Rio Imamura has passed away

Hello,

It is with a heavy heart to notify you of the passing of my father, Rio Imamura, this morning at the age of 93. He died peacefully at a hospice in Kitakyushu Japan, near his apartment where he spent the last 20 years enjoying his retirement in active fashion.

Please say a prayer and remember some of the moments you spent with him as we celebrate his life. He is probably already making friends wherever he is now.

I'd like to share a brief account of his journey.

Rio Imamura (1931-2024)

Father, Husband, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, Kyocera Corporate Secretary (retired), Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM)

The oldest of 4 children, Rio was born in Imabari, Shikoku Japan to Takeo and Tomiko Imamura. As the eldest son, he was responsible for gathering food for his family during the hard times of World War II and its aftermath.

Rio studied Economics and English at Osaka University. He had a life-long fascination with Shakespearean plays and told the story of how he would go to the movie theatre to see “Hamlet” just to practice his English by recitIng soliloquies along with the movie.

After college, Rio worked for Yokogawa Electric. He married Tamiko Ide in 1958 and celebrated the birth of both of his children before moving his family to New York City in 1963. After returning to Tokyo in 1969, Rio continued working for Yokogama Electric for another 4 years. In 1973, Rio changed companies to work for Kyocera International Inc., and moved his family to San Diego, California, where he eventually retired in 2004.

Community service minded, Rio helped to establish Minato Gakuen, a San Diego non-profit Japanese Language school dedicated to supplementing education in Japanese language. Rio also had the opportunity to represent his company, and served as a board member to establish the Japanese Friendship Garden at Balboa Park. This garden has grown and matured into a jewel of the park. Through this work, Rio befriended Clara Breed, the head librarian for the San Diego City Library.

After retirement, Rio and his wife Tamiko settled in Kyushu. Rio was instrumental in founding an English-speaking Toastmasters (TM) chapter in Kitakyushu. Rio participated in several international Toastmasters conferences, served as an evaluator at TM competitions, and earned the Distinguished Toastmaster (DTM) title, the highest level of educational achievement in Toastmasters. Rio became TM’s educational & training director, representing all of Japan.

Another project Rio took on in retirement was to translate Joanne Oppenheimer’s book Dear Miss Breed from English to Japanese. Rio believed this work, which chronicled Clara Breed’s efforts to help displaced Japanese-American children sent to internment camps during WWII, was important for Japanese natives (especially children) to discover. He translated, self-published, and promoted this work enthusiastically. Over the years, Rio cultivated many friendships. He shared his travelogues and stories on his Blog…riosloggers-Riodan.blogspot.com.

Rio had an impact on many lives and will be missed by all who knew him. Rio and Tamiko celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary in January 2024.

Rio is survived by his wife Tamiko Imamura, son Kirk Imamura (wife Chieko Imamura) and daughter Yukina Warner (husband Raymond Warner). He is also survived by his grandchildren Raymond Warner IV, Alina Russ (husband Wyatt Russ) and 1-year old Great Granddaughter Jade Russ, as well as his sister-in-law Kiyoko Ide.

Rio Hospitalized

Dear loyal readers & followers of Rio’s blog,

I am Rio’s son and I wanted to provide an update on the condition of my father’s health. Rio was admitted into the hospital on May 10 with aspiration pneumonia. I flew to Japan from the US to watch over him late May and arranged his transfer to a different hospital / hospice on June 6. He is visited regularly by his wife and sister-in-law. He is in good spirits and is communicating (although sometimes it is difficult to make out what his is saying). While I was there, he was able to FaceTime with his daughter, granddaughter, grandson, and great-granddaughter in the US.

Right up until he was hospitalized, he was avidly reading & writing various essays & articles, as he had done for many years since his retirement. He surrounded himself with books, newspaper clippings and interesting articles & tidbits that sparked thoughts and inspired commentary only he can come up with. Many of his musings have ended up on this blog.

Please do not send emails to him directly. He will not be able to access them and you will not get a response. The best thing to do is to direct all messages to me at kirk.imamura@gmail.com with subject line “Message to Rio”. I will try to find a way to get the messages to him.

Thank you for the support and friendship you have shown my father over the years. Kindly remember him in your prayers.

