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Sato-Ken: Eh, I'm Sato-ken.
Wai: I'm Wai.
Sato-Ken: Well, the next story is about "the magnetic man". "Magnetic" means something that attracts other things. My Shisho(Susumu Hirasawa), so to speak, attracts everything including animals, (people) and everything. I hope my words are comprehensive, but, for example, one day, Shisho said when he was in Japan, "Ah, I wish I could see that person (in Thailand)." I said to him, "Shisho, that's impossible. We don't know where she lives, we don't know her phone number, we don't know how to contact her. I wish you could see her, too. But it's absolutely impossible." And Shisho and I left Japan and arrived in Bangkok. Mr. Wai came to meet us at the airport as always. Shisho said, "Hello, Mr. Wai. It's been a long time.（with a Thai style greeting with praying hands） " And Mr. Wai said, "By the way, Shisho, Don't you want to see that person?" (laughs)
Wai: (Smiles)
Sato-Ken: At the moment Shisho arrived in Thailand, Mr. Wai received a phone call from the very person Shisho had been wanting to see and she said she wanted to see him. Why did it happen? I don't know. If I could unravel this mystery, I could win the doctor's degree, you know. It's impossible to know why that happened. Shisho has this kind of mysterious power. If I say so, somebody might say I must believe in a weird cult or something. However, anyway, that kind of things happen a lot around Shisho. Do you believe it? Yes?
So, today's story is about the shooting of photos in "SP-2" book.
By the way, right now, we are in a hotel room and the cleaning lady is making a private phone call. This is how things are in Thailand. Right, Mr. Wai?
Wai: Yes.
Sato-Ken: This is normal in Thailand. Everybody says, "Mai Penrai(Don't worry)."
（Ｔhe cleaning lady leaves the hotel room.）
Sato-Ken: Did you see that? (Laughs) We are the guests at this hotel. However, she behaves like that.(Laughs) Oh, well. About the "SP-2" book photo shooting. In fact, it was hard. At the beginning, in Shisho's head, there were only a few SP-2s who would be in the photo in the book. He could only think of one or two SP-2s at first. Only a few people, to tell you the truth. Our plan was to take time in making this book and we thought we would come back again to Thailand to shoot more photos if we couldn't shoot enough SP-2s this time. We thought, we would be able to find more SP-2s before our next visit. You see?
Wai: Yes.
Sato-Ken: So, Shisho and I met those few people, and had dinner with them and we talked about our plan on publishing this book and so on. To our surprise, the number of the people who wanted to be in the photos increased day by day. One day, we saw an SP-2 lady who looked as old as me. I thought, she must have had a great history. But she was always being humble in the corner of the room.
Wai: Yes.
Sato-Ken: She was like that. But Hirasawa was looking at her all the time and said to me, "I want to shoot that lady." (laughs) I said, "Are you sure? That old lady?" It's rude to call her an old lady, but I am an old man myself. I am called "Grampa" so, please forgive me to call her an old lady. So I said to Hirasawa, "Are you sure? Aren't you publishing this beautiful SP-2 book, right?" "Don't you see? She is a beautiful SP-2." That way of saying things by Hirasawa was not easy for me to understand, who was born in Hokkaido. I can understand it if you say things straightforward. However, Hirasawa speaks in the kind of Japanese that you could only understand the meaning of after thinking about it deeply again and again. So it was hard for me to understand what he meant.
But Hirasawa invited that elderly SP-2 lady to a dinner and they were having a long conversation. As I was looking at her, that elderly lady, well I shouldn't call her that, but anyway, she gradually started to sit in a beautiful way with her back straightened. I was looking at the whole thing so I witnessed it. At first, the lady was sitting with a stooped position, round-shouldered. She was looking at the floor. However, as Hirasawa spoke to her and they began talking, as she started to listen to what Hirasawa was saying, she started to sit straight. Her spine was standing upright now. Also the expression on her face turned so confident and she had a beautiful face now.
Oh, the cleaning lady is here again. She always comes in when I was speaking about something important. She doesn't say, "Excuse me," or anything. Oh, well.
So personally, I even thought to myself, "This lady must have been so beautiful when she was younger. Everybody must have adored her then." So she turned into someone really beautiful in just a few hours! （Sato-Ken poses like a transgender woman） Oh, did I sound like one of those (transgender) ladies? (laughs) That's because I have lost some front teeth. Don't do bad things like I did when I was young.
Wai: Right.
Sato-Ken: So my Shisho asked the lady, "Please let me shoot your photos." And he shot the photos of her right there, at that moment. Hirasawa doesn't say anything about illumination levels or he doesn't complain about the lux and so on. He doesn't have photo shooting assistants like the famous photographer, Kishin Shinoyama. But he takes photos when he thinks it's the right moment and the right place. Right there, click, click, click. That's how the "SP-2" book was made. That's why the book is so magnificent. The elderly lady's face looks so beautiful in the picture in the book.
In addition to that, I thought Hirasawa was a great man because he brought a copy of the book to her when it was published. All the way to Thailand. And he looked for her for two days. We couldn't find her. (Laughs) She wasn't where she was supposed to be usually, so we looked and we found her finally on the second day. She was delighted. I remember clearly even today, that she had teary eyes to receive the book, but her face looked so happy. Well, maybe this story of mine has made a quiet air today. But, Shisho does have such power definitely. So if you want to call him Shisho, think really well about it and call him so.
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