CEO’s Thoughts

Actor Ken Takakura died on November 10, 2014. Twelve years have passed. Recently, a newspaper in Okinawa reported that on October 30, one hundred yellow handkerchiefs had been raised in the schoolyard of Tomino Elementary and Junior High School in Ishigaki, in tribute to one of his best-known films.

He had apparently built a warm relationship with this school on a small island in southern Japan. Having grown up on Ishigaki myself, I felt a connection.

How many times have I watched The Yellow Handkerchief, in which he starred? Probably enough to rival a movie theater projectionist.

When I worked at a Japanese embassy in Africa, I often visited rural villages as part of our cultural outreach. We would show Japanese films to introduce people to our country. My driver and I would load a projector, a gasoline generator, and everything else we needed into the car, then head out.

These were not aimless trips. Screenings were often arranged through Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Village chiefs and young people eager to learn would also come to the embassy to request them.

Getting there was an adventure in itself. With no maps to guide us, we drove along routes that barely qualified as roads. On narrow mountain tracks, a misjudgment of a few centimeters could send us over a cliff. On muddy stretches, the tires would quickly sink.

We counted ourselves lucky if we arrived before dark. After sunset, we had only the headlights to guide us. Checking the edges of the road and the ground ahead, we inched forward, one careful turn of the wheels at a time.

I entrusted my life to the driver. He seemed to entrust his to heaven, softly singing a lullaby his late mother had sung to him as a child. Thanks to that song, there was always a sense of calm inside the car, even with just the two of us surrounded by darkness.

On one such trip, we managed to reach a village just before sunset. The entire community welcomed us with singing and dancing. After sharing the village’s traditional fermented drink with the chief, we made our way to the square—our open-air cinema.

There was no electric light. The whole village lay in darkness. We connected the 16mm projector to the generator we had brought.

It was showtime.

Everyone had gathered, from mothers cradling babies to the village elders. We began with short films about farming and everyday life in Japan, adding comments about things we thought the villagers might find familiar. Then came the feature film.

With their curious eyes upon us, I switched on the projector. The title appeared on our portable screen: The Yellow Handkerchief.

“Yellow Handkerchief!” A few people who understood English called out the words. Others began translating the English subtitles into the local language. In a village where few people could read, this happened naturally.

The film began, its story unfolding at an unhurried pace. Before long, the voices reading the subtitles fell silent. Surely the villagers were beginning to follow the story through the images alone.

This was no action-packed spectacle. It was a quiet, understated story. I felt ashamed that I had worried they might not understand it without an explanation. At the comic moments, everyone laughed. During the sad scenes, the square grew so quiet that the darkness itself felt unnerving.

As the climax approached, the tension spread through the crowd.

A man had served his prison sentence for killing someone. Would his wife still be waiting for him? If she was, a yellow handkerchief would be hanging by the door or under the eaves.

Everyone held their breath.

Encouraged by two young people he had met on his journey home, the man finally reached a spot from which he could see his house.

Would the yellow handkerchief be there?

His young companions urged him to look up.

And there they were.

Not one yellow handkerchief, but more than anyone could count, fluttering from ropes stretched out from a pole used to fly carp streamers. They filled the sky like the strings of international flags at a Japanese school sports day.

The crowd erupted.

“Whoaaa!”

Cheers burst through the darkness like fireworks. Applause turned into rhythmic clapping—lively, insistent, irresistible. Young villagers leaped up and began to dance.

Not one handkerchief. Countless handkerchiefs.

No explanation was needed. Nor was any closing speech.

As we began packing away the equipment, the chief approached me, beaming.

“Thank you, my Japanese friend. Japanese or African, we are all the same.”

Beside him stood a mother with her child. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

“The yellow handkerchiefs have brought happiness to our village—and to all our hearts. Thank you so much.”

“I think we all have a yellow handkerchief somewhere,” I managed to reply. “Or at least, we all hope we do.”

It was all I could say.

On the drive back the next day, my driver broke the silence.

“I’m sure my mother is happy, too. This is the work I love most.”

I doubt anyone in Japan knew we were showing Japanese films in remote African villages. Once, I told a newspaper reporter about the experience.

“You made that up, didn’t you?” he said with a dismissive laugh.

Perhaps it is we in Japan today who need the yellow handkerchief most.

