If a simple letter/card can be treasured and cherished, what more with this picture with a beautiful girl that wrote me a lovely note, although in Japanese character, to touch the hearts of many including PRR GM Isao Takahashi, who kept that note/letter for more than a year! (Photo by Roberto Hernandez)
RIN KITA IS BACK AFTER 2 YEARS
TWO weeks before going to Istanbul for 2012 World Chess Olympiad, the 56th issue of Tia Belau was published with Music and Me story of “A Letter From A 5-year-old Japanese Girl”.
The first line of that story is “While playing piano at Waves Restaurant on Sunday, March 20, 2011, a 5-year-old girl is watching me play.”
Exactly 2 years and 1 day (March 21, 2013), that Japanese girl is watching me play again. After finishing the song that I’m playing, I gave her my card and asked her name. She said her name but I misheard it as “Kin Jita”.
Then I played some Japanese songs and she sung some parts where she knows in soft voice. Then I showed her my scrap book with photos and print copy of some Music and Me issues with black and white photos.
My instinct ‘commanded’ me to go to the last part of the book where the letter/card of Rin Kita was posted. Then I said, “This is written and made by Rin Kita. Are you Rin Kita?” When she nodded, that’s the time that I’m sure now that she is really her 2 years ago.
When I mentioned to her that she is the one that make and draw the hearts, grapes and flags of Palau and Japan in there, she is almost in tears.
She can’t believe that a simple note, letter and drawing like that will be treasured and cherished by someone. I asked her, “Where is your mom?” And I said, go ahead and bring the book and show it to her.
When they come to me, we have pictures taken –one in their camera and one in my cell phone’s camera. It’s my day off the next day (Friday) but on Saturday, they come again to have dinner near the piano.
When I played “Oribia O Kikinagara”, Rin Kita sang on some parts that she knows. Her mom can sing all the last parts of the song.
We talked for a while about their stay in Palau 2 years ago. It’s their 3rdtime now in Palau. Rin Kita is 6 years old, not 5 as I have written. She’s 8 years old now and very beautiful.
I read to them the contents of “A Letter From A 5-year-old Japanese Girl”—about the accident when Rin Kita accidentally drop a glass and some broken glass hit her leg; about the letter/card and how our GM Isao Takahashi translated it to me.
I asked them also to check the website http://palau-chess.blogspot.comwhere I will feature Rin Kita again. She was featured (without picture) in Music and Me issue 56 (Aug. 16, 2012) and no. 280th post in that website. I posted it on August 18, 2012—a week before my trip to Istanbul.
Source:
Music and Me by Roberto Hernandez
Tia Belau Newspaper
Pages 9 and 11
Volume 22
Issue 25
March 28, 2013
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