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turtleations · 8 months ago

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Interview with Mayuko's mother, Kishi Kazuko - Translation

This one comes with a big "Thank you!" to magnetklaue, who proofread it for me and helped me get rid of typos and some awkward phrases.

The Interview was posted on 1 May 2018, the interviewer was Fukui Shiho. The original post is here.

On we go:

20 Years after the death of X JAPAN’s hide: His secret history with a girl with an incurable disease, “The Promised Cheesecake”

The bond between them, inherited by YOSHIKI

On the 2nd of May, it has been 20 yeas since the sudden passing of X JAPAN’s guitarist hide. He has fascinated the world with his bright red hair and his yellowhearts-guitar. When tracing hide’s steps, one girl stands out: Kishi Mayuko, who was battling GM1 gangliosidosis, an incurable disease. She was the 23rd person worldwide to be diagnosed with this disease, and the doctors had told her that she was unlikely to live to be twenty. In 1995, while fighting her illness, Mayuko got to fulfil her dream to “meet hide, the person she admired”, with the help of “Make a Wish Japan”, an organisation that fulfils the wishes of children with incurable diseases.

Their interaction continued after this, and even after hide passed away, his friends and associates kept spending time with her. Eleven years after hide’s death, Mayuko also left this world. There is a place in Wakayama-prefecture where you can still feel the two of them breathing: “Lemoned Café”, run by Mayuko’s parents. The first floor houses the café, and the second floor a live house, with posters and goods related to hide displayed everywhere. We interviewed Kazuko-san, Mayuko’s mother.

When did Mayuko-san start liking hide-san?

She came to like him when she was hospitalized in the fifth year of primary school and listened to a CD of our older daughter while in hospital. She listened to CDs all the time, and when she got to come home for the weekend, she also watched videos in her room. She especially liked X JAPAN and hide-san, and aside from that, she also listened to the CDs of artists hide-san had said were good.

How did you meet hide-san?

There is a volunteer organisation called “Make a Wish Japan”, which is “fulfilling the dreams of incurably ill children aged three to eighteen”. I had been told that her illness would be difficult to treat with current western medicine, and so I thought, “I want to make at least one of her wishes come true” and called them up. Things got moving from there and it turned out we’d be able to meet him. I called around September 1995 and informed them that I was getting tickets for the concert on 31 December at Tokyo Dome, and they suggested, “Let’s have the meeting there.”

What did you talk about with hide-san?

When Mayuko told him “I’m going to be hospitalized in February, so please write to me”, he said, “I will, because we’re friends.” After it was clear that she would get to meet him, Mayuko spend two months knitting a scarf for him with her hands that could barely move. She gave it to hide-san and he wrapped it around himself right there and then.

The person she was dreaming of was right there!

During that time, the press was around for about fifteen minutes, and once they were gone, hide-san said, “Let’s go to the afterparty together.” That’s where the interaction with hide-san started, and he also introduced her to his band members as “My friend Mayuko”.

It’s hard to believe that he introduced her as a friend! He could just have ended it after those first fifteen minutes with a “See you later!”

Yes, he could. At first, I thought, “This is all there is to it.” But our interactions continued ever since.

That must have made you happy.

It did. He even continued to use the scarf she gave him that day. Hide-san’s mother told us, “Since he’s always wearing the same kind of outfit, that scarf is very useful to him.” Even when he went to the US, he always put it in his suitcase, she said. I heard that one time, when there was a lot of luggage, his manager took the scarf out, but hide-san said, “Not this one!” and insisted on taking it with him. After his death, the scarf was returned to us as a memento, and we still have it.

How long did that relationship last?

Two and a half years, from our first meeting until hide-san died. However, I think we made very meaningful memories in that time. Even after Mayuko passed away, some of hide-san’s friends continued to give live shows on the second floor and write “Mayuko, I’m here!” onto coloured paper. But I think that was because they thought, “I respected hide, and Mayuko was someone he adored”. I feel like Mayuko herself appealed to them as well, but for the most part, it was hide-san’s greatness that drove them.

It’s because they were both wonderful. Do you have any memories with hide-san you want to share?

We first met on 31 December and received a letter from him in January. It read, “I’m going to Los Angeles, but I’m grateful that I got to meet Mayuko at the Dome, because thanks to this meeting, I was reminded of things that I had forgotten." Her birthday was on the fourth of March, but she spent it in the hospital. Hide-san was overseas at that time, but he came to visit her at the hospital one day ahead of his scheduled return.

