He Called Me an “American Ryoma”

I first met Miyaji-sensei around November 1988, while working as a writer for Flash, a popular weekly magazine in Tokyo. The magazine was doing a special feature on Ryoma to commemorate his upcoming birthday. Since I was working on my novel, the editor, Shindo Toshiya, who is still my good friend, asked me to accompany him to Miyaji-sensei’s home in Mitaka, Tokyo, to interview him. I vividly remember Miyaji-sensei greeting us at the front door, dressed in traditional kimono, then bringing us to the living room for the interview. He must have been more than a bit surprised to meet an American who was writing about Sakamoto Ryoma. I remember him saying something to the effect that he thought of me as an “American Ryoma.”

Also see this past post.

[The above photo of Miyaji Saichiro was taken in Tokyo in December 1999.]

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I’ve written in other posts about my inspiration in writing about Bakumatsu history – which I call “the samurai revolution at the dawn of modern Japan.” Ryoma was my first book on the subject. I was inspired to write it by certain authors, but mostly by Ryoma’s personality, as is summed up nicely, I think, in this famous poem by Sakamoto Ryoma:

世の人はわれをなにともゆはゞいへわがなすことはわれのみぞしる

It matters not what people say of me, I am the only one who knows what I must do. [my translation]

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had the honor of speaking at the 11^th annual national gathering of “Ryoma fans”  (全国龍馬ファンの集い高知大会) in Kochi in October 1999, the year Ryoma was published. That was when I first met my very good friend Mr. Kunitake Hashimoto, chairman of the national organization that oversees all of the nearly 200 (I’ve lost count) “Ryoma Societies” around Japan. (This photo of Mr. Hashimoto and me, at the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum, was taken at that time.) I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Hashimoto for his friendship and support throughout these many years.

On the night of the event in Kochi, I attended the banquet on the beach at Katsurahama, near the famous statue of Sakamoto Ryoma. I talked to a reporter from the national newspaper Asahi Shinbun. The article was published on November 10, 1999.

The book was published in February 1999. In the following October I had the pleasure of speaking at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Yurakucho, Tokyo. I rather enjoyed the event, introducing Sakamoto Ryoma to a bunch of foreign journalists stationed in Tokyo. I had just come from Kochi, where I had the honor of speaking at the 11^th annual national gathering of “Ryoma fans”  (全国龍馬ファンの集い高知大会).