niime 百科

Encyclopedia of niime

Tamaki Tatsuo, the father of Tamaki Niime, passed away on January 8th. He was 70 years old.
He ran the boutique in Katsuyama, Fukui prefecture, for 40 years, in Tamaki’s hometown and in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture. He also ran his business with enthusiasm day and night, working hard without a break. He spent time reading books, asking himself what’s the meaning of life. He had a quiet, laconic personality but entrusted and taught his daughter his philosophies on life. He stressed the importance of ongoing study using carefully selected words.
“The name, “新雌” (Niime), includes the character “雌” because I wanted to try to surpass my father, Tatsuo, “達雄,” whose name has the character, “雄,” in his name. (Translator’s Note: “雌” means female. “雄” means male.) I haven’t spoken much with him because my dad wasn’t the type to talk so much, but I would like to take this opportunity to remember him.” Tatsuo has been a foundation in creating the past of “玉木新雌／tamaki niime.” While speaking with Sakai about a portrait of Tatsuo and his way of life, we will engrave the deceased’s life in “niime史” (niime history) as a special memorial version.

Tamaki

My parents were running a boutique. So, I grew up watching my father and mother working. I think we discussed that I had not asked the typical question, “do you have someone you respect in mind?” but when I think about it now; I guess the one who I respect is probably my father. If asked why, how would I answer that? He was such an upright person.

Sakai

Impetuous.

Tamaki

He was a workaholic. He worked for 40 years, starting from when he was 30. He didn’t take vacations or sick days, so I calculate that he probably had five years worth of vacation days in his forty years. I guess he lived five extra years in fast-forward. It was like he seemed to be scared to pause for a while.

Sakai

He would go on a business trip to Ishikawa Prefecture, return to Katsuyama, and then come to Nishiwaki to help me, stock up at a wholesale store in Osaka, return home, go to Tokyo to watch a Kabuki play, and then go right back home to work at his store in Katsuyama.

Tamaki

He took a nap on the express bus home to Katsuyama, then took no breaks and got back to work until he was 70. It was like, where did all the energy come from?

—— Just listening to you speak, I feel an energetic attitude that he did not want to waste on even a second of rest.

Tamaki

I observed how my father and mother ran the business from when I was little. I have absorbed things that I thought were terrific, and something that I thought could be better has been improved in my work. I believe that my father’s upstanding personality was good, so I have wished to imitate it if possible. The way my father truly enjoyed work was a characteristic I absorbed from him. When I was a student, his best advice was, “keep learning your whole life”. He said something like, “humanity keeps learning all through life.” I was like, OK, and I remembered that I answered it like “No way! I don’t like studying,” but the words stayed in my head. I noticed that when I started working and started a business, I always wished to learn or grow more; that phrase pulled out those ambitions.

—— It’s easy to imagine the straightforward, hard-working and diligent demeanor.

Tamaki

Because we had the chance to consult with my father when we started our business, and because I also had my thoughts on how he could improve his own, I was able to talk to him about those things. I thought that transporting goods from place to place frequently must not be suitable for his health, so I thought he should stop doing it; that is how I found a way to require less work related to transportation. We try to cover as much as we could at our headquarters in Nishiwaki, inviting customers to our place and minimising the work requiring us to travel to focus on our creations. I think that it is beneficial for us, and we try to make it enjoyable for customers, and I guess this idea came from my father in a way. My father was travelling around and working very hard. But, I thought that was hard and not good for his health. However, I knew no matter what I said, he would not have stopped doing it, but I wanted to change it in my generation. I can say that the issue has been solved and updated.

—— You seem to have learned a lot from Tatsuo’s management, and that is what you are using in tamaki niime.

Tamaki

Because I have a big brother, I thought inheriting the family business was not for me, so I decided to become independent, keep what I learned from my father and create a brand new Tamaki, tamaki niime. Therefore, I did not want to rely on family but always wished to pass my father. That is what I have been doing so far. There was a time when I could not make much money, so I stayed at my parents’ house for a while, but my parents always cheered me up and never told me to quit, ever.

Sakai

Rarely interfere with her business and laugh. But, there were many papers with his philosophical phrases written on the wall.

Tamaki

He often took time to read and study, right?