-- Kirk Imamura

Grilled Sanma, a fall delicacy

Alas,
Autumn wind
Have pity - tell
How a man, alone,
At supper this evening,
Is eating Sanma
Lost in thought

- Song of Sanma by Haruo Sato (1892-1964)

Autumn is often said to increase the appetite particularly when served with Sanma, a typical seasonal fish “Pacific Saury,” silvery-slender like a spearhead about five inches long. Though the Sanma season starts in July, they are mostly caught in autumn due to its spawning season. Large numbers of them travel south along the east coast of Japan to lay their eggs. The later Sanma is caught in autumn, the more flavor and fat you can expect. The seasonality makes them a favorite fish to eat during fall and people look forward to it as the days get shorter and nights cooler.

As Haruo Sato wrote in his poem above, I thought Sanma belonged to us common folk, but today it is seemingly being possessed by the wealthier classes. In October, I enjoyed a Sanma Dinner twice, hoping for another in November.

Usually, Sanma is served grilled with salt along with garlic, lemon, lime or Yuzu and grated Daikon. It may come together with miso soup and some pickles. You will have to deal with a lot of small bones in Sanma, but one gets more skilled as you get older. Sanma is rich in protein and Omega-3 and helps to reduce blood pressure.

Studies in Chemistry

I tried in vain to invite my grandson Raymond Warner IV to Japan this summer who reached the last year of his teens. In 2018, he visited Japan on his high school excursion trip and Tamiko and I met him in Kyoto. We were amazed he was a six-foot tall boy and he was still growing. We had to look up at him. He resembled my son, his uncle Kirk, but even more handsome. I figured once he had a chance to stay in Kitakyushu, he would never be left alone walking by the local girls.

He started attending University of California, San Diego last spring, which pleased me greatly, as it was the city where I left my heart and his mother spent her maiden days. I was also very happy to hear he is pursuing a chemical engineering degree like his sister, Alina, a chemist now working for a Swiss pharmaceutical company in Los Angeles. My invitation to Raymond included an offer for a temporary summer job but he preferred to work in Thousand Oaks from a personal connection. I could not blame him.

The 2022 Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded jointly to Carolyne R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry.” I am happy both our grandchildren chose to pursue studies in chemistry.

A Marvelous Journey and Lifetime of Memories

Woo-Hoo! Tamiko made Mt. Fuji at her “Beiju” celebration by publishing her 47-page long life story or portfolio titled: “Tamiko Imamura”.

About a year and half ago, I had collected speeches Tamiko made at Kitakyushu Toastmasters and sent them to our daughter, Yukina Warner, in Santa Barbara, California for editing. I did not hear back from her until this Spring. I received a tiny USB drive from Yukina, saying she consolidated Mom’s speeches into a near 50-page worth of text. Our daughter Yukina had shuffled and edited and made a stunning masterpiece for her mother, Tamiko. Thank you, Yukina, for the wonderful job you did.

It was the greatest of timing since Tamiko was to celebrate her Beiju Anniversary and she did so with fanfare by publishing her life story. “Beiju” or “Yoneju” in Japan comes from the fact that the character “rice” can be broken down into the characters “88”.

She received many positive reactions from her many friends.

Jody Dulin, our friend from San Diego wrote:

"Absolutely beautiful. Such an adventurous life you have led. I have learned throughout the years how very important it was for you to return to Japan. It is incredible that your family has stayed very bonded in spite of distances. Your entire family exudes love. What an example for the world. Sending lots of love and admiration"

Another review came from our Taiwanese friend, Paul Lee who lives in Taichung.

“Thank you very much for showing me your journey and education through Toastmasters 1997-2016. You have enjoyed a diverse and fruitful life.”

The beautiful Rose Bud at the bottom of the post came from Tamiko's friends in Kitakyushu.

My Pen Pal in China

It was during the mid-90s, right after I retired and returned from the US (after a 40-year stay) to Japan and started thinking about visiting China next. I was searching for a pen pal to exchange letters and I found one. I wrote to him in Chinese and he wrote back in Japanese, both of us benefiting from writing in our second or third language to brush up.

I became acquainted with Zhu Guanshan, a college student of Jilin University, through the courtesy of a Japanese language teacher heading to the university. Zhu-San and I exchanged letters often, Zhu-San expressing his wish to visit Japan as an exchange student while in college (I believe he made it but I did not get a chance to meet him when he did).

Zhu-san, was hired by a company in Shanghai after graduating from Jilin University. Our correspondence continued as before. I visited Beijing, Kunming, and other places in China, each for over a month in 1996. I also started visiting Taiwan as a Toastmaster around 2000. As a side-note, 2003 was my busiest year, starting with visits to Berlin and the rest of Europe in the spring, followed by the Toastmaster Convention in Atlanta, Georgia and then attending the 20th Anniversary of Minato Japanese Language School in San Diego in November.

