Hiroshi Kitamura: A Short Personal History

Professor Hiroshi Kitamura was born in Tokyo on 21 November 1909. He comes from what I think is fair to describe as an enlightened, typically urban, modern Japanese middle-class family which derives from the Samurai tradition of Confucian scholars in the Satsuma clan. He is the eldest of five children, having two sisters and two brothers, all of whom live in Japan, the sisters in Osaka and Nagoya and the brothers in Tokyo. His father, who was the Managing Director of Meiji Sugar Refinery, Inc., was financially responsible for Hiroshi’s entire education.