Congratulations on climbing Tateyama and your opportunity to “time travel.” Your grandfather’s line drawing was so precise and exactly matched your photo. All “mountain maniacs,” of which my wife is one, owe a debt to your ancestor and his generation of alpinists. I’m not nearly as experienced as my wife but I appreciate the culture of Japanese mountaineering that has grown up over the past 100 years. There goes Japan again, combining overseas influences with local traditions and sensibilities and creating something totally unique and cool.
Hiroko, I’m sure your grandfather’s spirit is gratified to know that you are following in his footsteps (literally). I am in awe of your achievement in climbing Tateyama - you must feel such satisfaction. Beautiful photos too. Thank you so much for this post.
Warmest congratulations on your upcoming book, looking forward to reading it!! It’s a topic I’m very interested in learning more about, and through your unique perspective.
This is my favorite post of yours yet, though I may be biased! I’m so happy that you were able to connect with your late grandfather as well as also enjoying the beautiful landscapes of my favorite mountains. I’m sure they’ve changed you like they changed me! Thank you for the beautiful post!
Hiroko: At present I am in Galway after some days in Belfast and then Derry (aka Londonderry). In some senses I am tracing ancestry though it is not the only reason for being in this corner of the world. Nevertheless your tribute to your great grand-father has me reviewing aspects of the last several weeks. Firstly meeting up with various cousins with whom I share kinship via our great grand-parents - who were all siblings - in a tiny village in the Scottish Borders. Just south of Belfast is the little town of Dromore out of which came my great x 3 grandparents - Daniel Doyle and wife Mary "McCormick". He died in Spain on May 5th, 1811 - in a minor skirmish against French Napoleonic Forces. Mary and their daughter Eliza - who became my great x 2 grand-mother - left Nottingham - where Daniel's Regiment the 1st 45th Line of Foot - was headquartered - for New South Wales (Sydney Town) in 1820.
Earlier this year I came across a book advertised on-line. It was by an academic - David Murray - the story of his father who taught in China (the youngest son of James A.H. Murray - editor of the Oxford English Dictionary). David himself passed away some years ago but his widow responded to my note and since which we have engaged in a very productive back-and-forth and will meet up in about two weeks in England - in Milton Keynes. I have only once before been to Milton Keynes - to visit the then Japanese boarding school where one of my Japanese university students had completed his middle school years before his father (the European Rep. for Yamaha) and family returned from Europe. My kinswoman in Milton Keynes - Ruth - is herself a writer and a strong advocate for Peace. When I was in Derry just last week she informed me that she born on the campus of then Magee College - her father being the College Principal. She will b e 92 on the last day of this year. Her father - her mother too - were Pacifists through the 1930s - in fact her mother wrote a memoir (published in the early 1990s) "Reaching for the Fruit: Growing up in Ulster" - in which she included her diary as a young woman visiting Germany during the early days of Hitler.
Diaries - how much they can tell us of the past...And be inspirational. That I know of my great x 2 grand-mother's story - her parents from Dromore is because one of my paternal cousins took the time to do the research and produce a monograph - separating received myth from the reality out of historical records and documents. I received my copy of cousin Julia Kable's book in 2011. And discovered I had one of my early passports stamped at the border crossing from Portugal into Spain at the very village where Daniel Doyle was killed - Fuentes de Oñoro. And in two weeks I will make my first visit to Nottingham where Eliza was born. It's fitting pieces of a jig-saw puzzle of family background into place. Something which began in conscious earnest for me when I was 11 - though my Scottish granny had cared for me when I was just two at the time my father was killed in a car crash - and these things I had been told about. I did not grow up near her but at age 11 I spent a couple of weeks with my paternal grand-parents and stories of their ancestries and connections were told. I must have shown interest - despite my tender years - and they were things I held onto tightly - as treasures - in those years in a very fraught relationship with a bullying step-father. I was learning who I was without the negatives imputations of a war-damaged step-father. And so I began more properly to grow up. I am writing and leaving behind my own diary/reports which might one day inspire some person way beyond my own life span (and should the world still be here of course)!