Zhu-san luckily found my October calendar clear with his invitation to his wedding. I accepted it thinking the ceremony would take place in Shanghai, an easy location to fly into from Kitakyushu. The ceremony happened to be in Jilin in Northeast China, formerly known as Manchuria. Jilin borders the Heilongjiang Province to the northeast, Russia to the east, North Korea to the southeast, Liaoning to the southwest and Inner Mongolia to the northwest, a most fascinating destination for a tourist.

I politely declined his request. Then he promised to send his friend to meet me at Shenyang Airport and accompany me to Jilin for a 400 km railroad trip. How can I refuse such an offer? I accepted.

To make a long story short, I enjoyed the trip to Jilin and the wedding ceremony with more than a hundred people. I still remember the hard drill of memorizing my congratulatory message in Chinese (text attached).

I am happy to post the latest Zhu San’s family photos he sent me here.

August 5, 1945: The Day I lost my loving grandparents

Today, May 15, Okinawa marks 50 years since reversion from U.S. rule, inviting Prime Minister Kishida, despite its long-stated hope of becoming a peaceful island free of military bases. It is 87 years after Japan’s unconditional surrender of war by the calamitous two atomic bombs felled on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 9).

I was 14-years old in 1945, living in “Imabari”, 2nd largest city - facing Seto Inland Sea in Ehime Prefecture. My town is known for quality towel producing mills. My father was just over 40-years old and was drafted into the army. My younger brothers and sister evacuated to an off-shore island where my mother was born. I lived with my grandparents and my mother. I was a student worker and started to work at one of the mills converted into an airplane wing manufacturing plant.

On August 5 around 11PM, 64 Boeing 29 Bombers came (US Op #316, 58th US Squadron) carrying 500-pound M19 incendiary cluster bombs (2,449 pcs) and 56 T4E4 and 32 AR-M64 regular cluster bombs. Incendiary cluster was set to release at 160m and regular at 900m height.

The raids started with 4 parachute flares to defy blackout enforcement kept by Imabari citizens with numberless showers of incendiary bombs. A total of 66 B-29 Bombers took turns dropping incendiary bombs for another two hours. Reported 80% of the city houses perished and was reduced to ashes. 454 persons were dead, including my grandparents, and 150 were heavily injured. Total house loss by fire was 8199. Victims numbered 34,200, including us.

Prior to the heavy air-raids, Imabari had a few minor bomb attacks by Boeing B-29s, including time bombs and rare low flying Grumman fighter machine gun attacks in 1944 and 1945.

My grandparents used to seek shelter at the nearest forested park. We searched for them in vain. They did not return. We concluded that the bomb hit them. Mom and I fled out of the burning streets to the rice paddies, found an irrigation gutter and crouched there breathless until dawn.

All we had were padded hoods. We lost everything. We did not know how to continue living. We were eventually assigned to a barn in a nearby village farm until the end of war.

We heard rumors about a new bomb dropped in Hiroshima but there were no details.

Recently I obtained a copy of the newspaper and saw a photo of an incendiary bomb for the first time. My recollection of the bomb was a metallic sheathed bomb, about less than a meter, uncovered from the ruins after the fire.

In regards to the Boeing B-29 bomber, I learned that my son-in-law’s father Raymond, a Carnegie Tech graduate, was a navigator during World War II. He told me his first assignment was to take a brand-new B-29 to Manila from Texas. It took three stops to the Philippines, including Hawaii. Japan could be reached from Manila. Panhu Islands or Pescadores are the boundaries.

He once took me to one of the old bombers to show where he sat, among the crew of 10 to 12. We became good friends since the wedding ceremony of my daughter and his son. He lived in Riverdale, California. We share our great grandchildren. RIP.

In June 1943, US defeated Japan at the battle of Saipan in the Mariana Islands, leaving Japanese archipelago within reach of the B-29 bombers. We used to look up high 10,000 meters to see them in formation, shining in the blue sky without being challenged. I heard a dozen stories of Japanese fighter planes ramming into them, especially in Kitakyushu and wondered how the small fighter planes could climb so high.

I learned that San Diego, where I spent 20 years, was heavily involved in airplane manufacturing, particularly the Boeing 29s, under Lockheed Martin. Americans produced a total of 18,482 B-29s, possibly in Nebraska, Kansas, Florida, Texas or California. Montgomery Airport in Kearny Mesa may have been a possible production site, the backyard of 3611 Balboa Avenue. My salute to all involved, regardless of enemy or ally.