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Letters from the Compassionate Pugilist
Eiji Yoshikawa is a retired Pro Boxer who majored in
French literature and did his thesis on Jean Cocteau and
Cinematography. He founded the "Peacemakers", Japan's
first neighborhood watch, and spends much of his time
visiting schools and communities teaching children about
non-violence. In 2004,
Japan Inc. Magazine
called him the "Compassionate Pugilist". We are proud to offer
"Letters from the Compassionate Pugilist" as our first guest
columnist. Contact Eiji at
www.eiji.tv
or via email.
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This is a quick note that I wrote about what happened on March 11, 2011 at about 2:30PM in Japan. I wrote it on March 12, 2011 as I arrived home.
by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Mar 13, 2011
From Wednesday this week, my family booked a “weekend+ stay” in a hotel in Shinagawa, in midtown Tokyo. I went to schools to give lectures on peace making, met with my friends and did other activities in Tokyo. It was far more than horrible.
Earthquakes every five minutes. Tsunami warnings following every shake.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ May 15, 2010
There was a very tall American standing right in front of them... On the train, her mother - the preacher's wife - said to twelve-year-old Hiroko, "Don't look at him! Put your face down!" She communicated this not with words, but by sending a signal that Americans were demons and devils. After a few moments, the soldier took out a bag filled with candies from his military rucksack, and put the entire bag in little Hiroko's hand-made cloth pouch.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Mar 7, 2010
I was 14 years old when I saw the advertisement in a movie magazine for “The first VCR for homes”. Back then, the thing I hated the most was studying. The second most dreadful thing was school. And the third was teachers. Although I played all day long and never studied, I had a private tutor. My tutor was the movies.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Mar 29, 2009
When I was living in New York City, and Reggie Jackson was in town, I would go to Yankee Stadium a couple of hours before the game got started so that I could get to see how he warmed up on the field.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Oct 30, 2008
I regularly visit Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam. I have been to other places where she used to live while her family was hiding from the Nazis. For instance, Aachen/Aken, a southern city in Germany, is a pretty little town where Anne’s mother Edith was born. They lived there for a while, right before crossing the border into Holland.
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~ a photo essay about truth at the Dachau Concentration Camp ~
by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Oct 30, 2008
I decided to take my whole family, including our two-year-old boy, to the world of “light and shadow”. On September 19, 2008, we all took the local train to Dachau, outside of Munich, Germany, after flying for twelve hours over the Siberian sky.
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~ across the country and back on Ameripass, and home to Tokyo ~
by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Sep 18, 2008
Before leaving the US, I decided to cross the country by Greyhound Bus. They had just created a special ticket called “Ameripass” which cost me only $12 per day to ride the bus as much as I wanted.
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~ The End of Summer in New York in 1983 ~
by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Aug 6, 2008
As I saw the lonely backs of those runners that kept walking after the race, I think I saw the reason why I flew all the way to New York, just to be alone and to figure out how I could put a period on my career as a fighter.
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~ What I Saw in 1983 in New York City ~
by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Jun 22, 2008
Five minutes after her show started, we saw a fast-growing dark cloud rising behind the stage. It looked like the cloud in Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, or the one in “Ghostbusters”. Fifteen minutes later, the cloud covered the park, and 300,000 spectators were smashed like 300,000 ants running away in all directions from the flood-like rain.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Apr 28, 2008
Ray Charles; Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band; Southside Johnny and Asbury Jukes; Gary US Bonds; Roberto Duran KO’s Davey Moore to Grab His 3rd World Title in Madison Square Garden
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Apr 13, 2008
I am trying to recall what I saw live in 1983 in New York City and the quick list I have made below looks quite interesting. Here we go.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Mar 1, 2008
In those sleepless nights in New York, I had one more friend that I spoke to often, whose name was Richie. He was a security guard, and had a night shift at the YMCA. His station was in the lobby, right at the entrance, at a round wooden counter with a chair hidden underneath. It looked like an information counter in an airport, except that the brown colored wood looked old and classical.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Feb 10, 2008
Nothing was too difficult, in terms of living in the Big Apple, for the boxer who had come from the Big Tempura, except the Tempura-paint-like temperature in the summer time.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Jan 21, 2008
In New York in 1983, I lived in the West Side YMCA on 63rd Street and Broadway. It was one minute to Lincoln Center, Columbus Circle and Central Park. Since I had applied to and registered with ALP (the American Language Program) at Columbia University, the YMCA gave me the student’s weekly rate. It was around seventy-two dollars per week -- the cheapest in town.
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by Eiji Yoshikawa ~ Jan 8, 2008
When I was a boxer, I devoted 100% to what I had to do. When I quit boxing, I lost that 100% and became like a shell with nothing in it. I did my everyday things fine, but I knew that there was no more fire inside. I thought that it was just a matter of time, and it would all be back to normal in a few months. However, even after a year, I still felt like I was running a motel with all of the rooms vacant.
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Feel good about life
and feed your soul some vittles...
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from the columns and essays of Significato.
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Transport your soul...
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by curling up with a short story or poem.
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Increase your bliss
and nourish your soul...
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with tidbits on nature, music, books, films, health and writings from bygone days.
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Feel good about life by helping the world...
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