Before I tell my story, I must say a little about my hometown, Kurakata, which is every bit as much of a character as the people who have lived in it.

Kurakata is a small city in the center of Fukuoka Prefecture, which is itself located on the island of Kyūshū in southwestern Japan. The city has a peculiar history due to the coalmining industry. When coal reigned supreme, Kurakata and the surrounding Chikuhō Region prospered; after the mines closed, however, the once thriving boomtowns became quiet and sullen. One moment Kurakata was full of life; the next, silenced, much like the fireworks of a mid-summer festival coming to a sudden, cacophonous end. Today, all that remains of those wild, rambunctious times are the slag heaps.

Despite its small size, the area is geographically diverse. There are mountains covered in thick forests to the east and west, the highest of which are Fukuchi and Hiko, as well as several large rivers flowing into the Onga River, a major waterway which calmly winds its way through the heart of the town and empties into the Sea of Hibiki. The climate is influenced by this river basin, so it is muggy in summer and bitterly cold in winter despite being located in the southern part of Japan.

8,105 acres in size, the town had a population of about 56,000 in 2020, having peaked in 1985 and declined steadily thereafter. With the closing of the mines in the 70s due to cheaper imported coal and oil, the local economy suffered and many businesses struggled to stay afloat. Today the town is supported by retail and small-scale manufacturing subcontracted from the big industrial complexes in Kita-Kyūshū which lies just to the north.

Kurakata was originally established as a castle town during the Edo Period (1603-1868). Some four hundred samurai families lived in the area at the time, lending it an air of sophistication different from other cities in the Chikuhō Region, something the locals still take pride in today as evidenced in the town’s traditional Bon dance, a slow and elegant dance performed during the midsummer festival for the spirits of the dead.

The heyday of the Chikuhō Region began with the inauguration of the “Rich Country, Strong Army” policy promulgated by the government after the Meiji Restoration of 1868 to modernize the country.[1] The local coal mining industry led by the king of coal, Kaijima Tasuke, expanded rapidly and Kurakata became a major logistics hub for the transportation of coal out of the region. Boats on the Onga River and trains on the Chikuhō Main Railroad played an important part in carrying coal from the mines of the Chikuhō Region to the Yahata Steel Works in Kita-Kyūshū. The most prosperous period in the region was during the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese Wars, which lasted from the late 1800s to the first half of the 1900s. People came and went, including miners, ferrymen, geisha, yakuza gangsters, and others who hoped to profit from the economic boom. Thanks to unique characters like them, the town’s freewheeling culture took root and there was an atmosphere of freedom and openness that you couldn’t find in more respectable towns, such as Fukuoka.

In the years just after the end of WWII, Japan writhed in chaos, both socially, economically, and spiritually. Kurakata was little different. Steam locomotives, however, still came and went carrying the coal that powered the crippled economy. Because of this, Kurakata was sooty, the smell of the coal-burning trains hanging over town.

The yawning gap between the rich and poor clouded people’s notion of right and wrong. Little more than money mattered—those who had it, did whatever it took to hang onto it; those who didn’t, did anything to get it.

It was into this world that I was born in 1948.

[1] Fukoku Kyōhei (富国強兵: lit. “Enrich the Country, Strengthen the Armed Forces”), was originally a phrase from the ancient Chinese historical work on the Warring States Period, Zhan Guo Ce. It became the national slogan during the Meiji Period, replacing sonnō jōi (尊王攘夷: “Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians”), and entailed far-reaching policies to transform Japanese society in order to catch up with the more technologically advanced and industrialized West.