SHIOGAMA, Miyagi Prefecture--A volunteer storyteller from this prefecture is working hard to improve her English to share her experiences of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster with foreign visitors during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Kyohmi Takahashi, 54, lost her parents in her hometown, which was hit hard by the calamity. She registered herself as a volunteer storyteller after solicitations were made by the Miyagi prefectural government.
"Where is the place you call home?" Takahashi says, starting her story. "When was the last time you went there? Have you called your family and friends there recently?"
Takahashi is originally from the Minamihama district of Ishinomaki, also in Miyagi Prefecture, which was severely damaged by the tsunami. Two weeks before the quake hit, Takahashi met with her mother to enjoy lunch in the prefectural capital of Sendai.
"If I had only known it was the last time, there are so many things I would have talked about. ..." she continued with her story.
Takahashi managed to enter Ishinomaki on March 14. The Minamihama district looked like it was ravaged by war. She looked for her parents at their home, which was badly damaged, but there was no sign of them inside.
Thinking that they might have evacuated, she started to leave, and then found her mother crouched down in the corridor.
"However much I pinched her cheeks, Mom was cold ... so very cold," she said.
FOR HER PARENTS
Takahashi started working as a storyteller in March 2015 to convey her memories and experiences of the disaster. She wanted to do something to remember that her parents lived in one of the tsunami-devastated areas. She also served as a guide for people visiting such areas and shared her experiences at schools and other sites.Takahashi sometimes spoke about her experiences to non-Japanese people, but she felt frustrated when she had to speak through an interpreter. She signed up for a subsidized project two years ago to have a manuscript for her hour-long story put into English by a British person so she could learn it by heart.
Then came the difficult part. Takahashi had not studied English since graduating high school. She transcribed English texts on the back of old calendar pages and pasted them on the walls of the restroom and elsewhere around the house. She also listened to an audio recording of the story while driving. Still, she found it difficult to memorize the texts.
She had some apprehensions after she was booked for her first session as a storyteller. But her 25-year-old son, Kazemaru, who studied in Britain, encouraged her to give it a shot, saying it was not necessary to be fluent and that what was important was her feelings.
Takahashi has told her stories in English on five occasions to groups, including high school students from New Zealand and employees of a foreign company. She got stuck on certain words and made some mistakes, but when she finished, some of them held her in their arms, shedding tears.
This spring, a TV news reporter visited her with an application form to become a volunteer for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and convinced her to apply. She is determined to take up the challenge.
LIVE FOR THE NOW
More than eight years since the disaster, Takahashi says she has had fewer opportunities to work as a storyteller. In one session arranged by a travel agency, she was asked to board a bus for a company trip to share her experiences.But she found herself talking to half-asleep passengers. It seemed to reflect that memories of the disaster are fading.
Still, she wants as much as possible to share her experiences with people who are unfamiliar with the disaster.
"I was confronted by the fact that there is no guarantee we can live to see another day together with our loved ones," Takahashi said.
She closed her story with, "Let's live, not for tomorrow, but for the now."