I was recently hospitalized after falling ill. Lying in that hospital bed, I found myself thinking back to my younger days.

In my twenties, I spent two and a half years in West Africa. During that time, I contracted malaria twice. For about a decade afterward, an unexplained fever would return each year around the same time—as though my body remembered the chills and exhaustion.

The first bout struck without warning.

One morning, I woke up feeling feverish all over. My temperature was 41°C.

I can handle this, I told myself, and headed to the embassy where I worked. A diplomatic pouch was due at the airport that morning. I had to collect it. Taking the day off did not seem an option.

Unsteady on my feet, I finished my early-morning duties and left for the airport with Peter, a local staff member. In the car, he looked at my face, his voice catching.

“Mr. Sunagawa, do you have a fever? If it’s malaria, you could die…”

“Well, Africa is hot, you know. Thanks for worrying.”

I tried to sound brave. In truth, I was barely lucid.

We collected the pouch and returned to the embassy. Peter disappeared. I hurriedly sorted the documents and carried them to my superior, the embassy’s counselor.

“The pouch has arrived,” I said, stepping through his open doorway with a small bow.

Peter was standing beside him.

“You fool! Peter told me everything. What was your temperature? You checked this morning, didn’t you?”

“Well, sir…”

“What was it?”

“Nothing serious… Forty degrees… But I’m sure it’s come down by now.”

“You fool! Go to the hospital. Have Jiro drive you. Go now!”

“Yes, sir. But perhaps I could finish my report first…”

“Are you an idiot? You’re hopeless! That’s an order. Go!”

Overwhelmed by his fury, I left for the small clinic in town. At the time, it was the only clinic there run by a British doctor.

On the way, Jiro, our driver, quietly remarked:

“Now you’re an African too, Mr. Sunagawa.”

The diagnosis was malaria, just as we had feared. No treatment medication was available, so I was given preventive medicine and returned to the embassy.

“I’ve got some medicine,” I reported to the counselor.

“You fool! Go home!”

“I’m fine now, sir. Thank you,” I said, trying to sound well.

“Finish your report, then go straight home. And take tomorrow off. I’ll inspect the aid shipment myself. That’s an order. Understood?”

A shipment of Japanese aid supplies was scheduled to be unloaded at the port the following morning. I had been assigned to accompany him.

The next morning…

I finished my usual early duties and was in the lobby, going over the day’s work with the local staff, when the counselor’s car pulled up outside.

He stepped out and spotted me.

“You fool! I told you to stay home! What’s your temperature today?”

“Below forty…”

“You fool! Are you all right? Don’t push yourself. Your life is not yours alone! Take care of it!”

His eyes were gentle.

“Wait here a moment. Is everything ready?”

He went into his office and soon returned. Handing me his bag and a flask of water, he said:

“Right, let’s go. My wife packed some water for you. Have a drink…”

He walked ahead toward the car.

At the time, the country’s public infrastructure had collapsed. There was no electricity, and even safe drinking water was hard to come by.

“Thank you, sir,” I said, following him.

Carrying his bag.

A quarter of a century has passed since then.

I served under him for only about two years in West Africa. He called me a fool at every turn, yet always watched over me. He is no longer with us.

Afterward, I was transferred from Africa to the Middle East. He went on to higher office, his achievements earning him the recognition he deserved. Through his efforts, Japan became that country’s largest aid donor.

His family later told me that, toward the end of his life, he often wondered how I was getting on—what path I was taking after leaving the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

On the day of his cremation, I was given the honor of helping gather his cremated remains. On the drive home, I watched petals drift in the wind from cherry trees in full bloom.

I could not stop crying.

He was the mentor I respected most. He taught me what it means to be a true diplomat—and how to live. A proud member of Japan’s postwar generation, he practiced diplomacy with a deeply human touch.

Of everyone I knew at the Foreign Ministry, he may have been the only one who truly understood the choices I would make in life.

“You fool. Your life is not yours alone!”

In Japan, shūkatsu—“end-of-life planning”—has become an everyday expression. I understand preparing your own funeral and burial arrangements. As I grow older, I will probably give some thought to my final days, too. But the word itself troubles me. It sounds exactly like the Japanese term for a student’s job hunt, as though preparing for death were just another practical exercise.

