MONTHLY NEWS
August 1998

Two Brothers Cycle in Inner Mongolia

Masamichi and Naomichi Yazaki, brothers attending Hamakaze Elementary School in the city of Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, are bicycling for nearly 400 kilometers in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region in China in August this year.

The brothers became famous for cycling around Japan on their summer vacation last year to convey their experiences of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in January 1995.

Masamichi, a sixth grader, and his fourth-grade brother Naomichi are touring Inner Mongolia from August 9 to 17 with a group of Kobe-based cyclists.

While cycling over 400 kilometers from Hailar to Manchouli, they will stop over at several local elementary schools to deliver drawings and messages from Japanese schoolchildren in Hyogo and to describe the devastating earthquake in and around Kobe that killed more than 6,400 people.

Last summer, Masamichi and Naomichi cycled for nearly 3,300 kilometers around Japan, raising funds for earthquake victims. The young cyclists' efforts to describe the suffering of people in quake-stricken regions won sympathizers wherever they traveled.

One place they visited was the town of Fukae, which suffered from the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Fugen in Nagasaki Prefecture in June 1991. More than 40 people were reported killed or missing in the disaster.

In Fukae, local schoolchildren gave the brothers seeds of sunflowers that were found growing from the volcanic ash. The children asked the brothers to deliver the seeds to children in Ashiya and Okushiri Island, an island off Hokkaido where more than 170 people were killed by tidal waves in July 1993.

The brothers bicycled all the way from Nagasaki in southern Japan to Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost prefecture, to deliver the sunflower seeds to Okushiri schoolchildren.

The seeds have sprouted in three places--Fukae, Ashiya, and Okushiri Island--and are blooming this summer.

After their return from Inner Mongolia, Masamichi and Naomichi plan to cycle around the areas in the Tohoku region that they couldn't visit during their trip last summer.

"We have a lot of people to thank for being able to travel around like this on bicycles," says Naomichi.

Masamichi adds, "We'll do our best again this summer."

Photo: Naomichi (right) and Masamichi hit the road again. (Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun)