Peace garden honors late professor

J.J. Kawashima is seen at the gate of the Fuji Kawashima tea garden July 16, 2013 at Simpson Park in Bowling Green, Ohio. The garden is named after her late husband. (Photos: Enoch Wu/Sentinel-Tribune)

An “authentic” Japanese tea garden is now located in Bowling Green.
The Kawashima Peace Garden will be dedicated at 11 a.m. Saturday at Simpson Garden Park, located at the corner of Conneaut Avenue and Wintergarden Road.
This garden honors Dr. Fujiya “Fuji” Kawashima, a widely-respected professor of Asian history at Bowling Green State University, who passed away in 2006.
Dr. Michelle Grigore, director of Bowling Green Parks and Recreation Department, is very excited about the latest garden area at the facility.
“It’s going to be a very special garden. It is a very accurate depiction of a true Japanese tea garden,” Grigore said. “It will provide a taste of the Far East, here in the midwest.”
Kawashima, a Japanese native, came to Bowling Green in 1970 to teach and was instrumental in the establishment of the university’s Asian History program and was working to develop a Peace Studies Program at the university at the time of his death.