2023-11-11 06:00:00
Tokyo workers and students mix daily with tourists in one of the busiest meeting points in Tokyo and one of the most visited monuments in the city: the statue of the Hachiko dog at Shibuya station, where the animal would turn 100 years old today. waiting for its owner.
Known worldwide as “the faithful dog” for waiting every day at the station for his master, Hidesaburo Ueno (1872-1925), upon his arrival from work, even after he died, Hachiko, of Akita breed and cream color, is immortalized very close to the famous Shibuya crossing in a bronze figure, the work of sculptor Takeshi Ando and erected in 1948.
However, this is a second statue: the first was built by Takeshi Ando’s father, the sculptor Teru Ando, in 1934, but it had to be removed during World War II as part of the efforts of the Japanese authorities to collect all the metal available in the country to produce weapons.
It is said that Hachiko, born in the Japanese city of Odate on November 10, 1923 and whose name was given because of the similarity of his front legs, which were crooked, with the Japanese ‘kanji’ used for the number eight (八) , pronounced ‘hachi’, witnessed the unveiling of that first statue.
A story of fidelity
One of the afternoons when Hachiko was waiting for Ueno to return from teaching at the Department of Agriculture at the University of Tokyo, the professor did not arrive, having died from a brain hemorrhage.
His pet, who did not lose hope of seeing him again, continued to wait for him every day at the same time and in the same place for the next almost ten years, becoming a well-known and appreciated figure throughout the Shibuya neighborhood until he died. in 1935.
The importance of the history of Hachiko and, in general, of Akita dogs in Japan is evidenced by the fact that the Tokyo Museum of Nature and Science keeps his stuffed body on display.
This dog’s worldwide fame came after his story was made into a film in 2009 with the film “Always by your side, Hachiko”, starring American actor Richard Gere.
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