Son fulfills Japanese soldier’s homecoming wishーNHK WORLD-JAPAN NEWS
The Vietnamese son of a Japanese World War II soldier fulfilled his father’s decades old dream. His father, who remained in Vietnam after the war, had always wanted to visit his hometown in Japan again. He passed away before he could do so. We looked at how his son made the journey for him. Tu Vanvu came from Vietnam to Kashiku in Miyagi Prefecture, his father’s hometown. I came to Japan to see where he spent his childhood and youth. Furukawa Zenji was sent to serve in Southeast Asia in 1943. When World War II ended, he was in Vietnam. Some Japanese soldiers stayed in the country. He was among them, later building a family with a Vietnamese wife. He wanted to return home, but the Vietnam War with the United States cut off his path back to Japan. He passed away in 1975 at age 59. But now his son has finally fulfilled his wish. A support group provided two with financial help to make the trip and located relatives for him. This is the view his father said he wanted to see when he returned. When we were children and asked him about his hometown, he would show us photos and say, “My hometown is here.” The village where his father lived has been submerged by a dam construction project. This is where your father was born and raised. I want to tell him today I was able to come to your hometown. I’m returning home in your place. two since he wanted to place his father’s belongings in the village’s communal grave [Music] to met his father’s Japanese relatives for the first time. [Music] two said sharing memories of his father and family filmed the time they had been apart. It really moved me. I’m so glad that through him Zenji could come home to send his father valued one thing above everything else. My father went to the battlefield with only one desire, peace. His goal was to return to a peaceful daily life, nothing else. War is something no one wants. Along with his father’s belongings, Tu was able to bring his father’s lifelong prayer for peace to his hometown.
Furukawa Zenji served as a soldier in World War Two in Southeast Asia, staying in Vietnam through its wars with France, and then the US. Now, his Vietnamese son has come to Japan to fulfill his late father’s homecoming wish.
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