A sweet story

Today I was just surfing the web and came across the sweetest story of this boy who was looking for his Japanese father.



The boy has a Filipina mother and used to live in Japan - where she met his father. But Asuka Toyoshima, who is 17, has never met his father and currently resides in the Philippines.

He spends hours surfing the internet in an attempt to track down his father. But in the interests of accuracy, here is the article from the Inquirer.net.

DAGUPAN CITY, Philippines--Seventeen-year-old Asuka Toyoshima stays in cybercafés for hours surfing the Internet for sites or links that could lead him to his Japanese father, Yoshihito.

Toyoshima was just three years old when his mother took him back to the Philippines, leaving his father in Nagoya, Japan. The boy has not heard from him since.

"I just want him to know he has a son. And it's not that I'm bragging, but I think he would be proud of me," he said.

Toyoshima is every parent's pride. Just this month, he was chosen one of the 10 Most Outstanding Boy Scouts of the Philippines, the second Dagupeño to receive the award since 1980.

His feat earned him a two-year college scholarship in a government-run university in the Philippines. Toyoshima is president of the student council of the Dagupan City National High School and news editor of the school paper, Dagupeña Sparks. He is also a consistent honor student.

"I was thinking: What if he was here supporting everything that I do? Maybe, I'd be happier," Toyoshima said.

Although it was not clear to him why his parents separated, he said it was not necessary for him to know.

Based on his mother's stories, Toyoshima said his parents met in Japan where his mother worked for a few months.

"I was told that he courted my mother in Dagupan and she was eventually brought to Japan where I was born," he said.

When he was growing up, Toyoshima said he wondered why his name sounded different from the other kids.

"I thought it was pretty odd since my name was not common. It was then that I was told about my father," he said.

Toyoshima started searching for his father on the Internet when he was 10. He was then a Grade 3 pupil in a private school here.

"We were already using computers in school and every opportunity I had, I searched for my father on the World Wide Web," he said.

He said he used most of the popular search engines and visited "countless" sites, including People Search, and social networking sites like Friendster and even MySpace.

Sometimes, he would surf the Internet until dawn just looking for his father. "But I still haven't found him," Toyoshima said.

He said his grandmother and guardian, Epifania Tello, would often scold him when he arrived home late. His mother, Ma. Cristina Tello, works in an engineering firm in Metro Manila.

He said his mother earlier asked the Japanese Embassy in Metro Manila to look for his father, but they were told that the staff could not find him.

"I am still hoping my search would bring me any information about my father," Toyoshima said.

An opportunity presented itself when he was chosen an outstanding scout.

On Tuesday, just before he received a plaque of commendation for "bringing honor" to this city, Mayor Alipio Fernandez Jr., a former commissioner of the Bureau of Immigration, offered to help Toyoshima.

Fernandez contacted officials in his former office and asked that Toyoshima be included in the Japanese government's program of reuniting families with Japanese parents.

Being an outstanding scout also increased Toyoshima's chances to be sent as one of the country's representatives to an international scouting conference in Tokyo in 2008.

"I look forward to being there," he said.

Toyoshima said he would not know how to react if his father's name would pop up on his computer screen or if his father would appear at their doorstep.

"In any case, I'm ready because our motto in scouting is 'Be Prepared'," he said.

I really hope he finds his father.....

This was very random but I thought it was the sweetest story and I just had to share.

Luv
Me