This month has been truly been filled with activities. First we bid farewell to Consul General Otsuka and Mrs. Haruhi Otsuka, both of whom I had the pleasure of getting to know over their three years in Vancouver. Consul General Otsuka’s kindness and social skills enabled himself to develop many wonderful relationships with people in our Nikkei community throughout British Columbia and the Yukon Territories. The Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association wishes Consul General Otsuka and his wife Haruhi great success in his new assignment in Dubai. I am sure that new Consul General Hideki Ito, who recently arrived from Behrain, will also develop good relations in our Nikkei community. We warmly welcome him to Vancouver.

During this month, it was also announced that Consul Arata Nakae, his wife, and family, who we have had the honour of getting to know over the past three years and eight months will be leaving for his new assignment in Shenyang, People’s Republic of China. Nakae-san developed a wonderful relationship within the Nikkei community here in Vancouver and other parts of British Columbia. His warm heart and endless energy will be greatly missed. I am sure that all Nikkei organizations will greatly miss his wonderful smile and energy, his friendship and kindness. We wish him and his family the very best and I think he will be leaving with many wonderful memories of his stay here in Vancouver. The Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association welcomes Mr. Yoichi Ikeda, who was formerly the Consul at the Consulate General of Japan in Busan, Republic of Korea.

The National Association of Japanese Canadians and the Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association held the Honour Our People: Stories of the Internment Conference on September 25-27, 2009 at Nikkei Place, Burnaby. This Conference brought together many Canadian Nikkei to pay tribute to our generations of Japanese Canadians who experienced different hardships during and directly after World War II, and to hear them share these stories with their families and others. Our elders who were interned during this time came from many age groups so their reflections provided many points of view. We thank all who attended, whether to share or to listen.
Upcoming on October 17-18, Vancouver will be hosting the National Association of Japanese Canadian (NAJC) Annual General Meeting. This will be an important AGM as the NAJC membership will discuss the impact of the impending changes brought about by the changing global economy.

The GVJCCA would like to thank the many volunteers and supporters who help us out each year by holding a Volunteer Appreciation Night on November 22th at Nikkei Place from 6:30 – 8:00pm. This is always a special event for the GVJCCA, where we have an opportunity to thank all our volunteers, donors, and advertisers for their support over the past year. We hope you can attend and enjoy seeing your many friends again before getting ready for the busy holiday season in December. We hope to see many of you there!

Thank you
Ron Nishimura
President Greater Vancouver Japanese Canadian Citizens’ Association

Making the moment all the more poignant was the knowledge that with the performance, our time in Onomichi was drawing to a close. The twenty members of the Chibi Taiko family, including drummers, parents and two instructors, had spent the past eight days in the small port city near Hiroshima as guests of the Onomichi Ruri Lions Club, Betcha Taiko and the city itself. Given the relatively short duration of our visit, our days and nights had been jam-packed with activities and it was difficult to fathom that we would soon be returning, first to Tokyo and then home to Vancouver.

We had travelled from Tokyo to Onomichi on July 17 aboard the shinkansen (much to the delight of eight-year-old Kyle, who likes going fast), and were met at the Fukuyama train station for the last leg of the journey by Linda Ohama and her crew of camera-men who would document our entire visit. Linda had spent months laying the groundwork for our arrival and after communicating by e-mail for so long it was almost surreal to see her happy, smiling face in person. After a reception at a local elementary school, where we were enthusiastically greeted by a gymnasium full of school kids who were themselves preparing for the start of their summer vacation, the Chibi kids went off with their homestay families, leaving us parents to our own devices. Our visit was officially underway.

Most of our ten days in Onomichi (including side-trips to Hiroshima and Osaka) were divided between workshops with Betcha Taiko and cultural workshops arranged by the Lion’s Club. The cultural workshops encompassed ikebana (flower arranging), a noh workshop/demonstration, shodo (calligraphy) and sado (tea ceremony).

It became apparent early on that our hosts had prepared for our visit with exceptional attention to detail. Each workshop was arranged in such a way that all members, from the youngest (age six) to the oldest (age 23), were able to participate in his or her own way, no small feat given the rather arcane subject matter. As parents, we were invited to participate in the cultural workshops alongside our kids, and we not only enjoyed ourselves but gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the traditional arts and their window into the Japanese psyche. The care that had been put into ensuring that we all had the best possible experience was truly astonishing. And who knew that flower arranging could be so rewarding?

