Some people break into a run from the starting line, galloping through life with effortless grace. Others are late bloomers, who build strength steadily and take their time before their full potential comes into view.

Shizuka Shirakawa (1910-2006), a towering authority on kanji and early Chinese inscriptions, was a quintessential late bloomer--a slow-forming talent that ripened with age.

Born in Fukui in 1910, near the end of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), Shirakawa moved to Osaka after finishing elementary school. He supported himself as a live-in student assistant in a lawyer’s household, doing chores and odd jobs while attending night school.

Looking back on those hard-up student years, Shirakawa once........

© The Asahi Shimbun