Family Reunion in Venice

For many Japanese people, Italy is a dream destination. In Japan, Broadcast Satellite TV programs featuring Italian towns and villages run almost every weekend. Italy has the largest number of World Heritage sites and is one of the most popular destinations for Japanese tourists.

My wife, daughter and I had a chance to visit there and to appreciate its historic and traditional buildings, breathtaking architectural landscapes, natural beauty and rural villages during Japan’s Golden Week holidays. Our tourist guide was my son who has been enrolled at a Venetian university since last September.

He made sure to take us to St. Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco in Italian), which is the most famous of the many churches of Venice and is one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture in the world. Located just off the Grand Canal, the gleaming basilica overlooks the Piazza San Marco (St. Mark's Square) and adjoins the Doge's Palace.

Another pleasant trip was strolling along the cobbled streets of Milan. Amongst its splendors were the many types of traditional architecture all about us. However, what most thrilled me in Milan was when I stood within Santa Maria delle Grazie just in front of “the Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci.

A great experience many tourists would rarely get to partake in was a visit to an ordinary house in an Italian village. My son’s roommate was kind enough to take my family to his home and to treat us to a typical Italian lunch with good wine. He also showed us around the historical sites there and I felt as if I were immersed in its culture.

I was so happy we were able to make the best use of the short time we had there and to find such a relaxing place to stay in with my family.

Spring has come to my house.

Look at the pictures above. As you can see, all the snow has gone. The buds on the cherry and plum trees in my garden will be ready to bloom in a few weeks.

In Japan, “spring has come” is often used when a son or daughter has passed an entrance examination to an upper-level school. In that respect, “spring has come” to my daughter. After one year of hard work to prepare for and take a series of entrance examinations last month, she is now heading out of our house to enter university in Tokyo.

Last weekend, my wife and I helped my daughter move to Tokyo. We brought a lot of her belongings in my car and we ended up staying overnight. She will be living alone temporarily, but her brother will join her in the near future. He is currently studying abroad, but he will resume his studies in Tokyo soon as well.

I feel very lonely without her, but I hope she will soon find a peaceful life and many good friends in Tokyo as well as success in her academic learning at university.

Hanami Season Coming Up!

Spring has come to my house at last.

Japanese people enjoy tracking the "sakura zensen" (cherry-blossom front) as it moves northward up the archipelago in concert with spring's warmer weather. Sakura usually come earlier here in my city, but, while cooler temperatures have delayed them, "hanami" (cherry blossom viewing) season is finally upon us!

In fact, the ones in my garden are almost at their best. Adding to my enjoyment are the bush warblers singing beautifully in the trees in a neighboring small shrine.

Symbolic to us is the fleeting beauty of the cherry blossom. Because of their short blooming time, extreme beauty and quick death, they represent the transience of life. Let’s go on a cherry blossom viewing picnic.

Doll Festival

March 3 marks the “Hina Matsuri” or “Doll Festival.” It was formally called “Momo no Sekku” or “Peach Festival for Girls.”

The following two pictures show a typical doll display set up in houses with daughters. The dolls are customarily handed down from mother to daughter and often go back generations. Usually the set includes dolls representing the emperor and empress, three court ladies, five musicians, two ministers and three servants situated on five to seven stepped-shelves covered with a red cloth.

After the display is set up, daughters dress in a traditional-styled Japanese kimono. Afterward, family members gather in the room and enjoy drinking shirozake, a sweet, non-alcoholic sake made from rice malt, and eating sweetened puffed-rice crackers while listening to or singing a song written specifically for the festival.

This custom became popular after the Meiji Era near the end of the nineteenth century, however it is believed to have its origins in Heian court practice, about one thousand years ago.

Visiting My Son and a Twin Statue

On my way home to Sanjo from Tokyo after a business trip, I met my son at Waseda University and he showed me one of the twin statues of Ichishima Kenkichi (who went by the pen name of Ichishima Shunjo), erected in the Waseda library building. (Please refer to an older post at

 http://yagihana.blogspot.com/2010/08/kenkichi-ichishima-chronicler-of-waseda.html) to read about the duplicate erected in Ichishima Tei or the Ichishima Residence Museum in Shibata City.)

Another reason that I visited the Waseda campus was to see the special exhibition of Aizu Yaichi’s calligraphies and collection of Eastern artifacts, such as potteries and ink-paintings. Yaichi, a distant relative of the Ichishima family, was born in Niigata City in 1881 and was a professor emeritus of ancient Chinese and Japanese art at Waseda University. On his graduating from Waseda, he became an English teacher at Yuko Gakusha, which was then a private secondary school, but is now a public senior high school named Yuko Koko in Itakura, Joetsu City.