I first visited Japan almost thirty years earlier with five other members of Katari Taiko (including Shinobu Homma, founder and leader of Chibi Taiko), making a pilgrimage, as  novice taiko players, to taiko’s birthplace. To share this trip with Amy and our kids, along with the other Chibi kids, had a special meaning for me. I have to admit, though, that I was somewhat apprehensive how the Chibi Taiko style of drumming would stand up against the more traditional Japanese drumming of Betcha Taiko, with its emphasis on power and unison drumming.

Those fears were dispelled at the first taiko workshop, held at a local elementary school. Once Chibi Taiko began running through its repertoire of pieces, it became evident that the two very different styles would complement each other, rather than compete. It’s not easy to walk into a strange rehearsal hall in a strange country where one doesn’t speak the language or understand the culture and play on unfamiliar drums, but right from the first drum beat, the Chibi kids showed they were ready to give it everything they had. For their part, the members of Betcha Taiko generously shared their style of drumming with us—imparting not only their technical skills but their philosophy and attitude as well.

Over the years, Chibi Taiko has taken part in many taiko workshops in Canada and the US, but working with Betcha Taiko provided  a real glimpse into another way of approaching taiko, an approach that is informed by the Japanese ethos and stands in stark contrast to our own western approach to not only drumming, but life itself. It was revealing to watch the respectful way the Betcha members interacted with each other (and us) and to see the focus they displayed while practicing. If the Chibi members were somewhat taken aback by the more formalized atmosphere of that first practice, they soon figured out the lay of the land and began to enjoy themselves. By the second practice both sides began to feel more comfortable with each other and things began to gel. By the day of the concert, a bond had formed between the two groups.

If one focus of the trip was the collaboration with Betcha Taiko, the other was to introduce the members of Chibi to Japanese culture and Onomichi was an ideal place for that. Although it is a tourist destination, it attracts almost exclusively Japanese visitors and is off the radar as far as western tourists go. It has a casual atmosphere, as Japanese towns go, a relaxed charm that comes from being off the beaten path. It is also small enough that getting around is relatively easy, particularly if one is prepared to walk. Uphill, that is. Linda lives on a mountain with a spectacular view of the harbour and the town. If one is on foot, her house is accessed by a series of steep paths that wind their way through temples and forest. There is also a ropeway that will take you up the mountain if you’re tired or weighed down with bags.

What free time we had was spent exploring the town, marvelling over the many temples and trying the various meals on offer in the town’s restaurants. Osamu Otani, a filmmaker and restaurateur (and president of the Lions Club) owns a waffle restaurant at the foot of the ropeway and most of the Chibis had at least one meal there (some more than one—they are delicious). As one of the driving forces behind our stay in Onomichi, we owe him (among many others) a huge debt of thanks.

Visiting Japan in the summer wouldn’t be complete without attending at least one matsuri and we were able to witness two—one in Onomichi and another in Osaka, where we had a chance to watch Ikaki, a Burakumin taiko group, perform. Ikari’s children’s group played several powerful pieces and provided more inspiration for our younger drummers. Osaka is one of the traditional taiko-making centres of Japan and during a visit to a taiko store we were able to load up on jika-tabi (heavy-duty two-toed slippers) and other taiko supplies. In a park nearby there is a giant taiko cuckoo clock. Several times a day a mechanical life-sized taiko player emerges and plays a taiko composition. Unfortunately, our timing was off the day of our visit and we weren’t able to see it do its thing.

Many Canadian school children are familiar with the book Sadako and the Thousand Cranes, and a day-trip to Hiroshima brought the story home for the Chibi kids. It was incredibly powerful to stand at the spot where the bomb went off and to stand in the shadow of the iconic dome that survived the blast, its skeletal frame a mute testament to the terrible force unleashed that day in August . . .

Chibi Taiko’s visit to Onomichi came to a conclusion with a sayonara party hosted by the group at a hall provided for the occasion by the City of Onomichi. Although we were unaware of it until we were already in Japan, Torin and Kyle’s father Dennis used to be a professional chef and with his help (“priceless”, as the ads say) we were able to put on a delicious “Canadian” feast replete with pasta, Caesar salad and Rice Krispie squares (a big hit) for our new friends. It was our small but heartfelt way of saying “arigato” for the boundless hospitality we experienced during our stay. In typical Japanese fashion, many people stayed behind to help clean up, continuing the spirit of “international cooperation” that was so evident throughout the trip.

The following day we bid farewell to our hosts and homestay families at the train station and made our way to Tokyo for the final leg of our trip. Linda travelled with us part way and then said goodbye as we transferred to the shinkansen bound for Tokyo Station. As I watched Linda recede in the distance, I was reminded how this all came about: with her quest to trace her grandmother’s story back to Onomichi and the filming of Obaachan’s Garden. And I reflected on the twists and turns that face us in life, often taking us in strange and wonderful directions.