Sakai

He read tons of books and studied why we, humans, live for or something like that.

—— He seemed to be a “thinker”.

Tamaki

He was more like a scholar, not like a business person.

Sakai

He attended as many workshops as available and not only participated but also hosted workshops. The energy he had toward learning as an entrepreneur and as a human was amazing, was that right?

Tamaki

It was.

Sakai

He was unusual, wasn’t he?

Tamaki

He seemed to feel that he needed to be. He was not very soft and pleasant. He was strict to others, including himself but was adored.

Sakai

Learning was probably nourishment for the spirit, a driving force for him, wasn’t it?

Tamaki

What was the driving force for him…I am not sure, but why we live became a big part of my life theme. I did not talk about it with my father, but when I visited my family’s home and saw the papers on the wall and found what we, my father and I, all seek was the same thing.

Sakai

So, that’s not too long ago.

Tamaki

At the funeral, my mother brought out a piece of wallpaper that she had put away, and the phrase, “why do we live?”, was written on it, and in Nishiwaki and Katsuyama, we were in separate places but had the same thought, or question, or seeking, whatever it was, I felt we had the same thing in mind, we really did this together this year, right?

Sakai

You mean with your father?

Tamaki

Yes.

Sakai

Seems so.

Tamaki

When we moved here, he helped with things like weeding and painting. He spent two years painting the walls of the buildings. I bet he had his works, but he came here and helped us on his days off.

Sakai

He never cared that his car got dirty while painting. He forgot everything when he focused on one thing. His passion for learning is just unbelievable, though.

Tamaki

Things he does not care about really do not matter to him at all.

Sakai

I think that was the fantastic thing about him. He was like; I have nothing but this, wasn’t he?

Tamaki

He did not have any hobbies. Well, he did go climbing occasionally, but I only found out later.

—— Last August, the Tamaki family got together and had a family meeting and discussed passing the boutique business to Tamaki’s big brother, Daisuke. At that moment, all the family members, including Tatsuo himself, did not know that he was sick.

Tamaki

We found out that he had cancer just two months ago, and he died two months later.

Sakai

Because he even came to my rice farm to help rice harvesting in the Fall (no one knew.)

At that time, people around him felt something strange when they sometimes saw him cough. Later, he thought he could not breathe well and went to the hospital to get a prescription for cough medicine, then he stayed in the hospital for tests and was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He left the hospital and spent time at home for two months. Still, the condition got worse after new year’s eve, and he got hospitalised later. That was like he was holding himself until the January 3rd “tamaki niime New Year Celebration Party” was done. As soon as Tamaki heard about him being hospitalised, she rushed to go home on the 7th, when it was the next day of the event, then rushed to the hospital. The family had got together, and Tatsuo was answering the cheers from Tamaki. The following day on the 8th, he quietly left this world.

Tamaki

I think it was because he wanted to bring all families together. You know those close families who spend time together and support each other. If that is the so-called role model of a family, the Tamaki family is more like an individual has their way and is independent of each other, but care about each other in their hearts. But in case of emergency, we connect and support each other tightly. I think our family is like that.

Sakai

Losing our father made us realise that the axis of the Tamaki family was him.

—— It is like people say that we realise a person’s greatness only when they leave our lives.

Tamaki

With lung cancer, especially in stage one, he must have had moments when he could not breathe. But he went to a hospital of his own will. Without these two months, my mother and all of us would only have nothing but regrets. I wish I had done that, or wish I should have spent more time with him; we could have those pains left in us. None of us thought he would die in two months, more like we felt that because he is Tatsuo, he would make a miracle comeback.

Sakai

We never expected or even thought about it, right?

Tamaki

But with those two months, my mother had a chance to take care of him. That means that they could spend time together, just chatting. So, that was a very precious time for them, for the couple who spent most of their time working day after day.

—— In the middle of last December, Tatsuo carrying an oxygen inhaler with a painful body, came to Nishiwaki in a car driven by his wife, Kazumi. With a frail body caused by the loss of appetite, he spent three days with deep emotion, then Tamaki offered to drive them and went back home to Fukui, Katsuyama.

