生きていれば100歳 - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

Nicholas Yong “Hachiko: The world's most loyal dog turns 100” https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65259426

今年は「忠犬ハチ公」*1が1923年11月に秋田県大館で生まれてからちょうど100年目なのだった。

A bronze statue of him has stood outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo, where he waited in vain for a decade, since 1948. The statue was first erected in 1934 before being recycled for the war effort during World War Two. Japanese schoolchildren are taught the story of Chuken Hachiko - or loyal dog Hachiko - as an example of devotion and fidelity.
Hachiko represents the "ideal Japanese citizen" with his "unquestioning devotion", says Professor Christine Yano*2 of the University of Hawaii - "loyal, reliable, obedient to a master, understanding, without relying upon rationality, their place in the larger scheme of things".

ハチ公の生涯；

The year Hachiko was born, Hidesaburo Ueno, a renowned agricultural professor and a dog lover, asked a student to find him an Akita puppy.
After a gruelling train journey, the puppy arrived at the Ueno residence in Shibuya district on 15 January 1924, where it was initially thought dead. According to Hachiko's biographer, Prof Mayumi Itoh, Ueno and his wife Yae nursed him back to health over the next six months.
Ueno named him Hachi, or eight in Japanese. Ko is an honorific bestowed by Ueno's students.

Ueno took a train to work several times a week. He was accompanied to Shibuya station by his three dogs, including Hachiko. The trio would then wait there for his return in the evening.
On 21 May 1925, Ueno, then 53, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Hachiko had been with him for just 16 months.
"While people were attending the wake, Hachi smelled Dr Ueno from the house and went inside the living room. He crawled under the coffin and refused to move," writes Prof Itoh.
Hachiko spent the next few months with different families outside Shibuya but eventually, in the summer of 1925, he ended up with Ueno's gardener Kikusaburo Kobayashi.
Having returned to the area where his late master lived, Hachiko soon resumed his daily commute to the station, rain or shine.
"In the evening, Hachi stood on four legs at the ticket gate and looked at each passenger as if he were looking for someone," writes Prof Itoh. Station employees initially saw him as a nuisance. Yakitori vendors would pour water on him and little boys bullied and hit him.

「忠犬」の構築は晩年の1932年に『朝日』によって開始された。

However, he gained nationwide fame after Japanese daily Tokyo Asahi Shimbun wrote about him in October 1932.
The station received donations of food for Hachiko each day, while visitors came from far and wide to see him. Poems and haikus were written about him. A fundraising event in 1934 to make a statue of him reportedly drew a crowd of 3,000.
Hachiko's eventual death on 8 March 1935 made the front page of many newspapers. At his funeral, Buddhist monks offered prayers for him and dignitaries read eulogies. Thousands visited his statue in the following days.
In impoverished post-war Japan, a fundraising drive for a new statue of Hachiko even managed to raise 800,000 yen, an enormous sum at the time, worth about 4bn yen (£22m; $28m) today.
"In retrospect, I feel that he knew that Dr Ueno would not come back, but he kept waiting - Hachiko taught us the value of keeping faith in someone," wrote Takeshi Okamoto in a newspaper article in 1982. As a high school student, he had seen Hachiko at the station daily.

各地に拡がるハチ公像；

Every year on 8 April, a memorial service for Hachiko is held outside Shibuya Station. His statue is often decorated with scarves, Santa hats and, most recently, a surgical mask.
His mount is on display at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo. Some of his remains are interred at the Aoyama Cemetery, alongside Ueno and Yae. Statues of him have also been cast in Odate, Ueno's hometown Hisai, the University of Tokyo and Rhode Island, the American setting for the 2009 movie.

この記事の最初の方でも言及されているけれど、「ハチ公」映画が中国でリメイクされて*3、今年公開されている。仲代達矢主演の1987年版、リチャード・ギア主演の2009年米国版に次ぐ。
共同通信曰く、

中国版ハチ公映画が好評　けなげさ感動呼ぶ
5/12(金) 6:04配信

共同通信
　帰らぬ主人を待ち続けた「忠犬ハチ公」の中国版映画が同国で好評だ。映画専門アプリで「感動した」とのコメントが並び、高評価を獲得。物語を中国式に変えても、ハチ公のけなげさは人々の心を動かす力があるようだ。
　中国版は題名が「忠犬八公」で、3月31日に公開された。日本で1987年に公開された映画「ハチ公物語」の故新藤兼人監督による脚本が原作。舞台は東京ではなく中国内陸部の重慶市だが、ハチ公が飼い主を待ち続けるストーリーは変わらない。
　ハチ公役は秋田犬ではなく、柴犬に似た中国原産の中華田園犬が演じた。主演は中国を代表する映画監督、馮小剛氏。マージャンや重慶名物の辛い料理といった中国らしい要素も見どころだ。
　中国の映画専門アプリ「猫眼プロ版」によると、観客動員数は5月11日時点で763万人、興行収入は2億8600万元（約55億円）に達した。評価は10点満点中9.3点と、快進撃を続ける新海誠監督のアニメ映画「すずめの戸締まり」の9.1点を上回る。
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/657b4607986c50d5e4a4658ea9182ffcea31cf9e