Just before noon on Sept. 1, 1923, after severe shaking in a small wooden house in Kyobashi, an old Tokyo district east of the Imperial Palace, my father-in-law, then a 6-month old baby — along with a steaming pot of rice — was scooped up by my father-in- law's mother as she dashed into the street.
Simultaneously throughout Tokyo, charcoal braziers toppled like lined-up dominoes. The family home was fast reduced to a pile of ashes, and the family, including the baby, arrived at Ueno Park — a spacious area where Japan's first zoo opened in the late 19th century — which was quickly transformed into an evacuation center for thousands of displaced people.
According to my wife's family lore, the shocked family stayed at Ueno Park, ironically now a site for many Tokyo homeless, until the house was rebuilt in Kyobashi.