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. Because my paternal grandmother was Finnish, I’ve always been hung up on differences between cultures. Readers of this bi-cultural magazine, I hope, might understand. What is the best way to share with you my recent, first-hand observations and renewed impressions, I wondered, and came up with . . . food. How food is prepared, served and enjoyed speaks volumes about national cultures (not to mention economies). After all, as the old cliché goes, “we are what we eat.” Can we also say “we are how we eat?” Incidentally, our “home turf”, Vancouver, fares pretty well in my comparison, but more on that later.

Our encounter with Tokyo was limited to two-hour transit stops at Narita Airport each way, but I could still feel in the background the pulse of the huge megalopolis where I was born and raised. Both times, the four of us inevitably got caught up in the wide varieties of local and Western sweets, liquor, magazines and books, electronic goods and luxury accessories of all sorts cramming the duty free shops, and in the various eateries offering western, Chinese and Japanese fare with all the latest innovations in combinations and variety. The quick meals we could not resist grabbing at one of the simple, quick-service eateries were, as anticipated, excellent. The omu-raisu my daughter had was nothing like the ketchup-flavored rice covered with thin omelette that I remember from childhood. Some of the yoke in her thick omelette over the rice had been deliberately left half gooey and eggy, and the whole thing was covered in a rich meat sauce. I savoured a negitoro-don—toro and finely chopped spring onions over sushi rice. Delicately seasoned and definitely a “taste of home.”

My overriding “fresh” impression was how polite and efficient the service workers were, from the sales clerks, to waitresses, cashiers and short-order cook. Diligence on the job, the traditional value, was alive and well. But what was different from the old days was the large number of foreigners among these workers. They were just as diligent and fluent in Japanese. They were living evidence of the tremendous attraction this giant economy today has for peoples from all over Asia and beyond.

We were next in Singapore, indulging in the generosity of my kind brother-in-law’s family. If Tokyo is my original home which I first left at age 10 in 1956, Singapore is the place I’ve spent the longest period in one stretch, 16 years from 1981 to 97, right up until I came to Vancouver with my then-Singaporean wife and children. I’ve been back a few times since, yet it struck me all over again how apt the hackneyed description of Singapore as an “eat-till-you-drop” culture felt.

In short, an amazing array of various Chinese, Indian and Malay/Indonesian as well as main European cuisines, available both eat-in (from restaurants to food centre stalls) and take-out…but not quite enough chill-out time to enjoy them at leisure. Singaporeans from salaried workers to students driven by their busy daily schedules tend to rush their meals. On a busy-ness scale of 1-to-10, if Singapore was 9.5, Vancouver might be somewhere around 5.5, due probably to population density, among other things.

On many a morning, my host or his young brother would drive to food stalls before going to work and bring back delicious Indian or Chinese snacks ideal for breakfast. And as we sat outside in the still-cool air?to relish naan dipped in curry or fried noodles, we would discuss where to go for lunch or dinner. It happens on every visit, but during a short stay, there are simply too many choices of delectables, from a bowl of noodles in a stall priced at the equivalent of $3.50 Canadian to reasonably-priced Italian cuisine. As careful as I was not to overeat, I still gained a kilo or two in three weeks.

In Kerala, I again became a glutton, succumbing to the overwhelming generosity of my wife’s relatives who invited us to sumptuous meals in their homes in the three cities located along a 200-km stretch, which the seven of us covered like a whirlwind, staying in hotels and traveling in a hired mini-bus. True to traditional custom, we the guests ate while the host family members would look on smilingly, occasionally bringing more food. They would eat afterwards. So the custom is to leave some food uneaten . . . not that we could have possibly finished the copious amounts of delicious shri?p, fish, chicken, and pork curries and other vegetable dishes served from wide bowls filled to the brim. We could tell that the curries and seasonings in general were quite mild compared to the hot Madras cuisine to the south, because of the amount of coconut milk used. No wonder, as the very word Kerala, derives from the local word kairala, meaning coconut tree, according to one theory. Naturally, I put on more weight.

One thing was for sure, the folks there took their time to carefully prepare their meals of traditional dishes, and also took their time to enjoy them with family members and relatives on many an occasion. If leisurely family appreciation of meals is a priority in lifestyle, our middle-class relatives in Kerala must be having a good life. The stage of development of their “Third World” economy seemed less relevant.

