An Extraordinary Background

My wife and I went to dinner a few nights ago with an elderly Japanese friend of ours. We thought he was purebred Japanese but we were to find out otherwise during dinner. It turns out that his father, a Japanese, went to Holland during the 1920s to work with some colleagues including Albert Einstein. He himself  was a research physicist; he then traveled to England and met a blonde blue-eyed woman who was a Norman since her ancestry dated back to the time of the Norman invasion of England by William the Conqueror. They married and moved to Japan at the beginning of the 1930s.

Our friend was born shortly thereafter; from his looks at the current time he looks as though he is totally of Japanese ancestry but he is really half Japanese and half English as we found out. Our friend lived with his parents in Japan until 1952. He survived the war years with the terrible bombing of major Japanese cities and was present through the 5 years of the Reformation of Japan under Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

In 1952, a colonel in the American Army helped him secure a scholarship at the University of Maine in Maine, United States. He studied engineering and secured an engineering degree from the University. In 1956 he was hired by one of the big automotive manufactories in Detroit, Michigan. He was a great contributor to this company in particular because he was bilingual in both English and Japanese. He made a number of trips back and forth between Japan and the United States becoming well-versed in the design of upcoming Japanese automobiles. He married an American nurse while in Detroit and had several children.

He and his wife made several trips back and forth between Japan and Detroit, Michigan; he worked in Detroit until recently when he retired. While he and his wife never had stayed in Hawaii any length of time they bought property on Oahu for their retirement. After his retirement his wife and he spent several years in their home on the island of Oahu; she passed away within the last year as a result of a fall while she was walking. Our friend still resides in his home and from time to time we go to dinner with him; it was during this last dinner that we found out his extraordinary background and ancestry.