Reviews by Barbara Stowe

Bare Essence of Life (Ultra-Miracle Love Story)
Director: Yokohama Satoko, 2009 (120 minutes)
Yokohama is blazing an impressive trail. Named “the darling of new Japanese cinema” at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, she made her first feature (German + Rain) with prize-money awarded for her film-school graduation short. German + Rain in turn became so successful (garnering a Dragons and Tigers nomination at last year’s VIFF) that it earned her the chance to make this second, more mainstream (although still definitely art-house) feature.

Bare Essence of Life asks the question, what happens when someone tries to radically change, in order to gain acceptance? Yojin (Matsuyama Kenichi, also starring in the ninja epic Kamui), was born with a brain that is “not broken, just different.” He’s in love with Machiko, a kindergarten teacher traumatized by the death by decapitation of her boyfriend. Brilliant comic scenes, a well-honed storyline, whimsical surreal touches and characters crafted with love all combine to make this an extraordinary and moving film. Yokohama has set the bar high, for herself as well as other up-and-comers, and her career should be followed with interest.

Yellow Kid (Ireoo Kiddo)
Director: Mariko Tetsuya, 2009 (111 minutes)
This ambitious first feature by Mariko Tetsuya interweaves manga with the story of a budding boxer to create a double world, half fantasy, half reality. Tetsuya has a talent for creating heart-pounding suspense. The smell of sweat in the gym is almost palpable, and the sexual scenes are expertly rendered. The cool jazz soundtrack is a clever contrast to the aura of rage and violence that builds throughout the film, as the young boxer and a manga artist, dual protagonists, face their own demons.

Tetsuya is only partially successful in portraying the subtle emotional interactions of his characters. Although there are finely drawn moments, as in a scene where manga artist Hattori explodes with bitter vituperation on hearing that his former girlfriend has become engaged to another man, in the end the director fails to render his characters fully. Hopefully this kind of depth will come with age and experience. Tetsuya is to be commended for what he has already mastered, and it will be interesting to watch how his career progresses from here.

Left Out (Puritan)
Director: Sasaki Omoi, 2009 (91 minutes)
“The protagonist is a man who is lacking in the qualifications as a protagonist of a story.” With this devastatingly honest, comic assessment, director Sasaki Omoi sums up the dilemma of his hapless anti-hero in the brilliant indie feature Left Out.

Tanaka is a sad-sack working in a dead-end job salvaging junk, abandoned objects that have been “left out” on the pavement or in recently vacated apartments. Yoshiko is the woman he falls for, a beautiful, damaged character so compelling she threatens at times to take over as protagonist herself. The relationship between these two is unfolded with masterly control by Omoi in carefully constructed sequences. Some shots appear arbitrary, but when their significance is later revealed, they pack a powerful emotional punch.

The contrast between the drab lives of junk collectors and moments of devastating beauty add to the power of this feature to induce a surprising strength of feeling for characters who might in a lesser director’s hands come off as merely pathetic.

Incredibly, Omoi’s budget for this dramatically sophisticated, professional-looking film was a mere $7,000 Canadian. The filmmaker, who wrote, directed, shot, edited and produced the film himself is virtually a one-man movie-making machine. He garnered a Dragons and Tigers nomination for this feature and it seems apparent that he has a very bright future ahead.

Left Out was screened with two shorts: Reflection, by Ishida Takashi, and Labyrinth of Residence, by Saito Nasuka.

Where Are You? (Wakaranai)
Director: Kobayashi Masahiro, 2009 (104 minutes)
Kobayashi Masahiro’s latest offering is billed as a tribute to Truffaut’s alter ego, Antoine Doinel. But his wretched young protagonist bears more resemblance to the leading characters of such new millennium era movies as Wendy and Lucy (and, to a lesser extent, The Pool) than the French auteur’s autobiographical reflections on a troubled childhood.
The problem is largely one of pacing, which—combined with unvaried repetition —blunts the dramatic possibilities offered by the story. Where one scene of the starving Ryo (Kobayashi Yuto, the filmmaker’s teenage son) wolfing down noodles would have sufficed, Kobayashi gives us multiple, virtually identical takes, and by the time the boy trudges up a hill at the movie’s end, any interest the audience may have initially felt for this disadvantaged child has for the most part evaporated.

It is possible however that Kobayashi may still triumph with Where Are You? The similarly flawed Wendy and Lucy (by Kelly Reichardt, VIFF 2008) was after all well received by some critics, and Kobayashi’s film offers an interesting storyline, some touching moments, and Yuto Kobayashi has charismatic qualities.

