Radio Guest
“We’re back. This is Inter FM, Tokyo and I’m your host of Great Names Of the 20th Century, Sandy Walters. We have been taking a survey of the lives of some of the most influential and well-known personalities in Japan over the last one hundred years, through the words and memories of the people who knew them and loved them the most.
Our guest today is Yuko Ono, the widow of Jonathan Kenneth Pond, more affectionately known as ‘John-Ken-Pon,’ and without a doubt the most famous Jan-Kenner in Japanese and world history. Yuko, welcome.”
“Thank you, Sandy, it’s a pleasure to be here.”
“Yuko, to begin with, for the benefit of our listeners who were not here in Japan in the 70s and 80s, and to also set the stage for the drama that will be unfolding in this studio tonight, let us first establish a brief biographical sketch of you and your late husband.”
Jan-Ken Beginnings
“How did it all begin? He was much older than you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, Sandy, he was. We met for the first time in 1972. I was just a girl then, only eight years old in fact. He was twenty-five. He was doing peripheral work as a graduate student in the field of artificial intelligence at Harvard University and came to Japan to research left brain/right brain theory. They were interested in why math and science scores for Japanese children were the highest in the world. They thought there would be a strong correlation between the dexterity they showed with their fingers and their prowess in their studies.”
“Their fingers?”
“Yes. John came here to study their daily finger habits: Use of the abacus and chopsticks; the writing of calligraphy and kanji; origami; the playing of the recorder and piano; massages given to grandparents’ backs; and then finally, various finger games.”
“And so, you met and fell madly in love?”
“Well, yes and no. At first, not romantically—how could we?—but I guess there was always that connection between us, the feeling that somehow, we would always be together. During John’s hard times and successes, I knew, absolutely knew, that he would always be my John, and I would be his Yuko.”
“Then it was much later in the mid 80s, wasn’t it, that the Jan-Ken, for lack of a better word—mania—began?”
“Yes, that’s right, Sandy.”
“Yuko, we’ll be getting into all of the exciting, and perhaps, if you don’t mind, even personal and, surely, quite painful details later in tonight’s show.”
“Yes, that’s quite all right.”
“Now then, completing our brief sketch, Yuko, there was of course, John’s sudden death five years ago at a U.N. sponsored event in Africa, ‘Jan-Ken Friends United.’”
“Yes, Sandy, that’s right. I think you and the whole world know and understand that John lived and breathed Jan-Ken. And that he died for it and what it, Jan-Ken, represents. John used Jan-Ken, a simple children’s game, to spread peace among the nations of the world. It was his gift to the world. And it is for this, John’s special ‘Message of Love’ and ‘Mission of Peace’ that I now carry the torch.”
Jan-Ken Superstar
“Yuko, they say John only lost at Jan-Ken once in his life, and that was to you on national television when he proposed marriage. Is it true?”
“No, Sandy. Actually, at the beginning, John lost to everyone. It took him years before he could finally beat me. But after that, I never won. I hadn’t a chance.”
“Really! I wasn’t aware of that. Fascinating. Yuko, John became, in the truest sense of the word, a Jan-Ken Superstar. John came to Japan to do research. He met you. He developed a passion for Jan-Ken. One thing led to another. He won a nation-wide Jan-Ken contest. He became famous. He developed his best-selling The Jan-Ken Blackbelt Doll. He started working with the U.N. Quite a life!”
