A glass bottle containing a message from a six-year-old Japanese boy who set it adrift in the Pacific Ocean 10 years ago was picked up by a 36-year-old Malaysian man in April this year.

The boy, Yohei Kowaki, who is now a 16-year-old student at Minamitane High School on the island of Tanegashima, Kagoshima Prefecture, sent a message that read, "I want to become friends with the person who picks up this letter." In late August at a beach in eastern Malaysia, Yohei met the man who found the message.

Yohei was a first grader attending Nishino Elementary School in Minamitane 10 years ago, and his bottle was released along with over 100 others containing messages of the pupils at the school.

After 10 years at sea, the bottle reached the shores of the Malaysian Peninsula, where an oil refinery worker discovered it and found the message while cleaning up the beach as a volunteer. During the 10 years since he sent the bottle, Yohei has grown to be a sport-loving high school student who enjoys kendo, or Japanese fencing, as well as soccer.

The Malaysian man said that he cleans the beach regularly with other volunteers "to provide good ground for the green sea turtles that spawn there." Nearly 100 turtles spawn at the beach every year. "I found the bottle when I was cleaning up. I was going to throw it away, but then I saw that there was a message and a red folded paper crane inside," he said.

The man's company invited Yohei to Malaysia, where he joined an event to watch green sea turtles spawn. He also became friends with Malaysian high school students at a party at the Japanese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur and was able to realize his decade-old dream.

"There are spawning grounds for sea turtles on Tanegashima Island near where I live," Yohei noted, "and I'd like to join the volunteers there when they start cleaning the beach for the turtles."

Photo: Yohei and his new friend on the beach where his message came ashore. (Mainichi Shimbun)