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–Introduction–

“Wasabi Stories” is a quotation and summary of a column which touches ones heart or not found on the internet.

It is a Japanese famous person’s story extracted from the NIKKEI news paper.

The purpose in posting the column in JAPAN Style is to cheer you up and to make you feel “it’ was worth reading!”

Wasabi (Japanese horseradish or mustard) is spicy and stimulate your nose and make you teary.

The columns in “Wasabi Stories” hopefully spice your heart and sometimes make you teary!

The stories were originally sent as E-mail Newsletter in Japanese. Some are a little old but we’ll eventually catch up with new ones.

“Important Thing a Cat Taught Me”

Today’s story teller is a Japanese film director, [W:Susumu Hani].

Whenever he sees his bronze cat statue that he got in New York 30 years ago, he remembers a cat he had.

The story dates back when he was seventeen years old. It was in the chaos after the war.

This cat followed him around, so he kept it at his house.

Soon, the cat had kittens.

A year later, the baby cats had babies.

The first cat he had became a grandmother, and spent most of her time outside.

After a little time past, she wouldn’t go into the room at all.

She had used to be happy to come to Hani but as she got old, she put distance between him.

Hani didn’t dare to pat her or hold her either.

Oneday, he and the old cat walked in front of a forest.

She was staring at him without coming closer to him.

She just looked back at him over and over while she went into the forest.

Hani felt “forever good-bye” and cried. In fact, he never saw the cat again.

It was just about the age that he developed the feeling of “love”.

“There was certainly a love between me and the cat. When religions, thoughts or customs are different, humans start dispute. If you appreciate and understand each other, the relationship gets deeper. I learned that from a cat.”

Hani concludes.

The NIKKEI Nov/5/2008 by Susumu Hani (film director)

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