What kind of person was hide-san?

A caring one. When we first met, we were gathered in the waiting room until we went to the afterparty, and he asked, “Mayuko, aren’t you thirsty?” There was a cooler box in the corner of the room, and for an artist as big as hide-san, it wouldn’t be at all unusual to ask someone from the staff to get it. But he did everything himself. He got out some Oolong tea, opened the tap, put in the straw, said, “There, Mayuko.” When it came to his own guests, he did everything on his own. His stance was that the staff came for the purpose of making music, so he wouldn’t have them do anything else.

He was a kind person, wasn’t he?

There’s more; in order to avoid causing a commotion, his visits were kept a secret from anyone but the attending physicians and the nurses. But one day, there was a boy who was very depressed because he had been readmitted to the hospital immediately after being discharged. Upon seeing this, a nurse tried to cheer him up by telling him, “hide-san will come to see Mayu-chan tomorrow, maybe you can get his autograph.” And so, word got around. Everyone was lining up in front of the visitation room, holding coloured paper. There were 12 or 13 people in line, but when the situation was explained to him, hide-san had everyone come in one by one, took two pictures with each one, gave them his autograph. He did that for about four hours.

Even though he was insanely busy at that time.

He was. But he also made the children that were there very happy. On the morning of the day Mayuko’s condition got critical, I said to hide-san on the phone, “She might not make it.” When I told him, “If she could just hear your voice, even on the phone, one more time,” he rushed over immediately.

He was in Tokyo at that time?

Getting there took him about two hours. When I went to escort hide-san to the entrance of the sterile room, I found that his parents had also come. I couldn’t help but burst into tears.

So it wasn’t just a relationship between hide-san and Mayuko-san, but also between their families.

Yes, we are still in contact with each other.

What is the story behind your store’s signature dish, the “Promised Cheesecake”?

There was a notebook in which we wrote about our feelings as parents, about Mayuko’s condition and all, and on the first page of it, hide-san wrote a message. It seems he learned from someone that Mayuko loved cheesecake, so he left the message “Let’s have a cheesecake together that’s so amazing it turns into cheese.” However, he passed away before Mayuko was well enough to eat cheesecake again, so they never got to eat it together. When we started our shop, we served cheesecake because she liked it. Later, when Mayuko passed away, I put a lot of cheesecake in her coffin, saying, “You can finally eat cheesecake with hide-chan.” When someone heard that story, they said, “You should turn that story into a decent name,” and so I came up with “The promised cheesecake”.

That’s a wonderful episode.

The fact that he wrapped that scarf around himself, and came rushing when she was in critical condition… There’s so much more. The last time we saw hide-san was after X JAPAN’s Last Live, when he invited us to the afterparty at his office. At that time, Mayuko just had a transplant and couldn’t eat raw food. Hide-san said, “Mayuko can only have food that has been cooked, right?” and handed us cooked food, saying, “Here, this is for Mayuko.” After that, he got food for me, my husband, and my older daughter, saying, “Anything is fine.” I think he was worried that we might be too restrained to eat much. It seems that he liked making people happy, and he did everything by himself. We were the first to leave, but he came to see us off to the car.

When his fans come to the café, I tell them a lot of stories like this. I want to convey to them, “Your beloved hide-chan was such a wonderful person.”

Hide-san really was wonderful, wasn’t he?

However, the people around X JAPAN and hide-san are all like that. The seventh anniversary of Mayuko’s death came up in 2015, and we were discussing doing something for it at the store, when GEORGE (Abiko Shinonkai, LADIESROOM), who often performs on the second floor, said, “If we put word out, everyone will come. We might not be able to schedule it for Wakayama, so let’s do it at a live house in Chiba”, and we did a two-days event. PATA-san came on both days. YOSHIKI-san had something else scheduled, so he sent a video message. TAKURO of GLAY also send a video message. J-san, SUGIZO-san, and RYUICHI-san of LUNA SEA also performed on stage. There were so many others who participated.

At the time of her funeral, PATA-san and INA-san were among those that came for it. When we told the people of hide-san’s office that she had passed away, they closed the office in Tokyo and everyone came as well. They also send a fax to the music industry, because “Mayuko-chan was one of us, so we will let everyone know.” Then, we received flowers from all over the country, around 80 bouquets or so. I was surprised. That they would go that far for us.