Eatrip
Director: Yuri Nomura, 2009 (75 minutes)
From the bucolic opening shot of a sunny field, to the whimsical animated apple tumbling gently down the screen during the closing credits, this is a beautifully conceived and executed meditation on food. Gastronomy on screen typically revolves around conflict and competition, à la Iron Chef, or elaborate gourmet cooking rituals (Julie and Julia). This restrained and lovely film takes as its theme instead cooperation, community, and the simple, timeless pleasures of harvesting and eating fresh fish, fruit and vegetables.

In a subtly subversive erosion of hierarchy, Nomura gives equal precedence to celebrities like singer UA and Naoko Morioka, a housewife who grows food from scratch for her family in Okinawa. There is something mysterious about the power of this gentle film, which proceeds quietly, but—as the layers of its onion are peeled away—makes the eyes water at unexpected moments.

Island of Dreams (Yume no Shima)
Director: Tsuta Tetsuichiro, 2009 (83 minutes)
This first feature by 25 year-old writer/director Tsuta Tetsuichiro pays tribute to black and white Nikkatsu thrillers of the 1960s. Shot on film stock that was processed and printed by the filmmaker and his crew, the drama pits an eco-terrorist against a canny detective (played with relish and just the right hint of humour by Kuraoka Ikuro).
Cinematography by Aoki Yutaka—nominated for a Dragons and Tigers award for his contribution— inspires a lyrical mood that heightens, rather than detracting from, the dramatic tension. The ending is somewhat weak, but the poetic touch of snowflakes transformed into baubles of light helps to create a magical aura and lessen the sense of disappointment inevitably arising when dramatic build up is not fully paid off.
Tsuta, while no proponent of terrorism, is clearly questioning the values of a society, which can create a mountain of gomi while lacking a suitable repository.  Not that Japan is the only country suffering this problem. Garbage is a global dilemma, just one of the environmental challenges documented by a wealth of dramas and documentaries in this year’s VIFF.

Island of Dreams was preceded by two shorts by Goshima Kazuhiro, Uncertain Camera and Aliquot Light.

USB
Director: Oku Shutaro, 2009 (95 minutes)
Oku Shutaro’s futuristic thriller promises more than it delivers. The set up is intriguing. In a fictional town, chilling public-service announcements warn of atmospheric radiation, but people carry on as usual. A young man with crippling debts considers signing on for a dangerous but lucrative experiment involving irradiation. Will he or won’t he?

With an introduction like this, an audience expects to be on the edge of their seats. Instead, Oku alternately drags out the action in places and tries to jumpstart it in others with the usual sci-fi misogynistic sex and violence. Drama without appropriate transitions turns into melodrama, and the stone-faced acting of lead Watanabe Kazushi, which must be blamed on direction, does nothing to leaven the situation. Momoi Kaori, playing Kazushi’s widowed mother, imparts grace and depth to her scenes, but as she is called upon to repeat the same action over and over…worrying over her boy…without variation, even her presence seems wasted.

Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
Director: Jessica Oreck, 2009 (91 minutes)
Is Jessica Oreck the Beetle Queen of the title? If so, the young filmmaker can now add “Vancouver” to her list of conquests. The New York-based producer/director’s first feature was warmly welcomed at an international debut at the Empire Granville cinema on October 3rd. Too bad less than half the seats in the auditorium were filled, a turn-out that can perhaps be blamed on the Eurocentric aversion to all things insect. The filmmaker admits however that a dislike for some insects is universal. Arachnophobes, relax. No spiders—which are not insects, anyway—make an appearance, and neither do creepy crawlers such as centipedes.

Oreck’s oeuvre delightfully documents Japanese bug supermarkets; children playing beetle videogames; and insect enjoyment of all kinds. Gorgeous, at times near-hallucinogenic cinematography by Sean Williams and a soundtrack that includes Kafka by Ryuchi Sakamoto, performed by Tsuchiya Masami, add to the appeal of this unique film which won the Special Jury Award for Artistic Vision at Cinevegas 2009.

Denotation
Director: Sato Fumiro, 2007 (5 mins)
Labyrinth of Residence
Director: Saito Nasuka, 2008 (5 mins)
Two young filmmakers turn their cameras on a shared personal predicament: the loss of their childhood homes. In Denotation, Sato Fumiro documents the house that he grew up in, now threatened by highway construction. Saito Nasuka, whose family traded a traditional wooden house for a concrete apartment, documents her new home in an effort “to become friends with it” in Labyrinth of Residence. After scanning 6,000 still camera shots into her computer, she interweaves 3,500 of them into a fast-paced, clever pastiche. The experimental psychedelic trance soundtrack lends an almost comic overtone to the work. Her lens leads us briskly down corridors and zooms around corners as if channeling an inner John Travolta, then pulls back for a breathtaking exterior shot of the massive apartment complex punching up into the sky.

