A Most Unexpected Visit to Cuba

One of my favorite Spanish songs is “Guantanamera”, a Cuban song. The composer is Jose Fernandez Dias (1908-1979) and the lyrics, nobly dignified, is dedicated to Jose Marti (1853-1895) to honor his life and efforts to liberate Cuba from Spain.

Guantanamera

Guajira Guantanamera
Yo soy un hombre sincero (I am a truthful man)
De no me crecen los palma (from the land of palm)
Yo soy un hombre sincero (I am a truthful man)
De no me crece los palma (from the land of palm)
Y antes de morir yo quiero (Before dying, I want to)
Echar mis versos del alma (share these poems of my soul)

Probably I was one of the rare Japanese who got to visit Havana, Cuba in December of 1961, soon after the Cuban Revolution. Cuba was not originally in my travel plans. I delegated the task to a Japanese measurement instrument manufacturer to visit Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela, where area sales to governments and industries were gradually increasing through local representation. While in Mexico, I came to learn that the Cuban Government was interested in the so-called AC Network Analyzer, an analog electrical distribution analyzer such as the one my employer made.

Luckily, Mexico was then the only country where I could obtain a Cuban visa. With the help of Mitsui Trading Company in Mexico, I submitted my visa request and commuted daily to the Cuban Consulate there. My visa was granted for 4 days, from December 4th to the 8th. I reserved flight tickets right away on Cubana de Aviacion.

Capri was the Havana Hotel where I stayed, (6 Dollars a night, less than one Dollar but more than one Peso at the time), guarded by a soldier with a machine gun.

In Havana, I visited Campana Cubana de Electricidad. The engineers I met there were Stanford University graduates.

They seemed to be conducted a comparative analysis of our product against counterparts of GE, Westinghouse and others. They showed me a room where the instruments were to be installed. The power requirements were 120/240V, 60Hz. I made the rounds to the various Ministries accompanied by Mitsui Trading. The talks, however, did not pan out even with the option to barter with sugar as far as I know. My gut observation was that Cuban people were short of daily necessities and medicines in particular. How do you value an instrument or an engineers’ toy versus food?

The highlight of my Cuban visit was a drive out to Ernest Hemingway’s "Old Man and the Sea" beach and a dinner reception hosted by the Japanese Ambassador Tsumura. Besides me, two other Shosha men stationed there were also invited. Ambassador Tsumura (who was stationed there without his family) welcomed me to his empty official residence. I learned that most Japanese expatriates and families were evacuated earlier, leaving only the Ambassador and two Shosha men there in Havana.

Cuba Part 7: Finca Vigia Museo

Courage is grace under pressure
(Le courage est la grâce malgré la pression)
by Ernest Hemingway

My last post on Cuban is about the hilltop “Finca Vigia”, currently “Museo Hemingway”, along with the featured furnishing of ‘Pilar’, a 12 meter long fishing boat, operated by the Cuban Finca Vigia Foundation. The venue is 8 miles east of Havana.

Hemingway’s first visit to Cuba was in 1928. It may have happened as a layover to Spain, as an exploratory trip to Key West by way of Cuba, or as the result of his second wife Pauline’s family connections. However it happened, it was his enthusiasm for sports fishing there that drew him to Cuba again in 1932 and 1933. When his “Esquire” voyage articles with Carlos Guiterrez became a hit, he purchased the Finca Vigia in 1941 and resided there until 1960, when the communist party nationalized the properties belonging to all Americans.

It was at this Finca Vigia that “An Old Man and the Sea” was written, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer and Nobel Prizes respectively in 1952 and 1954. The well known story is about a lonely old fisherman’s struggle to catch a big fish and bring it back to shore through shark-infested waters. It was praised as the most powerful, style forming mastery of the art of modern narration.

However, Hemingway was unable to attend the Nobel Awards Ceremony in Stockholm because he was suffering from severe injuries sustained in two successive plane accidents in Africa. He read a short acceptance speech over Cuban radio, and said in closing “a writer should write what he has to say and not speak it.”

While he recuperated, he paid homage to El Cobre Sanctuary near Santiago de Cuba. Here is what he told Cubans after the visit:

"I dedicated my Nobel Prize Medal to the fishermen of Cojimar. Although I had told this story of an old man and his fish to the whole world, it is their story and they should share this medal. A medal is worn close to the heart and my heart is in Cuba. The good people of Cuba have taken me into their hearts and caused me to live here longer than I have lived anywhere else.

This is my true home. I traveled, with the medal, to Santiago de Cuba and entered the church. I knelt at the feet of the Patron Saint of Cuba and deposited the medal. Silently, I prayed for the protection, the peace and the prosperity of the warm, friendly, generous people of Cuba. In Cuba, the people accepted me unconditionally. I could breathe and be happy. It is my clear, well lighted place."

(The medal was displayed on the altar, but was stolen in the 1980s. It was safely recovered with Castro’s appeal, but had not been on public display since then.)

During the Cuban Revolution, President Kennedy made an exception and allowed Hemingway’s fourth wife Mary to return to Finca Vigia. The Cuban government approached Mary to gift the house to them, to be used as a monument to Hemingway. She negotiated Hemingway’s manuscripts from the house in exchange for the donation.

