I wish to thank several people in Japan who helped with this book. In particular I want to express my indebtedness to Mr Yoh Naramatsu for his generosity in time and effort. Yoh-san always replied in detail to my many emails during the planning, research, writing and editing of the book. He organised much of my time in the Tōhoku area, acting as interpreter and facilitator in school contacts, travelling to the region himself to help in meetings with young people. He also secured seats at the special Minamisanriku Memorial Ceremony on 11 March 2015, an extremely moving event. In many ways the essence of this book was affected by Yoh-san, for he helped me glimpse a Japan I don’t think my Western eyes would ever have recognised.
I would also like to thank Mr Sato, President of Shizugawa High School, for allowing me to visit his school and talk with teachers and students. Three students in particular have my gratitude for their detailed written responses to my many questions: Mr Ryohei Osaka (17); Miss Misato Abe (16); and Miss Minami Sato (16). And I’d like to thank those students who came to visit and talk after school at Minshuku Yasuragi in Minamisanriku where my wife and I stayed.
I must thank Mr Roy Wheatley of Global Consulting & Development for arranging the initial contact with Mr Naramatsu.
I would also like to give special thanks to: Lyn White for her invaluable support at every phase of this book’s creation; and Sophie Splatt, at Allen & Unwin, for her remarkable editing work and tireless attention to detail.
Of the various books and articles I read in researching Hotaka, I must make special mention of Gretel Ehrlich’s deeply moving work, Facing the Wave: A Journey in the Wake of the Tsunami. Her account of the 3/11 tsunami’s impact on real Tōhoku people was extremely insightful, and I have no doubt as to its considerable impact on my own book. In particular, I must acknowledge that my inspiration for the old geisha in Hotaka – Miss Kosaki – came from the true-life then eighty-four-year-old geisha interviewed by Ehrlich, Chikano Fujima, the so-called ‘Last Geisha of Kamaishi’ (see pages 82–86; 184–187), a truly charismatic little woman.