Just yesterday my wife and I took a tour from Galway into Connemara - just to the north-west - to Kylemore Castle - a Scottish baronial revival architectural style - built in the latter 19th-century by Mitchell HENRY for his wife Margaret (née Vaughan) - a love story - with a sad ending when only three or four years after it was finished Margaret fell ill on a visit in 1874 to Egypt - and died. Eventually Mitchell fell on hard times and sold the Castle to the Duke of Manchester and in turn it became a school for girls and finally in the 1950s a Benedictine Abbey - an order of nuns out of post-WWI Belgium... Margaret - I discovered - was born in Dromore - born there in the 1820s... seken-wa semai - I thought to myself!
I knew something of the former symbiotic relationship between Shintoism and Buddhism and the disruption during the early Meiji era - though not as clearly enunciated as you have done here. Decapitated religious images and statues was something which occurred during the Oliver Cromwell Puritan "commonwealth" period in English. One of the greatest destroyer iconoclasts was William Dowsing - from the village in Suffolk of my Kable ancestors - Laxfield. The impulse to destroy seemingly like a virus springing up - in Cambodia under Pol Pot - in the terrible times meted out upon First peoples - Ainu, Inuit, First Australians - the same in Canada and in the US - across Soiuth and Central America etc etc. I'll plant my flag with the builders and reconciliationists - with those who build up - who pay compensation - and properly declare never again. Again, thank-you. Hiroko.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and I am very happy if my writing helped clarify your thinking or guide you in any way! I am impressed with the detail with which you have reconstructed your family story.
I've just been to check out the Catholic Cathedral here in Galway as well as the 14th-century CE Collegiate Church of St Nicholas - and therein found a brass plaque from the mid-19th century commemorating an officer of the Connaught Rangers who also served in the Peninsular Napoleonic Wars and was at Fuentes d'Onor (sic) where my great x 3 g'father was slain. As well - one of the great families (known as the 14 tribes of Galway) was the Lynch family - and Che Guevara's paternal grand-mother was a Lynch - from whom he absorbed all his ideas about the colonial abuse of Ireland by the British. As you - following in your great grand-father's footsteps to those beautiful peaks on the edges of Toyama-ken - the connection comes vibrantly alive when you are not merely reading about it - but when you physically enter those spaces.
A beautiful travelogue, Hirokosan.
Congratulations on climbing Tateyama and your opportunity to “time travel.” Your grandfather’s line drawing was so precise and exactly matched your photo. All “mountain maniacs,” of which my wife is one, owe a debt to your ancestor and his generation of alpinists. I’m not nearly as experienced as my wife but I appreciate the culture of Japanese mountaineering that has grown up over the past 100 years. There goes Japan again, combining overseas influences with local traditions and sensibilities and creating something totally unique and cool.
Hiroko, I’m sure your grandfather’s spirit is gratified to know that you are following in his footsteps (literally). I am in awe of your achievement in climbing Tateyama - you must feel such satisfaction. Beautiful photos too. Thank you so much for this post.
Warmest congratulations on your upcoming book, looking forward to reading it!! It’s a topic I’m very interested in learning more about, and through your unique perspective.
Also お疲れ on the hike!
Beautiful read! Your photos of Mt. Tateyama look stunning, and I love to hike it myself someday.
This is my favorite post of yours yet, though I may be biased! I’m so happy that you were able to connect with your late grandfather as well as also enjoying the beautiful landscapes of my favorite mountains. I’m sure they’ve changed you like they changed me! Thank you for the beautiful post!
Hiroko: At present I am in Galway after some days in Belfast and then Derry (aka Londonderry). In some senses I am tracing ancestry though it is not the only reason for being in this corner of the world. Nevertheless your tribute to your great grand-father has me reviewing aspects of the last several weeks. Firstly meeting up with various cousins with whom I share kinship via our great grand-parents - who were all siblings - in a tiny village in the Scottish Borders. Just south of Belfast is the little town of Dromore out of which came my great x 3 grandparents - Daniel Doyle and wife Mary "McCormick". He died in Spain on May 5th, 1811 - in a minor skirmish against French Napoleonic Forces. Mary and their daughter Eliza - who became my great x 2 grand-mother - left Nottingham - where Daniel's Regiment the 1st 45th Line of Foot - was headquartered - for New South Wales (Sydney Town) in 1820.
