Reminiscences of a Japanese Contemporary

Abstract

It was in 1936 when a young Czech student of age 22 came to Japan through Siberia for participating in the solar eclipse expedition. Since then, he had visited us 13 times until 1993 (when he passed away). At each visit his lectures were vivid for us and had strong impact on the audience. Needless to say, it was the late Professor Zdeněk Kopal. In this brief presentation first I reveal my reminiscences of our common time in Manchester and Japan as a contemporary, and second I make some remarks on my activities for the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) for astronomy in developing countries, in a similar way like Professor Kopal contributed in later years to the development of astronomy mainly in middle-east countries.