Tamaki

At his memorial service, I realised that I had been following my father with respect, but at the same time, I was looking at him as a good rival and trying to be better than him. I’ve believed that one of the answers was money. In the term of business success, I thought I had to make money, I need to make a profit, I know it is not enough yet, but listen, dad, I am doing all right, I was thinking like that…but so many people came to the funeral at that night. The city mayor and council members also showed up. My father was not a city council member, but just one of the store’s presidents on the shopping street, right? He just had been living, doing what he wanted to do, not like those who are especially good at socialising and service-minded.

Sakai

In the countryside of Katsuyama, there are only a few people who can hold a funeral attended by such well-known and renowned members.

—— He sure was an influential person regardless of his title.

Tamaki

I wondered why. If he was an influential person and rich, or if he was the president of a huge company, then it is understandable… so it means that there was something he had rather than money, right? He probably did not make a strong network by attending the chamber of commerce frequently or something like that because he was busy travelling around for business. He often visited us here, so I guess he probably did not have time to do any local community services either. Therefore, honestly, I wondered if this is my case, would it happen that many people show up to the funeral service. That event made me think I need to pay more attention to the people connection from that day.

—— You seem to feel that you couldn’t surpass your father yet.

Sakai

By the way, he was not obsessed with money, even though he said he has to make money.

Tamaki

Right, he wasn’t.

Sakai

He told the staff that we have to make money and gave us suggestions from time to time, but he was satisfied with the bare minimum, personally.

—— In terms of making money, it was only for his family and his staff.

Sakai

No matter how much it was for business, I think that people would not come to you without humanity. In conclusion, in the right way, I guess that Tamaki seems to have imitated her father when she notices.

Tamaki

Certainly. Sometimes, I was against him as well. (laugh) But I was unintentionally doing the same things my dad did.

Sakai

Well, well, it is like following what your father had been doing and walking the same route he took.

Tamaki

That’s why I started to want to do my creation because I saw that my father was working hard, not just selling things for coming generations.

Sakai

But at the same time, you were acting against what he did as well, right?

Tamaki

I, of course, learned a lot from my father and mother about the business tips, but I realised that if I do it myself, I wanted to sell things I believed are good. Therefore, I started to want to make my creation.

—— Interesting.

Tamaki

What you said means right. I was imitating their way…making it next level!

—— Upgrading them.

Sakai

Speaking of good rivals, that was very true. Your father also consulted with Tamaki, and Tamaki told your father what he should do. But in the end, you were running hard behind him.

Tamaki

As a result, that was the case…I’ll have to run from now on. For my father too.

Sakai

I can’t believe that he worked his body to that extent.

Tamaki

Even though he was not a physically strong person.

Sakai

Spirit. I think that your father was unbelievably strong-willed. He never spits out anything weak like “tired” or any negative things. He always had smiles on him.

Tamaki

He smiled more at Nishiwaki, as I heard. Their staff told me they were always scolded at the boutique and told what to do all the time. He was smiling in Nishiwaki.

Sakai

He was always smiling.

—— I guess that he must be happy to see you there. Watching his daughter growing…

Tamaki

When my father came to Nishiwaki, he lived together with my sister because she also started helping us here in Nishiwaki. So, not necessarily being stuck together all day, but she could spend time with him.

—— I agree. That is more precious than anything else.

Sakai

Without Tatsuo, it is impossible to speak about tamaki niime. That is how I feel after we talk about him chronologically.

Tamaki

That’s how I felt. And I don’t feel too sad. How to say, my father hadn’t been with me a lot since I was little, because he was a workaholic, it was like that we saw each other occasionally, even when he visited me here, only three days per month. Or at most, he came twice a month and helped me cutting weeds, or painting wall, then he left and said he would come again. Even when he came, I had to work, so I just felt he was painting, or having lunch right there, so we did not do something together, but still, I think those times we spent were precious than anything.

Tamaki Tatsuo ran through his life intensely, quietly, and diligently pulling his family and the store staff on his back, leaving his sincere existence in the hearts of the people in the town of Katsuyama.
Tamaki Niime received the runner’s baton. Now, she runs. Not alone but with her father’s ambition.

Original Japanese text by Seiji Koshikawa.
English translation by Adam & Michiko Whipple.