By contrast, it is not the camera that moves in Sato’s Denotation, so much as a mysterious red line of computer graphic goo which travels from the top of the house down. Sato induces a surprising pathos by letting his camera linger at the place where the back steps meet the ground, a moment of leave-taking that insinuates a greater goodbye. The surprise ending is a brilliant finale.

Interviews by Barbara Stowe

Painful Honesty from Sasaki Omoi, director of Left Out

Sasaki Omoi hunches forward in his seat, his wiry body tense, forehead wrinkled, mouth unsmiling. He looks older than his 31 years. One senses that making films is like breathing to Omoi, and that the filmmaker would infinitely prefer being behind the lens of a camera to sitting in a luxury suite on the tenth floor of Vancouver’s Sutton Place Hotel.

Where was the film shot?
Mostly in Tokyo.

The scenes by the water…?
Outside of Chiba Prefecture, just north of Tokyo.

What was your budget?
In Canadian dollars, it came to about $7,000.

Incredible. How long was the shoot?
Fourteen days, but those weren’t consecutive. We shot over the period of a month.

And the total process, from writing the script to completion?
It took me a month to write the script. Then the cast helped scout locations with me for a few months. Then shooting took a month…

I loved the way with the character of Yoshiko you showed such beauty and innocence on the surface and such violence underneath.
When I wrote the script I was going through a heartbreak. I broke up with my girlfriend, and I had the feeling I really couldn’t understand women. Not that I can understand them now!

(This remark provoked laughter from the interpreter and The Bulletin, although only a wan smile from the director).

That’s why, when it comes to the character of Yoshiko, you really can’t tell from the outside what she’s feeling.

It was obvious from the emotional tenor of the film that it was deeply felt, so I’m not surprised to hear about the personal circumstances behind the script. But everyone feels heartbreak. It’s rare to be able to translate that into a work of art.
Oh, I’m embarrassed to hear that.

Which brings us to distribution. You’ve done almost everything else single-handedly for this film. What are your plans for distribution?
I had no specific plans and I have none now. Right now I’m already busy writing the script for my next film. The actors are somewhat perplexed at this and comment negatively, but I don’t know what to do about it.

At some point will you consider handing some of the business aspect over to someone else?
Thank you for your comment, but it’s very important to have a sufficient budget to make films, and for that distribution is key, so I want to study distribution more, when I have time, and learn how to do it myself.

In the Q & A after the film last night, you said the film was difficult for the audience to watch. It was complicated, but it wasn’t difficult. How did you put together such a complicated, perfect construct?
That was just the way (the script) happened.

Was this film of a similar sensibility to others you’ve done?
In one word, this latest film was more complicated than the others. The others were easier to understand. For instance one was about a mother and daughter taking a trip. This goes a lot deeper. So if I can be very honest about this, I was in a very confused state when I wrote the script and I felt it was very important to write about it, but my past films may be better.

Tell me about your career to date.
When I was about 20, I started acting…stage performances…but I had a great interest in film. I started assisting in lighting while working part-time in a Pachinko parlor and delivering newspapers. About four years ago I started doing what I’m doing now. I spent the first year studying from square one, learning how to use the equipment. I made short films, then mid-length features, all while working on the side.

Is this your first full-length feature?
Officially I’ve made two other full-length features, but experimentally I’ve made more.

Going A Round with Yellow Kid director Mariko Tetsuya and producer Hara Takashi

You have a double protagonist movie. Did you start with one lead character, or two?
Tetsuya: Two.

How many drafts of the script did you write?
Tetsuya: Ten…thirteen…actually, I’ve lost count.

It has been said that a good movie needs sex and violence in every scene. Obviously not actual sex and violence. You were very good at heightening suspense with the overt portrayal of these elements, but what about the more subtle aspect of emotional violence? How successful do you think you were at portraying that?
Tetsuya: When the actors came in, they naturally brought those parts of the script to life. So, I feel we were very successful in what we were trying to achieve.

In the scene where (Tamura’s) grandma becomes incontinent, the protagonist does nothing to help her. What does this say about his character? I didn’t think you meant to create a lack of empathy for him. He seemed to feel bad just for himself…
Mariko: The character comes from a background where he’s poor and unhappy, but at that point in the movie, he’s getting into his Yellow Kid role more and more, so I didn’t want him acting too unhappy… He thinks boxing can change his life, but then he sees the reality of things with his grandma and just wants to run away.