Were there people who acted ungraciously towards Mayuko-san out of jealousy?

When the story of her meeting hide-san through Make a Wish was aired on TV, they checked the contents of the letters meant for us at the TV station, because “there might be some nasty ones”. But there were no such letters at all, so the people from the station said, “It’s probably okay to send them directly” and passed them on to us unopened. Even then, there was not a single on that I didn’t like.

That’s amazing! Even though he had so many fans.

Yes. There even was one person who wrote, “I used to refuse to go to school, but I started again when I saw Mayuko working so hard.”

Mayuko-san was an inspiration.

I got this kind of comment several times. Also, Mayuko never said it was hard. A nurse once asked her, “Why do you never talk about how exhausting and painful it is?” She replied, “If I say it’s hard, hearing that would make it even harder for my mother.”…

Both hide-san and Mayoko-san were caring people.

That’s probably where they were on the same wavelength.

Even though she was still in her teens and it was difficult for her.

About a year after her transplant, her condition became critical. At that time, the boy in the next room was also in a bad state, and it was a situation where people would wonder, “Which of them is going to die first?” When Mayuko heard that the boy was celebrating his ninth birthday those days, she asked me, “Please buy ten flowers, one for each year, with money from my wallet, and give them to him.” When I told her, “He’s nine years old,” I got the reply, “He worked hard to make it to nine years, so it matters if he gets even one day closer to being ten.” It’s the weight of a single day that only a child battling illness can understand.

In that sense, when hide-can gave us hope, he didn’t speak of things far in advance. When he says, “I’ll call you the day after tomorrow,” doesn’t it make you think that you will do your best until the day after tomorrow? It’s not, “We’ll do this after you get better.” Instead of speaking of vague big things, he would talk about simple goals that were within reachable distance. He was someone who encouraged people that way. I guess that was the way hide-san was thinking.

They were both really amazing. Hide-san also registered as a bone marrow donor.

That’s right. There was a press conference when he did, but hide-san hadn’t intended for it to become such a big deal. When they heard, “Hide-san says he’s going to register as a donor, how should we go about that?” from someone at the office, people started to talk about it. Someone who happened to know about this matter set the conference up, and afterwards, hide-san was angry, saying, “I didn’t want for it to be this way, I was going to do it just like anyone else.” That said, eight people from his staff at that time and from those who came for the news coverage ended up registering as donors as well.

What did Mayuko-san think when she heard about hide-san’s donor registration?

I told her about it, thinking it would make her happy. But when I did so, she bust into tears. As a matter of fact, because she was herself a recipient of a transplant, she couldn’t register as a donor for the rest of her life. That’s why she said, “I can’t have a donor card with hide-chan.”

I guess those were feelings only she could have.

She said, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get that card. I was taken aback.

When did Mayuko-san learn about hide-san’s death?

On the day he passed away, she had an examination at the hospital. She had turned her mobile phone off for the examination, and when she turned it back on afterwards, she immediately heard from a friend that he had died. She called his manager right away and was told, “Yes, it’s true. We wanted to let you know before you heard it from anyone else, but we couldn’t get through.” She had actually been planning to go to the pub run by hide-san’s parents in Yokosuka that evening after her hospital visit, and she had heard that “if circumstances allowed it, hide-san might be there too.” (After hearing about this death) Mayuko was so depressed she didn’t speak, didn’t eat. The morning of the next day, I received a phone call from hide-san’s mother, who asked, “Will it have an impact on Mayu-chan’s health, what happened to hide?”

Even though her own son had just passed away, she was so concerned about Mayuko-san.

Both parent and child were so kind. So, when Mayuko went to Tsukiji-Honganji (where hide’s body was laid to rest), a lot of people talked to her there. One musician told her, “I used to go drinking with hide, and before we got drunk, he would say, ‘Now that Mayuko’s condition has improved, I am a little more at ease’, and then he’d drink.” Others also told her this, and even a work friend from L.A. let her know that hide-san told them, “If Mayuko’s health gets a little better, I want to show her around Los Angeles.”

It’s sad to hear stories like that.

But, you see, everyone was like that. When the time came for the final parting at Honganji, YOSHIKI-san took Mayuko’s hand next to the coffin and said, “Mayu-chan, until now hide has taken care of you. From now on, all of us are going to do that.”

YOSHIKI-san took good care of Mayuko-san as well, even though that time was painful for him, too.

