This is an article I wrote for The Japan Times. In May, 1999, I revisited my childhood home in Yokohama. Many things have changed since I left in 1961.
Memories of old Honmoku: An expatriate revisits his Yokohama childhood haunts
December 27, 2007 · 14 Comments
Categories: Articles
Tagged: childhood, Honmoku, Japan, memoir, Sankeien, The Japan Times, tidal flat, Yokohama
14 responses so far ↓
Garin Burbank // April 4, 2008 at 8:13 pm |
Loved your reminiscence of Yokohama and St. Joes, a school I attended for only two years(1951-53) before more or less expelling myself through truancy. I used to go down to the Honmoku beaches all the time. At another site, Franz Metzger’s photos of the bluff made me catch my breath. He was disgusted with the nitwits who caused chaos on the class trip to Lake Yamanaka in 53? Brought back memories of much amusement and little achievement. But I loved history with Brother Tribull, and somehow became an history professor with Ph.D, now approaching the end of a 40-year career at a small college in Canada. Ever international .
Garin Burbank
francistanabe // April 4, 2008 at 9:06 pm |
I have the SJC yearbook from 1953. I was in third grade and you were in seventh. The photo shows you between O. Akiyama and W. Van Hauffe. I met several of your classmates last March–Franz Metzger, Willy Mahr and M. Matsuura. Also Hans Enderle. The occasion was the 50th reunion of my brother’s class of 1957 and several from the class of ‘58 attended. I represented my brother, Kazuo Larry Tanabe, who passed away a few months before the reunion. It was held at the Foreign Press Club in Yuraku-cho, Tokyo.
I retired from the book review section of The Washington Post in September, 2006.
Recently, I read a book by a Canadian professor who lived in Japan, Klaus H. Pringsheim– A fascinating autobiography titled “Man of the World: Memoirs of Europe, Asia & North America (1930s to 1980s). He was the adopted son of a musician who worked under Gustav Mahler and nephew of Thomas Mann. Do read the book if you haven’t already.
Brother Tribull was also one of my favorite teachers. He is buried near here in Baltimore. I do remember impressing him with my account of Lou Gehrig’s last day at Yankee Stadium. This was in 8th grade. He had no idea that the source of my story was a comic book which I bought from a tiny second-hand bookstore in front of Honmoku Sankeien tram station.
Good to hear from you. Would love to learn more about your life.
Kunio Francis Tanabe (St. Joseph College, class of 1961)
Garin Burbank // April 6, 2008 at 2:40 am |
My family came from the banks of the Missouri River, specifically Atchison, Kansas. In 1946 my father got an acountant’s job with American President Lines and brought us to Yokohama in January 1952. Loved to watch the ships glide into harbor from the magnificent promontory of the bluff. After a dispute over an unreconciled port-expense account, my father was sacked, prompting our sudden return to California. My mother explained to the schools that we had “lost” my report card enroute in order to cover for my truancy!
Perhaps it was Bro. Tribull who first made me see that history was the one subject I would always embrace in a classroom. So, the dropout from SJC has three degrees from Berkeley, the last awarded for a doctoral diss. on agrarian radicalism in Oklahoma and the great Plains. People in the premier agrarian radical province of Saskatchewan were interested in my work. I taught in Regina for four years(69-73) before getting the opportunity to move to the “big” city of Winnipeg. Since then I have gone”native,” married a daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, and have become a settled citizen of Manitoba and Canada. Like you, I have adapted to my surroundings without quite forgetting where I came from.
But you are more famous, with 16,000 “pure” hits on Google to my 597! My website and current picture is easy to find at History Department, University of Winnipeg.
Isn’t the Internet a miracle! I have spent half the day looking at scenes of Yamate-cho.
kftanabe // April 6, 2008 at 4:49 pm |
This internet world is still new to me and I cannot fathom your reference to “16,000 pure hits,” compared with 597. I will ask my son, a motion graphics designer who teaches at Parsons School of Design in NY , to explain all this to me.
Incidentally, my brother worked for American President Lines for a few years before he switched to Pan American World Airways. I’ve taken tours of several President Lines ships. Yes, we could see the ships sail a short while after they left the Port of Yokohama from our porch window. During the war, foreign residents were forced to leave the Honmoku area. One of the reasons given was that it was too easy to count the ships leaving and returning to Tokyo Bay. I have corresponded with several former SJC students whose families spent the war years in Karuizawa and Goura (near Hakone). Some returned to the Honmoku area and stayed long enough to see the tidal flats covered with concrete and oil refineries.