The manga was terrific. Are they (Yusuke Owaki and Hidekazu Wasaki) professional cartoonists?
Tetsuya: In Japan there are a lot of people drawing manga so the level of excellence is very widespread. They’re not professionals.

There was one outstanding cut, from a quiet somewhat emotionally intense scene in the artist’s apartment to boxing at the gym…very effective. (Note: the film was edited by Hirata Ryoma). I was impressed by the cinematography. How did you collaborate with Aoki Yutaka?
Takashi: It was (Mariko’s) first time working with Aoki. He’d seen Aoki’s work and liked it, so he asked him to collaborate on this film. Aoki does karate, and Mariko wanted him to shoot with a handicam, so he figured he’d be strong enough…he’s in really good shape, so it was perfect.

What did you do, as producer?
Takashi: Everything, from consulting on the script all the way through, to handling the budget…everything.

Talking with Tsuta Tetsuichiro and the Crew of Island of Dreams

The Bulletin interviewed five members of the crew of Island of Dreams, a first feature helmed by Tsuta Tetsuichiro, including the writer/director himself; cinematographer Aoki Yutaka; lighting designer Masaya Kawamura; recording engineer Yuki Kaneda; and co-producer Nakamura Yumi.

The young filmmakers (all aged either 24 or 25) stepped off the plane at the Vancouver International Airport and rushed to the Empire Granville cinema just in time to catch the first international screening of Island of Dreams. VIFF Dragons and Tigers programmer Tony Rayns hosted a quick Q and A after the film, and then the crew trooped three blocks to the VIFF media centre at the Sutton Place Hotel for this interview. Jet-lagged but pumped with adrenaline, the filmmaking team sat down to talk about the challenges of creating a first dramatic feature on a budget of approximately 1,200,000 yen ($14,000 to 15,000 Canadian).

What was the biggest challenge for you in creating this movie?
Tetsuichiro: Processing the film. The first processing took 48 hours, non-stop.

(Note: The filmmakers processed the film themselves, in a garbage can with a frame cut out, a process Tsuta referred to as arduous and primitive, dating back about a hundred years.)

Where did you shoot the scenes of the garbage dump? Was it on the actual Island of Dreams, in Tokyo Bay?
Tetsuichiro: Yes.

Did your script pose a question that you wanted the movie to answer?
Tetsuichiro: Yes, the environmental issue. I grew up in the countryside and witnessed logging (and other ecological devastation)…Japan is regarded as an affluent society but spiritually, psychologically and emotionally it is poor.

Was there a reason you chose an eco-terrorist, and not an eco-activist, as your protagonist?
Tetsuichiro: I wasn’t aware of the difference. When I was researching (environmental activism) on the internet, the first thing I came across was the term “eco-terrorist”.

The score was powerful…in one section with strings and triangle, I was reminded of Tomita (Isao)…and Nino Rota. How did you and the composer collaborate, and were you inspired by particular composers?
Tetsuichiro: Keita Kawabata did the music. We were inspired by the music of Masaru Sato and Toru Takemitsu.

What did your job as producer entail?
Nakamura: I was a Jack-of-all-trades.

What was the most difficult aspect of your job?
Nakamura: The way they’d want to proceed before things were in place…like, they’d film when we had no permit!

And the best part?
Nakamura: I like to plan ahead. I got to experience spontaneity.

You said in Tony Rayns’ Q & A after the film that your marks were poor and your film professor told you not to show your face around him anymore. Will you graduate?
Tetsuichiro: (emphatically) Yes!

(This response was met with laughter around the room).

I like how clean your script was. Some filmmakers, especially new ones, are afraid to make dramatic points clearly, and feel they have to be obscure, but end up being vague.
Tetsuichiro: Perhaps I’m not experienced enough yet to be obscure.

Let’s talk about the lighting.
Kawamura: The protagonist, Alan, and the Detective both had shades of good and bad, light and dark in their characters. With our limited budget, it was hard to bring this out.

How successful did you feel you were?
Kawamura: (thinks for some moments, then sighs) Fifty-fifty. But one of the things I learned, and have to learn more, is that when shooting day after day you get really fatigued, and have to push yourself beyond your limits.

What problems did you encounter recording the sound?
Kaneda: The same as Yumi said. They’d want to film before the sound was ready to go. Also, the budget. When we were shooting one scene I had to be locked up in the trunk of a car because we couldn’t afford to do it any other way.

Given that you were not championing violence as a solution, how much empathy did you want to create for your protagonist?
Tetsuichiro: Originally I didn’t think the empathy would be there because the audience wouldn’t relate to Alan. So I created Detective Terayama and expected the audience would follow the story through his POV. I expect the younger audience may get it (Alan’s POV), but not the rest.