Shortly after we came back to the “First World” of North America, I visited Seattle for the first time in nearly ten years, with an old high-school friend, to attend a class reunion. Old friends from all over the US, Canada, Japan and Germany gathered for a truly memorable few days of reminiscence-filled meals and informal drink-and-gab sessions. But following the recent gastronomic excitement of authentic Japanese, Chinese and Indian delicacies, the taste of items costing around $10 in respectable Oriental restaurants near the downtown Pike Street Convention Centre were inevitably very flat. It’s bad manners to complain about food during happy group get-togethers, but out on the street after one such meal, I couldn’t help whispering to my old friend, a fellow Vancouverite who often travels abroad on business: “Was that supposed to be Chinese cuisine?” He just shook his head and said something like “Incredible, but that’s what you get.”

It was hard to understand why proper Asian restaurants in downtown Seattle could get away with cooking that made Chinese and Japanese dishes we (i.e. including the readers) prepare at home taste like gourmet delicacy. No sushi establishment in Vancouver could possibly survive with these days serving the California maki and tuna maki we had at one fancy “Pan Asian” restaurant, what with so many novel and creative ways of adding value being invented, especially in the fancy maki category.

Over that lunch, another old class-mate, now an experienced corporate lawyer in L.A., talked about how the relentless “pursuit of the dollar” at every turn was degrading the quality of services in her profession. The waitress, who admitted she had started working there just the day before, couldn’t describe items on the menu and pronounced “Kirin beer” as “Kye-rin beer.” Surely being paid a fare wage, she was quite pleasant, but the quality of her service?

In comparing Seattle’s Japanese and other Asian cuisines with those of Vancouver which, among other things, may well have the highest number of sushi eateries per area among North American cities, I must be mindful not to offend readers south of the border with spurious claims. I’m sure there are places offering top quality traditional and innovative sushi in Seattle too, so I am just opining about the overall standard.

So what’s the nice thing about Vancouver? In this city of 3,000 eateries, many of them ethnic, where chefs young and old and enterprising restauranteurs from the West and East compete seriously for customers, we get quality and value for money in every price range. And Canada’s relaxed ethos lets us take enough time to enjoy their offerings. So in conclusion, I’d say Vancouver fares pretty well overall gastronomically compared to other multicultural cities on both sides of the Pacific.

The worn steps led down from Main Street into the dark. Jan Johnson, the live-wire owner of the Panama Hotel, pulled out a huge set of keys, and without hesitation, fit one of them into the padlock. Click. Soon our eyes adjusted, and we looked around the dimly lit room with its tiled floor. Straight ahead sat a huge concrete tub. “You are looking at the only Japanese bath around,” said Jan to the small group of people gathered for a tour. “Feel these tiles”, she pointed to a few large tiles lining the ledge, “It’s tourmaline. See the shower in the corner? No one ever used it. You see, Japanese wash by dipping a small tub in the hot water.” Hardly anything has changed since the last bath was drained in the 1950’s: the numbered wooden lockers (one stood open, with some vintage clothing inside.), ads from local businesses lining the top. Next door, a smaller room held a smaller tub, the women’s section. The original plug sat in the corner. Jan explained that she wanted to leave things as they were, a “living museum” for all to see; the only Japanese public bath left in North America. It is for this reason that the Panama Hotel has been declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark.

Japanese began to immigrate to Seattle in the late 1880’s, and gradually a distinct Nihonmachi (Japantown), grew around South Main Street and Sixth Avenue South, which catered to urban residents and later supplied Japanese families living in rural areas. By 1900’s there was a need for more housing. The Panama Hotel was designed in 1910 by Sabro Ozasa, a Japanese architect and graduate of the University of Washington. Through the years it has served as a home for generations of immigrants, Alaskan fisherman and international travellers. By the time Mr. Hori bought the Panama in 1938 (at age 20), the Seattle Nikkei community numbered around 8500. Despite the wartime incarcerations and seizures by the U.S. government of Japanese residents and their assets, Hori was able to hang on to his ownership of the hotel.

Jan Johnson bought the hotel from Mr. Hori in 1986, and it has been her life ever since. After the tour she showed us some of her collection of artifacts: trunks, books, magazines, dolls, even an usu and kine (mochi pounder and base). These are mostly housed in a large tea room, in one of several shops on the ground floor, where we had enjoyed tea and green tea pastries while waiting for the tour, admiring the polished old wooden floor, and perusing the historic photographs on the walls. “This is something I received this spring, which makes me extremely proud,” Jan said, unrolling a small scroll of Japanese calligraphy topped by a gold seal: an award from the Consul General of Japan, dated April 21, 2009, praising Jan Johnson’s work of building “a bridge of friendship” between Japan and the U.S.
At her suggestion we were shown some of the rooms. At the head of a steep flight of stairs, a tiny office with sliding window was the original registration place. “Did you know,” asked Jan “ Charlie Chaplin’s driver lived in one of these rooms?” (how could we know? I want to look him up!) I notice a familiar-looking cat: not a real one, but an ink sketch, could it be by Mr Mirikitani’s (referring to the subject of the documentary many of us saw at the last film night, The Cats of Mirikitani)? “Oh yes,” said Jan matter-of-factly, “Jimmy always stays here when he comes. He likes my cat, Mocha. He was just here to celebrate his 90th birthday.” Small world!

