2011.4. 18 繼 Toyota 公司打算在宮田蓋大引擎廠
Donald Keene 直呼 胡不歸
Some Japanese Portraits by Donald Keene 日本文學散步
唐納德·基恩(Donald Keene)入籍日本，adult adoption
Lifelong Scholar of the Japanese Becomes One of Them
http://hcjapan.blogspot.tw/2012/04/keenes-love-for-japan-still-growing.htmlDonald Keene’s Latest Japanese Adventure
Scholar
Donald Keene, who has dedicated his life to studying Japanese
literature, culture and customs, revealed last week that he's following
another Japanese tradition: adult adoption.
Donald Keene arriving for his permanent relocation to Japan in 2011
Associated Press
Donald
Keene, one of the world’s best-known Japanologists, has dedicated his
life to studying Japanese literature, culture and customs. Last week, he
revealed he’s following another Japanese tradition: adult adoption.
Mr. Keene, 90 years old, told an audience in northern Japan that in March he adopted his long-time friend Seiki Uehara, a 62-year-old performer of the shamisen, a Japanese stringed instrument.
“It felt like the natural course of things,” the former Mr. Uehara—now Seiki Keene—told JRT on Wednesday. The adoption grew out of a friendship that started in 2006, and eventually led to Mr. Uehara’s moving into Mr. Keene’s Tokyo home and helping the older man out with things like keeping his large collection of books organized.
Adult adoption is a fairly common practice in Japan, with around a third of all adopted individuals being adults, according to a survey carried out by the Ministry of Justice in 2010, ahead of stricter checks for accepting adoption applications. In 2011, there were 81,600 cases of adoption in Japan. In many cases, adult men are adopted into families in order to carry on the family name—and sometimes business—when there are no male descendants.
Mr. Keene, who’s known for books and scholarship introducing Japanese literature to the West—as well as his friendships with many of the Japanese literary giants of the postwar period, has no children or other family.
The pair originally came together over a keen interest in kojyoruri, an ancient form of Japanese musical performance. Mr. Uehara had performed in a similar style—jyoruri—for 25 years, as a shamisen player at the Bunraku-za puppet theater, under the stage name of “Tsurusawa Asazo V.” He retired in 1997 and returned to his home prefecture in northern Japan to help his family’s brewery business, but remained passionately interested in the genre.
Mr. Keene is known as a leading expert on kojyoruri. In November 2006, Mr. Uehara approached the older man backstage, after a Tokyo talk, to ask whether Mr. Keene would be his mentor on the subject. Mr. Uehara told Mr. Keene he “had no one to seek guidance from,” the younger man told JRT.
At the time, Mr. Keene was still teaching at Columbia University, where he’d been for more than half a century, and spending time in the U.S. as well as Japan. But following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Mr. Keene decided to move permanently to Japan and become a Japanese citizen. That’s when he brought up to Mr. Uehara the idea of adoption.
“When he’d first mentioned adoption, I thought he was joking,” the junior Mr. Keene says. “But eventually I understood that he was being serious.” Now the younger man helps his adoptive father organize his busy schedule from their apartment in Tokyo, while holding shamisen performances of his own. The older Mr. Keene gained Japanese citizenship in 2012.
The pair say their cross-cultural partnership has been smooth so far. The former Mr. Uehara says his family was delighted at the news of his adoption, and that nobody close to Mr. Keene raised objections either. And what does the younger Keene think of his new surname? “I like it a lot,” he told JRT. “I’ve finally managed to get used to it.”
Mr. Keene, 90 years old, told an audience in northern Japan that in March he adopted his long-time friend Seiki Uehara, a 62-year-old performer of the shamisen, a Japanese stringed instrument.
“It felt like the natural course of things,” the former Mr. Uehara—now Seiki Keene—told JRT on Wednesday. The adoption grew out of a friendship that started in 2006, and eventually led to Mr. Uehara’s moving into Mr. Keene’s Tokyo home and helping the older man out with things like keeping his large collection of books organized.
Adult adoption is a fairly common practice in Japan, with around a third of all adopted individuals being adults, according to a survey carried out by the Ministry of Justice in 2010, ahead of stricter checks for accepting adoption applications. In 2011, there were 81,600 cases of adoption in Japan. In many cases, adult men are adopted into families in order to carry on the family name—and sometimes business—when there are no male descendants.
Mr. Keene, who’s known for books and scholarship introducing Japanese literature to the West—as well as his friendships with many of the Japanese literary giants of the postwar period, has no children or other family.
The pair originally came together over a keen interest in kojyoruri, an ancient form of Japanese musical performance. Mr. Uehara had performed in a similar style—jyoruri—for 25 years, as a shamisen player at the Bunraku-za puppet theater, under the stage name of “Tsurusawa Asazo V.” He retired in 1997 and returned to his home prefecture in northern Japan to help his family’s brewery business, but remained passionately interested in the genre.
Mr. Keene is known as a leading expert on kojyoruri. In November 2006, Mr. Uehara approached the older man backstage, after a Tokyo talk, to ask whether Mr. Keene would be his mentor on the subject. Mr. Uehara told Mr. Keene he “had no one to seek guidance from,” the younger man told JRT.
At the time, Mr. Keene was still teaching at Columbia University, where he’d been for more than half a century, and spending time in the U.S. as well as Japan. But following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, Mr. Keene decided to move permanently to Japan and become a Japanese citizen. That’s when he brought up to Mr. Uehara the idea of adoption.
“When he’d first mentioned adoption, I thought he was joking,” the junior Mr. Keene says. “But eventually I understood that he was being serious.” Now the younger man helps his adoptive father organize his busy schedule from their apartment in Tokyo, while holding shamisen performances of his own. The older Mr. Keene gained Japanese citizenship in 2012.
The pair say their cross-cultural partnership has been smooth so far. The former Mr. Uehara says his family was delighted at the news of his adoption, and that nobody close to Mr. Keene raised objections either. And what does the younger Keene think of his new surname? “I like it a lot,” he told JRT. “I’ve finally managed to get used to it.”
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