Message in bottle drifts 10 years from Japan to Terengganu

KUALA LUMPUR: A 10-year-old message in a bottle washed up on a Terengganu beach in 1999, sparking an extraordinary cross-border friendship between a Malaysian man and a Japanese student.

Private sector retiree Zulkafli Abd Razak, 63, recalled how a fleeting thought about finding a genie's lamp turned into a real-life discovery during a beach clean-up at Pantai Ma' Daerah in Kerteh on April 23, 1999.

Zulkafli, who was 36 at the time, was participating in a conservation programme organised by the Turtle Sanctuary Centre, the Fisheries Department, BP Petronas Acetyls (BPPA), the Menyemai Kasih Rakyat Kerteh non-governmental organisation, the Fisheries Development Authority of Malaysia, the Kemaman District Council, and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

"The bottle cap was too tight, so I asked a friend for help before we decided to break the bottle because its neck was too narrow to extract the contents," he said.

Inside, he found an origami crane, a map marking Tanegashima Island in southern Japan, and two letters — one in English and another in Japanese.

The English letter, titled "Message from Nishino" and dated Oct 2, 1989, was written by Nakamura Koichi, the principal of the Nishino Primary School. It explained that 117 bottled messages had been released into the ocean.

The Japanese letter was written by a 6-year-old Primary One pupil named Kowaki Yohei.

With assistance from a Japanese expatriate at the Kerteh plant, Kitamura, Zulkafli translated Yohei's letter, which read: "My name is Kowaki Yohei. I am six years old and in Primary One. I am a forgetful boy. There are many flowers and 117 pupils at Nishino Primary School. A famous landmark on our island is Kadokura Promontory. I want to make friends with the person who finds this letter, so please reply."

Determined not to let the story end there, Zulkafli sent a letter and a hand-drawn map of the discovery site to the school principal via international courier on May 23, 1999.

BPPA management also worked through the BP Amoco network in Japan to trace the former principal and student.

The efforts paid off when Zulkafli received replies from the school's current principal and students. Yohei, then a 16-year-old high school student, wrote back on Oct 2, 1999, expressing his delight that his message had reached Malaysia a decade after its release.

They met for the first time on Aug 24, 1999, in Kuala Lumpur, where Zulkafli welcomed Yohei, who was accompanied by BP Amoco Japan representative Harumi Shirokihara.

"I was nervous because I did not know what to expect or if I was meeting the right person, but I gathered the courage to greet him: 'Hello, I am Zulkafli. Welcome to Malaysia and nice to meet you,'" Zulkafli said.

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Yohei, who was making his first trip away from Tanegashima Island, visited the Japanese School in Kuala Lumpur, the Petronas Twin Towers, and environmental initiatives with WWF.

Zulkafli later took Yohei to Terengganu to visit Pantai Batu Buruk, turtle hatcheries in Jambu Bongkok and Rantau Abang, and Pantai Ma' Daerah, where Yohei spent two nights observing nesting turtles and releasing hatchlings into the sea.

Yohei explained that the 117 message bottles were cast into the sea by his older brother following a school turtle awareness event.

Twenty-seven years after that initial meeting, Zulkafli said they have since lost touch as he forgot to obtain Yohei's permanent address.

However, he keeps the original letters, photos, video recordings, and the bottle's rubber seal preserved as treasured mementoes.