Three years ago Tom Tsui came to Tokyo to fill the position of deputy special representative of the World Bank.
He was not a newcomer to Japan. He came here first in his childhood in the 1950s, and spent nearly all his school years in Tokyo. He said that a dream came true when he had the chance, three years ago, to "come home" to Tokyo. Now that he is leaving again, he is sadder than he expected.
For him with his warm, generous nature, it was easy to pick up with friends from long ago and to make new ones. Born in Shanghai, he had a diplomat father and a musical mother. He said: "My father was an unusual man. He graduated from the University of Hiroshima, and had a command of Japanese at a native level. He wrote best-selling romantic novels. He directed films. One was with a starlet who became Qiang Qing, Mao Zedong's wife. My father taught political science at Chinese University, then was posted to the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo for a lengthy assignment."