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2009/03/24

Emily, the wife of former Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, is the daughter of an Australian Occupation-era sergeant, Jimmy Beard, who was able to remain in Japan.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Barring the people needed
By GREGORY CLARK




Postscript: Ironically, Emily, the wife of former Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama, is the daughter of an Australian Occupation-era sergeant, Jimmy Beard, who was able to remain in Japan because he was married to a Japanese national. Indeed, he was forced to remain since at the time Canberra was busily barring entry to Japanese married to Australians.

Later, the ex-sergeant and his family were cruelly satirized by Australian author Hal Porter, who was paid by Canberra in the early 1960s to write about postwar Japan. Porter saw mixed marriages in "racist" Japan as doomed to failure. Meanwhile, Emily's sister, Margery, who has since married into the Bridgestone Tire family, now works tirelessly for Japan-Australia cultural relations.