Ichishima Sake Brewery Incorporated

I recently visited an intriguing guy, Kenji Ichishima, who is a good friend, a distant relative, and the president of Ichishima Sake Brewery Incorporated. He was born and bred in Shibata City, but he spent many years in the USA and studied at a university there.

For the last five years, his company has been targeting the international market. Also, as chairman of both the Japan Sake Brewers Association Junior Council and Niigata Sake Brewers Association, he has been pushing other breweries to expand their reach outside Japan.

According to him, the trendiest venues in New York City for young couples to get together are Japanese restaurants and sushi bars and many people have been turned on to the joys of drinking sake. He also said that there has been a noticeable increase in the number of scenes in movies and TV shows that show people drinking sake.

“In Tokyo, Japanese couples may visit Italian or French restaurants to enjoy drinking wine, but in New York City, Japanese cuisine has been trendy for about 10 to 15 years,” he said. “My company is now exporting 11 different kinds of sake to overseas markets.”

Kenji is particularly interested in expanding into the American market and he visits there quite often. When he does, he displays his brands at events and trade shows and tries to meet as many people as possible who might be interested in his brews.

One thing that he told me about the American market that I found interesting was that rather sweet sakes with only 10-percent alcohol content are very popular. I, like most Japanese, am not a big fan of sweet sakes. The style I prefer is “tanrei karakuchi,” which is light, crisp and dry.

Kenji found this interesting as well. He told me that Americans who really know sake usually prefer the drier brands with higher alcohol content.

Regardless of your preference, my friend may have the sake that fits your taste. So, if you are visiting the Niigata area, stop on by as his company allows visitors to watch the sake-making process.

He also maintains a small museum about the history of the company and the Ichishima family. In it, you can see many historical and valuable items, including calligraphy by Aizu Yaichi and Ichishima Shunjo.

If you get a chance, please visit his website: http://www.ichishima.jp/eng/

The Ichishima Family and its history

You may associate my family name, Ichishima, with Ichishima-Tei (the mansion and garden of Japan’s second wealthiest landowner, preserved as part of the cultural heritage of Niigata Prefecture), or, perhaps, Ichishima Shuzo (a very notable Sake brewery in nearby Shibata City). Or if you have a good knowledge of Japanese literature, history and politics, you may be reminded of, amongst others, Aizu Yaichi (an essayist and art historian), Ichishima Shunjo (one of the founders of Waseda University) or Ichishima Tokujiro (the first president of Daishi Bank), or Ichishima Michio (a poet). They are all from branches of the Ichishima family tree. I belong to the Rokunojoke Branch.

Recently, I pieced together a brief history of the Ichishima families based on old newspaper articles and books, including KabyoNoSheHi, and Kaken (the family’s constitutional law book), which were published exclusively for members of the ten family branches and a few other people.

The most famous of the Ichishimas was “Gono,” a giant landowner. The Soke family (the “head family” or the “main-branch family”) was the largest land and forest owner in Niigata Prefecture before the start of the Second World War. Two thousand six hundred peasants worked in the rice paddies for the great landlord. Their land holdings were second only to the Homma family of Yamagata Prefecture.

The Ichishima residence, built in 1876 in Toyoura, Shibata City, is now preserved as a museum, and is open to the public. Unfortunately, a strong earthquake destroyed “Kogetsukaku,” a pomp-filled guest palace, in 1995 and, presently, there is no plan to rebuild it unless private benefactors can be found to provide financial support as government coffers are limited.

The Ichishima Family originated more than four centuries ago in Ichijima Town in Hyogo Prefecture as a family without a surname. However, when the Feudal Lord Mizoguchi was ordered by Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the daimyo who unified the political factions of Japan in the Sengoku period, to transfer from Kaga (Ishikawa Prefecture) to Shibata Castle, the first “Jihei” in the family followed him and settled in Ijimino, Shibata in 1598. One of his great-grandsons, even though he was the eldest son in the family, moved away from the family home to a neighboring town, “Suibara,” and rose to power, establishing the Soke family.

Other family members settled in parts of Shibata City. One, “Rokunojo,” who was favored by his father, inherited the original place in Ijimino, and established the family’s Rokunojo branch. All family branches have had ups and downs during their histories, but the Soke family had been one of Japan’s largest landowners from the early Edo Period until a decade after World War II.

Though the different branches of the family often went separate ways, the 185-article family constitution that bound them together strongly emphasized the importance of family ties and cooperation. One of its tenets was that “No family abandons another in trouble.” Thus, when the Rokunojo family faced less prosperous times and had even teetered on the verge of bankruptcy, its members were granted a share of the Soke family’s holdings, including a mansion in the same town as Ichishima Tei.

