Japanese doctor, almost 100 years old and still practicing (1911- )

Shigeaki Hinohara

Famous for his recipe for living a long life

Has been working at St. Luke’s International Hospital (Tokyo) and teaching at St. Luke’s College of Nursing since 1941

Was passenger on a jet that was hijacked in 1970 and then dedicated his life to helping people

Set up the Life Planning Center in 1973 (motto: “lifelong health”)

Helped save and restore the Massachusetts home of Manjiro Nakahama (John Manjiro, the first Japanese person to live in the USA, 1843) and gave the dedication in May 2009.

[long profile] [short profile and photo] [news]

New Old People’s Movement

Seeks “healthy people 75 years and older” to be part of his new “movement.”

Books, interviews, advice and writing

Published more than 150 books since turning 75

Honohara’s famous words of wisdom, a simple formula for longevity

Interview with the Tokyo International Forum: “At 75, we should develop genes we have never used and keep challenging the new!”

How to Live Well (2001) (original title: How To Die Well; Japanese, Ikikata Jozu or “Good At Living”)

Ongaku no Iyashi no Chikara (The Healing Power of Music)

Ikiru koto no shitsu

Oi o hajimeru

Oi to shi no juyo

Gendai igaku to shukyo (Sosho gendai no shukyo)

Inochi no utsuwa: Jinsei o jibunrashiku ikiru

Inochi o mitsumete

“Iyashi” no waza no pafomansu

Osler’s peregrinations in Asia: A report on an unusual event

Wrote stage adaption for the picture-book Happa no Freddy (Freddy the Leaf) (2000)

Wrote the forward to Art and Nature: Healing Design for Health in the UK & Japan, a book containing the work of over 70 archictects on health care design

Co-edited Osler’s A Way of Life and Other Addresses, with Commentary and Annotations

Mentioned in , Caregivers: Drowning in a Sea of Cognitive Challenges, First to Arrive: State and Local Responses to Terrorism, Metamorphoses: Memoirs of a Life in Medicine, and other books.

For further reference

Their history has warranted an entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

And a Wikipedia entry.

Timetable

Short summary with image of vintage placard

At initial conversion there were 150,000.

The KK remained hidden, operating in secret rooms, until 1865 when a group of Christians announced their faith in public.

Perversions in doctrine

The KK remained faithful but as they became further removed, through generations, there were changes to their faith. It has been written that in time the meaning of the original prayers (in Latin) became forgotten so that they were just sound-recitations, incantations … and the central rite of the KK became a service involving cupping a a small, cuplike dish of rice. The was a question of clergy — there were priests among the first group. Did they have bishops among them to ordain future priests? What was their role in the hidden community?

Reunion in the Nineteenth Century

Catholic priests were admitted to Japan hundreds of years later, in the 1860s.

Some KK recognized it as the Church (after grilling the visiting priest on his doctrine!) and, thus satisfied, willingly joined their separated brethren, shedding all of the doctrinal errors that these years of isolation brought. On March 17, 1865, Father Bernard Petitjean was approached by the KK, who until then were unknown to the world.

Other KK did not recognize it and remained in secret. Some may exist today.

KK Today

Mr. Taniyama is the head of a KK household who has decided not to pass the faith down to his children; Mr. Fukumoto’s parents and family were KK but joined the public Church [story with photos (scroll down)]

News story, “Young Japanese on a pilgrimage to find the roots of the nation’s Catholicism“ (2006)

Subject of a paper, “Kirishitan and Today” [pdf] by Shusaku Endo. [more]

Fr. Peter Milward (b. 1925), Shakespearean expert, Jesuit scholar, has resided in Japan and written on the Kakure [more]

Relics

Some exist at the Ikitsuki museum, Island of Ikitsuki, Japan. [photos and tour]

• Collected water in ceramic jars for baptisms
• Tiny paper crosses placed on tongue for healing
• Elaborate mosaics built from the single wings of butterflies
• clay water pots for baptisms
• hibachi for burning in ceremonies and clandestine nighttime meetings [photo and explanations]
• Outdoor sacred markers
• Outdoor sacred spaces, hidden alcoves

Books

The Kakure Kirishitan of Japan: A Study of Their Development, Beliefs and Rituals to the Present Day by Stephen Turnbull (RoutledgeCurzon 1998) is the first major illlustrated work to document and describe the KK

Christal Whelan, The Beginning of Heaven and Earth: The Sacred Book of Japan’s Hidden Christians (University of Hawai’i Press, 1996)
[available on sale for cheap on amazon]

Modern documentaries

Several documentaries exist.

Brendan Eagan’s Web Photo-documentary

Photo-Documentary of Christian history in Japan with Concentration on Hidden Christians by Brendan Eagan (2006) contains an eight-minute preview video, hundreds of photograhps, and long transcriptions. Worth viewing

Otaiya

New documentary film on the KK by Christal Whelan: Otaiya: Japan’s Hidden Christians (34 min)

PATRICK DOWNES article

For further reference