When we returned to the waiting room from the venue of the afterparty that first time we met, YOSHIKI-san was there. When hide-san asked him, “What’s up?”, he said, “I was waiting for the two of you,” and the three of them walked on holding hands. He also came to our house after hide-san had passed away.

You are all connected by your feelings for hide-san, aren’t you?

It’s amazing how that relationship continues even now, isn’t it? When hide-san died, I thought that would be the end of it, but it has kept going past that point. Even now that Mayuko has passed away, it’s still going on. I am grateful for that.

Back then, Mayuko was exchanging mails with hide-san. Really short ones, like Mayuko telling him, “I started to keep goldfish” and hide-san sending, “Lately, it’s been raining all the time.” It was all trivial. But, in the period between X JAPAN’s breakup being decided and the announcement being made, hide-san told her, “Mayuko, your mails really comforted me.”

They were connected to each other in their hearts, weren’t they? A lot of people come to Lemoned Café, but what kind of place do you want it to be?

For some reason, even people who come here for the first time end up calling us “Mom and Dad”. There are even people who come from far away, so we want to keep it open as much as we can. Everyone is coming, so I want to continue doing this event for an entire year.

The day of the interview was the monthly anniversary of Mayuko's passing. The customers at the café ranged from people who had met Mayuko in person to high school students who had come to the café for the first time in April, and it was impressive to watch them chat cheerfully with each other. When asked about Mayuko, they all said, “She was a really kind girl, like an angel” and “She was a mysterious person who makes me feel like the bad side of me is being cleansed when I talk about her.” One woman said, “There are a lot of sacred places, but this one feels like home.” Even now, the memory of hide and Mayuko-san lives on inside many people’s hearts.

#hide #translation #interview #kishi mayuko #kishi kazuko #x japan #lemoned cafe #which has since relocated and is now called the promised cheesecake cafe #the title is somewhat misleading considering this has barely anything to do with yoshiki #I don't feel like posting much these days but this one is lovely and I wanted to share #also magnetklaue put in her time and effort so I can't sit on it #for anyone stumbling over this without ANY previous knowlege of their story: content warnings for #terminal illness #death #death of a child #as in she wasn't as child anymore when she died but she was someone's child

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rabbitcruiser · 3 months ago

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National Chocolate Day

With so many different varieties of this delicious treat, it can be so hard to pick a favorite. What will you choose to indulge your sweet tooth?

A food that encourages passion, many people would consider chocolate to be a gift to the world. Whether eaten in the form of a chocolate bar, enjoyed as a chocolate beverage or used to bake a variety of desserts, chocolate has a rich history and a bright future!

History of National Chocolate Day

Dating back more than 2000 years, chocolate seems to have originated in the Amazon where the cacao beans are made into a bitter-ish drink. Ancient Mayans and Olmecs of southern Mexico, as well as Aztecs were so enamored by the chocolate drink that some said that it must have come from the gods! Which is why it was likely used as a ceremonial drink at the time.

The name of the tree that produces the beans for making chocolate is Theobroma Cacao which, when translated, means “food of the gods”. It was named by taxonomist Carolus Linneaus who likely named it after the fact that Aztecs considered chocolate to have been something that was given by the gods.

By the time chocolate was discovered by Westerners in the New World and then made its way to Europe in the 1500s, it was something that was reserved for the wealthy and upper classes. It was not only enjoyed by them for taste reasons, but it had been discovered that the cocoa beans also had some health benefits!

Sugar was eventually added to the concoction and, as the product evolved over the next couple of centuries, it went from being only something that was made into a beverage but was developed into the eating chocolate that people enjoy today.

In the 19th century, along with the development of the industrial revolution, new processes came about that offered the opportunity to produce chocolate on a more regular basis. Of course, chocolate companies began cropping up in England, Europe and the United States. Fry & Sons created the world’s first chocolate bar in 1847.

Today, chocolate continues to be a huge industry, with cocoa beans grown in warm climates and exported to chocolate manufacturers all over the globe. Whether it’s the Hershey’s chocolate company in Pennsylvania, the Lindt company in Switzerland, or a smaller local chocolate company, it’s fun to enjoy access to this delicious treat.

Now it’s time to celebrate National Chocolate Day!

National Chocolate Day Timeline

2000 BC

Mayans enjoy chocolate

Even though it is used ritualistically as a drink, chocolate is not only saved for the wealthy and powerful but is likely enjoyed by common people.

