(Tokyo) Japan is celebrating on Friday the 100th birthday of Hachiko, a dog who became a national symbol of loyalty for tirelessly waiting for his master and whose statue is one of Tokyo’s top tourist attractions.
Published at 9:51 am.
A century after his birth, this dog continues to fascinate Japanese and foreign tourists who crowd around his bronze statue erected outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo, where he waited daily for his late master for nearly a decade.
The Shibuya district and the municipality of Odate, Hachiko’s hometown in northern Japan, have also decided to honor the 100th birthday of this white Akita, who was born on November 10, 1923 and became the hero of a Hollywood film released in 2009 with Richard Gere in the lead role.
Hachiko was adopted in 1924 by Hidesaburo Ueno, a professor at a university in Tokyo.
The animal regularly waits for its master in front of Shibuya train station in the center of Tokyo and they head home together. But the professor died suddenly at his workplace in 1925. And for almost ten years, Hachiko continued to show up at the train station to wait for his master before returning home alone, where the neighbors fed him.
PHOTO RICHARD A. BROOKS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The statue’s fame also makes it a convenient meeting point for finding oneself among the thousands of pedestrians constantly crossing each other in Shibuya’s famous intersection district. Even for those who don’t know the story.
The story will touch the people of Tokyo, who admire her loyalty so much that they erect a statue to him in 1934.
Hachiko was found dead on the street near Shibuya Station on March 8, 1935.
During World War II, the statue was removed and the metal was recycled in the name of the war effort.
But in 1948 a new statue was erected and it quickly became very popular.
“I want my dog to wait for me that long,” explains Omar Sanchez, a 33-year-old Spaniard on his honeymoon in Japan who likes to take selfies with his wife in front of Hachiko.
“It’s a great story and we need it,” said Daniel Callahan, a 62-year-old American. “The world is fragmented and anything that can bring people together is valued.”
The statue’s fame also makes it a convenient meeting point for finding oneself among the thousands of pedestrians constantly crossing each other in Shibuya’s famous intersection district. Even for those who don’t know the story.
“This is the first time I’ve heard this story,” explains Raisa Abe, a Japanese high school student, as she meets friends there. But it’s a place we talk about all the time. Even if you don’t know Shibuya, everyone knows where (the statue, editor’s note) is. »
A hundred years after his birth, Hachiko is still waiting outside Shibuya Station.