The rooms are out of another era, with eccentric touches, each one a little different: on the original iron bedsteads are thick mattresses, fluffy comforters, and piles of pillows. Japanese themed prints hang on the walls, and on each dresser sits a globe and a bottle of Mt. Fuji spring water. “The armoires were created out of fridge packing cases, when lumber was scarce. I always put a freshly ironed yukata in there for the guests.” In keeping with Johnson’s authenticity, the rooms have been enhanced, not renovated. Although there is a small sink in each room, the men’s and women’s bathrooms down the hall are shared by several rooms. Steam heat is provided from original radiators, “So the comforters come in useful during the winter.”

Before we take our leave, Jan Johnson tells us about a book of fiction that had its launch in the hotel; The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. We were standing in the hotel in question, of course. And of course I had to buy the book before I left town. With so much history wafting around the creaking wooden hallways, it is bound to be a good read.

More information about the Panama Hotel and Tea Room can be found on their informative website: www.panamahotelseattle.com. Be advised to phone ahead for the tour of the bathhouse, as they are held only as need arises.

Text reprinted from Victoria Nikkei Forum
Sign photo by Joe Mabel

This conference was organized by the GVJCCA Human Rights Committee with planning input and funding provided by the NAJC.

With so many organizations in our community, our Committee recognized the significance and value of hearing and documenting the stories of the issei and nisei—those who remember the years immediately before, during and after the Internment. Our seniors are getting older and many sansei and younger people have said they are missing and wish to have knowledge of their families during that time. We recognized the importance of putting together a gathering for sharing these stories while being aware there was work to do to encourage people to come. It was not until a few weeks into September that we became fully aware there would be well over 100 people attending.

We worked with the Japanese Canadian National Museum to integrate the conference opening with the opening of the joint exhibit featuring Leslie Komori’s Lemon Creek Map Project and Michael Tora Speier’s Broken Only at Sky on Friday, September 25th.

While the first conference day encouraged participants to meet old friends and watch Liz Nunoda’s play, Rick and Ned (about a sansei who grows and understands himself better through becoming close to his uncle Ned, an Angler prison camp survivor), the main feature of this conference were the story tellers and their stories.
Conference guest speaker was Dr. Satsuki Ina, a Japanese American licensed marriage and family therapist and specialist in community trauma, who worked extensively with Japanese American Internment survivors. Dr. Ina discussed trauma—a natural human response to an extraordinary force such as a tsunami, or a force of human design such as war, or the wholesale internment of innocent people. About intergenerational storytelling, her enlightening presentation gave participants suggestions such as “your community, your country, need to hear and record YOUR story, not the story as filtered though the language of the perpetrator.” And also, “it’s important to share as many facets of the story as possible . . . one thought, memory can trigger another . . . writing down your memories can often lead to reawakening thought, memories, smells, tastes, and…emotions. Some of those memories will be precious for your family history, some of those will be important to be shared and archived for safe keeping for future generations . . . ” To the question of “What do I do with my story afterwards?”, she encouraged participants to write their story, share it beyond this conference with children, grandkids, and stated “these stories need to be part of the Canadian narrative, not just a thing that happened to a minority group . . . talking about your survival, consequences suffered, recovery and redress are all part of not just your personal healing from an unjust, race motivated crime against innocent people, but a greater story woven together by the threads of each individual story, that can serve to teach your country, our world, about the tragic consequences of discarding our most cherished democratic principles, and about the gambatte spirit of our issei and nisei Canadians. ”

Our conference was a resounding success due to the amazing participation of the story tellers. Many demonstrated their willingness not only to share their stories, but to be video documented so that their stories could be preserved. There were varied and incredible stories of uprooting and hardship, resilience, homelessness and multiple moves, separations and losses along with joyful childhood memories. Each story teller provided their personal perspective and many shared their feelings as well as their memories. There were additional stories about the cultural and identity challenges of being Kika Nisei—born in Canada, brought up in Japan and returned to Canada. Other participants spoke of internment community organization—how people worked together, shared and cooperated to ensure families were looked after and how the close-knit internment communities were missed when families were dispersed once again.
On Saturday at lunch committee member Tatsuo Kage gave a presentation on Japanese Canadian stories of the Internment.

