Adventurer who travelled up the Amazon and across the Andes
What is particularly noteworthy is that Kobayashi Midori was also an “adventurer.” In 1929, he became the first Japanese person to travel up a tributary of the Amazon River, crossing Bolivia and Peru and crossing the Andes. The publication that culminated his work is “50th Anniversary of the Yamato People’s Journey to Brazil: Fukushima Memorial Book” (compiled by the Brazilian Fukushima Prefecture Association, responsible person: Kobayashi Midori, 1958). It is a 770-page masterpiece that he wrote over the course of four years.
The book contains his account of his journey upstream and across the Andes (pp. 519-528). The motivation for his journey was that he had just established the foundations for his educational project, the Seishu Gijuku, in the city of São Paulo, and that he had decided to return home via North America in order to solve various problems.
At that time, construction of the Tome-Acu settlement (Acara colony) was about to begin. In 1928, Kanebo president Sanji Muto founded the South American Colonization Company to promote immigration to Brazil, and sent his trusted aide Hachiro Fukuhara to the company, proclaiming that “the land of Japanese development is the Amazon.” Kobayashi decided that he wanted to see the land with his own eyes, and made a plan to travel north by boat to New York via Belém, Pará.
On the way, he met Conde Koma in Belém, who told him, “I have traveled all over the world, but there is no place like the Amazon. I intend to spend the rest of my life here” (the following is a translation of Kobayashi’s words into modern Japanese). “This aroused my great interest in the future of the Amazon region. So I changed my original plan completely and made a plan to travel alone across the Amazon, enter Bolivia, and then cross the Andes to reach the Pacific coast” (p. 520).
In other words, he made a plan to go up the Amazon right then and there, and after a dozen days of research and preparation, he put it into action. No matter who he asked, he could not find any information about going up the Amazon to Bolivia, but “I had heard that there was a Japanese settlement called Riberalta up the Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon, so I imagined that if I went that far, I would somehow get an idea of what was ahead, and so I decided to leave Belem. However, this meant that I might have to prepare for the possibility of putting my life in danger, so I sent all my belongings back to São Paulo, and finally, completely naked, I left a note and set off” (p. 520).
One death per sleeper on the Madeira-Mamoré Railway
On July 21, 1928, he left on a passenger ship bound for Manaus. From Manaus, he took a seven-day and night boat ride to Porto Velho, the last stop of the journey. From there, he took the Madeira-Mamoré Railway for 360 kilometers to Guajara-Mirim. “The area along this railway line is said to be a hotbed of malaria and yellow fever, and it was horrifying to see each house surrounded by double wire fences. This railway was built during World War I, when the region produced high-quality rubber, and it was said that the number of people who died because of this boom in rubber, was represented by the number of sleepers lying there. This is how unhealthy this area is. And the railway, which had been built with such sacrifice, suffered a major rubber crash with the end of the war, and now it is a lonely place, as if a fire had gone out” (p. 521). In fact, the Tome-Acu settlement also suffered from malaria and other diseases at the beginning, and many of the settlers relocated to the southern part of the country, such as the state of São Paulo. At this point in 1928, Kobayashi had a cold-hearted view of the settlement’s future.
From the terminus of the Madeira-Mamoré Railway, it took a day and a night by boat to reach Riberalta, Bolivia. During the golden age of rubber, there were once nearly 1,000 Japanese immigrants here who had crossed the Andes from Peru in hopes of getting rich quick, but by the time Kobayashi arrived, the number had dwindled to around 200.
“Even now, when I think about it, my hair stands on end”: Crossing the Andes
From Todd Santo, the end of the waterway, it was time to cross the Andes. It took five days to cross the mountains, joining a Bolivian caravan (a traveling trade caravan of 10 mules with their belongings tied to them). “The rain is very heavy east of the Andes, and it rains almost every day with thunder and thunder. For several days there are no houses, so we have to take shelter in the shade of large trees, sleep in the rain, and walk in the rain, which is not a journey that a weak person could endure. On the way, we passed several places where white bones that were indistinguishable from those of animals or humans were scattered, but since we had to climb a pathless path in the Andes that is 10,000 feet high, it still makes my hair stand on end when I think about it,” he wrote about his experience of the great adventure itself.
After arriving safely in Cochabamba, he traveled from La Paz to Peru, where he stayed for two weeks, then returned by boat to Rio, where he rested, then crossed the Panama Canal by boat, passing through Los Angeles and San Francisco, before returning to Japan in February 1929, his first trip in 13 years.
In other words, after that, the story goes that he met with Eiichi Shibusawa, as mentioned at the beginning of this article. One of the “various problems” was raising funds.
Impressions of his adventure include: “The recent world war has proven that, although each South American country is independent, when the time comes, North America can influence these countries almost as if they were its vassal state. During the war, some of our compatriots living in Brazil were subjected to outrageous persecution, but everyone knew that this did not come from Brazil itself. Therefore, rather than treating them as enemies, I believe it would be a good idea to partner with them as collaborators. In other words, if Brazil could provide the land, North America could provide the capital, and Japan could send people, and a peaceful cultural project could be carried out here under the cooperation of Japan, the United States, and Brazil” (p. 528).
A philosophy that describes Brazil as a “utopia” compared to North America
Kobayashi’s writings are characterized by their constant comparisons and relationships with North America, and by their thorough global perspective.
To quote from the Editor’s Notes, where Kobayashi’s philosophy is evident, “I came to Brazil with the determination from the beginning to spend the rest of my life here, and I have believed that the important responsibility of educating the nation’s children was my lifelong mission, and I have pursued that path with wholehearted dedication” (page 767). Looking back on his life, he describes what Japanese people should be like in the future as follows:
“Today, the United States of North America, which boasts its culture, has not only wiped out the natives, but has also excluded people of color and created a civilization of only the white race. However, the scale of the emerging Brazilian civilization is totally different. It appears to be merging with the natives and encompassing all the races of the world, including people of color, to create a new civilization never before seen in human history. As Dr. Tanaka Kotaro, who visited Brazil recently, said, ‘Brazil will become a utopia where people of all races and ethnicities come together to demonstrate their individual characteristics and virtues and play the greatest symphony in human society.’ Therefore, far from needing to discard the virtues and virtues that we possess, I believe it is our mission to demonstrate them even more, add never before seen beautiful sounds to this symphony, and make it an even more sublime and great musical ensemble” (ibid.).
I am moved by the fact that this passage was written 66 years ago, in 1958. In a sense, I feel that it has come true to some extent. Of course, we are still a long way from “the greatest symphony in human society” but I think we are getting closer, little by little. Next year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of Seishu Gijuku, and it would be good to hold some kind of commemorative event. (Some titles omitted)
*This article is reprinted from the Brazil Nippo (September 3, 2024).
© 2024 Masayuki Fukasawa
