More than three decades later, friends remain like family

Of all the locales seen so far — Cooperstown and the beverage trail, Myrtle Beach, Philadelphia, Niagara Falls, the must-see for all international visitors, Amish country in Ohio, and cities from Los Angeles to Boston — Hiroshige Yamabe quickly pinpointed his favorite place in America so far.

“Batavia, of course,” he said. 

Yamabe, whose American friends call Hiro, is getting to know Batavia and Western New York fairly well after his eighth visit this week. His first one was as exchange student from Tokyo, Japan when the Smith family hosted him — from parents Jim and Mary to son Jason — and they have forged a relationship that has endured more than three decades. 

Yamabe is director of procurement and strategic sourcing for Jacques Marie Mage, a luxury eyeglass and sunglass company. His job often takes him to California and Connecticut, which are nice to visit, but they’re not the same, he said, as Batavia’s homey — he needed some help with the phrasing — laudable appeal.

“So I feel, like, more relaxed, and they're something I expect, the ground on the earth's crust — salt of the earth,” he said Monday during his visit to Jason Smith’s Batavia home.

Yamabe has come to regard the Smiths as true friends and a second family, he said. And Batavia as his second home. Jason Smith met him as a fellow student and musician at Batavia High School, after his original host family didn’t work out. The Smiths agreed to take the teenager in, and he lived with them for about seven months. 

Since then, Jason has visited him in Japan, attended his wedding, and Yamabe in turn went to Jason’s wedding, and has made several return trips to a Smith residence — whether it be the parent’s home, Jason’s apartment and now at Jason’s own family home. 

This trip was one of a culinary experience — touring many local haunts, including Eli Fish Brewing Company, Rancho Viejo, Miss Batavia Diner, Cinquino’s, Southside Deli and Avanti Pizza & Wood-Fired Kitchen, which serves up huge slices, Jason said, in Medina.

The reunited classmates also visited the late Jim Smith’s grave, as Yamabe has been kept up to date on all of the family news through the decades, and called Jason once he learned his host dad had died earlier this year.

“They made a decision that they accept me. It was my pleasure to be hosted,” Yamabe said. “So I'm very pleased with that. I always like to think of, like, the family and all the friends here … I always think that's a good experience, is the love from the family here.” 

Mary Smith recalled how Yamabe’s first host family didn’t quite work out. She didn’t share the details but said that the high school principal reached out to Jason, a student at the time,  to see if perhaps his family would be able to help out. They stepped up and offered to host this visitor who eventually grew so close to the family that they didn’t want to see him go back to Japan.

“We had a big party for him and there’s a lot of crying kids, it was very sad when he had to go back,” she said. 

She remembered how he liked the Buffalo Bills, so they gave him a Bills jersey for Christmas — and he was “thrilled,” and how his Christmas cookies had to be bare, with no icing, since he’s not one for sweets. When it snowed, Yamabe would shovel the driveway right down to the nub of the blacktop, which seemed to impress the Smiths, she said. 

“It was like losing a family member,” when he returned to his home, she said.

They have exchanged gifts over the years — Mary has a curio cabinet full of Japanese keepsakes -- and Jason’s table had some goodies from this trip — a hand-crafted knife, one of the Japanese region’s specialties, and some candies, including Kit Kats, which are pronounced kitty katto, and mean triumph, Yamabe said. They are considered a good luck item to give to people, and the tiny wrapped packages even include lines to write messages to the recipient.

Of course, of all the tangible items, there are the memories of spending time together, trying each other’s cuisine — Yamabe enjoyed his first garbage plate — and meeting up with old friends, as Yamabe has done with BHS classmates. And when Jason and Hiro get together, they talk about their jobs (Jason is superintendent of Batavia City Schools), their wives and families and life in general. 

“We became good friends in high school. We're just kind of continuing naturally. And he came back and I've been there twice,” Jason said. “We just pick up where we left off.”