Beetle Queen Conquers Vancouver (as well as Tokyo)

Jessica Oreck, whose movie Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo won the Special Jury Award for Artistic Vision at Cinevegas 2009, struggles to sit up very straight. It’s a difficult task on the comfortable couch in the suite provided for media interviews at the Sutton Place Hotel. “I’m so nervous,” she says, twisting her slender fingers together, but her eyes shine with excitement.

Oreck, who just turned 25, has already trod an impressive path. Fascinated by insects as a child and inspired by a David Attenborough nature documentary as a teenager, she now works in the vivarium at the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. She loves having butterflies flit around her all day at work, although she says not everyone would.

“I think the bigger the guy, the more scared he is,” she says somberly. “Some children who’ve grown up in the city have never even seen a butterfly. Look! they say to their parents, it’s not moving, is it broken?” She sighs in exasperation. “It’s not broken, it’s dead! A butterfly isn’t a machine, it’s a living thing.”

Her deep concern about the human relationship to the insect world drives this documentary.

“People think termites are a problem. They’re only a problem because we’ve built wooden houses in places where they shouldn’t be.”

Her passion for the insect world has its limits, however. “There’s a reason people are afraid of centipedes, mosquitoes, spiders.” None of which appear in her film.

When she heard about the Japanese interest in beetles and other insects she was elated, because most people in North America found her fascination with bugs strange.

“Tokyo in summer becomes a bug market. Every supermarket, every grocery store sells beetles (as pets). Mushiking was the number one videogame in Japan for years, and Pokemon has Caterpie and Butterfree…insects are entrenched in pop culture there.”

She differentiates between the aesthetics of her film, and movies with an environmentalist slant.

“I don’t believe in environmental filmmaking. I mean, I loved The Cove and Recipe for Disaster, but those type of films only attract two types of people: the ones who already believe in the cause, and people who feel they’ve done their part just by going to see the film. That’s not a form of activism, going to a documentary.”

What’s on the horizon for Jessica Oreck?

“I’m working on a movie about mushroom hunting…I use the natural activity as a way of talking about larger issues. For instance, in the East European fairytales the forest was always evil, but in Romania, in Ceaucescu’s time, people found nourishment in forests.”

One senses that with her passion for nature, Oreck will always find nourishment in forests, albeit of the artistic and spiritual more than gustatory sense. Given her historian’s bent, she is also likely to continue to find it in the libraries and museums of concrete jungles.

Sato Fumiro and the Red Goo

Sato Fumiro, twenty-three year old director of the intriguing short Denotation, looks happy and relaxed as he settles back in his chair at the Sutton Place Hotel to answer a question about CG (Computer Graphics) goo.

You want to know what the red goo was? This is a question I often get. Some people ask, was it blood? Others ask if it was my eyesight (honing in on specific visuals). For me, it wasn’t blood. The most I can say about it is just that…it’s a substance.

The ending was intriguing…the way the red line crossed the road in mid-air, coming from both sides…
The goo was done with computer graphics…I shot the main film, and then added the CG afterwards. So when I was shooting I had to imagine the goo in each frame, to build logically to the end.

Can you elaborate on what you said in answer to (VIFF programmer) Tony Rayns question at the screening? About the red line?
Tony said the red line was like an alien invasion. What I realized after finishing was, in confronting the film as “other”, I myself was the alien and I finally understood what I was making.

Your older brother is here with you. What did he do on the film?
He argues with me. We talk about the film in the planning process. He has a degree in Linguistic Sociology.

I was struck by the way you contrasted manmade objects and nature…for instance the opening of the central panel of rice screens, showing us just a glimpse of nature. It produced a certain sadness in me. Was your intention to produce a longing for nature, in the viewer?
That is a very interesting question, because I come from a part of Japan which has one of the oldest shrines, and this shrine has been destroyed seven times, and each time it was rebuilt just to the way it had been before. I thought, why keep rebuilding the same thing? We need to create things anew. The red (goo) moved from top to bottom, stopping just above the ground…pulled by the force of gravity…gravity is nature…but creativity is another force. There is a struggle between creativity and nature. So maybe there was some sadness, something is being destroyed…but there is renewal, too, when we create.

Where were you born?
Izumo, in Shimane Prefecture, slightly northwest of Kyoto.

And you shot this in your family home?
Yes. Part of the property is being destroyed, to make way for a highway. Actually, I’m now shooting a full-length feature, part documentary, part fiction, about that.

