Tsujiuchi Shigeru was a friend and colleague. For many years beginning in 1984, we worked together, mostly in Japan but also on occasion in Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the Tokyo office his colleagues always called him Tsuji-san, which is the kind of affectionate name-shortening that is common among men in Japan, and he was well-liked by all who knew him. His daily commute from the far western suburbs of the city with a change of trains in Shinjuku Station would have been a trial to a much younger person, but he avoided the worst of it by coming in very early before the terrible rush-hour crush. He opened the office each morning and when the rest of us arrived we found the coffee already made. 

His figure was quite short and round, and his hair was thinned by the passing years and graying at the temples. His face was spotted by age and his fingers yellowed by years of heavy smoking.  Although his demeanor was naturally calm and dignified, he could be jolly with the slightest provocation, and I’ve never met anyone so prepared to laugh, even at himself. He was open and friendly with everyone and he had the kind of good nature that some people gain from overcoming hardship – and he had faced many. 

As a youth growing up near Nagasaki in a family of very modest means he got as much schooling as a boy could receive in the thirties, and with no other prospect in those hard times, he had joined the Imperial Japanese Army. His service took him from the frigid mountains of Manchuria to the jungles of Burma. He rose to the rank of sergeant and during those years he carried an English textbook in his backpack, filled moments of military boredom with study, and when – against impossible odds – he made it back to Japan at the end of the war he found that his English skill was useful in getting a job in the Occupation economy. He worked for an American shipping line agency in Tokyo, studied accounting to further his career, and prospered. 

By the 1980s he was working in the Tokyo branch of an American company providing audit services for shipping lines, and I ran the same company’s branch in Seoul. I was transferred to Tokyo in 1984 and from that point on our professional relationship grew into friendship. He was more than thirty years older than I but that never mattered. Moreover, my father had fought against Japan in the Pacific War but this, too, did not signify. We enjoyed each other’s company, shared an open curiosity about each other’s cultures, and were always ready to answer each other’s questions.

He told me things about the Yasukuni Shrine, a large Shinto complex in our neighborhood, which I never would have learned from a mere guidebook. The shrine was dedicated to the spirits of all those who had died in Japan’s wars going back to the civil struggles that led to the beginning of the Meiji era, and up through 1945 and the end of the Greater East Asian War. Every weekend crowds of people – not only the old but also the young – came to honor relatives and ancestors. They would wait in line to approach the main hall where the names of all the war dead were enshrined, then stop, clap their hands and stand in silent prayer to the divinities. Having been raised in a very different religious practice, the sound of clapping hands was surprising when I first witnessed this. I asked Tsuji-san, why do they clap their hands?

The answer was very simple, he said. “If you want the spirits of the dead to know you are paying a visit, then you must first get their attention.” 

Tsuji-san knew the shrine very well because he went there at least once a year to honor members of his family.  His three brothers had also served in the Army but they did not make it home. One had died in China and the other two in the island campaigns, and while he knew no other details of their deaths, he was certain that their spirits lived at the Yasukuni Shrine.

We shared many experiences. I recall a time we travelled together down to Shimizu, an hour or more south of Yokohama, taking the local train. After several hours working at a shipping agent’s office we took the train back to Tokyo, and we happened to be sitting on the side of the rail car with bright sunlight beaming through the windows. It was a mild early summer day, we had had a late lunch at the station, and the gentle motion of the train combined with the warmth of the sun to make us both doze off. I was sound asleep when  Tsuji-san nudged me awake and offered the somewhat alarming news that we had both slept long past the main Tokyo station and were far into the northern suburbs. I looked at the passing scenes and recognized nothing.

“Where are we?” 

“I’m not certain,” he answered. “But we must get off at the next station, cross the platform and go back the way we came.” 

And so we did. And although we would both be very late getting home, Tsuji-san seemed not to mind at all. “I had a very nice nap,” he said. But then something seemed to occur to him and he started to laugh quietly. He said nothing at first, but his face beamed with a smile and his round body shook with his laughter.

"Okay, Tsuji-san,” I said. “What’s so funny?” 

Finally he spoke. “I was just remembering my Army days and how it was back then. If you were found sleeping while on duty, you would receive a very severe beating.”  He started laughing again. “Oh, yes, they would have beaten you with a cane!” 

I understood there was nothing malicious about this notion, he was just struck by the incongruity of it all. 

“Well`,” I said, “you would have been punished too, so what are you laughing about?"

"Oh no, " he said. "Forgive me, Ryan-san, but I was a sergeant then, and I was imagining you as a common soldier, a private, and you would have been beaten twice - once for falling asleep and again for not waking up your sergeant!"

He found this idea irresistibly funny and his round body shook with his laughter, as I had seen happen so often before, and now his mirth carried me away too.

I remember so many conversations with him.  One day in 1987 when we were working together at a shipping line office in Nagoya, he brought something to my attention. He said he had noticed that recently I’d gotten into the habit of pulling my eyebrows, probably because they’d gotten longer. (I was in my late thirties then.)

“Ryan-san,” he said, “you must not do that. If you pull out a hair from your eyebrow, it will bring you very bad luck.” 

“Really?”

“Of course. Everyone knows this. Have you not seen pictures of the Shinto gods, the Shijifukujin? They all have long eyebrows, which is good luck.”

I thought of the “seven lucky spirits,” the folklore figures depicted in many paintings and carvings, remembered their typically bushy eyebrows, then noticed Tsuji-san’s eyebrows with their many wild stray strands sticking out askew.  

“Well then, since you mention this, what was the luckiest thing that ever happened to you?”

He answered very promptly, “I came home in 1945,” to which, of course, I could say nothing. And then he reflected for a moment and asked, “Does your father have long eyebrows?”

I had to answer, “Well, yes, as a matter of fact, he does.”

Tsuji-san’s face brightened. “There! It is just as I say. You father came home, too, and I am certain you never saw him pull at his eyebrows, yes? And now that you have two little boys it is very important to protect your luck.” And he added with emphasis, “You must never lose one hair!” 

I took this to heart and was always careful about this. 

I have so many fond memories of him in those years and up to the last time I saw him in San Francisco in 1997. The following year I was so very saddened to learn of his death, for his was a friendship to treasure. I am certain that if I ever see Tokyo again, I will go to the Yasukuni Shrine, stand before the main hall and clap my hands to let him know I have come to visit.