Hi everyone!
I hope the weather hasn’t kept everyone indoors since it has been wonderfully warm the past while. Along with excellent weather, things have been busy lately with many community events and issues.
On May 30th, members of the Nikkei community descended upon the Village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The Mayor and Council unveiled a plaque in recognition of the designation of the Cumberland Japanese Cemetery as a heritage landmark. The Village of Cumberland was home to over 500 Japanese immigrants who worked the coal mines prior to the internment …

This month, we present part three of the history of The Bulletin. As I wrote last month, it has been quite an experience poring through the stacks of back issues, searching out the stories and events that played out on the pages of our little community magazine over the past 50 years. Let me say again that I have gained renewed respect for all those that came before me—both at The Bulletin, and the JCCA itself. While our community has many strengths, as evidenced by its ability to rise above …

The other day a friend and I got together to catch up on old news. The two of us had been away at different universities for the entire year so getting together meant that there was plenty of new news to share – what courses we had taken courses, how exams had gone, our plans for the summer, our plans for next year. We chatted for quite some time when suddenly my friend jokingly mentioned that she was starting a new diet. “You’re what!?!” I thought to myself. “You’re starting …

It’s June already and we haven’t had much spring-like weather as yet. I’m not complaining though, since we are so fortunate not to experience the terrible earthquakes, cyclones, flooding and tornadoes etc. they are struggling with in other parts of the world. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them.
Thinking of some cool desserts for the summer.
AZUKI JELLO
2 pkgs. Knox gelatin
2 cups hot water
1 pkg. (6 oz.) raspberry Jello
1 pkg. (6 oz.) mixed fruit Jello
2 cups hot water
1 cup cold water
1 (8oz.) smooth azuki bean paste.
1. Completely dissolve Knox gelatin …

One hopes that by now, most people in the widespread Nikkei/ijusha community must be aware of the ongoing campaign led by the “Save the Legacy Sakura of Oppenheimer Park.” Coalition in response to the City of Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park Development Plan (OPDP).
The plan is part of the City efforts to revitalize the area, known as “Little Tokyo” before the forced internment of Nikkei Canadians during World War II, where for decades now residents, businesses and local institutions including Bukkyokai (Vancouver Buddhist Church, VBC) and Vancouver Japanese Language School and …

by Joseph Wu
No one really knows when and where origami was invented. Some origami historians argue that since the invention of paper is credited to Ts’ai Lun of China in A.D. 105, paper folding must have been invented soon after. Paper was then introduced to Japan in the late sixth century by Buddhist monks, and paper folding was brought along with it. In Japan, paper was considered an expensive commodity, and it was used in many aspects of Japanese life, most notably in architecture. Certain origami models were incorporated into …

Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891 – 1941
by Michiko Midge Ayukawa
UBC Press, 2008
review by Jacob Derksen
Anyone who has ever endured a post-secondary history class has likely come away wondering why the majority of academic historians feel the need to take an otherwise interesting topic and make it tedious and insufferable. In Hiroshima Immigrants in Canada, 1891 – 1941, Midge Ayukawa—no stranger to academia—has done us a great service by rescuing history from the pedants and making it both immediate and relevant.
From the opening pages, one is left with a strong impression …

The Life of Paper
Pangaea Arts
May 23 – June 1, 2008
Roundhouse Performance Centre
The fire alarm bell that cleared the theatre ten minutes into Pangaea Art’s The Life of Paper gave my two daughters unexpected insight into the craft of live theatre. When the audience trooped back into the theatre once the fire department determined that it was a false alarm, the company, rather than continuing where they left off, chose to run the interrupted scene from the beginning. Having seen the same scene run twice, the girls remarked afterwards that they …

Joseph Wu has a passion for paper, or, more precisely, for folding paper. Big sheet or small, if it can be folded he will fold it, from the dramatic (dragons, swans, racehorses) to the prosaic (cell phones, computers, microscope) to the whimsical (newspaper piggybank, plaid armadillo).
He once even folded a piece of, well, it’s something you curse when you step on it on the sidewalk. The simplest piece he was ever commissioned to create was a crumpled ball of newspaper for a Dutch publishing house. He suggested that they could …