Labyrinthine Pursuit: Saito Nasuka Unravels the Maze

Saito Nasuka sparkles. From glittery nail polish to the shimmery scrunchies that adorn her wrists to her metallic legwarmers, everything on her person reflects light. It’s as if she’s in visual rebellion against the dull concrete that she somehow manages to bring to life in her short film, Labyrinth of Residence.

Why did you use the word “labyrinth”? I know there was a Japanese movie made in 1997 (by Sogo Ishii) titled Labyrinth of Dreams (Yume no Ginga). Is this short in any way a tribute to that film?
No. I used the word labyrinth because it’s a more elaborate term than “maze”, more suitable to describe the immense size of the apartment complex.

Over what period of time did you shoot?
Two months.

Describe your process.
I didn’t own a video camera so I used a still camera. I’d shoot…take three steps…shoot again. Then I scanned all the images onto my computer.

How many shots did you take?
Six thousand. I ended up using 3,500.

In the Q & A after the film, you said you grew up in a traditional wooden home that was more than a hundred years old, and that when your family moved into a concrete apartment you made this film as a way of getting to know your new residence, to try to get along with it. Did the film help you to do that?
Yes. When we moved to the apartment, I found the material very cold. Also the people were not warm. I found them unfriendly. But while filming I grew a love for concrete, became friends with it.

Do you still miss your old home, with its natural textures?
One thing I learned while making this film was that each place has its own beauty. By moving, I gained an appreciation for different styles. I learned that each place has its own beauty, its own lesson to teach. Everyday we see things around us we don’t pay attention to. But anything around us can become a fun object, can be brought to life.

What’s next for you?
Up ‘til now I’ve focused on things I’m not fond of, things I usually would stay away from. I have a background in drawing, and I want to try cartoons.

Translators: Kimiyou Kamamura, Paul Baldwin and Akemi Kojihata.

by Seichi Bill Tahara

My name is Seichi Bill Tahara, a depression-born Nisei. My birth certificate indicates I was born at 143 Dunlevy Street in the heart of Japantown some 80 years ago. Today, enjoying RETIREMENT in one of THE best places to live, Victoria.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to attend this weekend’s conference with you to share a few memories of some of my personal experiences, thoughts and recollections growing up during a very unsettling wartime & internment years during the early 1940s.

In the 30′s, our family lived right here in Vancouver at 325 West 4th Ave in Fairview, today an industrial and business district. I attended kindergarten at the Columbia Street United Church at the corner of 6th and Columbia and attended Model school on 10th Ave near the City Hall. Each day after grade school, I also attended Nihon-Gakko (Japanese School), learning nihongo and being taught the traditional Japanese way: very disciplined and very strict!

As Niseis in our formative years, we were taught to be polite, be honest, obey and respect our elders, study hard, work hard, try your best in whatever you do, and care for others’ well being. A typical Japanese kid: well-behaved, quiet, dull, not an exciting Nisei. Most Niseis of our era avoided being a “desha-bari”—an outgoing character—because you’ll be talked about in the community. In other words, “Never rock the Boat, Mind Your Own Business.” Independence and individuality were frowned upon by the wider Japanese community (gaman, ganbare, giri, “GO for IT”).

In Sep of 1940, our family moved up the West Coast of BC to Ocean Falls, a thriving pulp and paper mill, one industry town. There were approximately 400 Japanese living in Ocean Falls at the time, a closely-knit segregated community.

Whammo!! Sunday December 7th, 1941. Aerial attack by the Japanese military on Pearl Harbour. This surprise attack not only changed the course of the wider world but altered and changed the lives of 22,000 plus Japanese living within 100 miles of the West Coast of BC. The Government of Canada, led by PM Mckenzie King took swift action to evacuate all Japanese living within 100 miles of the BC Coastline. We were labelled as “Enemy Aliens.” Me, a 13 year old, an “Enemy Alien”? Imagine!!

Most of our Issei fathers and Nisei boys over 18 were ordered and sent to different road camps in BC. If one resisted, I believe, the government sent them to Angler. Ontario, a prisoner-of-war camp. There must be a few survivors and relatives from those experiences here at this conference.

Everything happened so rapidly: curfew, lights out at 7:00pm, the RCMP came and confiscated our prized Marconi radio and a Kodak box camera. Today, more than likely, they would be valuable antiques.
Dad was sent to a road camp on the Hope-Princeton Highway. I grew up in a hurry, at 13, having to take charge of the family—mom, younger brother and younger sister.

In February or March of 1942, we were given one week to leave, each one of us allowed to take one piece of baggage each. I vaguely remember we literally got rid of our possessions to natives of Bella Bella and Bella Coola. I cannot remember how, but somehow, we returned to our former place on 4th Ave in Fairview and I finished grade 7 at Model School.

