student to answer my question he stood up and answered my question slowly with the perfect Chinese pronunciations.

After the class my students had gone group by group but that elderly student came up and handed his name card to me. From his name card I had known that he was Mr. Takeya Yamashita, a lawyer and his lawyer office was Yamashita, Oshima and Akita lawr office, and it was located in Kasumigaseki. Kasumigaseki was a place in central Tokyo where all Japanese important government departments, such as the Central Police department, Foreign Affairs department, and the Prime Minister House, were concentrated there.

He said to me, “May I invite you to go out for a cup of coffee?”

I said, “Certainly.”

Then following him we went to a coffee shop nearby. There were only a few people there. We could watch the street scene from the windows of that shop. Later I knew that was a part of the hotel Yamaue that located nearby Idabashi train station of JR line. While we were sitting there I could see his excitment and expectation from his eyes.

He said to me, “Could you be my private Chinese teacher?”

I said, “Of course, I would like to be.”

He was glad and told me that he was 73 years old now and he actually once stayed in Dalian and Jinzhou of China for about 35 years. He went to China with his father at age of 5 and came back to Japan at age of 35 after Japan was defeated in World War II. I was very interested in his talking and asked, “What were you doing in China during those years?”

“I went to schools in Dalain and then worked in the post office in Jinzhou of Manchuria.”

He told me that during the war he was not healthy and had tuberculosis at his military age so the Japanese army did not take him. He avoided going to war. He worked in the post office in Jinzhou until his final day in China. We talked about some things about the society, politics and ideology of China and Japan. He looked like very active, quick and open minded, and excited. Though he was 73 years old he looked like much younger than his actual age. I felt his character was very frank, optimistic, and with a kind of unbelievable attractive power.

Two days later after the Chinese class he invited me to the Okura hotel in Toranomen for a cup of coffee. After that he invited me to his office.  It was located near the Japanese houses of Parliament, just several hundred meters away from the Prime Minister House that was currently occupied by Prime Minister Nakasone. This area was considered the heart of Japan .

I was treated as an important guest in his law office. He introduced me to his secretary and associated lawyers. When I entered his private office room the first thing that came to my eye was a portrait on the wall. It was a portrait of Mr. Yamashita that sketched in pencil. He told me that it was sketched by himself. Though the portrait was just a simple sketch and did not have any decorated color and it was a real vivid portrait of Mr. Yamashita.

One day in June I was invited to Mr. Yamashita’s home. When I entered the gate of the yard I saw Yamashita Seiko, Mr. Yamashita’s wife. She told me that knowing I would come Mr. Yamashita was glad as a child that day. Yamashita’s home was in Shakuji cho, Nerima district of Tokyo. It was a two story detached house surrounded by the yard. There were many trees and flowers cut neatly in Japanese style. While I entered the house I saw there were several rooms downstairs and a narrow stairs went up to the upstairs. I was invited to go upstairs and was served with Japanese green tea. This room was very big. Its size was the total area of all the rooms downstairs. There were big windows all around the four directions. It was very bright. Opposite the sofa that I was sitting in there was a tall metal frame shelf sitting beside the wall. There were albums and audio devices on the shelf. At the beginning Mr. Yamashita told me about his trips all around the world and showed me his photographs. After the travel topic he told me one of his stories in China .

That was in the year 1945. The Soviet Red Army entered the northern part of China .  On August 15 Japan declared its unconditional surrendering and Japanese troops had laid down their arms. There were still relatively large number of Japanese civilians remained in the area of Jinzhou of northern China . In September there was the anti-Japanese rebellion caused by the local Chinese peasant in the area of Jinzhou that Mr. Yamashita’s family lived. At that time Mr. yamashita’s wife, Seiko had escaped to the nearby Japanese girls school with her three children. Many Japanese who lived around the area had sought asylum there as well. There were more than two thousand of Japanese refugees gathered there. Mr. Yamashita also came to that school. At that time the master of the post office asked Mr. Yamashita to report their situation to the local police station because there were Chinese rebels all around the area, the situation was very critical. Mr. Yamashita changed a worn suit and left for the local police station. On the way to police station there were many rebels but they did not recognize him. When he reached the police station there was no one there. All the policemen had escaped. Mr. Yamashita could not return to the Japanese girls school because there were more and more Chinese rebels blocking the road. He had to change his course and turned to the post office on other side. When Mr. Yamashita got the post office there was only one person there. That was one of his Chinese associates, Liu Baorei. As soon as Mr. Liu Baorei saw Mr. Yamashita he hurried to say:

“Director, why are you here? They will kill you! Please follow me!”

