Rizal Marker In Hibiya Park, Tokyo, Japan

[kalypso]

The stone marker has this inscription: "Dr. Jose Rizal / National Hero of the Philippines / stayed in 1888 / at Tokyo Hotel / located at this site. / Unveiled June 19, 1961." This text has a Japanese translation at the bottom.

The bust of Rizal and its supporting marble structure was added in 1998. A separate bronze marker for this feature has this inscription: "The bust of Dr. Jose P. Rizal has been added to / this historical marker on the occasion of the / Centennial Anniversary of the Philippine Independence / 1898-1998 / Alfredo T. Yuchenco / Ambassador / May 8, 1998 / Tokyo".

[betong]

EL Filipin-turismo!:)
Anybody knows why he came? Studies? Training? Sushi?

[yosakoi-soran]

EL Filipin-turismo!:)
Anybody knows why he came? Studies? Training? Sushi?


sightseeing maybe:D probably wanted to meet GEISHAS in kyoto.....after all he was the

first famous "pilyo-sa-girls" before "ERAP"....right Mr. houseboy?? are you the 3rd one mahilig

sa haponesa?:rolleyes: :whistle: :D

[kalypso]

Oo nga chick boy daw si Rizal:D. There were at least nine women linked with him daw at isa na dun si O Sei-san -- a samurai's daughter who taught him the Japanese art of painting. She also helped Rizal improved his knowlelge of Nihongo.


sightseeing maybe:D probably wanted to meet GEISHAS in kyoto.....after all he was the

first famous "pilyo-sa-girls" before "ERAP"....right Mr. houseboy?? are you the 3rd one mahilig

sa haponesa?:rolleyes: :whistle: :D

[jpallon]

Here's a tidbit on Jose Rizal's visit to Japan from the website of the Philippine Embassy in Japan.


Jose Rizal in Japan

Passages from “A Friendship of Two Suns: Philippine Japan Relations,” Philippine Embassy, Tokyo 1998


The bronze bust of Jose Rizal stands along a trail in secluded Hibiya Park, a testimony of his brief historical visit to the capital of Japan before heading off to Europe where the Philippine revolutionary fervor against colonial Spain bore fruit.

The man who would become the country’s most remembered martyr had begun and ended a romance with a Japanese woman during that spring season in Tokyo more than a hundred years ago, and was never again to return to the Land of the Rising Sun.

The sun hardly shone on Rizal's sculptured image, which faces a wall of rocks piled high as part of the park's vast landscape, but the surrounding trees where black crows flew over gave it a shade of distinction for the "National Hero of the Philippines." Behind the rock wall is a view of a duck pond, like a centerpiece for the park-goers, either office workers who come to take their lunch break or read a book, or the homeless who have appropriated benches for themselves. In the slight afternoon chill of autumn, one could only hear the birds singing, strangely drowning out the traffic noise from the avenue of Hibiya that leads to the Imperial Palace.

There could have been no other spot in Tokyo to build a shrine in Rizal's memory: When he came to visit in February and March of 1888, the hotel where he had stayed as a tourist - the Tokyo Hotel - was said to have been there before it was moved across Tokyo's main avenue to what is now the posh Imperial Hotel. The hotel takes pride in once having a guest like Jose Rizal.

Rizal had sailed to Tokyo from Hong Kong with no plans of prolonging his trip, for he had more important things to do in Europe. He landed first on the port of Yokohama, feeling ill from the sea voyage but captured by the majestic sight of Mt. Fuji. He then took a train to Tokyo, where the Charge d'Affaires of the Spanish diplomatic legation had invited him to stay at the living quarters. Rizal felt it was a gesture disguised to monitor his moves, plans, and whereabouts.

His voyage was not an ordinary one; he left Manila at the height of the controversy over his first novel, the Noli Me Tangere, considered the greatest Filipino novel. The Spanish then were not very pleased with it, and Rizal had feared political persecution against his family. In Tokyo he eventually accepted the Spanish diplomat's offer which, by chance, brought about his meeting with Seiko Usui, known as Osei-san, the daughter of a powerful samurai. They fell in love. Rizal stretched his visit to more than 40 days instead of just a few days as he had planned. But, as in most things in his life, this affair, too, had to reach an end.


