JAPAN AGAIN - AND REMEMBERING THE DEPARTED

In May, I made yet another business trip to Japan, and visited many former clients. But even my best contacts proved hard to convince that I represented a legitimate and indeed highly respectable banking firm, bankers to Holland's anstocracy including the Queen, and partners with some of Europe's oldest financial institutions.

Yes,’ was the stock reaction, Tout Curasao … an island.. .We are not allowed to deal with tax havens, you know.’

Ah,’ I explained patiently, ‘but Curasao is not a tax haven for drug dealers and illegal tax dodgers, but a low-tax jurisdiction. It has tax treaties with the US, Japan, the Netherlands and several other countries. It's all perfectly legal!’

It didn't do much good. Despite my remembered reputation I came up against a stone wall. After a senior director of a large Japanese manufacturer of machinery I knew from before abruptly ended an interview leaving me in the charge of a flunky, I decided to back off. Besides, the economy had not recovered yet, and loan demand was flat. I closed my briefcase and decided to spend the rest of the time on private pursuits.

Toyoko and her mother had organised a gathering of friends and family to commemorate the 33rd anniversary of the death of her father. Buddhist ritual required memorial services to be held in the 3rd and 7th year of the first three decades, with a final tribute on the 50th anniversary, by which time anyone remembering the deceased had presumably joined him or her in the other dimension. In the past these gatherings were always held in Nagoya, the seat of the Yoshida family, and they formed welcome occasions for a reunion, drawing together relatives and old friends from all over the region. On Toyoko's instructions the ceremony itself, at the Yoshida family temple in Nagoya, was invariably kept brief, to allow ample time for the meal and gossip that followed.

Attendance had fallen off steadily due to natural attrition, and suffered further from mother's move to Tokyo. On this 33rd anniversary we found ourselves almost alone, except for a few neighbours and one dear, loyal cousin from Tokyo, who never failed in her observance of every red-letter day on the Yoshida (and Brinckmann) calendar. An anonymous neighbourhood pnest now performed the brief service.