click here
click here |
Read by Japanese
Edited by Dave Davis of Asayo Murakami
See Murakami Vistors Centre pictures...(Click here)
Asayo Murakami, who has died aged 104, came to Canada as a picture bride in 1924, leaving in Japan two young daughters. A search for those girls more than seven decades later was told in the documentary film Obaachan's Garden. Mrs. Murakami, born in the 19th century, was witness to the first years of the 21st. In the first half of her life, she believed the emperor of her homeland to be a living god and mourned the destruction by atomic bomb of a city in which she had once lived. In Canada, she was forced to surrender her property and her freedom in 1942 because of her ethnic heritage. In 2001, the remarkable story of her life was told in a National Film Board documentary directed by her granddaughter. Linda Ohama began filming her documentary to mark the 100th birthday of her obaachan, a Japanese term of endearment for an older woman, especially a grandmother. Despite her advanced age, Mrs. Murakami was an energetic subject and her colourful recollections are the highlight of the film. As the filmmaker delved into Mrs. Murakami's life, however, she revealed details of her grandmother's life that were unknown to the rest of the family. Among those were the death of an infant son and a bitter squabble with in-laws in Japan that forced her to leave her native land. Family lore had it that the matriarch of the family had come to Canada when her first marriage fell apart after her husband was injured in Tokyo during the great Kanto earthquake of 1923. It was said he had then abandoned his wife and taken their two daughters, ages 4 and 6, to live behind the gates of the Imperial Palace. A researcher hired for the documentary discovered the couple had divorced in June, months before the devastating Sept. 1 earthquake. Mrs. Murakami, named Asayo because of her birth in the early morning (asa), was from a privileged background and trained to be a teacher. She married a man from a prominent Hiroshima family named Ishibashi and delivered two healthy daughters. In 1921, she gave birth to a son, Fujio, who died shortly afterward on March 15. Her inability to bear a healthy heir marked her as a failure as a woman and a wife, and it is thought the marriage was dissolved at the urging of her in-laws. The daughters were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, and Mrs. Murakami left Japan. She agreed to marry a man in Canada named Murakami after an exchange of photographs. On April 27, 1924, she boarded the steamer Iyo Maru with dozens of other picture brides as a third-class passenger. Among her few belongings was a prized violin and a photograph of her daughters. Her immigration papers listed her occupation as wife and her object in going to Canada as "to join my husband." She arrived on May 27 to be met by a short man for whom she could only feel revulsion. "This man from the picture, as soon as I saw his face, I knew he was not my type," Mrs. Murakami says in Japanese in the documentary. "I didn't even want to look at him." She broke her marriage contract on the spot. It would take three years of working in a fish cannery and picking strawberries in the fields before Mrs. Murakami saved $250 to repay her short-lived husband for the cost of her voyage. A matchmaker later introduced her to Otokichi Murakami, a tall widower with two children of his own. (His family name was coincidentally the same as that of her rejected suitor.) They settled in Steveston, a fishing village south of Vancouver in what is now suburban Richmond. Mrs. Murakami became known among her neighbours for her stunning flower garden. She soon gave birth to a son, who was named George, after the reigning monarch. Seven more children were born, all living on the money their father made as a master boatbuilder. In 1942, the family was ordered evicted from its home. Eight members of the Murakami family wound up working on a Manitoba sugar-beet farm, labouring at 50 cents an hour. When restrictions on their movement were lifted in 1949, the parents joined their eldest daughter on a potato farm in Rainier, Alta. After her husband died in 1969, Mrs. Murakami lived on her own for 27 years before entering a nursing home. In 1992, she was introduced to Prince and Princess Takamado of the Japanese imperial family during their visit to Lethbridge, Alta. To mark her 100th birthday, Mrs. Murakami's offspring returned to the old family home in Steveston and planted a flower garden in her honour. The site is now the Britannia Heritage Shipyard Park. Meanwhile, Ms. Ohama learned the fate of the two girls left in Japan. They were sent to separate families after their paternal grandmother died in 1926, about two years after their mother left for Canada. The eldest daughter, Fumiko Sogou, had died in 1996. The younger daughter, Chieko Nishida, was found and told about the sister she did not remember and a large family of half-brothers and half-sisters across the Pacific that she could not have imagined. She had grown up believing her parents had been killed in the 1923 earthquake. Mother and daughter were reunited in Canada, an emotional scene captured in Obaachan's Garden. On their reunion, Mrs. Murakami said, "This dream . . . why didn't it come sooner?" Mrs. Murakami died on Dec. 21 in Calgary. She leaves nine children, 21 grandchildren, 57 great-grandchildren, and five great-great-grandchildren. She was predeceased by four children, including an infant son, and her third husband, Otokichi Murakami, who died in 1969. She is believed to have been the last living picture bride. Asayo Murakami, homemaker and farm labourer; born in Onomichi, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, on Feb. 15, 1898; died in Calgary on Dec. 21, 2002.
 Mrs. Chiko Ohama (right) is Asayo Murakami's daughter. |
|
Linda Ohama
Ohama, a third generation (sansei) Canadian of Japanese ancestry, has worked since the early 1970s as an exhibiting visual artist, arts educator
and more recently as a documentary filmmaker. Since embarking on her first independent film production in 1991, she has won numerous
awards for her films. Her most recent film, Ob_chan's Garden, is a moving personal tale of mystery and memory told by a tenacious woman (her
grandmother), who is over 100 years old. ,Ob_chan's Gardenhas received numerous awards including ";Audience Choice Award"; at the
Vancouver International Film Festival and the Newport Beach International Film Festival, the Silver Medal at the Torino International Film
Festival, a Genie nomination for best documentary and five Leo awards. In 2002 she was awarded the City of Richmond Heritage Award.
Currently on the executive of Chibi Taiko Society, she has also served on the boards of Moving Images Distribution, Uzume Taiko and the
National Nikkei Heritage Cultural Society. She is married to artist/filmmaker Jack Darcus and is the mother of three daughters. | ||
 |  |
Thank you for visiting the film title "OBACHAN'S GARDEN" The story of Asayo Murakami .
I worked her (Linda Ohama) potato farm which located near the Town of Brooks.(150 km east of Calgary). When I was working Linda Ohama's farm, I met Ms.Asayo Murakami. Her (Linda Ohama) first independent film was The Last Harvest (1991), winner of the Antoinette Kryski Canadian Heritage Award at the Yorkton Film Festival(1993). The film, The Last Harvest is my history in Canada I never forget about this film. I had a wonderful time with Linda Ohama, her parents and Ms.Asayo Murakami when I was farm.(1969-1971) I left her potato farm 1971 because our government contract expaired then came to Calgary. I am retired from the company call..Air Canada I am married and have 3 children.They were born in Canada. We are all Japanese but my wife still has a Japanese citizenship. I became a Canadian citizen in 1979. Since my children were born in Canada they have a Canadian citizenship. (However if I had sent in a form to the government my children could have had a dual citizenship. I did not apply for one for my children so my children are not dual citizens.) |
This page created on a Power Macintosh ENCORE G4 using PhotoPage by John K Iuchi.
