My Book Ⅰ
Written by Hiroyuki Ikeda
[ No.19] My Barber, Kobe Steel and Me 2013 6.4
The other day I went to get a haircut. My barber is just in front of Iwaya Station, less than 10 minutes walk from my house. My barber is called Kijin Chin陳其仁. He is the owner of Daiko Barber and he is the president and also the staff because he is the only worker. His father is Daiko Chin陳大興 and the name of the barber shop, Daiko, is his father’s name. Kijin’s grandfather originally came from Jiangsu , Zhenjang ( 江蘇省チャンスー鎭江ヂェンジャン), China. His grandfather became a barber in Shanghai and came to Osaka to work as a barber during the Taisho Period. From Osaka, Kijin’s father Daiko moved to Kobe and began to work as a barber. Kijin is a 3rd - generation barber. Kijin was born in Kobe as a Chinese and raised in Kobe but he has never been to China. He has a complex situation and his nationality is still Chinese, not Japanese. He says he has no Japanese or Chinese national pension when he gets old and he has to work for the future. He is 66 years old now. When he was young, his father was very energetic and in an economically good condition because there was a vast factory of Kobe Steel where my building is now. There were a many factory workers and his father and barber shop were very busy and his family’s economy was good. But times changed and Kobe Steel moved to Shinzaike, Nada and due to the big disaster of Great Hanshin Awaji Eathquake, Kobe and his family received a great deal of calamity. Kijin’s father’s barber shop was destroyed and his dad tried rebuilding his shop with great difficulty. With the powerful help of his daughter’s name he got a large bank loan and now they are in deby. Daiko, his father, is no longer able to work, having dementia recently and being 90 now. Kijin was working elsewhere after the crush of the earthquake, but he came back to his father’s new shop as an employee and it seems they were paying down the big bank loan with Kijin’s work. Their economy was good when there was Kobe Steel near there, but it has become an unprofitable barbor shop sparse with customers now. Also, Kobe Steel is changing greatly through the recession and catching up with China and Korea. There was news the other day that Kobe Steel shut down the blast furnace in Kobe.
When I go to get my haircut, Kijin greets me cheerfully. When the hair cut is finished after about 30 minutes, I paid 3,000yen and Kijin looks very happy with me.
Time is moving and never returns. Like him, we must also live our hard life strongly for the future.
KOBELCO : http://www.kobelco.co.jp/english/about_kobelco/outline/history/
Kobe Steel, Ltd. : http://www.kobelco.co.jp/
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