The man who brought the beauty of wisteria to
Thanks to Michio Fujimoto, former mayor of Wake Town in Japan’s Okayama Prefecture, a 10,000square-meter wisteria park is a major attraction in the city’s Jiading District.
The park was the result of 30 years of effort by the 86-year-old man from Japan, and symbolizes the friendship between the Japanese town and the district, and also between China and Japan.
In recognition of Fujimoto’s contribution in promoting the Sino-Japanese friendship, the city granted him honorary citizenship this year, its highest award for foreigners.
Born in 1932 in Okayama Prefecture, Fujimoto got his name Michio, which means “Tao Sheng” in Chinese, or growth of the Tao, from lines in “The Analects of Confucius”—“The gentleman devotes himself to the roots or fundamentals. When the roots are well planted, the Tao will grow.”
He served as mayor of Wake from 1978 to 2002 and has been chairman of the Okayama Prefecture Common Donation Party since 2002.
Fujimoto’s connections with Shanghai began in 1987 when he was trying to find a twin town in China.
“Wake Town had been famous for Sino-Japanese exchanges,” Fujimoto told Shanghai Daily. “Wake no Kiyomaro, a famous politician during the Nara and Heian periods, had sponsored monks to come to China in the Tang Dynasty to study Chinese culture, which greatly facilitated Japan’s development in its economy, culture and other areas and laid the foundations of the current Japan.”
As the monks were known as ambassadors to Tang, Fujimoto, influenced by the politician’s legacy, wanted to send young students as new ambassadors to China to follow in their ancestor’s footsteps of more than 1,200 years ago and carry on exchanges with China, as well as expand their own international vision.
The Wake government raised 150 million yen (US$1.3 million) in 1983 to celebrate the great man’s 1,250th birthday, spending 100 million of it on a sculpture and building a wisteria park.
Fujimoto decided to spend the remaining money on the ambassador program.
He turned to the Japan-China Friendship Association and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries for help and got a list of recommended places that included Jiading in Shanghai.
Fujimoto chose Jiading as “it was the best in terms of infrastructure” and he had heard about Shanghai from a friend, the head of the legislative body in his hometown.
“When he drank with me, he always said that he had a lot of friends in Shanghai when he did textile business here before World War II and that Shanghainese were very friendly,” said Fujimoto.
“He did not mention in which part of Shanghai he had stayed, but I guess it might have been Jiading as I later found it has a long history of textile industry and there is even a gallery here which was transformed from a textile factory. It’s a pity that I had never asked about the names of his friends as I didn’t expect that I would be so closely connected with Shanghai later. Otherwise, I could visit them here.”
Since connections were established, the Wake Town government has been sending around 20 middle school students to Jiading in March every year.
They visit schools, participate in activities involving traditional Chinese culture and sports with local students and even stay with local families. They also visit scenic spots such as Yuyuan Garden and the Bund, and cities around Shanghai, including Suzhou and Hangzhou.
The program used to be one-way due to China’s poor economy. But with fast development and improved financial conditions, the Jiading government began to send Chinese students to Japan every May.
First wisteria park
Fujimoto retired in 2002, but the program continues.
He visited Jiading for the first time in November 1987 and was given a warm welcome by district leaders and residents.
Now he visits Shanghai at least twice a year and has made more than 70 visits in the past 30 years, bringing what he has seen in China back to Japan and promoting mutual exchanges.
During his term of office, he had led delegations from Wake to Jiading every year and invited their counterparts from Jiading to visit Wake.
The two parties officially signed an agreement for regular friendly exchanges on October 15, 1992.
Fujimoto helped Shizutani High School, where he had studied, establish friendship with Jiading No.1 High School, making Jiading one of the study tour destinations for Japanese high school students during the summer vacation.
With his efforts, a company producing carp streamers also set up a joint venture in Jiading.
He was given Shanghai’s Magnolia Gold Award in 1996 for his efforts in promoting Shanghai’s international exchanges.
“I felt greatly honored to receive that award as I was not only a giver but also a receiver of gratitude and friendship from Shanghai people,” he said.
He then had a new idea.
“I wished to leave some long-lasting symbol in Shanghai, which could stand for Japanese culture and the friendship between the city and my hometown, just like the famous cherry trees along the Potomac River in Washington DC, which were given by Japan as a gift and a symbol of the friendship between the countries,” he said.
“Wisteria is also loved by Japanese people because it’s fragrant and beautiful and it is also a symbol of nobility as it was the emblem of the Fujiwara clan, one of the noble families in Japan,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Wake Wisteria Park, with wisteria not only from Japan, but also varieties from all over the world including China, had become successful at that time, attracting about 100,000 visitors a year, compared to the 15,000 population in the town.”
He proposed the idea of a wisteria park to the then Jiading government and it was immediately approved.
But the first choice of land downtown was rejected by Fujimoto.
He said wisteria needed a large space and plenty of sunshine to grow, while urban development in the area would inevitably affect its growth. The government provided another piece of land in the south of the district, near the ancient moat, covering about 10,000 square meters.
Fujimoto raised 2 million yen from the carp streamer company to build frames for the plants to grow.
He chose 120 wisteria of over 30 Japanese varieties, including six of Japan’s national-level protected types, and personally grafted them into Jiading.
The park was built in September 1997 to mark the 10th anniversary of friendly exchanges between Jiading and Wake and opened to the public in May 1999.
It is the first wisteria themed park in China and now attracts about 500,000 visitors a year between April and May.