SANTIAGO CENTRAL STATION (CHILE)

Capital's gateway lives on

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Toshihiko Kawaguchi

By Shin Usami

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

From the small entrance of a stationery store in Santiago can be seen the 158-meter-wide and 25-meter-tall peaked-roof structure of Santiago's Estation Central, or Central Station.

The traveler's gateway to the Chilean capital has just completed four years of renovations, including connections to subways. It is said the magnificent structure was originally designed by Gustave Eiffel, famous for his tower in Paris.

In the nearby stationery store can be found an abacus, a searing iron to stamp "kotobuki" (festive occasions) and a wooden cash register. All these bits of Japanese nostalgia are still used by the store's owner, Kikuko Ishikawa.

Ishikawa, 66, is originally from Susamicho, Wakayama Prefecture. She married a second-generation Japanese-Chilean in 1961.

"We met at an arranged marriage meeting, and I at first declined his proposal," she said. "I looked at a world map to find where Chile was. It was really far away." Indeed, it took her 60 days to get here on a cargo ship.

Forty-four years have passed since. In that time, she has continued to prepare Japanese food, such as pickled vegetables, inari-zushi (vinegared rice balls wrapped in a layer of fried bean curd) and sweets with bean-paste and chestnut. She goes out to see the cherry blossoms in spring and wears kimono on holidays. She still uses pans and knives that she bought in Japan when she married.

Toshiharu Kobayashi, 82, from Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, is a regular at the store. He moved to Paraguay in 1955 to teach judo, and in the early '60s was invited to come and live in Chile by the Chilean judo federation.

He already had a sixth-dan black belt, but when Chileans asked him what judo was, he could not answer. "I felt I had to get serious about this," he said.

He taught four classes a day, teaching mostly police officers and military men, and held free lessons for children. There was a time when he spent three years traveling the country teaching judo.

Although retired, he still practices on weekends with seven pupils. "I could continue doing judo because I came to Chile. Ishikawa-san and I are similar in that sense," he said.

Eduardo Novoa, 55, a longtime student of Kobayashi, calls his teacher "a second father." Novoa has trained under Kobayashi since he was a teenager and is a three-time South American judo champion. Novoa has been the world judo champion for judoka 50 years and older for four consecutive years.

Novoa said, "Mr. Kobayashi has taught me more about the minds of the Japanese people than judo itself. Don't be lazy and don't cheat the opponent. By adhering to that, one can lead a happy life."