Ten years after being airlifted to Hokkaido to receive treatment for severe burns, a Russian boy is learning to speak the language of the country that saved his life.
"I want to be a Japanese interpreter in the future," Konstantin Skoropyshnyi said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
Skoropyshnyi charmed Japan at age 3 with his lovable gestures, and opened the way for medical exchanges between Japan and the former communist country.
In an unprecedented humanitarian move on Aug. 28, 1990, Skoropyshnyi was transported from Sakhalin to Sapporo Medical University Hospital in Hokkaido after sustaining second- and third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body, according to earlier reports.
The reports said the boy sustained the burns apparently after falling into a bucket of boiling water at his home on Aug. 20. He was initially treated at a local hospital but had to undergo specialized treatment to survive.
Now 13, Skoropyshnyi still lives in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the administrative center of Sakhalin Island, and is currently taking lessons at a local Japanese language school operated by a private Japanese group.
He has no memories of being airlifted but remembers the scenery in Hokkaido from when he visited for treatment. He added that his scars do not hurt anymore.
"What I like most about Japan is the clock tower in Sapporo. The flowers along the streets were also beautiful," Skoropyshnyi, speaking in Russian, said in an interview earlier this month.
He said he began his Japanese lessons to be able to communicate with his Japanese friends. So far, he has picked up about 30 kanji.
"I want to study well and be able to compose a letter to my Japanese friends," Skoropyshnyi said enthusiastically.