Retired reporter writes second act by selling tofu in Barcelona

Veteran journalist Tateo Shimizu had something secretly cooking for many years as he looked forward to his retirement.

He appeared in a nightly news program on TV Asahi, News Station, from 2000 to 2003, reporting and commenting on a range of events of the day drawing on his long career in journalism.

So four years later, when Shimizu disclosed his plan for life after retirement, his colleagues and viewers were stunned. 

He planned to open a tofu shop in Barcelona with his wife, an undertaking that seemed worlds apart from the daily grind of his job with The Asahi Shimbun newspaper and TV news.

But Shimizu, now 77, had harbored a desire for a life to be lived as part one and part two. He had made meticulous preparations for that second act.

CARTOGRAPHER HIS INSPIRATION

Shimizu was deeply inspired by Ino Tadataka (1745-1818), who is credited with making the nation’s first surveyed map.

Tadataka spent his first act as a successful merchant, turning a struggling brewery into a thriving business.

After he retired at 49, he explored his longtime passions: calendar science, astronomy and geographic survey.

Tadataka spent the next two decades on survey trips that took him to Japan’s coastlines until his death in 1818.

What pushed Shimizu closer to a life inspired by Tadataka was his “fateful” encounter with Barcelona.

He fell in love with the Catalan city of 1.6 million people, home to globally celebrated architecture and art works.

He was visiting Barcelona as part of a team of traveling Asahi Shimbun reporters on assignment to write a series of feature stories on trips to appreciate art masterpieces.

Shimizu had long covered the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department and the Imperial Household Agency, and had previously little professional background in art.

Foreign languages, Spanish included, were not his forte.

After a crash course in art, he visited more than 21 cities in 15 countries, including Paris and New York, on the assignment over a year and half.

Shimizu was into his late 30s at the time and his trips were his first travel abroad in his life.

Of all the cities, Barcelona fascinated him the most with its breathtaking cityscape, colorful history and a flair of independence, leaving indelible an impression on him as a possible stage for life after retirement.

A first hurdle he needed to clear was to get the nod from his wife, Michiko.

Shimizu took her on a trip to Barcelona on vacation to determine whether she liked what could become their new home.

To his relief, Michiko said, “I can live in this city.”

But another and perhaps the biggest challenge was a lack of tofu that suited his taste buds in Barcelona.

His favorite foods were tofu, deep-fried tofu and natto, or fermented soybeans – some of the most traditional Japanese foods.

Tofu was sold in the city, but most were imported from China.

“Then, it occurred to me that I should make tofu in Barcelona myself,” he recalled thinking.

That was when he was 50.

PLANNING STARTS EARLY

Although he was busy as editor-in-chief of the newspaper’s Ronza monthly opinion magazine at the time, he began taking steps toward the next chapter of his life.

He opened an account in a Spanish bank and deposited all his financial assets.

He also gathered information on what prospective expatriates and shop operators are supposed to know about the city.

Shimizu finally shared the couple’s plan to move to Spain with their three children when he was near the newspaper’s then mandatory retirement age of 60.

“We are moving to Barcelona,” he told the children. “You should be on your own.”

They were not surprised as much as he had anticipated.

“So, you two are going to be tofu adventurers,” one of the children quipped.

Shimizu said leaving journalism was difficult to do because he loved his job.

But the environment surrounding the media was rapidly changing and evolving.

Traditional media was feeling the impact of the digital era, which sparked sweeping transformations among news organizations.

“I belonged to the old school of journalism, working for many years in a newspaper and analog style,” Shimizu said. “As online media was emerging as the possible mainstream news platform, there seemed to be no place for me in journalism.”

And he repeated the maxim “Leap before you look” to himself.

After retiring in 2007, he sold their apartment in Chiba Prefecture and took up a six-month apprenticeship at a tofu shop to learn how to make tofu.

The couple also took Spanish language lessons.

By the time, the amount of his deposits at the Spanish bank had nearly doubled due to the high interest rate and the strong yen.

Obtaining work and resident permits from the Spanish government was not easy.

But they managed to receive them and rented a space for their tofu shop, Tofu Catalan.S.L., on Aribau street in the heart of Barcelona.

Shimizu spent about 40 million yen ($258,000) in the initial investment on the shop, including the purchase and the shipment of a second-hand bean-curd machine from Japan.

BUSINESS TAKES A WRONG TURN

Their shop, with five Japanese workers hired locally, opened in 2010, selling not only tofu but also boxed lunches and bean sprouts.

The shop proved popular at the beginning, attracting long lines of customers.

But it soon hit a stumbling block.

As a starter, Shimizu conceded that he was wrong about setting his store’s prices.

He was so preoccupied with offering less expensive tofu than others offered in Barcelona that he failed to fully take into account the cost of staff and ingredients to sustain their business.

