In the narrative, birds fly above the earth, endlessly circling, with no place to land. When the father of one of the birds dies, the flock is perplexed—there is nowhere to bury him. After some thought, the young bird buries her father in the back of her head. This, says Anderson, is the beginning of memory . . .
Tatsuo Kage has the appearance and manner of an absent-minded professor, but this façade belies a fierce determination to follow his principles, whether they...
Tetsuro Shigematsu has the face of a Japanese woodblock print samurai and the résumé of a modern day renaissance man. A radio broadcaster, comedian,...
Serving up a Tasty Pan-Asian smorgasbord November 6 – 9, 2008 Now in its twelfth year, the Vancouver Asian Film Festival has established itself...
To help recognize the historic significance of Cumberland’s other Japanese community of No. 5 Road, there are plans to erect a storyboard in the vicinity of former No. 5 Japanese Townsite that will display photographic images and brief stories by former No. 5 residents of life in the community prior to their forced evacuation during World War II. Funds are available for construction of the storyboard. Such storyboards have been erected elsewhere in the Village of Cumberland to inform visitors of life in the former No. 1 Japanese Townsite and the once thriving Chinatown.
Yukiko and Toni Onley 1980. Photo by Iwao Matsuo. When iconic Canadian artist Toni Onley died in a plane crash on February 29, 2004,...
Titled Re(a)ddressed: I am (Japanese) Canadian, the aim of this workshop was to open a dialogue between Japanese Canadian youth surrounding the present and possible futures of identity and ethnicity in Canada. Very suited to these topics was the collaboration of award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, Jeff Chiba Stearns.
by Tsuneharu Gonnami On February 6-8, 2008, Professor Atsuhiko Wada of Waseda University’s School of Education visited UBC to conduct research on Japanese Collections...
SFU has announced that Hiromi Goto will be Writer-in-Residence from September 2008 to May 2009. Hiromi is an important and insurgent voice in Canadian...
It is one thing to go back over one’s own memories—events that shaped us, for better or for worse. But what is it that drives us to go back over events that we were not part of, that happened, in many cases, before we were even born? What is it that moves us to ruminate on the past? I suppose you could quote George Santayana, who famously said “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
It is early evening in late May as my husband and I roll off the ferry at Nanaimo and head north under a clear blue sky to the Village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island. Alongside the highway grow streams of golden broom and purple lupin that light up the earthy tones of the Comox Valley landscape. We are on our way to attend the official commemoration of Cumberland’s Japanese Cemetery as a historical landmark.
When the Japanese Canadian Redress settlement was signed on September 22, 1988, I was 29 years old. Although the settlement had no direct impact...