On Saturday evening, participants enjoyed a dinner program which featured an open mic tribute to elders, a musical presentation by Harry Aoki and an intergenerational presentation by Mas and Naomi Yamamoto.
On Sunday, participants took part in a forum to review their experience, and discussed future related activities generated by the conference and what they might be.

We would like to express thanks for the support of many varied conference volunteers, including videographers, our GVJCCA office assistant Alison Scott, for the work of Lorene Oikawa who mc’d the proceedings during conference gatherings, Randy Enomoto who mc’d during the Saturday dinner, Leslie Komori who oversaw all the video documentation, and to all other steering committee members. I know because we were committed to this conference project that we each worked so hard to make our individual contribution. For example, photos, old documents and other memorabilia were pinned on 8 display boards made by Tosh Kitagawa, which added so much to the enjoyment of conference participants.

As one of our group of conference planners, and a story circle facilitator, my thanks go to all those who participated. It was a privilege to be a part of such an awesome event, to hear the stories, and to engage in a process where people were so willing to learn, give their support, and most important, to give the gift of their unique story to the younger generations and others. Thanks very much.

Lunch time speech by Tatsuo Kage
September 26, 2009
On behalf of the Organizing Committee of Honouring Our People Conference, I would like to extend our heartfelt welcome to all of you. As a member of the Japanese Canadian community I feel great that we are having this conference with many Japanese Canadians from all over Canada attending, and even from South of the border.

My involvement in the Japanese Canadian Community stretches back almost 30 years, when I worked with the Redress Committee of Vancouver. After the Redress Settlement I conducted research on the so-called “repats”, people who were exiled in 1946, which resulted in a book called Exiled Japanese Canadians published in Japan in 1998.

This morning we listened to our friend from California, Satsuki Ina, who has done a lot of work on the effects of the internment during the Second World War.?I was particularly impressed with her observation of the behavior of Issei in the camp.

As you heard, Satsuki mentioned Senninbari, a belt with a thousand stitches. For younger people it may not be familiar, but for me it brings back fond childhood memories. Around 1940, at the entrance of a train station in Tokyo, I saw a woman standing and holding a white cloth with a needle and red thread. My mother, traveling with me, approached her and sewed one stitch, making a small knot. It was supposed to bring good luck for a soldier in battle and protect him by wearing it as stomach warmer or haramaki. These days, even in archives or a museum it may not be easy to find one of those.  So, I brought something with a slight resemblance.

I hope this conference will encourage all the Nikkei people to talk openly about their life experience and let their children and grand children know about it. Further more, this conference should encourage other people such as postwar immigrants like myself to speak out about our wartime experiences. A common lesson to be learnt is that war brings nothing positive or constructive, but only hardships and tragedies. So I propose that all of us pledge for peace, that disasters would never happen again for us and for posterity. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the conference.

Rekishi (Histories)
30 Years of Katari Taiko
Sunday, November 1, 2009, 2pm
The Cultch, 1895 Venables Street
$20 (general) / $15 (students & seniors) / $10 (12yrs & under)
+ service charges
For tickets call The Cultch box office at 604.251.1363 • www.thecultch.com
For info call 604.683.8240

When Katari Taiko celebrates its 30th Anniversary with a concert at the newly refurbished Cultch (formerly the Vancouver East Cultural Centre) on November 1, it will mark three decades of dedication to not only the art of drumming, but the community that gave birth to the group.

Katari Taiko rose out of the burgeoning Asian Canadian movement of the mid-seventies, a time when many younger Japanese and Chinese Canadians were beginning to actively question their identities and to explore their Asian heritage. Tonari Gumi was open for business on Hastings Street; Sakura-so, a home for Japanese Canadian seniors, had opened on Powell Street; the Japanese Canadian Centennial Project had published A Dream of Riches, a photographic history of the community; the Japanese Canadian Centennial in 1977 had given rise to the annual Powell Street Festival.

