Minamata Day 4

The experience in Minamata was extraordinary.  Below are a few snapshots and comments.  On Monday, I’m delivering a new blog post on this topic to Paris Review Daily, hopefully to be posted soon thereafter.  I’m not sure what I’m writing for them, yet, so here are just a few moments:

Momoko Gill (l), and Takeshi Ishikawa (r). Lunch on Wednesday March 2. My first Minamata fish.

Takeshi Ishikawa is a remarkable man.  As I mentioned in previous blog entries, he assisted Gene and Aileen Smith in Minamata 1971-74.  Today, when we parted ways in Minamata, I felt like I’d known him my entire life, in the best sense, though we don’t speak the same language.  I’ll write more about him later.  To be in Minamata for 3 days with him was a privilege.

Emiko Maeda (l) and Ishikawa-san (r)

Emiko, pictured above, is a fifty-seven year old Minamata Disease victim and a close friend of Ishikawa-san.  When she saw him walk in the door her face lit up.

View of the Yatsushiro Sea from the Minamata Disease Municipal Museum

The museum and grounds depicted above were formerly part of Minamata Bay.  Yes, the government filled in the bay.  In 1990, they built a park, horticulture complex, and museum on top of it.  The cost was unfathomable.  There were two reasons to do it:  1) To cover the mercury-soaked bay bottom, and 2) To eliminate the ominous symbol – the place where mercury was dumped for decades – and replace it with something environmentally aware.

"Please leave the water cleaner than it was when you arrived."

Takeshi Ishikawa, Yu Tani, Fumiko Hiyoshi, Momoko Gill

The photo above was made at a non-profit gathering place called Hotaru-no-le, translated into English as Fireball, which was established to give Minamata Disease patients a place to gather several days a week for lunch.  Pictured above are Ishikawa-san and my interpreter Momoko on the flanks.  Yu Tani is the daughter of Kumiyo Ito and Youichi Tani, the couple who founded the organization.  Hiyoshi-sensei is a ninety-six year old former city councillor of Minamata and longtime advocate of Minamata Disease patients.  She helped Gene and Aileen Smith find lodging, among other helpful things, when they arrived in Minamata in 1971.  At this lunch we met Shinobu Sakamoto, one of the most-photographed patients in the Smith’s book, Minamata, and her mother.

Shinobu Sakamoto, me, Momoko Gill. Photo by Takeshi Ishikawa.

Takeshi Ishikawa

Above, Ishikawa-san inspects the plot of land where he lived in Minamata, where Gene Smith kept his darkroom, a few paces from where Gene and Aileen Smith lived.  The building is no longer there.  It was at this location that many of the first, classic Minamata prints were made.

A Minamata graveyard.

Wandering a Minamata graveyard I found this magnificent tree.  Its trunk is about six feet in diameter.

Much more to come.  I’ll be posting some of Ishikawa-san’s photos soon.  And a piece with fresh material should land in Paris Review Daily next week.  You can check back here for it.

We fly out of Kagoshima for Okinawa tomorrow morning and the gears of this journey shift dramatically.  The first 14 days have been largely about Tokyo/Hitachi 1961-62 and Minamata 1971-74.  Tomorrow begins 14 days concerning tropical WWII islands 1943-45.  It snowed in Tokyo on Monday; it’ll approach 85 degrees fahrenheit in Guam, Saipan, Tinian, and Iwo Jima.  Okinawa should be around 70.

-Sam Stephenson