Japanese folklore: Hachiko

Hachiko is a monument outside of Tokyo’s Shibuya train station that memorializes a dog with amazing loyalty. He was brought to Tokyo in 1924 by his owner Hidesaburo Ueno, an agriculture professor at the University of Tokyo. They established a pattern where Ueno would walk with Hachiko to the station in the morning, where he would commute to work, and Hachiko would greet him at the same station in the evening, where they would walk home together.

However, in May 1925, Professor Ueno did not return and would never go back to Shibuya station because he died of a stroke during the day. Hachiko was given away to another family, but he routinely escaped and return to Ueno’s old house. After some time, Hachiko began to show up at the Shibuya train station. He would show up at the station for the evening commuter train that Ueno used to take, waiting for his master. He continued the routine for over 10 years, surviving from scraps fed by passing commuters, especially as Hachiko became an evening fixture at the station.

In 1932, Hachiko gained notoriety in Japan when Ueno’s former students noticed that the dog continued to show up at Shibuya station as a sign of intense and extraordinary loyalty. After Hachiko died, an artist created a bronze statue of him that is erected outside of Shibuya train station, reportedly where the dog used to wait.

Today, the statue of Hachiko is a common meeting place for people in Shibuya, instantly recognizable to any resident of Tokyo. In the evening, hundreds of people can be found daily in the plaza where Hachiko sits.