A performance by San Jose Taiko at the 1979 Powell Street Festival was the catalyst for the formation of Katari Taiko, the first group of its kind in Canada. A Japanese group, Ryujin Daiko, had performed at the inaugural Powell Street Festival and the world-renowned ensemble Ondekoza had performed several times in Vancouver, but they were clearly Japanese in both their approach and aesthetic; while they were to be admired, they seemed somehow out of reach. San Jose Taiko, on the other hand, was something else again. As young Asian Americans, they exuded an energy and exuberance that was both inspiring and accessible. The majority of the group were also women, defying the stereotype of the passive Asian female—something that struck a chord with many in the Japanese Canadian community. Following their performance, the members of SJT actively encouraged the formation of a local group and with that, the taiko seed was officially planted on Canadian soil.

Katari Taiko - Vancouver Folk Music Festival 1982. Photo Tamio Wakayama.

It soon became apparent that both drums and instruction were needed in order for a Vancouver taiko group to progress beyond an idea. Seiichi Tanaka, founder and sensei of the San Francisco Taiko Dojo, was invited to give the group a week-long intensive at their new home at the Strathcona Community Centre. Tanaka is widely credited with introducing taiko to North America and had given SJT members their first instruction. He was, they said, a hard task-master, but would give them a good grounding in taiko skills.
If SJT made taiko look easy, studying with Tanaka brought the reality home: the joy expressed on stage during a taiko performance was only achieved through hard work in the practice studio. Tanaka’s style of drumming, influenced by his own teachers in Japan, owed a great deal to the discipline and repetition of martial arts and, like most senseis, he ruled with an iron fist. For the members of Katari Taiko, used to a more relaxed North American approach, it was a bit of a shock and some rankled at Tanaka’s my-way-or-the-highway style.

Still, by the time Tanaka returned to San Fancisco, the group had its first two songs under its belt, had learned how to make and skin their own drums using wine barrels and, more importantly, had learned the basic techniques and rhythms of taiko drumming. From then on it was a matter of developing their skills and forging an identity as a group. Responding perhaps to Tanaka’s autocratic style, the group chose to fashion itself as a collective, with a rotating leadership and all decisions made by consensus. While somewhat unwieldy, the collective model set the tone for the next 30 years. The endless meetings required by this mode of operation also gave the group its name—katari means “to talk.”

Katari Taiko was never intended to be a performance group, so in 1981, when the group was invited to send four members to perform in Faro, Yukon, as part of a Japanese cultural group it caused a mini-crisis within the group. With only two pieces in its repertoire, no uniforms and no method for selecting performing members, it wasn’t an easy decision to accept the performance request. In the end, makeshift uniforms were thrown together and four members were chosen to play what would turn out to be the first of many public performances in this tiny mining town perched on the edge of a mountain.

As word got out about the group and it became apparent that they would be getting more and more performance requests, it became necessary to increase their repertoire and several members began composing pieces. They also collected a few pieces from American groups, including a Buddhist group in Los Angeles, Kinnara Taiko. In 1982, six members of the group travelled to Japan, where they visited several groups and learned a piece from the group Kodo on Sado Island.

By the summer of 1982, Katari Taiko was beginning to receive attention within the mainstream community. In keeping with their mandate of supporting progressive causes, the group performed at several of the large peace marches held in Vancouver—performing one year for an estimated 80,000 people at Sunset Beach.
A big turning point for the group was an invitation from Artistic Director Gary Cristall to perform at the 1982 Vancouver Folk Music Festival where they debuted on the Friday night mainstage to a rapturous response from the crowd.

Before long, the group was performing at events across Canada, including Winnipeg’s Folklorama. In 1985, Katari Taiko represented BC in the cultural component of the  Canada Summer Games in Saint John New Brunswick. The group also performed at the FolkLife Pavilion at Expo 86.  Their collaboration with Kokoro Dance in the internment-based piece Rage marked a departure for the group, with a dance component that stretched the boundaries of many of the drummers. The multi-disciplinary piece was performed at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival and the Canada Dance Festival in Ottawa.

In the early days, taiko was not widely known outside of Japan and as Katari Taiko began to attract a wider following, taiko itself was introduced to many audience members for the first time. And just as San Jose Taiko inspired the members of Katari Taiko to pick up drum sticks, so too did Katari Taiko inspire other groups to form across Canada, through workshops and performances. There are now groups across the country in most major cities. Vancouver alone now has half a dozen groups, each with its own approach to drumming, and the majority of them can trace their origins directly to Katari Taiko.

Group members have come and gone over the years—a recent survey came up with 60 plus members who have gone through the group at one time or another—but what has remained steady is a commitment to a collective model as well as a mandate to support progressive, community-based causes.

When the ten-member group takes the stage at the Cultch on November 1, they will be joined by a number of alumni and will also premiere a new piece.