He led Mr. Yamashita down to a room in the basement, hid him with some of the post bags and then locked the door from outside. After that he said to Mr. Yamashita that he would like to go to check Mr. yamashita’s house. Mr. Yamashita told him that he did not need to do so. He insisted and went. Soon many rebels came to the post office and tried to search the post office because someone told them that a Japanese had escaped into the post office. They searched each room upstairs, downstairs, and in basement. When they reached the room where Mr. Yamashita was hidden they found that the door was locked. They pulled the door several times but could not open it, so they just gave up and left. Mr. Yamasha was covered with the post bags and slept soundly in that room for the whole day until the evening. When he woke up and tried to get out of that room. The door was locked he could not open it from inside so he shouted loudly and pushed the door strongly. Finally someone opened the door. That person was also another Chinese associate in the same post office. That man asked:

“Director, why are you here?”

Mr. Yamashita told him the thing happened at the day time and said good bye to him. He left the post office and went back to the school under the darkness of the night.

The next day Mr. Yamashita learned what had happened to Mr. Liu Baorei the day before. After Mr. Liu left Mr. Yamashita he went to Mr. Yamashita’s house. It was just at the time the Chinese rebels had surrounded Mr. Yamashita’s house and tried to loot that house. Mr. Liu hurried to the front of the folks, blocked them, and shouted out loudly:

“The person living here is a good man! Don’t loot the things from this house!”

At that moment someone started gun fire from the crowd. The bullet hit the chest of Mr. Liu. There was a rumor that the gunman was a Soviet soldier. When the folks sent Mr. Liu to the local hospital all the Japanese nurses had committed the suicide and all died. The doctors had escaped. Mr. Liu died of bleeding too much at that empty hospital.           

After the diplomatic relation normalization between China and Japan in 1972 Mr. Yamashita had called the Chinese embassy in Tokyo to ask if they could help him to find the relatives of Mr. Liu Baorei in China . The answer of the Chinese embassy was that they were not able to help with those kinds of things. Mr. Yamashita’s family offered a sacrifice for Mr. Liu Baorei every year at home. He wished that he could know of Mr. Liu’s wife and children’s whereabouts so that he could give them some financial support. After I heard this story I was greatly move by the actions of Mr. Liu Baorei. I said to Mr. Yamashita.

“I may be able to help you to find the information about Mr. Liu Baorei’s family.”

Then I asked the question.

“Why did Mr. Liu save you life and try to protect your house even at the risk of his own life?”

Mr. Yamashita told me that he had treated the Chinese and Japanese associates equally in his division at the post office. He had very good relations with the Chinese workers in the post office. He often invited them to his home. Although during the period of war the daily food supply was in a great shortage. What he could offer to his Chinese friends was only water with sugar or tea. The Chinese associates liked to visit his home, sitting with him and talking about the post office works or their families. This kind of things once caused the attention of Japanese military police. They doubted if Yamashita had any relations with the left wing organizations of Japan otherwise why did he have such good relations with the local Chinese people? After they checked his background they found that Mr. Yamashita did not have any relations with the left wing organizations. The search was ended here. Mr. Yamashita had democratic thoughts that all men should be equal and he disliked the Japanese policy in northern China . The Chinese were bullied and oppressed but what he could do was to take care of his associates under his leadership in the post office. Mr. Liu Baorei was one of his associates and frequent guest in his home. This story has been buried by the war and the time. Except the direct witnesses and possibly family members no one knew it al all. It is not clear whether the witnesses still exist or not.

Mr. Liu Baorei’s action reminded me of the Chinese custom of the morality, repaying a person with a big surging spring for his kindness of a drop of water. It represented this noble morality of the Chinese people. There were these kinds of stories of the friendship between Chinese and Japanese happening in the main stream of the World War II. These stories really move one to tears.        

I continue to ask him.

“How did you go back to Japan and how did you become a lawyer?”

Mr. Yamashita told me that when he returned to Japan Tokyo had been bombed by American bombers into ruins. All the buildings had been destroyed and one could see the ocean from the emperor palace. The American army had occupied Japan. At the beginning he went the street to sell vegetables and then sold necklaces and earrings from street to street. He, his wife, three children, three sisters, and his old mother, all depended on his works. His elder son was an infantile paralysis from his three month after he was born. The whole family member, total 9 people were living in one room with the area about 27 square meters. The food and supplies were in great shortage.

