Page 31 - Koi Net - On-Line Koi Magazine - Issue 5

did. Many people now who visit and buy Koi from 500 metres into the area was carnage but incredibly
Kawakami san will know how good his English is. He
started to learn English when Peter Waddington started
coming to buy Koi and then from other foreigners too.
Also when Takanashi left Kamihata he went to
Kawakami’s Father for help and advice to start his own
business and so Kawakami san learnt English from him.
During the 1980s he and his farm became one of the
first branded names in the Koi world, apart from him
producing quality Koi it was also because he could
speak English and back then very few Japanese could. I
can remember myself visiting Niigata in 1981 and being
completely dependant on my agent from Tokyo to
translate for me. So to find a person in the Koi world
that could speak some English was unique. On top of
this he has a great personality and is very likeable so
although Kawakami san says he did not understand
Raad Hassan inspecting why he became so popular he certainly liked it.
one of Kawakami san’s
High Grade Kohaku. Throughout the late 1980s and through the 1990s his
reputation grew and grew and he was soon selling many
of his Koi to America where they started winning Koi
shows.
I had the pleasure of interviewing him for an article I did
way back in 1995, for me I found him so knowledgable
and funny that it is easy to understand why foreigners
found it easy to do business with him and this likeability
continues to this day.
One defining point for all the breeders here in Niigata
was in 2004 when the Chuetsu earthquake struck in
October that year. Kawakami san was in his house then
it ‘hit’. He claims he had no real time to think, the first
night must of been chaotic to say the least. I was in
Ojiya and it was bad there so to be in Uragawa must of
been terrible. The following morning he managed to find
a generator and then a second one to help run the
pumps. He had lost all his Tosai in two of his ponds
and by the end of it he lost 50% of his Tosai, around
2,500 Koi, but was very fortunate not to lose any of
his bigger Koi.
I can remember vividly the following morning walking
from Ojiya into Uragawa up the railway line, as the roads
were destroyed, to get into Uragawa to see the
devastation that the earthquake had caused. The first
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from just below Kawakami’s farm and onwards they had
been spared from really bad damage and without doubt
was why Kawakami san had been able to keep many of
his Koi alive. Around one week later he managed to get
to his ponds where his parent Koi were, he could only
get halfway and had to walk the rest but found although
his ponds were damaged they still had water in them
and his Koi were alive. He had to carry them out in bags
one at a time. Without doubt he was more fortunate than
many of the other breeders at that time. Even back then
though Kawakami san’s first thought was that his Koi
business was finished, but within 3 weeks he was
shipping some of his Koi to the USA and like myself and
everyone else we realised that the Koi business could
and would continue. It took him just over 1 year to
rebuild his mud ponds which again compared to many
breeders in the area was very quick.
Now in 2018 his Koi are as popular as ever and his
quality is exceptional. He breeds about 90% Kohaku
and 10% Sanke and Showa. Kawakami san does not
have many parent Koi but they are very high quality, he
has around 12 females and 10 males. Of these he uses
half for breeding each year. He also looks to introduce
Kawakami san selecting and new Koi to his bloodline and his favourite breeders are
netting his Kohaku in one of
his High Grade ponds. Dainichi and Sakai. His favourite varieties are Kohaku
and Sanke.
From his breeding program he has around 1,500,000 fry
and after several cullings he ends up with around 5,000
Tosai to bring into his fish house. By the spring he will
select about 2,000 of these as Tategoi, without doubt his
knowledge and what we call ‘eye’ for selecting these Koi
is drawn from over the years when as young boy he was
going around selecting Koi from other breeders. Again
from these 2,000 he will only end up with around 300
Nisai. Of his larger Koi Kawakami san only keeps around
50 Sansai and 60 Yonsai. This means the quality of these
Koi are the very highest. To produce and grow these Koi
he now has 30 Tosai and fry ponds and 15 ponds for Koi
of 2 years and upwards.
Over the years his family’s Koi have won Grand
Champion at the major Koi shows in Japan going back
to 1977 when one of his Father’s Koi won, and a few
years ago Kawakami san’s Sanke won Grand Champion
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