I remember arriving home after my first trip to Japan in 1982 and having that same feeling—of standing in the middle of a crowded downtown mall and feeling, not exactly frightened, but uneasy . . . unsafe somehow. Which was strange, considering that I was back on familiar ground. I came to realize that after spending some time in Japan, you become accustomed, if only subconsciously, to a certain way of interacting with others, even if they are only strangers on a crowded street. There is a respect for personal space that is perhaps born out of having to live in such close proximity to one another.

Travelling to Japan with my family and Chibi Taiko this summer gave me an opportunity to revisit my early impressions of the country. Because neither Amy nor the girls had been to Japan before, it afforded me a different perspective and I was also better able to sit back and observe the complexities of this fascinating country.

I was more acutely aware this time of the level of civility and politeness in even the most casual interaction, from shopping in a convenience store to renting a cell phone. There is a certain level of formality (you could call it stiffness) that goes along with the politeness that is a bit odd at first, coming from the west, but I soon got used to it. At the same time, I knew that there had to be a price to pay for the almost-excessive politeness that runs through all levels of society. After all, the Japanese are not robots, despite the way they were depicted in western wartime propaganda. More on that later.

Our daughters, who tend towards politeness themselves, found the social environment in Japan very much to their liking (not to mention the plethora of vending machines filled with strange and wonderful drinks, many with aloe in them. I think we figured out later that we spent over $200 on cold drinks). I tried to explain to them that the Japanese way of interacting with one another is built into their upbringing: whereas in the west, individuality and individual achievement is valued, in Japan, it is on how one operates within the group context that one is judged.

We did notice that along with the politeness comes a certain reticence, and that warmth is sometime lacking in interactions, although this is certainly a generalization, not a blanket statement. For instance, the girls developed a strong bond with their homestay family who treated them very warmly.
Another thing that struck us is how clean everything is in Japan. There is absolutely no garbage on the streets. There are also no garbage cans. And the ones that do exist, like in hotel bathrooms, are almost ridiculously tiny. After a while, I came to see this apparent paradox as symbolic of Japan’s distinct “otherness”. It’s not as if no garbage is generated—the Japanese are the masters of packaging, after all—it’s just that it’s not acceptable to leave one’s detritus on the streets or even to leave it in overflowing garbage cans. So where does it go?

Certainly, Japan is a country of contradictions. As a society, it has a set of strictly codified behaviours, yet it is not able to mandate, or even foster, human relationships, as evidenced by a plunging birth-rate. It is almost as if, by throwing all their eggs in one basket (the group over the individual, a premium on work over leisure) as a society they are unable to respond to a changing world, as if the guidelines that make the society work harmoniously are working against its very future. It’s certainly a troubling trend.

Shortly after returning home we had dinner with our friends Richard and Masami to hand out omiyage and catch up on news. Richard has spent some time living in Japan and Masami was brought up there (she told us before we left that the word “no” really has no place in the Japanese language, something I found to be utterly accurate; I never heard the word iie used once, in any situation). As we talked about the social interactions among the Japanese and the apparent cohesiveness of the society, they explained the concept of honne (a person’s true feelings and desires) and tatemae (a person’s public face). Having never heard of this concept before, it was mind-boggling on one hand, but made perfect sense on the other. It also explains the use of alcohol as not simply a social lubricant, but a safety-valve—a way to express one’s feelings without fear of repercussions (another strangely logical concept in a country full of them).

Comedian Russell Peters has a bit where he talks about feeling like he was the most Indian man to walk the earth, that is, until he stepped off the plane in India for the first time, at which time he became entirely Canadian. I have never professed to be the epitome of the Japanese male, but I know what he means—I have never felt so Canadian as when I was in Japan. And having travelled there, I am reminded that while my kids and I share a Japanese heritage through my mother’s side of the family, we are absolutely, indelibly Canadian.

As a side note, while writing this piece I looked up the concept of honne and tatemae on Wikipedia and found this appended to the article. It is a good reminder of the danger of generalizing or taking things at face value.

Danger of culturalism
These concepts of honne and tatemae should be analysed very carefully in order to not fall into the trap of a culturalist vision of Japan and Japanese people, which do not correspond to reality. Indeed, these concepts of tatemae (??)and honne (??) can be linked very easily with Nihonjinron, a point of view which considers Japanese society completely homogeneous, presupposing that the Japanese differ radically from all other known peoples, which is for example the opinion of the author Chie Nakane. A lot of Japanese researchers, for example Yoshihiko Amino or Eiji Oguma, showed that these nationalist visions were just an illusion and tried by their works to deconstruct this concept of homogeneous Nation or the idea that the rules of Japanese society could be understandable just for Japanese people and not for foreigners.