Garin Burbank // April 6, 2008 at 6:04 pm |
If you google with quotation marks around the exact name, you avoid bringing up irrelevant combinations of other peple’s names,e.g., garin realty, van nuys, burbank,calif.
I also rely on my sons for computer directions! They are graduates of a good Jesuit high school, St. Paul’s, in Winnipeg. Both now attend the U. of Winnipeg. The older is getting ready to go “international,” with an offer to teach English in Germany. He warns us that he may not be back: after seeing Germany for this second time, Winnipeg will be too “pokey.”
My family sailed to Yokohama on the President Wilson, and returned to California on the President Cleveland.
Waikiki had only the three original hotels on the beach in 1953, when we stayed for a day.
Kathy Anderson // October 18, 2008 at 9:02 pm |
Mr. Tanabe, I truly enjoyed your article of your childhood days in Honmoku. I was browsing the internet and googled (is this a real verb now?) “honmoku” and the link to your article jumped out. I was so surprised to recognize the places you described and your article brought back such good memories.
Our family also live in Honmoku for about 10 years, 1960-1970. My father is American and worked for the Defense Department, and my mother is Japanese. We lived in a rented western style home immediately across the street from a stone wall that separated the beach and the street. As a pre-schooler while my older brother and sisters were at school (they attended St Joseph, St. Maurs, and Santa Maria), a retired fisherman who lived in our neighborhood would take me out fishing on his small wooden boat. During clamming season we all went down to the beach and gathered asari and hamaguri by the buckets full. When we returned with our load, the retired fisherman’s wife would rinse the clams in their outdoor sink area and instructed me to bring them home so my mom could make delicious miso soup and other delicacies. My sisters and I played “house” on the wooden fishing boats that lined the beaches after their masters were finished with the day’s catch and docked the boats along the beachline. There were also times when the beaches were lined with tall bamboo slats with uniformly squared patches of nori drying in the sun. Sometimes my brother and his friends would use their fingers to scoop some still fresh nori for an afternoon snack. Once they were caught by the fisherman’s wives and scolded. As much as they wanted to deny their guilt, they couldn’t because the dark green bits of nori were still smudged on their white teeth.
During the summer months my mom packed lunches for us (6 kids), usually grilled sake onigiri (salmon rice balls) and thermos full of green tea. We played on the orphanage playgrounds (at the time we referred to it as the Hoikuen) and ate lunch on the benches that overlooked the ocean, which was situated behind the Haseiden bldg. I also remember visiting Haseiden mostly to cool off in the bldg from the hot humid summer days while playing nearby.
Last December my husband and I visited Japan and spent a day walking all over the old Honmoku neigherhood. The change was too overwhelming. Our old house no longer stood, it was replaced by a private parking lot for the area homeowners’ use. There was only one home on the same street that I recognized, but everything else was gone or drastically remodeled. To get to the old neighborhood we took the #8 public bus from Yokohama train station and got off at the bus stop after the Sankeien stop. Toward the end of the day as we walked, I recognized an inner street that fomerly had a public bath house (sento), a tofu store, and a liquor/sundries store (sakaya). The only store remaining was the liquor store. We went in and bought sodas. As we were paying for our drinks, I asked the storeowner if they had been in business for a long time. After he confirmed this, and I asked if there was a tofu store and a public bath house on the same street. He said, yes, a long time ago. I then told him that as a child I lived nearby, and that my mother would send us to the tofu store to buy tofu (I remember she made us bring a container with us since they didn’t provide any plastic containers or other vessels to carry the freshly made tofu back home). I told him that my mother also sent us to his store to buy bottles of soy sauce or sake for cooking (often times my mother would write it down on a piece of paper so we can show it to the storeowner. We were too young and couldn’t remember the brand names). And when I told him that we used to swim in the ocean just down the street. He smiled and asked, so there really used to be a swimming beach here? He said he was 40 yrs old, but didn’t remember any beaches. I confirmed that yes, there was a beach to swim and also went clamming. (What a magical environment it was for young children to play and grow.) I remember riding the street cars and caught the #4 train to visit my grandmother’s house in Hodogaya.
Although I was sad to see that so much had changed, I was also reminded of how fortnuate and grateful I am to have had lived during a such an innocent time, surrounded by the abundance of mother nature’s gifts and the wonderful people of the neighborhood.
