The journey of a kamikaze to Christ
By PAUL BAYLIS, Asahi Shimbun News Service
from http://www.asahi.com/english/weekend/K2001081900100.html
19 August 2001 edition [Anglicised spelling]
If
Yukio “Paul” Tashiro were a character in a novel,
critics might scoff at such an unbelievable life. No one,
they would say, could have been through so much or have made such
an astonishing transformation-from fanatic wartime emperor
worshipper and would-be kamikaze pilot, to charismatic Christian
preacher in the American South.
Born
in a geisha house, educated in a Zen temple, witness to the
horrors of the atomic bomb, pimp, pusher, businessman, scholar
and finally, the only Japanese-born ordained minister in the
United States, Tashiro's life is like a microcosm of modern
Japanese history, and a ship that has charted the perilous waters
between two cultures. And somehow, through it all, he has
kept a pretty good sense of humour.
The
oldest of six children, Tashiro was born in 1933 in his father's
geisha house in eastern Tokyo, home to five geisha where his
mother was the “mama san.” Despite spending his early
years in a house of entertainment (some might say
“brothel”), Tashiro's education began in the most
spartan of environments-a Zen temple. For hours, he would
sit on a cold wooden floor in a thin kimono, meditating on
“the compassion of Buddha.” In reality, however, he
thought of little other than the pain he was feeling. But
the discipline helped prepare him for the trials to come,
including his studies in theology and languages that eventually
earned him a Ph.D. in the United States. “The training
taught me how to shut out everything and devote myself to
prayer,” he said in a recent interview.
He
lived in the geisha house and meditated at the temple until the
intensity of the U.S. air raids over Tokyo forced Tashiro and his
siblings to stay with relatives near Mount Tsukuba in Ibaraki
Prefecture. His father, however, a respected community
leader, was in charge of a youth paramilitary group and
responsible for instilling a willingness to sacrifice for the
emperor-a message Tashiro took to heart. “I didn't
have a speck of doubt that it was my duty to give my life for the
emperor in time of crisis,” he said.
In
early 1945, at age 12-still two years too young for military
service-he volunteered for the kamikaze force, dodging the age
restriction with the help of his father's connections to
influential politicians. Only after the war, did he find
out his father never wanted him to volunteer for a certain-death
mission at such a young age. “I took what he said at
face value,” said Tashiro. “But after the
war”, he told me, “that was not my intention.”
Tashiro
was sent to Kyushu for pilot training, which mainly involved
physical endurance, survival skills and “brainwashing.”
With an instructor, he learned how to take off and climb, but
never to land. But before he could set out on his one-way
mission, the war ended and U.S. troops had started
occupying the country. On Aug. 18, two weeks after
the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Tashiro
was returning to Tokyo in a train supervised by American
soldiers. At the outskirts of Hiroshima, they stopped the
train and had everyone get out and walk from the western edge of
the city to the east along the coast, several kilometres from the
epicentre of the blast. “Nothing was moving,”
said Tashiro. “There was nothing but skeletons of
buildings and piles and piles of dead bodies.”
Tokyo
was not much better. Tashiro's home had been razed and food
and jobs were scarce. His life so far seemed little more
than a cruel hoax. “If all I had been taught during
those years was wrong, then who, or what could I believe?”
Again
using his father's connections, Tashiro joined the yakuza as a
chimpira (junior soldier). His main activities were selling
drugs and pimping for GIs, from whom he learned a crude,
street-savvy English. “I don't know how many times I
was put in jail,” he said. “You can imagine what
sort of language I spoke.”
After
three years as a gangster, Tashiro was passing by a tent one
night when a burly American pulled him in and planted him in the
front row of a congregation of 250 people. A tall, bald
American who weighed about 130 kilograms began to preach,
pronouncing, “God gave his only begotten son for you!”
The words went through Tashiro like a spear. “I was so
happy to hear someone was still loving me, I began to cry,”
he said. From behind, someone pushed him to the front of
the congregation, where the reverend coaxed him to confess his
sins. “Everything I had done, I confessed to Jesus
that night.”
But
Jesus wasn't the only one listening. The preacher, a
Reverend Rice, also noted the long and sordid list of Tashiro's
underworld escapades. The next day, Rice hauled him down to
a police station and struck a deal: Tashiro would not be thrown
in jail if Rice would take responsibility for him. From
then on, Tashiro lived in the U.S. missionary compound in
Shinjuku, where the missionaries called him ``Paul.''
Gradually,
his filthy English was replaced with a more refined missionary
English. Soon, he was good enough to interpret-a job he did
for the missionaries over the next four years. By then,
however, he regretted his lack of formal education and decided to
attend high school full time for three years. Afterward, he
had doubts about making a living in the church. “I was
scared. I saw churches with only 10 to 15 people in them,
and thought, I can't live like this.”
Instead, he worked for a trading company for a decade, marrying in 1962. Then, after a bout of tuberculosis landed him in the hospital for three months, often near death, he reflected again on what he wanted to do with his life. In 1969, he went to Atlanta and enrolled at Oglethorpe College as an undergraduate in philosophy. He then studied Hebrew at a Jewish reform college, where the rabbis called him “Shapiro” to make his name easier to remember. Eventually, he became an ordained minister in the United Methodist church.
Tashiro
began preaching at churches in small towns around the American
South. But instead of the prejudice sometimes associated
with the region, Tashiro found nothing but goodwill and
curiosity. Everyone seemed interested in Japan's side of
the war. “Kamikaze lands in Kentucky,” declared
one newspaper headline. When Jimmy Carter was governor of
Georgia, Tashiro was called on to be his Japanese translator.
On
one occasion, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Tashiro was preaching to
a congregation that was singing a hymn- “How great Thou art
... How great Thou art ...” -when a blind, one-armed
man came hobbling down the aisle, weeping. The singing died
down as the man asked, “Brother Paul, can I touch you? ...
If I had met you five years ago, I would have killed you. I
hated Japs. I lost my arm and my eyesight to a kamikaze
pilot.” The veteran then wrapped his one arm around
Tashiro and said, “I love you.” The voice of the
congregation rose up again: “How great Thou art! ... How
great Thou art!”
By
1991, Tashiro's life had come full circle. His own son was
a tank instructor in the U.S. military when the Persian
Gulf War broke out. “I didn't expect to hear such a
thing again after so many years,” said Tashiro. “All
my experiences came back to me.” But the war was over
before Tashiro's son could see action.
Now considered one of
fewer than 50 experts in Semitic languages in the United States,
Tashiro lives in Jackson, Mississippi, where he teaches at a
biblical seminary. He spent much of a recent visit to Japan
at Izumo Shrine in Shimane Prefecture studying the connection
between “proto-Japanese” scriptures and Semitic
languages. This, he says, would support a theory that the
ancient Japanese were related to the ancient tribes of Israel,
and to early Christians. Asked whether he would consider
coming back to Japan to preach, he dismissed the idea, saying,
“I am totally an outsider. I am Americanised. I
am outspoken. I could not be effective in Japan.”