Please help us to establish a memorial for Asajiro Noda, the first Japanese man to set foot on New Zealand soil.

Asajiro was born on the 17th january 1868 in Nagasaki, Japan.

Asajiri Noda's parents were ship chandlers and they had a contract to repair a big english vessel. The company of the repaired vessel put on a big shout for the repairers. 8 year old Asajiro went with his father this day. Whilst the grown up’s enjoyed the party on the deck Asajiro went down into the hold of the ship and went to sleep.

Later on everyone left to go home and the ship headed out to sea. The ship was about 250 miles out at sea when one of the crew found little Asajiro. He ran up to the bridge to inform the captain about the little boy on board. The Captian said “we can’t return back but we will transfer him to a ship heading to Japan.

They transferred him onto a German vessel. For unknown reasons Asajiro never went back home. He sailed on the ship for many years. He became a ship chef and went off the vessel at Bluff,New Zealand when he was 23 years of age.

He worked at big sheep stations on his way north through the Canterburry Plains & Otago and he ended up in Northland at the Gum fields with the Drollies.  He then made his way to Huntly in the Waikato. There he met & married his wife Rihi Tipene Te Ahu. They lived at Lake Waikare. He worked at the Pumice Factory at Ohinewai. One day he took in a homeless man to help him get back on his feet. Rihi left him with this man and went to live in Pukekoe.

He met another lady, Kathleen Brown. They married and lived near Batley, Maungaturoto.

Asajiro died in 1941 and is buried at the Graveyard near the church in the Otamatea Marae. He has no grave stone and we would love to give him a memorial so he won't be forgotten.