I’ve lived in Northern VA for the last 25 years, but still have many fond memories of my Honmoku days. It’s not just the cultural or traditional events, i.e, O-Bon with matsuri and spectacular fireworks that, in comparison almost dwarfs our 4th of July celebration fireworks; or by being bi-cultural, cthe celebration of both Christmas (presents) and New Year’s (Otoshi dama). But every New Years Day (12 midnight) as many people watch the count down at Time Square, I can still recall the days when my family watched the black & white TV, listening to the ringing of the Buddhist temple bells (joya no kane). And in addition, I can still see my mother openning the window and we all listened to the ships in the distant harbors blowing their horns in the crisp cold night. The ship’s way of welcoming the New Year. Somehow I can still feel that same cold air against my cheeks as these memories revisit.
Thank you for your article.
francistanabe // October 19, 2008 at 2:33 am |
Kathy:
I loved reading your response to my article about Honmoku. We must have been neighbors. We lived at 62 Honmoku Motomachi, Naka-ku, Yokohama (the old numbers have been changed recently, though). We lived in front of the beach between the shack (where they kept two ceremonial boats and the mikoshi) and the Hiranos who operated a rental boat business. Our house had a western style look to it with a white picket fence. Your house must have been very close to actress Akiko Koyama’s house (which was in front of a sea wall.) I remember the public bath, the liquor store and a store named Mayoka that sold foodstuff and candy. I do remember the tofu shop. A girl I knew, Michiko Iwasaki married the son of the owner of the tofu shop. Further up that back road was a fancy feudal-looking gateway to Japanese-style house, an entrance that could be used for a samurai film. We used to walk along the sea wall to the next beach where we used to play softball. Along that seawall lived a Hawaiian family whose daughter attended Niles C. Kinnick high school. I can just picture my neighborhood as if it were still there in the form half a century ago. The fishermen ruled the beaches. I used to take my pet dog for a walk on the beach at low tide. I have to tell you about a discovery I made a year ago: at an art exhibition of Hokusai woodblock prints at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, I came across one that depicted the view of Mt. Fuji from Honmoku beach at lowtide. From the look of it, the artist must have sketched it right in front of our neighborhood.
Thank you for your wonderful recollection.
Francis
Garin Burbank // November 18, 2008 at 9:03 pm |
Kathy:
I enjoyed your fine portrait of a local culture, beautifully evoked and tenderly remembered, as all those happy family times should be. I can see what I missed by not having a family member native to that ground!
Garin Burbank
Fred Harris // February 18, 2009 at 1:50 am |
I lived in Sugita till 1965 and then had to move to Okinawa because my father was stationed there. I have fond memories of attending Nile C. Kinnick and going trick-or-treating at the Navy housing.
francistanabe // February 18, 2009 at 5:05 pm |
The old tram that ran from Yokohama Station passed by Honmoku Sankeien (where Nile C. Kinnick — Yohi– was located, later relocated to Yokosuka) wound its way to Sugita, if I am not mistaken. I lived within walking distance to Yohi. Sugita has changed since the national railway line runs in that direction all the way to Ofuna Station on the Tokaido Line. That railway connects to Tokyo Station on the other end. The railway line must have been completed years after you left Sugita.
Ian McAteer // June 7, 2009 at 10:43 am |
Francis,
As a recent arrival in Yokohama and the Honmoku area I have spent the last few weeks aghast at the realisation of what has changed around here. After an unstructured walk led me to the Hasseiden I saw what the old Honmoku used to be like.
I am now searching the local libraries and the internet to try and gain a full understanding and have really appreciated your article and its first hand memories of a time that seems strangely close but is long gone.
I doubt that a fisherman mayor of Yohohama will ever reclaim the sand flats but maybe in the Star Trek future the cliffs will once again feel the waves washing against them.
francistanabe // June 8, 2009 at 4:21 pm |
Ian:
Just returned from a trip to St. Malo and Dinard in Britanny, France. There the tide can go as high as 13 meters compared to lowtide. The beaches are well preserved and, at lowtide, there is not a single plastic bottle or bag littering the beaches. The flatlands and cliffs of Honmoku could have been preserved if the city so wished. But it was too conveniently located, close to Tokyo, and those wanting to push industrialization won out. There are so many other such beautiful shorelines that were bulldozed by those pushing factories and other ugly structures along the shores. Perhaps it is a matter of educating the citizenry, to teach them the value of beauty, in other words, return to Japan’s core values. I do wish the emperor, the head of Shintoism and nature worship, to take a more active role in preserving natural beauty throughout the land.
Rob Ruts // August 25, 2009 at 10:47 am |
Hi Francis, During research for a documentary on Yokohama in the 60s I ran into your corner of the internet. Obviously it is an exciting source of info.
