I saw an article about Japan and it reminded me of this story. I thought it may be good to have #throwbacktravel and recall life lessons on a Saturday.
I must have buried my head in the sand that I never knew about a dog that was honored with a statue until I went to Japan with my friends in late of 2016. I did not even know that there was a movie about it. When we got back home, I intentionally looked for and watched the movie. Please don't ask where I've been that I did not know a Richard Gere movie in 2009. The movie entitled “Hachi: A dog’s tale” was set in the US but the real Hachiko story happened in Japan.
This is the dog's statue outside the Shibuya train station in Tokyo. I took this photo last November 2016.
In the movie, Professor Parker Wilson found an abandoned dog at the train station. He brought it home and did his best to trace the owner. In one of Prof. Wilson’s inquiries, he found out that the dog’s tag means number 8 or “hachi” in Japanese. However in spite of his efforts to find the owner, he failed. Nobody claimed the dog so his family decided to adopt it and call it Hachi.
The professor and the dog became too close up to the point of Hachi waiting for his master at the train station every day. When Prof. Wilson suddenly died of heart attack, Hachi did not stop waiting for its master by the train station. Prof. Wilson’s son and family adopted the dog but the dog was not living its life under their watch. The dog found its way back to the train station and waited there every day for ten years until its dying day.
I cried while watching the movie. It was inspired by a true-to-life story of a dog and its master’s extraordinary bond in Odate, Japan. The dog Hachiko was born in 1923. It was very loyal to its master Prof. Eusaburo Euno that it waited for him from work every day at the Shibuya train station. When Prof. Euno died in 1925, Hachiko returned to the train station to wait perseveringly every day until it died in 1935. Its stuffed body is on display at National Science Museum in Ueno, Tokyo. In honor of the dog’s loyalty, Hachiko’s bronze statue was put up on his waiting spot outside the Shibuya train station.
Many times we hear or read about dog being man’s best friend. Here is clear proof, even vouched with a bronze statue, of an extraordinary bond between human and animal. If animals can be faithful and loyal, certainly can human beings.
Oh, let me add that Hachi became the hero of Prof. Wilson's grandson. Go look for a copy of the movie. It is worth watching with the family. 😊
This was taken at around ten-o'clock side of the statue. At my back is the Shibuya Crossing.
This is the Shibuya Crossing. It is called The Times Square of Tokyo, I think it is because of its heavy lit-and-bustle traffic.
Happy weekend folks!