Whenever I hear it, I remember something that happened in Vienna in my late twenties.

I had a day to myself and headed into town that afternoon. After buying a ticket at an airline office, I settled in a park with bread, a sausage, and a book.

As dusk approached, I decided to head back. Walking out of the park and into the palace square, I heard what sounded like a tenor saxophone. Something about its awkward phrasing stopped me. I sat down on a nearby bench. Having played in a wind band as a student, I felt an old excitement stir.

Looking toward the shopping street where the sound came from, I spotted an elderly woman standing on the pavement, playing a tenor sax. She looked nearly eighty. Even in Vienna, the city of music, the sight surprised me.

The notes faltered so much that I could barely make out a melody. At her age, I assumed, she could no longer manage the instrument.

With nowhere else to be, I tried to piece the notes together in my head, determined to identify the tune. The sun went down. The shop lights came on. Still she played, as if driven by something beyond herself. People passed, but no one stopped to listen.

Wanting a closer look at her face, I quietly approached. She did indeed seem very old. Her clothes were shabby, and her saxophone, hanging from a homemade strap, looked well worn.

Still playing the sax at her age. Remarkable.

As I watched, she stopped and spoke in a thin voice.

“Thank you for listening. Any requests?”

“Edelweiss,” I replied.

She glanced at the ground, adjusted her grip, and began.

There was something commanding about the way she stood. The melody wandered, and the notes kept breaking off. Yet the tone itself was deep and rich—a pleasure to hear.

When she finished, I offered her a tip. She smiled.

“No need. As long as you enjoyed it…”

Her eyes, set deep in her wrinkled face, were beautiful.

I glanced down at the battered saxophone case lying open for tips. Not a single coin.

“Have you been playing long?” I asked.

As we talked, a man about her age came slowly across the street, his steps unsteady.

“I’ve come to take you home.”

“Thank you.”

Together, they carefully put the saxophone away. He picked up the case in his right hand and took her hand in his left.

“See you again.”

“Take care.”

They smiled at me and began to walk away.

“We may never meet again…”

At my words, they looked back, still smiling. Shoulder to shoulder, they walked on, their bodies swaying gently in the same rhythm. Beneath the streetlights, their retreating figures seemed to merge into a single swaying shadow.

“Bravo!”

I applauded with all my strength, until my palms hurt, until their shadow disappeared around the corner.

When the applause of their audience of one finally stopped, the street suddenly felt empty.

The next day, on a flight to Berlin, I searched the streets of Vienna below for a figure I knew I could not possibly see. Through the aircraft window, I raised an imaginary toast to the city and recalled what she had told me.

“I only started playing the sax recently.”

What I had heard that evening was not really the melody of “Edelweiss.” But as I watched her walk away, another melody rang clear—the melody of a life. It made me want to shout, “Brava!”

Perhaps this is what it means to live, I thought on that street corner in Vienna.

Whenever I hear the word shūkatsu, I see her again: a shadow swaying beneath the streetlights.

Rigid foreign policies inevitably lead to gridlock. The success of any negotiation hinges on our ability to step into the shoes of those with different values. This requires calm, objective analysis from both sides—yet a glaring lack of such insight seems to be driving today’s diplomatic failures.

Earlier in my career, I worked in the Islamic world. Every single day forced me to ask myself: What does it truly take for people with fundamentally different values to coexist?

Once, I went out into the city to observe the climax of Ashura, one of the most significant religious observances in Islam. Marking the martyrdom of Husayn, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, the day features massive mourning processions. From early morning, groups of Shia Muslims march through the streets, swinging heavy chains, bare swords, and bladed whips— violently striking their own chests, backs, heads, and foreheads.

To document the event, I filmed the procession and the streets with a hidden camera. The tension was palpable; I knew that provoking the surrounding crowd could have unpredictable, dangerous consequences.

With blood dripping to the ground, believers collapsed one after another from blood loss and sheer fervor, only to be whisked away by ambulances waiting on every street corner. Watching this unfold felt like having a blade held to my own throat, delivering a stark warning: Never take diplomacy with other cultures lightly.

Although these mourning processions have become more symbolic in recent years, they can still be fatal. If we fail to grasp the deep meaning behind such rituals, we alienate the Islamic world and invite diplomatic disaster. To speak of diplomacy without truly knowing a region’s people, culture, and history is a recipe for grave error.