Mr. yamashta said that his insight to the Japanese society was about 10 years more advancing than ordinary Japanese people. He felt that the key point for a person to be able to stand in the post war Japanese society would be to master the English language. Therefore he began to study English at that difficult time when he was 35 years old. During the war it was forbidden to learn English because it was the language of the enemy of Japan. How foolish it was! Learning English vocabulary he would fill his shirt and pans pockets with many narrow strips of papers bundled by rubber band. On each of the paper strips there was an English word written. Whenever he had time he would read the English word on the paper strips and even during he was walking he would also try to recite the English word from his memory.

One day he found an ad in the local newspaper that the American navy base in Yamanashi County wanted to find a translator. He applied this job and went to interview. To find a Japanese translator then was not an easy thing. Mr. yamashita was accepted as a translator because he could speak some English. There was just a request that the American navy officer would like to talk with the Japanese local government officer about the navy supply issues. So they asked Mr. Yamashita to help to translate their conversations. Mr. Yamashita could not translate their conversation at all. That made him very embarrassed. He was lucky enough that the American navy officer allow him to stay at the base to improve himself later because the officer valued his active attitude.

Mr. Yamashita felt that he should find a long term profession so that he could support his family. He decided to learn law courses by himself. In Japan in order to get lawyer qualification one should pass the national law examination helding by the government. The questions in the exam were wide ranged with deep professional knowledge. It was an extremely difficult test. Normally after the four years undergraduate studies in university one began to have the fundamental knowledge for the examination. Normally only 3% of people could pass the exam. It was the good thing that the law school graduation was not the critical condition for passing the exam. Whoever had a relative knowledge level could apply for the exam. Mr. Yamashita never went to any university and did not learn the law as well. He began his law studies from his age of 38 years old and had read all the necessary fundamental books. He failed once and finally passed the Japanese national law examination at his age of 42 years old after a four year self-study and he received his law qualification.

For his age of 42 years old there was no law office willing to accept him. He began his law practice by standing at the side of the Shinjuku street offering volunteer law services for someone who could not afford lawyer fee, such as prostitutes. His democratic thoughts made him always like to do something to fight the unfairness in the society. Later he finally found a law office that wanted to just offer him a table to use at its office without paying him salaries. That was the beginning of his working in a law office.

One day a troublesome lawsuit had been submitted to this law office. One of the Osaka Company owed a Tokyo company a great amount of money. The law office sent several lawyers to deal with this case but could not solve it. The case lasted several months and the customer of the Tokyo side called to the law office many times to urge for a result. This made a big tension in the law office. Finally they thought to ask Mr. Yamashita to try this case. Mr. Yamashita went to Osaka and visited that company. He talked with its leader and made him see where the gains and losses lying. Finally this leader was persuaded by Mr. Yamashita and agreed to pay the money. The case was settled in just one day. After that the law office saw Mr. Yamashita with new eyes.

With his achievements on his law practices more and more customers trusted his law services. Later he opened his own law office, Yamashita law office. His good English background made him success in the field of Japan and the United States business. Then he had his co-operated lawyer Mr. Oshima, Mr. Akita and an American lawyer, Mr. Major who came from New York and able to speak Chinese and Japanese. They had been dealing with the top level law services between Japan and the United States for many years. Yamashita law office was just like a huge tree rooted in post war Japanese society.

I gave one private Chinese lesson to Mr. Yamashita every week. Sometimes we met at his home and sometimes we met somewhere outside. He studied very hard and always recorded the conversation between us or some of the vocabulary on his voice sensitive tape recorder. He also wrote down the words on the strips of paper.

One day we did the Chinese lesson at his law office. After study he invited me to take lunch in a dining hall under the Prime Minister House. That was a fairly big hall with many tables and chars. Its menu was ordinary Japanese dishes. The price for a Japanese noodle was just 200 Japanese yen while in the street restaurant would be more than 500 yen. Mr. Yamashita told me that he found this secret. Who could imagine that you were able to enter this dining hall just under the Prime Minister House freely without any attention from the security guardsman and were able to enjoy these cheaper and delicious dishes?

He told me that when he was in China the favorite thing he would like to do was visit the small eating place beside the road. There the service man wore dirty clothes covered with oil and dirt and stretched his hand to hold the soup bowl. The nail of his finger was filled with oil and dirt and just that finger going into the soup in the bowl. Despite this that soup was really unforgettable delicious! While he was telling this story his face lit up with great pleasure.