Earlier this year I came across a book advertised on-line. It was by an academic - David Murray - the story of his father who taught in China (the youngest son of James A.H. Murray - editor of the Oxford English Dictionary). David himself passed away some years ago but his widow responded to my note and since which we have engaged in a very productive back-and-forth and will meet up in about two weeks in England - in Milton Keynes. I have only once before been to Milton Keynes - to visit the then Japanese boarding school where one of my Japanese university students had completed his middle school years before his father (the European Rep. for Yamaha) and family returned from Europe. My kinswoman in Milton Keynes - Ruth - is herself a writer and a strong advocate for Peace. When I was in Derry just last week she informed me that she born on the campus of then Magee College - her father being the College Principal. She will b e 92 on the last day of this year. Her father - her mother too - were Pacifists through the 1930s - in fact her mother wrote a memoir (published in the early 1990s) "Reaching for the Fruit: Growing up in Ulster" - in which she included her diary as a young woman visiting Germany during the early days of Hitler.
Diaries - how much they can tell us of the past...And be inspirational. That I know of my great x 2 grand-mother's story - her parents from Dromore is because one of my paternal cousins took the time to do the research and produce a monograph - separating received myth from the reality out of historical records and documents. I received my copy of cousin Julia Kable's book in 2011. And discovered I had one of my early passports stamped at the border crossing from Portugal into Spain at the very village where Daniel Doyle was killed - Fuentes de Oñoro. And in two weeks I will make my first visit to Nottingham where Eliza was born. It's fitting pieces of a jig-saw puzzle of family background into place. Something which began in conscious earnest for me when I was 11 - though my Scottish granny had cared for me when I was just two at the time my father was killed in a car crash - and these things I had been told about. I did not grow up near her but at age 11 I spent a couple of weeks with my paternal grand-parents and stories of their ancestries and connections were told. I must have shown interest - despite my tender years - and they were things I held onto tightly - as treasures - in those years in a very fraught relationship with a bullying step-father. I was learning who I was without the negatives imputations of a war-damaged step-father. And so I began more properly to grow up. I am writing and leaving behind my own diary/reports which might one day inspire some person way beyond my own life span (and should the world still be here of course)!
Just yesterday my wife and I took a tour from Galway into Connemara - just to the north-west - to Kylemore Castle - a Scottish baronial revival architectural style - built in the latter 19th-century by Mitchell HENRY for his wife Margaret (née Vaughan) - a love story - with a sad ending when only three or four years after it was finished Margaret fell ill on a visit in 1874 to Egypt - and died. Eventually Mitchell fell on hard times and sold the Castle to the Duke of Manchester and in turn it became a school for girls and finally in the 1950s a Benedictine Abbey - an order of nuns out of post-WWI Belgium... Margaret - I discovered - was born in Dromore - born there in the 1820s... seken-wa semai - I thought to myself!
I knew something of the former symbiotic relationship between Shintoism and Buddhism and the disruption during the early Meiji era - though not as clearly enunciated as you have done here. Decapitated religious images and statues was something which occurred during the Oliver Cromwell Puritan "commonwealth" period in English. One of the greatest destroyer iconoclasts was William Dowsing - from the village in Suffolk of my Kable ancestors - Laxfield. The impulse to destroy seemingly like a virus springing up - in Cambodia under Pol Pot - in the terrible times meted out upon First peoples - Ainu, Inuit, First Australians - the same in Canada and in the US - across Soiuth and Central America etc etc. I'll plant my flag with the builders and reconciliationists - with those who build up - who pay compensation - and properly declare never again. Again, thank-you. Hiroko.
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and I am very happy if my writing helped clarify your thinking or guide you in any way! I am impressed with the detail with which you have reconstructed your family story.
I've just been to check out the Catholic Cathedral here in Galway as well as the 14th-century CE Collegiate Church of St Nicholas - and therein found a brass plaque from the mid-19th century commemorating an officer of the Connaught Rangers who also served in the Peninsular Napoleonic Wars and was at Fuentes d'Onor (sic) where my great x 3 g'father was slain. As well - one of the great families (known as the 14 tribes of Galway) was the Lynch family - and Che Guevara's paternal grand-mother was a Lynch - from whom he absorbed all his ideas about the colonial abuse of Ireland by the British. As you - following in your great grand-father's footsteps to those beautiful peaks on the edges of Toyama-ken - the connection comes vibrantly alive when you are not merely reading about it - but when you physically enter those spaces.