1983. The Uedera Koi farm in Hiroshima
That same day Hideo introduced me to Mr. Uedera the elder, at his farm based in Takehara right next to the beautiful Hiroshima seafront.
This soft-spoken gentleman was responsible for developing the first, true Gin Rin varieties which he had purchased from Niigata ‘Dia’ and ‘Pearl’ parent stocks. Hideo said it took Uedera San some ten more years to stabilse the line before it was accepted by Shin-Ko-Kai.
The very first time I saw Uedera San, he glanced at Hideo with a real quizzical look on his badly-scarred face. Hideo quickly replied by saying – ‘Dai-jo-bu – Eegarisu’ (no problem, he is from England!).
I later learned that visitors from the USA were not welcome at this outlet after his personal experiences which resulted in him having to have many operations on his face after the bomb blast disfigured him for life.
Uedera San has been an avid conservationist since then, I bought some Koi from him that day and have since returned on many occasions.
My first impressions were those of ‘integrity with complete resignation’.