Summer of ’42, we moved into the Hastings Park Complex, waiting to be evacuated to one of the Internment camps. My kid brother and I bunked together with other young Nisei boys. Mom and sis were housed in the women’s dorm with absolutely no privacy. To this day, I am truly thankful to the many dedicated Nisei leaders who were responsible in looking after our well-being while in Hastings Park. Under very trying and unsettling times, they did an awesome job.

September of ’42, our family was sent to Tashme. Tashme was built on a ranch 14 miles east of Hope set up to house 2000 plus internees. Today, it’s a residential/resort complex, “Sunshine Village.”

The four of us shared a 14 x 28 tar paper shack with a Nisei mother and her two young boys from Prince Rupert. Their Issei father was also sent to a road camp. For water, we shared an outside water tap set up between two units, and each unit had their own outhouse. Every time I drive by Sunshine Village, it brings back many memories of Tashme, our wartime home. A few of us were lucky to get our first paying job that first summer building a dam for a minimum wage of around 15 cents per hour. It was a very rewarding experience getting a summer job.

On another positive note, thanks to Mr. Yoshida, a very determined and dedicated Nisei Scoutmaster, the First Tashme Troop was organized and established. This was the largest Boy Scout Troop in the British Empire of that era. In 1992, Scoutmaster Yoshida was honoured with a mural in Chemainus, his home town. Indeed, very deserving! The murals in Chemainus are world-famous and a huge tourist attraction today. By the way, the Scout motto is “Be Prepared.”

Most of the who’s who in BC black belt judo instructors were in Tashme. In those days, judo black belters were held in very high esteem in the Japanese community. Needless to say, most of the Nisei boys joined to create a huge dojo.
We were fortunate to have the opportunity to be in Scouting and to learn judo in those trying times. Both Scouting and judo kept us active, competitive and out of mischief. We also had opportunities to play organized baseball and basketball. We learned to ice-skate that first frigid and snowy winter of ’42. We also enjoyed the outdoors and what nature could offer in a beautiful valley with a creek running nearby. Personally, growing up I enjoyed being involved in sports. Sports was something to do and it was fun to compete.

Another enjoyment was nihon-buro, a Japanese-style community bath. It became a daily ritual to socialize with your buddies, like going to a hot spring.

In the brief period I was in Tashme, I made lasting friendships with Nisei kids from Vancouver Island communities—Victoria, Chemainus, Duncan Cuumberland, Royston—f rom Fraser Valley communities such as mission, Haney/Hammond and from Steveston and Vancouver.

Our family’s stay in Tashme was brief, from September 1942 to April 1944. We were one of the first families to leave Tashme. We left for our Uncle’s Farm in the Okanagan, hopefully to live as a family and to start a new life. To this day, leaving Tashme is still one of the most endearing, emotional and gut-wrenching experiences of my life. It seemed the whole town of Tashme came out to bade our family farewell lining both sides of the main boulevard.

At the time, we really did not know if we will ever meet again or where our future lay. Leaving Tashme was the beginning of another adventure and challenge. I’m happy to say that in September of 1993, the year I retired, a Tashme reunion was held in Toronto. Indeed, it was truly an enjoyable reunion, meeting many former friends for the first time bridging over 50 years. We all certainly endured and embraced whatever we were faced with. It sure was a scrambling lifestyle.

I often wonder how our lives would have played out if the internment did not take place. It certainly has been an exciting, fascinating, challenging and rewarding life’s journey in a rapidly changing world. Speaking of change, to me the most amazing change are the 90% or more intermarriages that are taking place today among the 3rd, 4th and 5th generations of Japanese heritage. What beautiful mixes!
To think not too long ago inter-marriages were unheard of. Taboo!! Both of our daughters married a hakujin . . . by the way, they were not arranged. In closing, I feel very fortunate to have been born a Nisei in a rapidly changing Canada. Yes, CHANGE, we are now NIKKEIs. Thank you.

William (Bill) Tahara, Victoria, BC

A reader Ian Belcher wrote to me about Pumpkin tsukemono and I found it so interesting, I am passing it on to you.

PUMPKIN TSUKEMONO
Your recipe in the latest Bulletin brought back memories of going to the beach with my mother, She didn’t go just to enjoy the sunshine and the water but was always on the lookout for the perfect “daikon ishi” which I would have to carry home. During the war years she would pickle some strange stuff. Watermelon comes to mind. She would peel the rind, cut off any remaining flesh which left the rind about a quarter of an inch thick. She would slice these to about three inches long and layer them in a plate, salting each layer, cover with a saucer and top it with our “ishi”. I don’t remember how long it was under pressure before we ate it.

