I recently wrote about where my career as a music editor began. Now, as a writer and someone who believes in preserving meaningful memories, I want to set down the story of the person who had the greatest influence on that starting point — once I’ve wiped away my tears.

If you missed Part 1, you can read it here.

Remembering Jōshi (上司): The Japanese Mentor Who Changed the Course of My Life – part 1

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Reunion in New York

“Do not ask a question just for the sake of asking.”  ── That’s another lesson I learned as a journalist from Astro-san(アストロさん) .

I left the company in 2001 and moved to New York the following year. A year or two years later, Astro-san came to visit. Since she loved art, we went to MoMA together, and she treated me to a nice lunch at a café there.

Without really thinking, I asked her, “So, how’s Fukuoka been lately?” In my mind, I was just trying to make conversation.

But Astro-san, smiling warmly — though her words were sharp — said:

“Since you asked, I’d like to answer properly, but with a vague question like that, I don’t even know what you actually want to know.”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

As I understand it now, having someone answer your question means asking for a piece of their time. You shouldn’t ask a question carelessly.

Astro-san never spelled it out to me quite that plainly, but that’s the lesson I took from the experience.

She went on, smiling but firing off questions in quick succession: “What did you do this morning?” “What did you do yesterday?”

Honestly, at that point in my life, even though I was living in New York, I didn’t have much work to speak of — I hadn’t yet found my way into meaningful editorial work, and I was struggling. It would be a few more years before I landed a job at a publishing company in New York. Looking back, the gap between finishing my studies at the English school and finding that job was mostly empty — I was just drifting through my days, casually spending time with the people around me.

With a faint smile still on her lips, Astro san said:

“It’s frustrating to see you living somewhere as special as New York and not making the most of it.”

Astro-san could see straight through me — every bit of it.

Then she brought up my former coworker and her time studying in England: “She used to read by flashlight after lights-out in the dorm.” “I still get up early every morning to read and study myself.” (Astro-san, ever the go-getter, was in graduate school at the time.) She kept coming at me, one point after another.

She also told me, “Even if someone came to me looking for a contact who could help with reporting in New York, I wouldn’t introduce you.” She said she’d ask an editor she knew in Tokyo to find a journalist in New York instead.

She wasn’t being mean at all; she was simply being honest with me. Honestly, that stung. At the time, I felt some resistance to it.

But as the years passed, I came to understand that there was real meaning for me behind her words — and that she had been right.

It was her way of saying: Since you’ve come all the way to New York, do more with it. Make more happen in this city. It was a jolt of tough love from someone further along in life than I was.

Now that I’m closer to the age of giving that kind of jolt to others myself, I understand how much energy it takes. It’s easy to damage a relationship by doing that, so most people hesitate. Astro-san was someone who was willing to take that risk, just to push me in the right direction.

Reunions in 2022 and 2024

After that, there were still occasions when I got to see her — attending events together during trips back to Japan — but from the late 2010s onward, there was a stretch of years when we didn’t see each other. Then, during the pandemic, as I found myself reflecting more on life, I started feeling a growing urge to properly express my gratitude in person, while we were both still healthy. Feelings you only hold inside never reach the other person, right?

During a trip back to Japan in 2022, I saw Astro-san again for the first time in years. We were both wearing masks. A few of us went out to dinner, and toward the end of the evening, I told her directly, “I’m truly grateful for the wake-up call you gave me back then.”

Astro-san just smiled in her usual way, but she didn’t seem to remember it clearly.

But for me, being able to express thanks twenty years later was something I treasured more than anything.

Afterward, Astro-san invited us to her lovely home. It was filled with paintings, and she explained each piece to us, one by one.

The view of Fukuoka City from her living room was incredible.

She wasn’t just the “cutting-edge, cool head of publishing” I’d met back in the ’90s — away from work, she also had a playful, mischievous side. She was a boss I deeply admired.

In both 2022 and 2024, she happily joined the dinners I organized for my former coworkers during trips back to my hometown. In 2024, she mentioned that she was having some trouble with one part of her body and couldn’t sit on the tatami (畳) floor, but otherwise, she seemed well.

She asked me all sorts of questions — from streaming services like Netflix in the U.S., the cost of eating out in New York, the cost of living, to American politics — and she listened to my answers with genuine interest. At one point, she turned to others and said something like, “This is the perspective of someone who isn’t getting all their news from Japanese media alone.”

The way she spoke to me that night was clearly different from the way she had scolded me twenty years earlier.

As Astro-san left early that evening, I saw her off, telling her, “Let’s meet again the next time I’m back. Please stay well. (お元気で!)” She smiled and walked away.

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Learning last night that Astro-san had passed away came as a sudden shock.

And yet, I don’t feel regret. I think that’s because I had already been able to tell her, directly, how grateful I was.

She gave me a chance.

She taught me an important lesson.

She redirected me in New York.

Everything I do today, if you trace it back far enough, connects to my time at that publishing company. And Astro-san was standing right at the entrance to it all.

Astro-san was a legendary, irreplaceable presence in Fukuoka City. Thanks, truly, for everything you gave to this community, for everything you taught us, including me.

My greatest mentor, Astro-san,

Thank you so much for everything.

Rest in peace.

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Postscript: While putting these memories down, I happened to come across an article about Astro-san. It included the lines: “I wanted to be someone people turned to when the city was on the move” and “the Daimyo area is a neighborhood for going out and meeting people” — comments that struck me as so quintessentially her.

“Shaping and Sharing the Charm of Fukuoka” — Kimiyo Sasaki, Section Chief, Public Relations Section, Mayor’s Office, City of Fukuoka (Tenjin Keizai Shimbun), and Kimiyo Sasaki (January 2014) (Asubaru)

Image: Stock photo from Pexels

Text by Kasumi Abe — original Japanese version published on August 20, 2026