Shipment of the manuscripts was delayed because Cuba and U.S. teams (with special visas) had to collaborate on microfilming key manuscripts and the final shipping destination had not been determined. Upon her return to the U.S., Mary asked Jacqueline Onassis to store them at the JFK Presidential Library and Museum in Boston and the ‘Hemingway Archive’ was established. It was in the mid 1970’s that the Cuban documents were finally unpacked in Boston. Today Boston Library boasts 100,000 pages of writing and 10,000 photos, all digitized, for Hemingway scholars and researchers.

Havana, Cuba Part 2: Keicho Embassy of 1613

About 120 years after Cristobal Colon’s landing in Cuba, Rocuyemon Foxecura, or Hasekura (1571-1622), the chief delegate of the Keicho Embassy (as it was later referred to historically) and his troupe of 20 took to the sea from Veracruz, Mexico to Havana, Cuba on board the Spanish Armada in July 1614 on their way to Europe. Rocuyemon was a Samurai retainer serving a powerful Sendai Daimyo Date Masamune (1567-1636), who was close to Taiko Hideyoshi and the Tokugawa Shogunate. His mission was to open up trade relations with Espana and Nueva Espana (Mexico) and to ask the Vatican Pope to send missionaries to Sendai.

Rocuyemon was accompanied by Luis Tesolo, a Franciscan friar, as assistant and interpreter. Although the Embassy was cordially received in Europe, the answers they got were noncommittal both from Spain and Rome, as it happened at a time when Japan was moving toward the suppression of Christianity. What they found upon return from an eight year absence was Christian persecution and Tokugawa’s forced isolation policy. Rocuyemon died in obscurity shortly after.

The very existence of the travels of Rocuyemon was forgotten in Japan until the reopening of the country after the Meiji Restoration. In 1873, Tomomi Iwakura, head of Japanese embassy to Europe, learned about the Keicho Mission and was surprised when he was shown documents during their visit to Venice, Italy.

The rediscovery of Rocuyemon’s embassy inspired a community in Sendai and their efforts culminated in obtaining an UNESCO Memory of the World Listing designated for 1) Portrait of Rocuyemon, 2) Certificate of Roman Citizenship and 3) Portrait of Pope Paul V. Since the beginning of the new millennium, Sendai Ikuei Gakuen (Junior and Senior High school) has been exchanging students with Cuban counterparts for sports and music events. When the Ikuei Gakuen celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2001, Ikuei donated Rocuyemon’s statue to Havana City. Citizens of Sendai raised funds to send 30 students for the unveiling ceremony at Malecon on the waterfront.

The Cuban government conferred a decoration to Ikuei Gakuen Principal Kato in 2011. Despite the damage from the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami the same year, about 400 Sendai citizens took part in the celebration in Havana and prayed with Cubans for the disaster victims and the quick recovery of Sendai and areas hit hard.

2013 was the year of the 400th anniversary of Rocuyemon’s visit. Rocuyemon has surely reestablished his fame and historical significance after 400 years. His statue in Havana is positioned such that the fan he is holding points to Rome from Havana.

Havana, Cuba - Part 1

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma.

I am an honest man
From where taje palm tree grows,
And I want, before I die
to cast these verses from my soul.

- Jose Marti (1853-1895)

I welcome President Obama’s historic move to restore relations with Cuba. Seemingly, he has hit snags on issues like the return of Guantanamo Bay base, but prisoner exchanges were done, thanks to Pope Francis, who was born in Argentina. It is encouraging to note that Fidel Castro is backing the U.S.-Cuba thaw. Hope the day will come soon to overcome remaining thorny matters.

I was in Cuba under the Castro regime almost 50 years ago. Cuba is 140 km from Key West, Florida. Havana was still under curfew, guarded by armed soldiers. Ocean front Hotel Nacional de Cuba, Havana’s symbol built in 1930, was my hotel with an unbelievable room rate of 6 dollars a day (one dollar = one peso). Gunshots at night woke me more than once, but I wasn’t scared at all. However, I was in no mood to take a stroll out. My recollection is that Universidad de la Havana was within walking distance from the hotel.

My assignment was to see if the Cuban Government’s Union Electric would barter sugar in exchange for a power grid distribution analyzer made by my ex-employer through one of the Japanese trading firms. At the time, there was rationing going on among the Cuban citizens, and anything beyond real basic necessities like medicines, power generators, etc. were all considered luxuries. I knew the answer before the official denial was given. My visit to Cuba was a brief, intermediate stop along the way for the rest of my sales calls to meet Mexican, Colombian, Venezuelan, and Brazilian representatives.

While waiting for the Union Electric’s answer, during the weekend, my trading agent in Havana took me to see a golf course in Varadero, about 140 km east of Havana. The Varadero club house was originally the “Mansion Xanadu”, a three-story Spanish Colonial Villa, built by Irene DuPont, great granddaughter of Eleuthere in 1930.

The area was deserted and the golf course was not very well taken care of at all. I saw four Japanese golfers tee off, and they were the only golfers of the day. There were no caddies or callers. In fact, there was no one around the course. I was then taken to the Varadero beach by a Cuban chauffeur arranged by my trading agent. Hemingway was said to frequent this beach. Photos were officially banned but I got a few with my camera (see photos). I got one also of the Castillo de los Tres Reyes del Moro from inside the car.

Back at the hotel, I went up to the top floor swimming pool and spent most of my time there in my private paradise until dark, swimming, sunbathing, reading, snacking, without anyone ever bothering me. The Cabaret Tropicana at the Hotel had the best show I’ve ever seen in my life. It was better than Franco Fontana’s Oba Oba, the Brazilian show I saw in Las Vegas at a much later time.