Knowing and understanding your counterpart is just as critical in the business world. Yet, in today’s climate, this fundamental truth is too often overlooked. Making an effort to know those around us and understand our neighbors is essential not just for business, but for life itself.

Formulating national foreign policy and strategy demands vast intelligence and rigorous analysis. Blindly barking orders achieves nothing. Without analytical acumen and a genuine effort to understand the other side, politicians can pledge to "give it their all" or "put their lives on the line"—their favorite clichés—and still achieve nothing.

State diplomacy and business are much alike. Value the everyday moments. Speak to the person next to you. Understand your colleagues. Talk with your customers. Share a drink. Connect with people from different cultures. Stay grounded while broadening your horizons. Perhaps it is time we went back to basics. Do that, and a path forward will surely open.

Every time I look at the pen on my desk, I am reminded of a young boy I befriended while living in Africa.

His name was Agyeman. We first met on the streets one weekend, shortly after my arrival. As I was walking around to get a feel for the city, I heard a faint, almost vanishing voice from behind me: “Obroni (white man, referring to me), I beg you.” The voice belonged to young Agyeman.

For the next two years, until the end of my assignment, we greeted each other whenever I went into town. Too poor to attend school, Agyeman spent his days begging on the streets.

One day, I said to him, “Agyeman, you need to go to school.” He glared back at me. “I want to!” “Then just go!” I replied lightly. Frustration filled his voice as he shot back, “I can’t! I can’t even afford a pen or a notebook!”

As my departure drew near, I visited Agyeman’s home with a farewell gift. It was barely a house—just an enclosure of salvaged wooden planks topped with a rusted tin roof. Inside, he lay wrapped in a blanket so filthy its original color was unrecognizable. “Obroni, it’s malaria again...” he whispered, limp with fever. I rushed back to my place to get malaria medication and supplies.

After giving him the medicine and some nutritional supplements, I handed him a paper bag containing my gift. “I’m leaving soon. We won’t be able to see each other anymore,” I said, repeating the same words I had told him countlessly like a mantra: “Go to school. You must go to school.” As he peered into the bag with pleading eyes, I turned and left.

The day of my departure arrived. As my car approached the airport entrance, I spotted Agyeman standing barefoot by the side of the road. Walking there from his home must have taken hours. When I stepped out of the car, he ran up to me. Clutched tightly in his hands were the single pen and notebook I had given him.

“Did you walk all the way here? Are you feeling better?” I asked. He remained silent. “Go to school. Don’t give up,” I said, getting back into the car. As I did, he held up both hands, pressing the gifts toward the window.

“Thank you for the present. I will go to school. I promise. Thank you, Sean. Please come back again.” Since the day we met, he had only ever called me Obroni. For the very first time, he called me by my name.

A single pen. Used down to the very last drop of ink, I have no doubt it will draw his future—10, even 20 years from now.

Every time summer arrives, a particular memory comes back to me. It is a lesson I learned from a Counselor at the Embassy of Japan in Ghana, where I once served.

It happened one day at the embassy.

"You fools!"

A thunderous roar echoed through the embassy lobby. It was the Counselor. Startled by the sheer volume of his voice, I rushed out of my office. There he stood, glaring fiercely at the local staff, who were frozen in fear.

"Turn off the lights right now! You idiots! How many times do I have to tell you? Your own country is suffering! Your own people are enduring hardships! No electricity, no water—everyone is struggling to get by. And yet, the moment the power happens to come back on, you flip the switch? Shame on you!"

One of the local staff members had simply turned on a light out of habit, yet the Counselor’s tirade lasted for over thirty minutes.

Then, he turned his fury on us, the Japanese diplomats.

"Why were you sent to this country?! Think about it! Japan is here to provide aid—what good is it if we don't lead by example? Fools! Are you blind to what this nation is going through? How dare you sit in a bright, air-conditioned room and write reports to Tokyo about aid projects?"

His intensity was overwhelming.

In the 1980s, Ghana was gripped by political instability. Public infrastructure, including power and water, was in ruins. Even on the rare occasions when electricity was available, turning on a light in a dimly lit room would trigger the Counselor's wrath. Turning on the air conditioning was utterly unthinkable, no matter how sweltering the heat or how much we sweated.