However, the emancipation of farming land and disposition of financial cliques in the aftermath of the war took away almost all properties from the farming giants. At this time, the Soke branch of the family, having no remaining heirs, became extinguished, much to the sorrow of other branches.

My grandfather was not the eldest son, so our branch of the family is not in the direct line of the Rokunojos. His residence was built in Ijimino, where an earlier ancestor settled, and, though we have spread to different cities during this modern age of hustle and bustle, it is still my family’s official domicile address.

Kenkichi Ichishima: The Chronicler of Waseda and Okuma

Yesterday, my son and I went to Ijimino in Shibata City, which is where the Ichishima family established the original family domicile in Niigata Prefecture. We went there to learn more about one of the great members of our extended family, Kenkichi Ichishima (who went by the pen name of Shunjo).

First, we visited his grave in the Ijimino Cemetery. His tomb, which is right next to our family tomb, was repaired by Waseda University last year. Earlier, in a special  ceremony in Shibata City, Waseda's president delivered a speech in commemoration of the one-hundred fiftieth anniversary of Shunjo Ichishima's birth.

Photo: Kenkichi Ichishima (1860-1944)
A teacher for only a short time, Ichishima later worked as Library Director and assisted with the university's management. He played a major role in fund-raising for the university's expansion. He also served as director of the Dainippon Bunmei Kyōkai (Japan Civilization Society) and chairman of the Japan Library Association. (Retrieved from Waseda University’s home page)

Next, my son, a Waseda University student, and I went to Ichishima Tei or the Ichishima Residence Museum, to see a special exhibition about Kenkichi Ichishima’s accomplishments that featured a newly erected statue in his honor. A duplicate statue was also erected on the Waseda campus.

According to Waseda University’s website, the men that congregated around Shigenobu Ōkuma, the founder of the university, and assisted him in both his political ambitions and in the founding of Waseda University, included “a galaxy of talented individuals.” Amongst them were the enthusiastic young students of Azusa Ono's Ōtōkai (The Gull Society), who graduated from Tokyo Imperial University (now called The University of Tokyo). With Sanae Takata as the leader, the group was sometimes called the “University Group of Seven.” Ichishima also belonged to the group, but he quit school and rushed to Ōkuma's aid when Ōkuma left public office in 1881.

From then until Ōkuma's death in 1922 (Taishō 11), Ichishima spent over forty years as one of Ōkuma's attendants. During that time, Kenkichi  Ichishima (who went by the pen name of Shunjō) was a prolific writer, and he left behind an extensive catalog of essays, records, and notes. He was something of a chronicler of Ōkuma and Waseda University.

Ichishima was born in 1860 (Manen 1), the same year that Chief Minister Ii Naosuke was assassinated in the Sakuradamon Incident. By strange coincidence, he died in 1944 (Shōwa 19) at the age of 85, the same age that Ōkuma died.

Ichishima's family were wealthy landowners from the Echigo Province (located in current-day Niigata Prefecture). When Issei Maeshima was appointed as a commissioner after the Meiji Restoration, he used the spacious Ichishima home as his official residence, and is said to have doted on Ichishima, who, after studying in Suibara, Niigata, moved to Tokyo and entered Tokyo University. There he became friends with Sanae Takata, Shōyō Tsubouchi, Kenkichi Okayama, Ichirō Yamada, Kinosuke Yamada, and Katsutaka Sunakawa. He joined the Ōtōkai (Gull Society), supported Ōkuma in establishing the Rikken Kaishintō (Constitutional Reform Party), and later devoted himself to the founding of Tokyo Senmon Gakkō (College) and the development of Waseda University.

Ichishima had an especially close relationship with Takata. Judging from the roles they played, their relationship was like that of the sun and moon.

Takata served as Waseda's president, as a politician who served in the Diet in the Kizokuin (House of Peers: the upper house of the Imperial Diet under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, which was in effect from February 11, 1889 to May 3, 1947), and as Minister of Education.  Ichishima also served in the Diet as an elected member from Niigata Prefecture, but his career was cut short due to illness.

Thereafter, he supported Takata as Executive Director, Auditor, and Library Director of Waseda University. He also assisted with fund-raising and expanding the Waseda University Library.
During this period, he always walked in Takata's shadow, and in the general election during the second Ōkuma cabinet, served as Ōkuma's campaign director. When Takata was sick or traveling abroad, Ichishima took care of all of his duties. He was flexible and responsive—a literary man, uninterested in fame or fortune. During the so-called “Waseda Troubles,” Ichishima faced down attacks as head of the Takata faction. After Ōkuma's death, he handled all the planning and organizing for the funeral.

(From “Episode—Ōkuma Shigenobu (Episodes in the Life of Shigenobu Ōkuma)”)
Retrieved from http://www.waseda.jp/eng/okuma/people/people106.html