Nineteen years after leaving his home country (5)

　
(5) Lost my family --- Worked in Hai-phong until return

As the war between French Army and the People's Army of Vietnam became worse, I moved from one place of refuge to another, and could not make my home. Without hope to leave for home then, I decided to create my own future there, took a native for my wife, and had a daughter.

It was in January 1952. I was again overwhelmed with deep sadness. It was a sudden bombing by airplanes of French Army while I was absent for work. My house was burnt with my wife and daughter as victims. Not to mention returning home, there was no safe place. I was again fell down to the depths of misfortune, borne a grudge against Heaven, got angry with Earth, and cursed the war. Soon after holding a funeral with tears, I began wanderings with residents. Since then, for about three years from 1952, there was no place to make my home. I walked through a painful thorny path only to live from one day to the next.

I became a workman in the jungle who sought jobs from one village to another, became a farmer, and made a journey to live that seemed to be endless. During the journey, I caught a fever several times, had a nightmare from malaria and hovered on the point of death, but continued to live thanks to tender heart and love of Vietnamese transcending the difference of race.

Among those painful memories, there are pleasant ones too. When I was in a mountain of central Vietnam, I sometimes went elephant hunting and wild ox shooting with Vietnamese. The thrill when hunting a herd of tens of elephants and excitement when challenging a herd of hundreds of wild ox were invigorating which could not be enjoyed in other areas than southern continents.

One day in addition, I rode on an elephant, controlled it at my will, and went through highlands surrounded by mountains. I forgot my unfortunate fate at those times, but when bivouacked in a pine grove, they reminded me mountains of my homeland Kochi. It wrung my heart to think where to go tomorrow and to see the moon at night through the tops of the pine trees, which I thought all my family in my homeland also might see.

Following the pass of life like that, I unconsciously moved to North Vietnam. In 1955, I worked as a workman of a sawmill in a small town pronounced as "tanbori". The war came to the end and the town was covered with peaceful atmosphere.

In the next year 1956, I heard that workmen were to be employed for construction of a canning plant in Hai-phong and applied at once. Fortunately in August, I was employed there, and from January 1957, I worked there as a worker for assembling machines. My skill was given recognition and I worked there as an engineering inspector until I returned my home country.

The plant was built under grant aid by Soviet Union, and was automated with very modern equipment from Soviet Union and East Germany. Tens of engineers from Soviet Union gave technical guidance for construction and production. As for fishing boats, equipment was provided on a large scale to start full-scale production of fish cans.

Having come to the plant, I first met a person named Takeda, who came from Akita Prefecture, and talked between Japanese after ten and more years' interval. Both of us could not speak Japanese well and speak mostly in Vietnamese.

It was around August 1957. Messrs. Tokumatsu Sakamoto of Japan Peace Delegation and Haruo Okada, a Diet man visited the plant. I was allowed to meet. When I saw them who represented my home country after fourteen years, my yearning was beyond words.

Although I parted from them before I told much because time was short, contacts with my longing country and with my family were made, as Mr. Sakamoto came from the same prefecture as me fortunately. I then moved to tears, thinking how nice it was to be alive.

(To be continued)