Occasionally, I would hear local staff grumbling under their breath, "Every government office in Ghana uses air conditioning when the power is on. Yet here at the embassy of Japan—a donor country—we can’t even turn on a light." Still, deep down, everyone understood and respected his stance.

The Counselor was unwavering in his creed: Care for the nation, be passionate about people, and live in truth. He held Ghanaian government officials to the same strict standard. When visiting a local ministry, if he walked into an air-conditioned room, he wouldn't hesitate to deliver a pointed jab: "The drought has drained the dam and the power shortage continues... Well, I certainly don't feel hot."

At first, the Ghanaian officials were bewildered by him. Eventually, however, they came to deeply respect his genuine devotion to their country. Japan’s aid projects steadily bore fruit, and our nation's reputation grew even stronger.

The Counselor is no longer with us. Thanks to the kindness of his family, I was given the honor of taking part in his traditional funeral rites after his cremation. His name will never appear in history textbooks. Yet, he was a truly great diplomat. Countless memories of the man who taught me both diplomacy and how to live remain etched deeply in my heart. He was a man of fiery passion who cared more for Japan, and looked out at the world more earnestly, than even the Shishi—the visionary patriots of 19th-century Japan.

Summer is here again, and with it, I feel his presence.

The other day, while checking the files quarantined in my spam folder just in case, I came across an email bearing the domain name of an overseas client. I opened it. It said only: "Thanks." No "Hi," no "Hello." No recipient's name—not even the sender's own. Just "Thanks." From a close friend, I could understand it…

I looked up the sender's address. It appeared to be "M," the person in charge of a particular project at that client. The day before, at the request of my contact there, I had emailed a document to M as an attachment—so I could grasp what this apparent reply of "Thanks" was about.

I had never met the sender. Since it was our first contact, I had written a courteous message. The reply was a single word: Thanks. Something about it felt cold. Still, I chose to think, "Surely they mistook it for Twitter. Or no—they kept it short out of consideration for how busy I must be."

Let me change the subject. As a boy, I had a part-time job delivering milk. Before dawn, I would pack milk bottles into wooden crates at the depot, stack them on the back of my bicycle, and set off. For a child, it was no easy task. Each crate held forty bottles, if I remember correctly. With two or three crates stacked up, it became something of a circus act. If I didn't grip the handlebars firmly as I rode, I would topple over in an instant. Once, I tipped over and broke nearly every bottle. Once, a group of drunks staggering home at dawn tried to take my milk, and it ended in a fistfight. Scraped hands and knees were an everyday matter. Pain I could endure. What hurt was falling behind and letting down the people waiting for their milk.

It was the morning of December 25th—Christmas Day. I opened the milk box at one house and reached in to set down the bottles, but my hand stopped. Inside was a small package. Wrapped in bright red paper, like a Santa Claus suit, with a white note pasted on top. It read:

To the milk delivery boy
Thank you, always.
(The family's name)

Inside was a pair of gloves, white as milk. I set down the bottles and bowed deeply toward where I imagined the family was still asleep. The next morning, I left a page torn from my notebook alongside the milk, and bowed once more.

Dear (the family's name),
Thank you very much. I will treasure them.
The milk delivery boy

Needless to say, from then on I made certain that the delivery to that house, at least, was never late—and that the bottles I brought them were spotless, without a single smudge.

Even in a single word, there is something that matters. Receiving that "Thanks" email, I felt as if something precious was slipping away. Even in business—no, precisely because it is business—I was reminded that I never want to forget the small courtesies that show we care.

A single seed must have drifted here on the wind. Beside the tracks in the heart of the metropolis, a lone wild chrysanthemum was in bloom. Perhaps it was a coastal mum, or a variety of Yomena aster.

When I was a child, I once picked wildflowers just like this Yomena to visit a sick friend who was out of school. Thinking they were beautiful, I gathered about ten stems from the fields and our garden, tying them into a small bouquet. As a kid, it was the absolute best I could do.

When I arrived at my friend’s house and handed the bouquet to a family member at the door, I was met with a puzzled look. It left me feeling a bit sad, wondering if I should have brought something grander, like roses.

If I remember correctly, the Yomena flower symbolizes "hidden beauty." Waiting for my train, this old memory quietly came back to me.