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Ezaki Yuri

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JWilliam

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I am looking for a woman named Ezaki Yuri, who lived in Texas about 20-25 years ago.

At that time, she was attending university and living with her parents in Irving, Texas. Her parents are Ezaki Yoshitaka and Ezaki Yoko. The family had moved there because her father was transferred to the Irving/Dallas branch of his company. Yuri may have gotten married since then, and taken on her husband's name, but I am only guessing.

I've tried online searches, but since I do not know the Kanji for her or or parents' names, I have not had any success.

Thank you for your help!
 
Looks like Ezaki is most likely written 江崎. There are many variations that could comprise the first names. You can try searching jisho.org or Japanese Name Search for names specifically, to try to narrow down the likely suspects.

You could try to reach out to the company if you know who her father worked for. Do you know if they returned to Japan or moved elsewhere when you lost contact?
 
nice gaijin said:
You could try to reach out to the company if you know who her father worked for. Do you know if they returned to Japan or moved elsewhere when you lost contact?
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Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately, Japanese Name Search lists 102 variations for Yuri - so I'll be searching for a while.

I did contact the company, but he's changed jobs since then. As far as I know they went back to Japan.
 
JWilliam said:
Thanks for the quick reply! Unfortunately, Japanese Name Search lists 102 variations for Yuri - so I'll be searching for a while.

I did contact the company, but he's changed jobs since then. As far as I know they went back to Japan.
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haha yeah, Japanese names have always been a difficult aspect of the language, both because of homonyms and also because kanji can be read many different ways. One time I was helping put together packages with some friends and I was using it as an opportunity to practice reading names in kanji. I would give it a stab and my friends would either say "yeah, probably..." or "I don't actually know for sure, it could be a few different things." Without furigana to give the pronunciation, it was impossible to know for sure.

Any idea what part of the country they were from? That could help narrow it down immensely.
 
nice gaijin said:
Any idea what part of the country they were from? That could help narrow it down immensely.
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Yeah, but I wonder if there's some sort of probability index, like a "most common ways to write Yuri" list. I mean, of those 102 variants, surely some are going to be much more common than others, right? I realize that won't rule anything out, but it might give me a head start in the search.

If I recall correctly, they were from Kanagawa Prefecture- but not 100% sure about that.
 
Yeah, there are definitely more common ways to write it (especially if you have an idea of when they were born), and you could probably eliminate some of the less likely combinations, but you'll want a native eye who is more familiar to give that input.

It could also just be hiragana, ゆり, and you might be able to search that way. I hate to throw a wrench in your gears, but it could also be pronounced ゆうり, with a long "u." Both would likely just be romanized "Yuri."
 
Ok, it looks like I got lucky - I found 江崎友理, which led me to a large number of booksellers selling English study books. The author was described as a "tutor" who had studied in Texas, which I thought could be more than a coincidence.

Following that line led to an English tutoring company, and there is a tiny pic that looked like her, but with the name 平山友理. Ok, so maybe she's married now, but the pic was too small to be convincing.

But then I found the attached image- which I can't read. I'm sure this is her, or a twin I didn't know about. Looks like a capture from a videotape- but what does it say?

 
Yuri Ezaki seems to have authored an English study aid for the high school entrance exam: https://7net.omni7.jp/detail/1102656257
Top:
脱サラで年収１０００万円
プロ家庭教師
10 million yen per year after leaving the salaried workforce
Professional tutor

Bottom:
プロ家庭教師
江崎友理さん（30歳）
Professional tutor
Ezaki Yuri-san (30 years old)

Appears to be from a story about people who've seen success in non-traditional/unsalaried jobs
Looks like she's holding a stringed instrument. I would've guessed shamisen offhand since she's Japanese, but the tuning pegs didn't look right and I only see two of them, where a shamisen or sanshin (literally "3-string") would be two on one side and one in between facing the other way, and wouldn't have those brass pegs holding it away from the neck, and I noticed she's wearing a qipao... so it's probably an erhu or a banhu... one of the chinese "~hu" instruments...

I found Yuri Hirayama listed as a Japanese competitor in the 3rd International Erhu Competition in 2013 (bottom paragraph)

华乐之韵-国际二胡大赛

华乐之韵国际二胡大赛
www.huayuezhiyun.org

I also found this page which lists Yuri Hirayama (nickname Yuria), as having lived in Texas, PLAYS THE ERHU, and has appeared/performed on TV: KOTOCLO ホーム | kotoclo


Her "Happy English" kids program was listed as taking place at the Morishita Children's Center in Koto-ku, Tokyo. However, the PDFs are dated to 2016, so the website is a little out of date and could be defunct.