13th Century AD

Aztecs revere chocolate

Taking the love of chocolate to the next level, Aztecs use cacao beans as a currency.

1609

First book devoted to chocolate

As the love for chocolate increases in Europe, a book is published in Mexico that is dedicated entirely to chocolate, “Libro en el cual se trata del chocolate”.

1765

First chocolate factory in the US

Dr. James Baker and John Hannon start a chocolate factory in Massachusetts.

1876

Milk Chocolate is created

Before this time, chocolate was only dark but when a Swiss chocolatier adds powdered milk to the chocolate process, things change drastically.

How to Celebrate National Chocolate Day

National Chocolate Day offers tons of different opportunities to get involved with celebrating and enjoying the day! Consider trying out some of these fun and delicious ideas:

Take a Tour for National Chocolate Day

Have tons of fun learning all about how chocolate is made and, hopefully, get to take home some samples! Take a tour of a chocolate company like Hershey’s Chocolate World in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Or enjoy the Lindt Home of Chocolate located in Zurich, Switzerland.

Or one great place to learn a lot about the chocolate industry would be at The Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. With the country’s first educational bean-to-bar chocolate lab, the institute offers classes that teach all about the creative process of chocolate.

Learn Some Bits of Trivia About Chocolate

What could be a better day than National Chocolate Day to brush up on some fun facts related to chocolate? Plus, this would also be the perfect day to share a few bits of chocolate trivia with friends, in honor of the day! Get started with some of these facts:

One pound of chocolate requires 400 cocoa beans and each tree produces approximately 2500 beans, so one tree can make about 6 pounds of chocolate.

Cacao trees are very delicate and farmers typically count on losing up to 30% of their crop each year, so being a chocolate farmer is a volatile business!

Although cocoa beans seem to have originated in the New World, the most cocoa farms, around 70% of those in the world, are located in West Africa, with Cote d’Ivoire as the single largest producer of cocoa.

It takes approximately 4-5 years for a newly planted cacao tree to actually produce fruit, so it requires a great deal of patience from the chocolate farmers.

Share Chocolate with Friends

Any day worth celebrating is worth enjoying and sharing with friends! National Chocolate Day is a great time to pick up a variety of chocolates and make plans to share them. Choose some chocolate bars to pass around to coworkers at the office, or grab a box of chocolates to share with the family at home.

Got a big chocolate lover in your life? Perhaps send them a gift of chocolate in honor of this day. It’s easy to use this opportunity as an excuse to give a gift!

Try Chocolate in Some New Recipes

Though many people only think of chocolate as something that should be enjoyed as a sweet dessert, there are plenty of delicious recipes out there that include chocolate as part of the flavors of a savory dish.

Perhaps, in honor of National Chocolate Day, it would be fun to try adding a bit of chocolate to every meal of the day! Here are some ideas for savory chocolate dishes to get started with:

Cocoa Rubbed Baby Back Ribs. Create a rub for ribs that includes warm spices such as cinnamon, ginger, and allspice, complemented with flavors of mustard and cocoa powder blended together.

Chocolate Beef and Bean Chili. Chocolate has often been used as an ingredient in certain types of chili, and this one is super delicious as it is made with a chocolate stout beer, providing a unique flavor.

Gascon-Style Beef Stew with Chocolate. This hearty, French-style stew offers the delicious flavors of chocolate, Armagnac, and Madiran wine – or Pinot Noir for a lighter version of the stew.

Chicken with Poblano Mole Sauce. This most iconic mole sauce from Mexico offers flavors like ancho, pasilla and mulato chiles, along with warm spices and, of course, velvety smooth chocolate.

National Chocolate Day FAQs

Can chocolate go bad?

Though some chocolate does not have a use by date, it can start to get chalky or cracked on the surface and may not taste as good as when it was first made.

What is white chocolate?

White chocolate can be made from the cocoa butter but does not necessarily contain the cacao nibs.

Did chocolate come from the new world?

Yes, the first evidence of chocolate consumption seems to come from the Aztec and Mayan cultures in what is modern-day Mexico.

Did chocolate used to be expensive?

When it came to Europe in the 1500s, chocolate was an import that was only enjoyed among the wealthy and elite.

Is chocolate poisonous to cats?

Yes, just like dogs, cats should not eat chocolate because it contains theobromine, which can be toxic to pets.

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