Generations of sunflower seeds harvested and donated by survivors of major earthquakes in Japan over the past two decades now blossom each summer as symbols of recovery from the devastation.
Generations of sunflower seeds harvested and donated by survivors of major earthquakes in Japan over the past two decades now blossom each summer as symbols of recovery from the devastation.
Isao Arai, a 68-year-old resident of Kobe’s Tarumi Ward, planted the first “recovery” sunflower after his hometown was leveled by the Great Hanshin Earthquake on Jan. 17, 1995.
In hopes of encouraging people who lost their homes and loved ones in the disaster, Arai came up with the idea of handing out sunflower seeds to residents.
The plan stemmed from his past experience as chairman of the parents’ association of a local school. He helped to introduce a personality-building program for students that involved growing sunflowers.
“Unlike dandelion seeds that are transported by the wind, sunflower seeds are carried and planted only by human hands,” Arai said. “They can be handed over and over through generations, and in this process, it is great to see people who were once recipients of aid become aid providers.”
He soon collected enough sunflower seeds to fill three and a half drums and distributed 10 seeds each to more than 2,000 people who applied for the project in Kobe.
In late June that year, sunflowers started blossoming in plots destroyed by the quake and in the yards of temporarily housing complexes across the city.
One letter of gratitude sent to Arai reads, “Volunteer workers will one day return to their home, but the sunflowers will always be here to stay with us.”
The success of the project prompted Arai to voluntarily plant 1,500 sunflower seeds and seedlings at a park in the mountainous village of Yamakoshi, Niigata Prefecture, after it was heavily damaged by the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake on Oct. 23, 2004.
The sunflowers blossomed in the village, now part of Nagaoka, the following summer.
The sunflowers helped Mayumi Seki, a 59-year-old resident of Yamakoshi, regain her motivation.
After the earthquake devastated the village, an evacuation order was issued for all villagers, and Seki was forced to move into temporarily housing.
Living for more than half year as an evacuee took an emotional toll on her.
The sunflowers gave her a purpose in life, and she started visiting the sunflower field to water the plants. Seki decided to extract oil from the large amount of sunflower seeds harvested from the field, hoping to one day make it a symbol of Yamakoshi’s recovery.
With this year marking the 10th anniversary of the Niigata Chuetsu Earthquake, students at Yamakoshi Junior High School planned school trips to Kobe and the Tohoku region, which was devastated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, to promote student exchanges.
During their visit to Kobe in August, the 15 students learned about the “recovery” sunflowers and realized it was time for them to hand over the spirit of the flowers to Tohoku.
“Yamakoshi residents were encouraged by sunflowers presented by the people of Kobe, and we now hope that we can also encourage people from Tohoku with the sunflowers,” said Masaki Sato, 15, a third-grader at the junior high school.
In October, the students, under the instruction of Seki, extracted oil from the seeds of 300 sunflowers in the school garden.
Earlier this month, 11 students of Yamakoshi Junior High School visited Higashi-Matsushima, Miyagi Prefecture, to present the sunflower seed oil to people still living in temporarily housing.
Takako Ono, a 68-year-old resident who received a bottle of the oil from the students, said she was touched that “it took them 10 years to recover from the earthquake this much.”
Student Sato said, “We’d like to hand over this exchange to future generations who may not know about the devastation of the earthquakes.”