Found in Translation

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 March 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sixty-five-year-old Hiromitsu Shinkawa survived the 2011 Tsunami by riding the tin roof of a destroyed home. He spent two days alone and adrift at sea on his makeshift raft before rescue. Shortly afterwards he met Miwako Ozawa, a young Japanese translator hired by a journalist to interview him. Five years on, Hiromitsu’s remarkable story of survival and renewal is told through the two halves of their unlikely friendship.

(Photo: Hiromitsu Shinkawa as crew members of Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) sail to rescue him on 13 March 2011. Credit: JIJI Press/AFP/Getty Images

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:04.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCWorldServis.com slash podcasts.
0:20.0	My name is Miwako Ozawa and I live in Tokyo, Japan.
0:27.0	I am a fixer for falling journalists here. I am also a translator. Five years ago I met Hiromitsu Shinkawa. A tiny sign of life of life in a sea of doors. A photograph of this 60 year old man.
0:38.4	Riding a roof in the middle of an ocean of debris made the news all over the world.
0:44.4	Two days after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami,
0:49.4	he was found alive floating out at sea.
0:52.0	Bringing on to what's left of his house, a simple... found alive floating out at sea. I'd like to share his story with you,
0:55.0	one of survival, hope and renewal.
1:00.0	This is my friend Hiro Mitsui Shinkawa.
1:07.0	Could you introduce yourself?
1:10.0	What does it?
1:12.0	I know Shinkawa When I first met the man who sailed,
1:15.0	and I first met the man who sailed his roof,
1:20.0	he put a note into my hand, it said,
1:23.2	when you hear that tsunami warning, youoshi Moshi. I'm she.
1:35.0	Moshi.
1:37.0	I'm gonna see.
1:38.0	Gohichi, I'm gonna go there.
1:40.0	Hiro Mitsu Sam spoke to me on the phone from his home in Kawasaki City near Tokyo,
1:47.0	telling me about the day of the earthquake and the tsunami.
1:51.0	Heromitsu had lived in the same house. the tsunami.
	...

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