I lived in Honmoku, near to Sankeien. I think the address was 354 Honmoku. It was 1965 and 1966. We had a huge western house, in what essentially was a Japanese neighbourhood offering me an ideal playground. It must have been a beachside property once. When we came land was being reclaimed for all the industry that dominates the scene now.
I was ten years old when I arrived, together with parents, sister, brother. In Shizuoka my father oversaw building ships for a Dutch shipping company. I attended Yokohama International School, which contributed to the impression that I had entered paradise. Yokohama was mine, both through western delights such as the YC&AC and -especially- the Japanese. I frequented Sankeien, which asked 5 yen for entrance I remember. With friends, but more often alone I went to the station and roamed around the mall before heading for the rooftop fun of Takashimaya. Coming back from school on my bike I stopped at the Japanese grocery for sweets and fire-crackers and smoke bombs. And there were so many more of these Yokohama gems.
Until a few years ago my memories of Yokohama bliss were dominated by these kind of spots, rather than occasions, developments and people. That changed when I started thinking of writing a novel on my Japanese youth. I realised for instance that along with my introduction to Japan, there was my introduction to the United States, and Vietnam for that matter. There was ‘D Avenue’, where I put my bike against the fence separating Yokohama and what was for me a piece of America. It was -by the way- where I took the streetcar. I discovered them currently in use in Calcutta, India. There I rode them again, which was somewhat surreal.
I also started wondering what the reason was for quite a few interesting young westerners to come to Yokohama and stay for a while. My teacher at YIS was one of them. Valerie Mance was her name. She was not more than 24 years old then, from Canada, and a motorbike riding hippy playing Joan Baez records in the classroom. A schoolmate came up with more people. The performance artist Stelarc was one of them. There was how Yokohama appealed to an eleven year old, and there was how that city drew in young adults. It is worthwhile to document that.
I am not going to write the novel. There is to be a documentary instead, bringing together all the Yokohama pieces together; from Takashimaya to the YC&AC, from Vietnam to the Bluff, from the Navy Exchange to –in the end- Stelarc performances.
It is obvious that I wouldn’t mind discussing the script for the documentary with you, and anyone else reading this with having an attachment to Yokohama in the 60s. I need the input. My email address is rob@design4governance.com. Thanks!
francistanabe // August 25, 2009 at 1:29 pm |
Honmoku was an idyllic place to grow up while the beach and the tidal flats were still there. I loved to run to the fishermen’s boats after they returned with their catch and see the fish jumping in the baskets. It’s amazing to me that we had such an abundance of sea life just in front of our house. We didn’t bother to pick up mussels nor razor clams that are delicacies today. Instead we dug up asari clams and hamaguri. We ignored the sea cucumbers–delicacies in Chinese cooking. The area had an abundance of black seaweed (from which nori is made). Just last week I purchased a photograph of Honmoku from a German source on E-Bay that was taken in the 1890s. It showed a fisherman’s hut next to a shapely tree; and a fishing boat being pushed out to sea. In the background is a familiar scene of Ju-ni-ten, a landmark called Mandarin Cliff named by Commodore Perry and his navigators. Most of the Western homes were built when traders from Europe and the U.S. moved to Yokohama. Many were destroyed by the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1929. We lived in a Western-style bungalow that must have been a summer home, I was told, belonging to a French family.
Recently, the addresses in Honmoku have been changed. I used to live at 62 Honmoku Motomachi but that address has been moved to the Hachioji area about 200 meters east. The Helm real-estate company owned many of the large mansions in the area. I know the large mansion in front of the sea wall a couple of blocks up the street from where we lived. The Komor house used to be rented to an executive of Standard Oil. Maybe that’s the house you lived in. The sea wall is no longer there and access to the Bay of Tokyo has been moved some 500 meters beyond.
You’re right about the fun places near where we lived, beginning with Sankeien. We used to camp up on a hill near Hasseiden (Temple of the Eight Saints) nearby. I did occasionally go to play tennis at YCAC (Yokohama Country Athletic Club). Then there is Chinatown and Isezaki-cho, Nogeyama zoo, etc. You’re right about the fireworks: it was easy to obtain them, from smoke bombs to cherry bombs, many of them now considered too dangerous to be sold to anyone. And the streetcar. I loved the streetcar that took me to Chiozaki-cho. From there we walked up the hill to the Bluff. I walked up the steps to St. Maur’s and Futaba or towards Kitagata Primary School and then up the steep hill to St. Joseph College (renamed St. Joseph International School). The school has been demolished and in its place are the luxurious condominiums. Only the cherry tree remains that stood near the entrance of the school at 85 Yamate-cho.