While in Kobe, the couple met Japanese impresario Kushibiki Yumindo, who, hoping to improve his business providing all things Japanese to the West, offered to sponsor their theater troupe on a tour across the United States. They immediately accepted and gathered a troupe, setting sail for San Francisco April 30, 1899. Over the next two years, the Kawakami troupe would tour theaters in the United States, London, and Paris, becoming the first Japanese theatre company to ever tour the West.
