merchant or samurai

Last year, 13 Dec 08, I met a man in his 60s, my dad’s friend. Well, I met him in Kyoto and spent time with him for almost 1 whole day. He is an interesting man and I love talking to him. He speaks good english, btw.

I was very happy to meet him and perhaps the same thing as him. He himself likes to meet foreigners and exchange ideas. I have to say that he is not a typical japanese. He is not queit, he studies insect! Could you believe it? I have to say it was an enriching day spending time with him. Of course at times I was wondering whether people think we are strange because I was pretty young and he was pretty old and we dont look like father-daughter. Then…

Anyway, I just wanted to recap our topic of conversation as a remembrance for myself. So, what did I learn from him?

1. He is engaged with foreigners. Yeah, since university days, he did have foreigners friends and kept in touch with them, especially all those who specialised in insects. Well, apparently he came from a wealthy famliy so he can spend time doing such vocations and in fact, helping his eastern european friends during their political turmoil.

I learnt of his generosity and vividness to learn. Many years ago when he sent money to his eastern europe friends, the government took the money which he sent through the post office. So, what he did was, he slipped the money in between the dried insects he sent to his friends to investigate. Wow, what a clever idea!

2. I learnt about his opennes and  ingenuity. I was surprised he dared telling me many stories of which some of them a little bit out of bound. He told me of his sickness, diabetes. He also told me about his doctor in osaka who was also deceased matsushita san’s doctor.  He also told me about his daily activities and his family.  btw, I am pretty sure he did not lie.  He did say many other things, but I prefer not to disclose them.

3. This point is perhaps something that I need to bear in mind and stamp it. He told me that his ancestors were merchants. In those days, people were crazy to become samurai. But his ancestors chose to become merchants and became very wealthy because of that. In the context of Japanese culture, merchants is the lowest social class. So, well, you figure it yourseld.

I guess the world never changes.  As the past idolised samurai, there are things that today’s world idolised and it makes us blind of other things as it seems lower class and well, we just don’t think it is worth doing.

Well, it really got me thinking!