Brothers reunited in Japan after 6 decades
Wish fulfilled
Japanese-American Minoru Ohye traveled all the way to Japan to celebrate his 86th birthday on Monday with his only brother, whom he had not seen in nearly 60 years.
The brothers were born in Sacramento but were separated as children after their father died in a fishing accident. They were sent to live with relatives in Japan and ended up in different homes.
When they hugged in a hotel room and exchanged gifts of California chocolate and Japanese sake, they no longer even spoke the same language. Separated across the Pacific, their only prior meeting had been a brief one in the mid-1950s when Ohye stopped by Japan while serving in the US Army in the demilitarised zone on the Korean peninsula.
His brother, Hiroshi Kamimura, 84, was adopted by a Japanese family, grew up in Kyoto and became a tax accountant.
Ohye joined the youth group of the Japanese Imperial Army at 13 and went to Russia, where he was sent to a Siberian coal mine when Japan surrendered. He returned to Yuba City, California, in 1951, and worked as a bookbinder and a gardener.
