My Father
My father is the oldest son (cho-nan) in a family of eight.
Until my father's generation, the Hirukis were farmers on
Fukue Island in Nagasaki Prefecture in Japan.
My father felt he could help the world more by developing the science behind farming,
so he went to Kyushu University to study agriculture, specifically the diseases of plants
(plant pathology).
At that time, a new type of pathogen (disease-causing agent) was being characterized -- the virus. Rather than follow Japanese tradition, which dictates that the cho-nan looks after the family property, he pursued the trail of this exciting research to Berkeley, CA and Madison, WI in the United States and then Edmonton, AB in Canada. Along the way, he managed to find time to get married and have a couple of children.
He spent his entire career as a faculty member of the Department of Plant Science in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Alberta. Agriculture is an international concern, so many graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and professors came from places like England, India, Taiwan, Japan, Yugoslavia, Poland, China and Iran just to work with him. He was (and still is) invited to visit laboratories and give talks all over the world.
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After a prolific thirty years, he retired from his position in 1996.
The university had a party in his honour, which 