Another Fukushima casualty -- in Dunthorpe
Yesterday came the news that Japan is selling off its consul's mansion in the toney Dunthorpe district just south of the Portland city line. The country's official headquarters address moves down to the slums of Lake Oswego.
This never would have happened back when Japan was on a roll. But it hasn't been in quite a while, and after the triple meltdown in Fukushima, there's no prospect of it bouncing back for another generation or more. Fire sales are the order of the day.
| Posted at 9:04 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
Reminds me of some related news from the other day:
Eric Lomax, River Kwai Prisoner Who Forgave, Dies at 93
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/books/eric-lomax-river-kwai-prisoner-who-forgave-dies-at-93.html
Notable excerpt:
Mr. Lomax was repeatedly beaten and interrogated after his captors found a radio receiver he had made from spare parts. Multiple bones were broken and water was poured into his nose and mouth. One of his constant torturers stood out: Nagase Takashi, an interpreter.
“At the end of the war, I would have been happy to murder him,” Mr. Lomax told The New York Times in 1995, shortly after the “The Railway Man” was published and became a best seller.
In the book, Mr. Lomax described having fantasies about meeting Mr. Nagase one day and how he had spent much of the 1980s looking for information about him. He learned that after the war Mr. Nagase had become an interpreter for the Allies and helped locate thousands of graves and mass burial sites along the Burma Railway.
The men finally met in 1993, after Mr. Lomax had read an article about Mr. Nagase’s being devastated by guilt over his treatment of one particular British soldier. Mr. Lomax realized that he was that soldier.
“When we met, Nagase greeted me with a formal bow,” Mr. Lomax said on the Web site of the Forgiveness Project, a British group that seeks to bring together victims and perpetrators of crimes. “I took his hand and said in Japanese, ‘Good morning, Mr. Nagase, how are you?’ He was trembling and crying, and he said over and over again: ‘I am so sorry, so very sorry.’ ”
Mr. Lomax continued: “I had come with no sympathy for this man, and yet Nagase, through his complete humility, turned this around. In the days that followed we spent a lot of time together, talking and laughing.” He added, “We promised to keep in touch and have remained friends ever since.”
Mr. Lomax told The Times said Mr. Nagase’s later life resembled his own. “He has had the same psychological and career problems that I have,” he said.
Posted by Mojo | October 13, 2012 9:22 PM
Mojo,
Thank you for posting this and the link that showed the picture of these two men.
Posted by clinamen | October 13, 2012 10:08 PM
There's a good community of people participating here in Jack's blog, clinamen. Helluva story there in that obit, no one should miss it. And those elders are passing away at the rate of a thousand a day now, to boot. Pax, Mojo.
Posted by Mojo | October 13, 2012 11:22 PM
Looks like a beautiful place.
Posted by Portland Native | October 14, 2012 9:53 AM