For decades, a man known only as “Tetsu” accepted the idea that he might never know his true identity. In fact, he did not really care that his name, age and childhood had been erased from his memory in an accident at a construction site.

At one point, some memory fragments led to clues about where he was from and how he was raised. Police also started an investigation into Tetsu’s identity before he was sent to prison following a robbery and suicide attempt.

But his amnesia remains and his past is still a mystery.

Now estimated in his late 60s, he is registered as a Japanese citizen under the self-given name of “Tsuwano” and lives in Kyoto. And once again, he is content with not knowing who he really is.

“I can say I have finally obtained an ordinary life,” he said.

FRACTURED SKULL

His earliest clear memories of his past were of a hospital stay when he was around “26 or 27.”

He was working at a construction site in Yonago, Tottori Prefecture, when a 22-millimeter-thick iron plate hanging from a crane fell several meters and landed on him, breaking his hard hat and skull.

A week following the accident, he found himself on a hospital bed with his entire body wrapped in white bandages.

He was told that he had a broken skull, fractured left leg and an internal organ injury. He had also lost all memories of his life before the accident.

A brain surgeon asked many questions and told him that his “memories could come back gradually.”

The supervisor at his workplace and nurses appeared to feel pity for him. But he said he simply thought, “This is just the way I am.”

He had apparently withheld his personal information, such as his real name and hometown, from the employer. No family members or friends could be contacted about his injuries.

After six months of treatment, his discharge date was nearing. His employer could not afford to cover the expensive medical costs, so the company gave him some cash and told him to flee to somewhere far away.

Around midnight one day, he slipped out of the medical center and ran. But with no memory of his roots, he ended up wandering around aimlessly.

In the Kansai region in western Japan, he saw a poster seeking construction workers and met an employment broker.

When asked for his name, the amnesiac told the agent that he vaguely recalled his childhood friends calling him “Tecchan,” a common nickname for those named Tetsu.

The broker referred to the applicant as Tetsu and spared the unidentifiable man the trouble of seeking work by registering him for each workplace under a false name.

Through this setup, Tetsu traveled across the country and lived at inns for construction workers. He did not suffer from any serious diseases, so his lack of health insurance and residence certificate posed no problems.

For around 30 years, Tetsu lived this lifestyle without feeling the need to regain his memory.

But his life fell apart after the broker disappeared around 10 year ago.

CAST ADRIFT WITH NO ID

Tetsu found it impossible to find new employment, and he struggled to buy even daily food. He had long relied on the broker for survival, and now he was cast adrift.

Several months after the broker disappeared, Tetsu was at a Chinese restaurant in a small town in Kyoto Prefecture along the Sea of Japan. He ordered and finished a “chukadon” bowl, “karaage” deep-fried chicken and glasses of beer and shochu.

He then shouted, threatened the restaurant’s manager with a knife and grabbed a box near the cashier counter.

After fleeing the scene, Tetsu discovered that the box contained sales slips and no cash.

He ran into a restroom at a department store, pulled out the knife from his bag, rolled up his shirt and stabbed himself in the stomach.

He fell on the floor and lost consciousness after seeing blood oozing from the corset around his waist.

After he recovered from the wounds, Kyoto prefectural police arrested Tetsu in May 2010 on suspicion of robbery and other allegations.

Although the suspect admitted to the accusations, police could not identify him. Tetsu had no driver’s license, residence certificate or other types of ID. He did not even know his own name or age.

Police checked his fingerprints and other bodily features for possible matches to other crimes. The search turned up empty.

They also recorded his speech pattern to detect certain dialects that could provide a clue on where he was from. But since Tetsu had worked at construction sites throughout the nation, his way of talking was standard Japanese.

The investigators repeatedly asked Tetsu to retrieve his lost memories. It was effectively the first time he tried to come to grips with his missing past.

Two words, “Kagawa” and “Tadotsu,” came to his mind as a place where he used to live.

He also believed that his parents died when he was very young, and that he was raised by a related couple who fished for a living. The adoptive father’s name, according to Tetsu’s accounts, was “Kunio Nakano.”

Police visited Tadotsu, Kagawa Prefecture, on the island of Shikoku and found an elementary school near a river believed to be the one in a map drawn by Tetsu. They checked graduation photo albums for school years covering children of his estimated age.

But those efforts proved fruitless. Although the local community had many people named Nakano, Tetsu could still not be identified.

He stood trial under the name of Tetsu and was handed a prison sentence for his crimes.

OBTAINING AN ORDINARY LIFE

Three years later, Tetsu was released from Shiga Prison and moved to a rehabilitation facility.

Following a prison official’s advice, Tetsu asked the facility operator to put him in contact with a lawyer so that he could register as a citizen of Japan.

A family court recognized Tetsu as a Japanese national, taking into account his ability to speak Japanese and his knowledge of traditional sayings in the country.

Tetsu gave himself a new family name, “Tsuwano,” because he loved the castle town of Tsuwano in Shimane Prefecture, where he had once worked after losing his memory.

He remembered someone telling him that he was born in “the year of the snake” in the Oriental zodiac. He also had no memories of life during World War II, so his birth year was registered as 1953.

Tsuwano currently lives alone in an apartment in Kyoto.

He developed a heart disorder and is unable to walk smoothly. He rarely meets others except when he goes to two clinics for therapy.

However, he said he is satisfied with his current “ordinary” life.

He listens to songs that were hits before his amnesia, including Hiroshi Kubo’s “Kiri no Naka no Shojo” (A girl in a fog) released in 1964, and Akira Matsushima’s “Koshu” (Sorrow by lake) from 1961.

Tsuwano added that he has little hope of finding out his real identity. Even if his adoptive parents are still alive, they probably would not recognize him because of their old ages, he said.

He says he always tells himself, “I do not have to get my memory back.”

ANOTHER INVESTIGATION FAILS

Although Tsuwano does not feel the need to jog his memory, The Asahi Shimbun, inspired by his life path of moving from place to place without government assistance, attempted to uncover his past.

In two trips around Tadotsu, an Asahi reporter, aided by local residents and the lawyer who helped Tsuwano in the registration process, tried to locate “Kunio Nakano,” the fisherman who might have raised Tsuwano.

The research found at least 75 families named Nakano in Tadotsu, and 20 of them lived near the sea, where fishermen tend to inhabit.

However, when shown a leaflet bearing Tsuwano’s photo, not one of the households recognized the man.

Tsuwano was later shown an old landscape image of Tadotsu. But it did nothing to help him recall anything from his supposed childhood there.

HUNDREDS UNREGISTERED

According to the Justice Ministry, 894 Japanese individuals nationwide were unregistered as of Aug. 10.

In 76 percent of the cases, the parents did not register the births to avoid the application of what many have criticized as an outdated law.

If a divorced woman gives birth, the baby is regarded as the offspring of the ex-husband if the birth occurs “within 300 days of the divorce.”

Nine percent were not registered because “their family register records cannot be confirmed owing to memory loss and other such reasons.”

By age, 439 unregistered people were 0 to 4 years old, while 163 were 31 or older.

The cases usually surface through reports from such individuals or their parents, but a ministry official said it is difficult to grasp the overall picture of the issue.