BUT

You can try the e-mail address listed for her: eyurianita@yahoo.co.jp


Holy crap, as long as you aren't a crazy stalker I think I can be proud of myself here...
 
Wow, you hit the jackpot!

I found the book, which is what led me to the photo. No idea she played the erhu, but the KOTOCLO page cinched the deal- same pic as the tutoring company, and the bio has too many coincidences to be someone else. Great work, detective!

I'm not a crazy stalker, but I'm now a very proud former professor. She seems to have done very well for herself.

I think I will try that email, why not? But since I have your attention, if that email is out of date, what is the protocol for trying to contact her through the tutoring company? Would that be considered inappropriate?
 
That's a relief to know, I recently used my detective skills to track down an old college professor I remembered fondly and have happily reconnected. He's even got a little podcast that evokes memories of his class lectures:
www.brotherearthworm.org

Given this, I imagine she would be happy to hear from you. Give the email a try and if it goes unanswered we can go from there. If the organization is still in existence they might be able to help, she was actually referred somewhere as a 法人 for the group, so she seems to be a foundational member or perhaps even the group itself is a legal entity she established herself.

I hope you're able to connect and congratulate her on her accomplishments, in fact her success is the only reason we were able to track her down so easily. These people searches often don't seem to go anywhere so I honestly didn't have high hopes at first. Please let us know know it goes.

And it's totally up to you, but if you appreciate our efforts here please consider making a donation to help cover the cost of keeping this site alive. Cheers!
 
So many negative searches over the years here on JREF ; great to see one turn out so good.
 
Yeah, I've stopped reading them, because they all feel like they have such a low probability of success, and its just going to be disappointing for everyone. Glad to see that this one ended with some promising results.
 
Most of us are left to wonder what happened to that special person or persons that we never forget. I joined JREF 20 years ago in hopes of reconecting with old friends and my old girlfriend. Now , 50 years later I still think about her and wonder is she alive , how did her life go and so many other questions I will never know. The searches here on JREF that tug at my heart strings are the people searching for their missing father or mother they have not seen for years. Such is life , filled with unsolved mysteries.
 
Yes, I'm looking forward to trying this out - I'll definitely keep you informed. Which group referred to her as a 法人? I didn't see that - but even more impressive if so.
 
Uncle Frank said:
So many negative searches over the years here on JREF ; great to see one turn out so good.
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That's a shame. I'm surprised that more people aren't involved - you'd think that with a large enough community, you'd be able to reconnect even more people. I wonder why more people living in Japan aren't involved; this is exciting enough that you could make a TV show out of it, and surely they'd love to lend a hand.

And it's fun! For me, at least - it's a lot like scholarly research, where you spend most of your time scouring records for that one little nugget of info that unlocks the whole thing. Very satisfying.
 
JWilliam said:
Yes, I'm looking forward to trying this out - I'll definitely keep you informed. Which group referred to her as a 法人? I didn't see that - but even more impressive if so.
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I found it in one of her Happy Time programs, the bottom text of the yellow box: https://www.kotoclo.com/_files/ugd/50c4ba_005529126dd34ad58cad0a7aef764a1e.pdf

Haha well it's exciting for us, but I'm not sure even a TV producer could make me idly googling around look vaguely interesting to modern audiences, unless I started talking to myself and got really expressive. The keys are usually hidden in some oft-overlooked detail, so it's a great practice for combining knowledge, observation, and research skills. It's a real treat when it all comes together and bears fruit.
 
Aw, come on - we know that's what really happens, but a decent reality show would make it look very dramatic - "(onimous sad music) Everywhere they looked was a dead end... with only a month to go before the event (every week's a big reunion, the 100th anniversary, a wedding, etc.), it seemed the searchers would never find her. But then, a tiny clue..." and of course it would end with a tearful reunion at the very last minute. And for a change, some special episodes might end in a cemetery or shrine - for a profound and deeply touching conclusion to the tragic tale. The best part is they would fly you around to exotic places so they could have shots of you combing through library archives, family records, and so on (even if you never used those things, who would know?).
 
OK you're right, a decent producer could do something with this. There are actually a lot of such stories of war trophies being returned to Japanese families through the Obon Society. And I would probably watch that show, as there's a lot of rich history to tell.

This reminds me of Robert Kurson's Shadow Divers, an excellent book about deep-sea wreck divers trying to identify a mystery WWII U-boat, sunk in deep, dangerous waters off the coast of New Jersey. Between the danger of the wreck and the mystery that even the US government had no record of a wreck at that location, and some excellent writing, it was a real page-turner.

2-part podcast summarizing the tale:
Narcosis: Into the Deep - Shadow Divers Part 1
Narcosis: Into the Deep - Shadow Divers Part 2

John Chatterton (one of the divers) narrating video he'd taken on the wreck
 
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