煙山光宏 You may think that it is impossible for you to make a one day trip from Missouri to “Japan”, but I did it.
In the early 1990s, when I was a university student, I lived in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.It was an early summer day and I had been bored because there was nothing to do.
One day I was casually looking at the Road Atlas and found a place named “Japan” in Missouri.
I became interested in why the place was named that, I really wanted to go to “Japan”, and the next day I headed for a drive.
If the Internet was as popular as it is now, I wouldn’t have wanted to go there.
When I looked at Google, the distance from Cape Girardeau to ”Japan” was about 147 miles, and it took about 2.5 hours by car.
I remember that it took about 3 hours each way by the highway and country roads.
“Japan” was a small town. I bought a cigarette and a drink at a gas station and asked the store manager, “Why is this town called Japan?”, but I don’t remember what he answered.
According to Wikipedia, “A post office called Japan was established in 1860, and remained in operation until 1908. The community was named after a local Roman Catholic Church, the Church of the Holy Martyrs of Japan. The name was almost changed in the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor due to anti-Japanese sentiment in the United States.”