Michiko, who knew a thing or two about retailing because her parents ran a business, fiercely opposed his pricing plan.

“The worth of our products will diminish if they come with a cheaper price tag,” Michiko said.

They ended up raising prices numerous times.

The funds for their fledgling business quickly dried up as they struggled to pay salaries and social security premiums for the staff in the face of poor tofu sales.

Then came the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in Japan, delivering a blow to their already precarious situation.

Importing goods from Japan was placed under tighter regulations following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, sparking a perception in Spain that Japanese products were unsafe.

Shimizu had to make a painful decision to let four members of the staff go as sales hovered at a dismal level.

MICHIKO SAVES THE DAY

He said he was able to weather the difficulties thanks to his wife’s optimistic and resilient character.

Michiko interacted with customers with her limited Spanish and gestures at first.

But her Spanish improved by leaps and bounds as she spent more time with customers, charming them to become regulars and expanding the shop’s clientele base.

While Shimizu tended to feel down when few people showed up, she was not so easily discouraged.

“Few people today means that more will come tomorrow,” she said, cheering up her husband.

Michiko was a woman who had overcome a series of adversities of her own through strong determination and dedication.

She was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 34.

Since then, her cancer had returned a few times, forcing her to undergo rounds of grueling chemotherapy.

The treatment often leaves patients weak. Michiko was no exception.

To get her strength back, she took up delivering newspapers in their neighborhood.

She also turned to acupuncture in a desperate effort to ease her pain from the treatment and worked extremely hard to obtain a national license for practicing acupuncture.

Yoga was another therapy she embarked on.

She became so proficient at yoga that her instructor encouraged her to open her own studio.

Eventually, Michiko operated her own acupuncture clinic and yoga studio in Japan, enabling her to stay healthy and save for a rainy day.

Her acupuncture and yoga skills, not to mention her savings, helped the couple in their adopted home country.

Michiko opened her acupuncture clinic and Yoga studio in Barcelona, attracting the attention of expatriates of Japanese companies.

The operation of the tofu shop became stable after ups and downs.

Four years after it opened, the establishment was selected by the Barcelona city government as one of 12 shops representing international culture.

The shop’s annual sales rose to around 30 million yen in its peak year.

They were finally able to enjoy befriending other residents of all ages over dinner and wine, including Japanese nationals doing business there.

But a trying ordeal awaited them.

TRAGEDY STRIKES

Michiko’s breast cancer recurred when she was 65.

The two flew back to Japan for Michiko to have surgery and returned to Barcelona as soon as she became strong enough to travel again.

They were expected to celebrate their shop’s 10th anniversary in 2020.

But the coronavirus pandemic began that year, seriously hurting their business.

Adding to their predicament, Michiko’s cancer was found to have spread to her breastbone and collarbone.

With her illness and growing uncertainties in the future, they made the agonizing decision to go back to Japan and returned to Kisarazu, Chiba Prefecture, where their home is located, in March 2021 in the midst of the public health crisis.

Michiko passed away two years later in March at their home, 36 years after her first diagnosis of the disease. She was 71.

Shimizu said his wife remained vivacious until the very end.

She showed her pictures taken in Barcelona to care workers visiting their home and enjoyed talking about her days there right up to her death.

Their tofu shop found a new operator.

Someno’s Tofu Co., a tofu manufacturer with a history of 160 years in Japan, succeeded the business in 2022.

The company plans to sell tofu, soy meat and other products in Spain over the next five years, targeting about 300 million yen in annual revenues.

Living a completely different life in a person’s second act can be far from comfortable because a host of challenges seem unavoidable.

But that is what Shimizu pursued and prepared himself after all.

In Michiko’s case, she might have had qualms about living far from her home country due to health concerns.

She might have also wished to be near her children and grandchildren.

But she recalled her life in Barcelona fondly in an interview with The Asahi Shimbun in 2022.

Michiko said she chose to remain there despite detecting lumps in her breast for some time.

“I thought that our shop would fail without me,” she said. “Besides, I figured that I would be better off with doing an adventure in Barcelona, rather than living in Japan in fear of my cancer’s recurrence and chemotherapy.”

As far as the bottom line of their endeavor goes, Shimizu has yet to recover the approximately 20 million yen he invested initially.

But there were definite benefits, he said.

“I could go on an adventure with Michiko in Barcelona and meet various people,” he said. “Those experiences and memories became invaluable assets that you cannot buy with money.”

While Shimizu owns one-third of the stakes in the tofu shop he founded, his focus now is on farming in Kisarazu.

The couple’s struggles to run their tofu shop are described in his book, titled “Barcelona de Tofuya ni natta” (I opened a tofu shop in Barcelona), published in January by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers.

He also operates a website called “Isshin Nisho Club,” where viewers can share their experiences and tips on how to lead two lives.