Hachiko – Unrequited in Tokyo
Posted by Phil Adams on Nov 16, 2009 in Japan / Taiwan 2009 | 8 comments
If you travel to
Tokyo to visit a friend and need to pick a spot to meet, you should know that the most popular meeting place in the city is a small statue of a dog in front of the Shibuya train station. Almost every Japanese citizen knows the famous story of the dog, but most Americans do not.
In the 1920's,
Hachiko, an Akita, walked with his master every day to the Shibuya train station to see him off. Then, every evening,the dog would return to the station to await his master's arrival home from work. This was a pattern that repeated every day until he was 18 months old. One day his master, a professor at the local university, had a stroke and died at work. The dog waited for him, but he never came home. Undaunted, Hachiko returned the following afternoon at the time of the evening train, only to go away disappointed.
Hachiko never gave up. He returned to the station for the evening train every night without fail. When people began to notice him regularly, they began to feed him. His story became known throughout Japan when a newspaper article about him was published in 1933, after he had been returning every night for seven years. He finally passed away and re-joined his master after ten years of never giving up. A statue was erected of him at the station, but was torn down when the metal was needed for the war effort in World War II. Another was commissioned after the war and has stood in his waiting spot ever since.
Sara first told me this story years ago and I have thought of it often. Even though it was pouring down rain, we made the trek across the city to see the statue. So if you are ever meeting someone in Tokyo, meet at Shibuya and wait with Hachiko, he will be there.
