Tiwi Japanese Garden- Noboru & Hoshino

one balmy afternoon in the summer of ‘86, as was our usual wont in those days, we found ourselves hanging out at the Japanese Garden to pass the time, learning the chords of some folk songs to try to play them on the old acoustic guitar.

while we were singing, in the middle of doing a bit of the harmony part of Scarborough Fair in our best interpretation of the Simon and Garfunkel classic, out of the corner of my eye i saw a figure moving toward us. 

with a small book in hand, the first of the two men (who i could easily tell from looking at them were Japanese) approached us and asked us in halting English about what we knew about the garden while pointing to the Japanese tourist guidebook in his possession. 

i introduced myself and told them about the history of the garden — they were surprised at my Japanese name and at first thought that i was a descendant of a Japanese serviceman from WWII. so, i told them that i was the son of the Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteer (JOCV) who designed the Filipino-Japanese Friendship Garden, and when they asked for the whereabouts of my father since they were interested in meeting him, I brought them home with me to Basag to meet my father Akihiko, where they spent the entire afternoon conversing about various subjects over tea and sinapot. 

I would learn that Noboru and Hoshino were philanthropists who frequented the Philippines and were helping finance the scholarships of Filipino students in Baguio. I would also learn that it was also their first sojourn in Albay and traveled straight to Tiwi upon learning of the existence of the Japanese Garden from their guidebook issued by the tourism agency in Japan. 

When my father and mother went back to Japan a year later, they again met Noboru and Hoshino in Tokyo. The hosts entertained and treated the visitors from the Philippines to a side trip to Tokyo Disneyland among other things.

As for me, a month after my chance encounter with Noboru and Hoshino, i received a letter from Japan and inside was the photo below which shows 16-year-old me and my friends, Josel Cano and Jing Villanueva, trying to look cool and dandy in front of the camera.