The choice between becoming Canadian (or American) and going back to being Japanese has to have been the critical decision faced by some elements of the Japanese immigrant communities in North America from the time they started coming over around the turn of the 20th century.
Although our visit to Kerala’s coastal cities of Trivandrum, Kollam and Kochi (Cochin) was the only totally new experience, it was quite stimulating to encounter so many different peoples and their cultures one after another in a short time.
The first time I became fully aware of the existence of the present emperor was when I was still in primary school and there was a festivity of some kind. So I checked and came upon his coming-of-age and ceremony of investiture as crown prince (rittaishi) in 1952.
We can hardly compare ourselves to a mountain village in rural Thailand. But it would seem a certain amount of “reserve of looseness” might be handy in getting along with in the multiracial society of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, which probably has as many different racial minorities and cultures as anywhere.
It was when Ichiro became the first base runner that I sensed something strange in the Korean supporters’ reaction. Every time the pitcher tried to pick Ichiro off and he would dive head first back to the base, they would roar in appreciation. Over something that is not directly related to the outcome, they were getting excited as if to say: “Make that so-and-so Ichiro grovel again!”
I have always envied native speakers of English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and other major Indo-European languages, because common roots make it so much...
From what they’ve told me and?some materials I’ve found on the internet, the traits of Hokkaido folks can be characterized as follows. They can handle one-on-one situations with ease even with people they don’t know well. They readily accept outsiders. They have own personal views on almost anything. They don’t like to congregate unnecessarily. They don’t worry about “how others will see them” very much. “That’s why we’re on the same wavelength,” I thought when I found out. For good or for bad, I share these traits myself.
The end of the year is usually a time for a series of get-togethers like office parties, dinners and socializing at home. We Nikkei people, ijusha and resident Japanese folk, who probably celebrate the new year (o-shogatsu) as well, also enjoy get-togethers along with all the other minorities in multi-cultural Canada, whose format may vary from formal to casual, from traditional Japanese to “Canadian style” depending on age groups and professions.
According to some researchers of pre-war topics such as the history of the famed Asahi baseball club, copies of many of the Japanese-language newspapers that were in publication before World War II have either been destroyed or remain to be “unearthed.” I happen to be translating at the moment a fascinating Meiji era document, which was found by a dedicated researcher at a Nikkei archive centre in San Francsco’s Japan Town.
To feel as though all of these different categories of people making up the Nikkei/ijusha community are somehow “all connected” is, I’ve realized, a rather Japanese sentiment. Among the oft-cited differences between the East and West, the one about the former being group-based societies and the latter individual-based societies is hard to refute, even if it’s very generalized.
Once in a while, one comes across a moving story about people who achieved remarkable things with great ideas. As one gets older and...
Unlike North America, where wheat is still relatively plentiful, Japan relies on imported wheat for staples like bread and noodles. So rising price of wheat products is also driving Japanese consumers toward rice.
