Akihiro Tomikawa exudes a faint air of sadness and one’s first impression on meeting him is that melancholy is a semi-permanent state for this self-made Japanese businessman — a sort of default mode. The 45-year-old appears reluctant to talk about his past, not surprisingly, perhaps, for someone who has so many unhappy memories to suppress. As a boy, he was frequently beaten by his stepfather, driving him to seriously consider suicide and to look back on his childhood as a lonely period when his existence was more like that of a waif — a “stray kid”, as he puts it — than a cherished member of a family unit.
Akihiro Tomikawa loves to give back to people in the capital’s slum communities.
The only time he seems genuinely happy, when a rare smile transforms his features, is when he’s out and about in the slums of Bangkok. Initially dressed in the costume of a manga sci-fi superhero called Kamen Rider, and more recently in a traditional kimono, he visits these underprivileged communities to give out toys and snacks to the children, something he’s been doing religiously for the past two years whenever he’s in Thailand for business.
“I used to go to restaurants and there would always be little girls selling flowers or something,” Tomikawa says, recalling his early days in Thailand. “I remember wondering, ‘Why do they have to do this?’ I thought about what I could do for these kids, but at the time I didn’t have the money or time to help them.”
After leaving home when he was still very young, Tomikawa was constantly on the move, sometimes living at a relative’s place, sometimes in rented apartments, and holding down a succession of day jobs, from working in a factory that made car components to painting signboards for a petrol station, all in order to pay for evening classes.
It was the experience of working in a psychiatric hospital that led to his first visit to Thailand almost 10 years ago. Being in such close contact with the patients made him feel as if he were losing his own mind and it was a relative of his who suggested he needed a break and recommended he take a holiday in Thailand.
“Thailand felt like heaven to me,” Tomikawa recalls. “People were so kind. When I was in Taiwan before coming here, I would sometimes get lost, but when I’d ask people for directions, they’d keep saying, ‘I can’t speak English’ or something like that. But when I get lost in Thailand, people are like, ‘There’s a Japanese here. He’s saying something. What’s he saying?’ and they’d surround me. Even though they couldn’t speak English, they would at least make an effort to help me and that was very different from what I was used to.”
He came back to Thailand many times after that and it was about five years ago that he was finally able to set up a company of his own, for which success he also credits Thailand. He exports toys from here to customers in Japan and sometimes imports goods from Japan for sale here and currently operates a toy shop in Chatuchak weekend market called Hayataro.
“This is what brought me the money. I’ve got a company and a house now. Before this I didn’t have a [well-paying] job, but Thailand gave me a chance and I’m grateful to this country, so I feel I should pay Thailand back [for favours rendered].”
He started to visit slum communities around the city and give out toys to youngsters after a memorable incident in the Sukhumvit neighbourhood of Nana when an off-the-cuff decision to present a small girl with a doll brought back a childhood memory he thought he’d completely forgotten.
“When I gave her the doll, she burst into tears. Then she stopped sobbing long enough to ask, ‘Why are you giving me this?’ She seemed so happy at just getting one little doll. I began thinking hard about what I could do for them [street kids, slum dwellers] and that’s when I decided that I would be ai mod daeng,” he says, using the colloquial term Thais have given to the Japanese superhero Kamen Rider, aka the Masked Rider, because the uniform he wears resembles the exoskeleton of a large ant.
This animated character has been Akihiro’s favourite ever since he was a boy and it has a special place in his heart because it was the thought that Kamen Rider might really exist that stopped him from killing himself by jumping off a bridge when he was eight years old.
“I want to be their ai mod daeng. I want them to believe that there really are people like ai mod daeng out there to help them; that they are not alone in this world. I’m 45 now, but I still get nightmares. Kids never forget the things that they’ve experienced, even when they’ve grown up. I go [to visit children in slum areas] and it’s like I’m saying, ‘I love you and you’re not alone'."
Tomikawa explains that he’s decided not to wear his Kamen Rider gear in public any more out of respect for the actor who played the character in the original series. He didn’t stop out of concerns about copyright infringement, he assures me, although it is true that he’s been accused in some quarters of donning the costume to promote his business or for other commercial ends (an apparently groundless accusation considering the generosity he’s shown to so many underprivileged kids in Bangkok).
These days he just slips on a kimono before going on his visits to slum communities, carrying a sack, rather like that associated with Santa Claus, filled with toys and snacks. He tells the kids that ai mod daeng can’t come any more, but has sent him in his stead with a message that the kids should always obey their parents and work hard at their studies.
“We do have some poor kids in Japan, too, but none who have to live this kind of life; there’s no such thing as child beggars in my country. I don’t actually want the media to come and interview me; I want reporters like you to focus on these slum children, like the seven siblings I came across whose young mother couldn’t even afford to buy them flip-flops.”
Tomikawa is all too aware that giving out little presents is not going to solve the serious problems these slum kids have; that it’s not a long-term solution. So he is currently planning to find a small venue and hire a teacher to give these kids some basic instruction: teach them how to read and write, for starters, and some simple maths, too, perhaps.
“I want a good future for this country. I think Thai people are wrong-headed in allowing a situation whereby people can drive supercars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis down the same roads that child beggars have to walk along barefoot. That cannot be right.”
The Japanese businessman gives away toys to children.
