"Reds" is an elegant restaurant at the Rocks, the district where Europeans settled for the first time in Sydney in 1788.  The antique stone building seems to have been used as a warehouse in the colonial days.

The Japanese visitors and Australian welcomers, after strolling and shopping at the Rocks or looking around the Opera House, gather in a room of the restaurant.  The party begins at 6 p.m.

In his speech on behalf of the visitors, Mr. Shoichi Ishizuka, President of the Japan-Australia Society of Joetsu, stresses the significance of "handing down to the next generation the tragic facts of the Naoetsu POW Camp." (Interpreted by Mrs. Ishizuka.)

Then Mr. Jack Mudie, representing the ex-POWs and their relatives, makes an impassioned speech in a voice very sonorous and ringing in spite of his old age of 89: "Sydney is a beautiful city.  I hope you'll enjoy it.  But our beauty is in our hearts.  We have hearts full of friendship, full of love, and full of peace for you. … Fill your bags when you are going home with happy thoughts of Sydney."  (Interpreted by Mr. Yoshikazu Kondo, a standing committee member of the JASJ.)

While Mr. Ishizuka and Mr. Mudie are delivering their speeches, we select the dishes we want.  The Japanese translation added to the menu facilitates the visitor's ordering.  For the entree, you can have charred kangaroo, air-dried emu proscicutto, or fillet of crocodile which is quite Australia-like, though the image of the cute (?) animal has prevented me from ordering kangaroo.  Incidentally, the dinner charges are A$ 46 per person.

Before dinner Father Harry Hughes leads us in praying for the late Mr. Frank Hole, who passed away on 7 August 1996.  (Mr. Hole was the ex-POW who brought to Joetsu City in 1988 the plaque for the 60 Australian soldiers who died at Naoetsu in 1943-44.)

Then Mr. Shoichi Shimomura, ex-chairman of the Executive Committee of the Council to Erect Peace Statues and present advisor to the JASJ, thanked the Australians for having come a long way to Naoetsu on 8 October 1995 to participate in the unveiling ceremony of the Statues at the former campsite and then praised Mr. Hole's deeds.  (Interpreted by Mr. Shigeru Kakimura, a standing committee member of the JASJ.)

A series of addresses being over, both visitors and receivers are relaxed.  Chatting in Aussie and Japanese-accented English is heard at each table.

At my table are sitting Mrs. Agnes Mitchell and her two children and a friend of them on one side and Mr. and Mrs. Inomata and me on the other side.  Mrs. Mitchell, whose husband died at Naoetsu, says she did not feel like visiting Naoetsu in October 1995.  After Mr. Mudie gave her a videotape of the ceremonies and events at the Peace Park, she changed her mind and has joined us on a cruise in Sydney Cove and at this dinner party.  Among the Australians attending the party, the Mitchells are the only family who have not visited Naoetsu.

The atmosphere at our table is a little tense at first.  After Mr. Inomata starts drawing the pictures of Mrs. Mitchell and her children, however, they have relaxed.  Rob, a handsome man with a beard and a mustache, says he is an amateur painter.  He seems to be interested in literature, too.  Asked about Australian authors, he tells me some contemporary writers' names at once and mentions a couple of large bookstores in Sydney.

Now the banquet is in full swing and some men have begun to "tour from table to table" in the Japanese way when Mr. Shoji Yamaga starts to play a Japanese song on the harmonica.  All Japanese join him, singing in unison "Sakura" and "The Moon Above the Ruined Castle."  Then the Australians join and lead us in singing "Waltzing Matilda."

When singing loudly has caused the Australian wine to have its effect on me, I hear Mr. Kondo calling my name: "Now Mr. Yagi is going to give an address of thanks on behalf of the Japanese visitors."  I have made an impromptu speech in Japanese a couple of times, but never in English.  If I were sober, I would decline.  But the wine has made me a very fluent (?) speaker of "Emperor's" English and the Australians burst out laughing several times.

Looking back at my speech at the final stage of the dinner party at Reds, I remember only several proper names I mentioned, the phrase "five scoops of ice-cream" (as an example of an abundance of food?), and the sentence: "Mr. Inomata is a henpecked husband, suffering a great deal under his wife's petticoat government."  I don't remember at all in what context I uttered such a impolite remark.  I have to apologize to Mr. and Mrs. Inomata for having unintentionally falsified the facts of their married life since we did not go a long way to Sydney to tell our Australian friends what was quite contrary to the actualities in Japan.