In the scheme of things of the Philippine Revolution that started in 1896 until the declaration of independence in 1898, Rizal's visit to Japan was an anecdote in the young man's journey. He had a mission, a quest, to give his fellow countrymen a sense of nationhood free from the grasp of their colonial masters.


He had to go to Europe, because it was there where he formed part of a movement along with other Filipino exiles that inspired hope for freedom.
The Revolution just before the turn of the century was made short-lived, unfortunately. In its last days of power, making a last-ditch effort to save face, Spain turned over the Philippines, its colony for nearly four hundred years, into the hands of the Americans, thus ensuring another era of colonialization. Rizal was executed in a firing squad. And for those crucial events in Philippine history, Filipinos marked them for celebrations in the Centennial year of 1998.


Each memory, each important day, each step of the way, of the years past, were to be re-lived for the importance of history. The bust of Jose Rizal at Hibiya Park serves a purpose to that. [The original marker made of stone on which the bust was put on display has been there before, erected in 1961 for the one hundredth-year anniversary of the hero's birthday by three organizations in Tokyo devoted to Rizal: Knights of Rizal, Rizal Society of Japan, and Friends of Rizal. The symbols of the Sampaguita flower and the Sakura (Cherry Blossom) were engraved on both sides of the marker.
In the book Rizal in Japan co-authored by Cesar Lanuza, Chief of the Philippine Reparations Mission in Tokyo in the 1960s, it recounted an interesting passage of how, one sunny afternoon, Rizal had supposedly gone for a walk at the Hibya Park and heard a band of musicians playing Johann Strauss. Upon approaching them after the show, he found out to his surprise that the band players were Filipinos.


The story of Rizal in Japan became an introduction to a play whose script was written by a Japanese woman, Kazuko Siazon, (known to Embassy staff and DFA personnel as Madame Kay), wife of Ambassador and former Foreign Secretary Domingo L. Siazon, Jr. Adapted mostly from the book, a video version of the play has been shown on many special occasions.

[betong]

Ah hindi pala sushi kaya siya nagpunta....:O

Thanks Jpallon, nadagdagan na naman ng useless information aang memory bank ko:D .

Atsaka grinning orange san, hindi rin pala geisha...

[Stacie Fil]

Ah hindi pala sushi kaya siya nagpunta....:O

Thanks Jpallon, nadagdagan na naman ng useless information aang memory bank ko:D .

Atsaka grinning orange san, hindi rin pala geisha...


Hello Betong, curious lang. What do you mean about "nadagdagan na naman ng..."
Or it's just a typo error?

[betong]

Hello Betong, curious lang. What do you mean about "nadagdagan na naman ng..."
Or it's just a typo error?

The typo is in the double a in aang. What I meant is that this is information that would not serve me in my daily professional or domestic life. Non-vital information or what my friends call my knowledge of useless information, some may just call it culture. I, myself, am a very curious (inquisitive, not strange... ok maybe just a tiny bit) am quite happy to know more about him.

Ofcourse, I didn't mean at all that the life of our bayani is useless or pointless. Just meant that his passage through Japan is but a detail of (or trivial to) his very illustrious life.:thumb:
But it's a hell of a party anecdote.:)

[yosakoi-soran]

Ah hindi pala sushi kaya siya nagpunta....:O

Thanks Jpallon, nadagdagan na naman ng useless information aang memory bank ko:D .

Atsaka grinning orange san, hindi rin pala geisha...


aaahh....sushi ja nai'n da...... geisha mo nai.....:D kore wa, kore wa.....SHITSURE

ITASHIMASHITA:bonk: :D Thanks jpallon;)

atto ne, betong san, an'ta no me....ninjin juice wo hoshiigateiru'n ja nai? orange de mo ii

kedo....ninjin no ho ga me ni ii yoooo....Mr. cat's eye....you're cute:D:)

[betong]

atto ne, betong san, an'ta no me....ninjin juice wo hoshiigateiru'n ja nai? orange de mo ii

kedo....ninjin no ho ga me ni ii yoooo....Mr. cat's eye....you're cute:D:)
Thanks:O

So desune. Ninjinno hoga meni ii desuyone!:)

Kaya lang kaya yata naging green eh dahil na mix ko siya sa green kong medyas nung nilabhan ko siya...;)