Hope and a Hello Kitty pen
The dark room felt cold and unwelcoming until it was filled with voices and people. In my head I had pictured small, neatly handwritten newspapers reminiscent of work written with a quill and ink; like Louisa May Alcott’s Pickwick Society in the 1994 film adaptation of Little Women. But they were so much more than that.
Huge pieces of paper hung neatly in frames. They looked like they had been torn off an industrial size spool. The script was large and uneven, and I got the impression they had been hurriedly written. I didn’t understand the large, scrawled characters, but they carried power I can’t even describe. All this bounced around in my head as I entered the NEWS’ee museum in Ishinomaki, Japan.
The newspapers had been written in the wake of the 3.11 earthquake and tsunami when the Hibi News lost electricity and its printing press to the water. Hiroyuki Takeuchi is the man behind the ink. He is about my height 5 feet 5 inches and his small, black, round-framed glasses screamed journalist to me. He had a kind smile and his presence was warm; it didn’t take long for me to decide that he was an interesting character. He was someone who wanted to help his community after the disaster and used history to inspire him.
During WWII, his newspaper, the Ishinomaki Hibi (Hope) Shimbun, also released handwritten newspapers. In the late 1930s and 40s, the government rationed newsprint, trying to suppress journalism. But the Hibi received paper from donors and continued to fulfill their commitment to distribute the news.
Takeuchi spoke about the way he felt post 3.11, when the only news he had was bad news. He worried the community would lose hope, so he decided to start each paper with some good news, like the return of electricity or a list of evacuation shelters.
I had no doubt what he had done was something amazing, but the man himself was torn. When he spoke about whether his decision to give hope to the people was a correct one, I couldn’t understand his internal struggle. At first I thought, “Of course it was,” but to him the answer was not that simple. Takeuchi said he felt maybe he was giving false hope and the harsh reality that had to be faced would be even harder after the glimmer of hope had faded.
His apprehension made me feel reverent for a reason I can’t explain. Maybe because I am, in truth, a cynical person. Sadness crept into me. I held onto it as I explored Ishinomaki and I kept thinking about the fact that I can never truly understand the way people here felt and will continue to feel as they move forward while constantly looking back to a cold day in March of 2011.
Before leaving Ishinomaki we got dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Takeuchi joined the group and I was honored to interact with him a little more. He can read English better than he understands spoken English, so I wrote questions for him on a notepad. He pulled out a Hello Kitty pen and I used one of my few Japanese words to say it was cute, “kawaii!” He immediately gave it to me.
My appetite sated, I walked back to the train station in the dark. I thought to myself that this would probably be the last time I would ever see or talk to this man, one who feels so much compassion for others. It was sobering and even now as I write I know that I was truly lucky to have the experience of meeting this man. I saw his words on the newsprint, even though I couldn’t read them. I heard his story, even though I don’t understand Japanese. I physically take away nothing but a Hello Kitty ballpoint pen, but when I write with it I will forever remember my day in Ishinomaki, that dark room, and the man whose eyes sparkle from behind those round black frames.