'I'll meet you at Hachiko exit.'

Hachiko Exit? That was the first time I'd heard of the meeting point. In a place such as Tokyo, with it's myriad of exits at train stations, it can be so easy to get confused amongst all the numbers and letters which are the only labels of some exits instead of a particular road name. That's IF you even knew the name of the main road close by.

But everybody knows Hachiko.

That was the one thing that puzzled me my first time there, that everybody knew it, and every single person who was meeting a friend in Shibuya almost always meet at the dog mural before continuing their meeting elsewhere.

Legend has it that back in the twenties, a university professor had owned a dog of pure akita breed, whom he called Hachiko. Everyday the dog would see off his master at the station and return at the exact time that his train arrived in the evening in order to greet him, until one day his master passed away from a stroke during class and never showed at the station again. Yet the dog showed up, unwaiveringly, for the next ten years at the same spot and at the same time, hoping to reunite with his master, despite having been given away to another owner living on the other side of town. Eventually, the local people realised the dog's intentions and gave it food and water until it passed away a decade after its owner's death. The bronzed statue of Hachiko stands outside the exit at Shibuya is a testament to the eternal devotion that touched many people, and even if you are not an animal person, you cannot help but to admire the sheer perserverance of love of an animal that had only spent a tenth of its lifetime in total with his owner. Every year, on Hachiko day, people (mostly dog owners) show up at the site to pay their tributes to the loyal canine, and having witnessed how much they love their pets to the point where they wipe their dog's bottoms after excreting waste in public, it's no wonder that Hachiko has such special place in Japanese people's hearts.

During my usual research trawl on the internet, I found this trailer of the original 1987 film they made about Hachiko's life, titled 'Hachiko Monogatari' ('Story of Hachiko'). Hold on to your tissues...

Now Hollywood has decided to (as per usual) remake an American version of Hachiko's story, which, doesn't even convey the same spirit. I can agree that perhaps the makers had to avoid the political context by having the dog uniting the residents of a small town on Rhode Island as opposed to a whole country. Hachiko's passing and life story made the front pages of major newspapers, and to some extent used by the then Japanese government as propaganda to instill the sense of obligation and loyalty in support to Japan's cause during the second World War. Hopefully after seeing the American version, people will be much more interested in the real story of Hachiko and be inspired just like the millions and generations of Japanese people by his loving devotion for his master.