A few years ago, as I was cutting up the Jack O’ Lantern pumpkin after Halloween, I noticed the flesh had a similar texture to daikon radish, The raw pumpkin had no flavour. I asked my wife if she ever heard of Japanese pickling pumpkin. She said no. I asked my mother-in-law. She never heard of it either, So I decided to try it. I used a standard 4 water, 2 sugar, 1 vinegar recipe and made five jars. A week later we were having a Japanese style dinner and we tried the pickles. They were delicious and I broke out in a food allergy rash. I’m allergic to raw pumpkin!

Ian’s mother took the remaining jars home and let her guests try it out and about two of them were mildly allergic. Want to try?

I was going to try it out before going to print since I bought four pumpkins to use as a container for my Thanksgiving table for 23 people plus for my coffee table filled them with dahlias and Japanese broom and flower pods with colourful maple leaves surrounding it. My guests remarked on its beauty so I sent three of them home with them and kept one for myself. Although I put them outside for the night I didn’t get to the pumpkin while it was fresh so I couldn’t use it for pickling. If you try it, let me know so I can pass it on to Ian, the creative cook!

KAHLUA PUMPKIN FLAN
Since we are on the subject of Pumpkin, Mrs. Sumi Urata bought over a delicious flan to our church tea along with the recipe so I thought you might enjoy this too, There’s no crust so it’s great for weight watchers.

1 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup canned or cooked pumpkin
1 1/4 cup half & half
1/4 cup Kahlua
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

In skillet, heat 3/4 cup sugar over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and turns golden color.
Immediately pour into bottom of 6 (6-oz.) custard cups or souffle dishes. Set aside.

In bowl, beat eggs with remaining 1/2 cup sugar, pumpkin, half & half, Kahlua, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Divide mixture between prepared dishes.
Set in 13 x 9 inch baking pan and pour water to come half way up dishes.
Bake at 325 F. about 40 minutes or until just set.
Remove from oven and cool, then chill.

To serve run thin knife around edges of dishes then turn out onto individual dessert plates.

Serves 6

It seems that each month our community has many activities or events happening. One event of special interest will take place at the Nikkei Centre on November 10 at 7 PM. Dr Mona Oikawa is Associate Professor in the Race, Ethnicity and Indigeneity Program at York University in Ontario. This is a unique program that looks at racism and multiculturalism in Canada and its subsequent inequalities, in particular between mainstream Canadians and First Nations people. In the presentation “Generations of the Internment”, Dr Oikawa will discuss some of the challenges and processes of conducting research at the National Archives in Ottawa about individuals, family and community histories of the Japanese Canadian Internment. She will also discuss research from the interviews she conducted with Sansei and Yonsei daughters of women who were expelled from British Columbia as a result of WWII. Dr Oikawa will present some very interesting information for us.

November 11th is Remembrance Day and many organizations will be participating in the Remembrance Day Service at the Japanese Canadian War Memorial Cenotaph in Stanley Park. The Service will be at 10:40 AM and I hope that everyone will attend and pay respect to the Japanese Canadians who fought for Canada during the various Wars. Although our Japanese Canadian community endured many hardships during WWII, there were many who did enlist to fight for our democratic rights, freedoms, and world peace. There will be a special reception to follow at the Vancouver Rowing Club in Stanley Park and you can see an updated display of photographs and artifacts from World War I, II and the Korean War.
In appreciation of all the many volunteers and supporters who have helped out the GVJCCA through the year, we will be holding a Volunteer Appreciation Night on November 22nd at Nikkei Place from 6:00 – 8:00 PM. This is an annual event where the GVJCCA can actually thank all our supporters and we hope that you can attend and enjoy seeing your many friends again before you become engulfed by the busy holiday season in December. We hope to see you there. Please if you are planning to attend could you let us know by either emailing gvjcca@shaw.ca or calling 604.777.5222.

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

There was a good mixture of people at the conference—people from Ontario, Alberta, Winnipeg, small towns in British Columia, The States, a Japanese-speaking man from China, and even someone from The Yukon. My group’s workshop was very interesting, although most of the people were from Tashme and New Denver. I would have liked to have had some people from other places such as Lemon Creek, Kaslo, Greenwood, Angler, the self-supporting sites, road camps, etc., but there were none in my group.

Nevertheless, it was very edifying and I learned a lot more from the group. One woman told of being an expatriate to Japan and all the hardship she faced when she lived there just after the war. Others told of moving from place to place like vagabonds. Many discovered connections with others in the group. When I stated my name, the man seated to my right asked if I was the writer of the article on the Canadian internment camp tour that he had with him, and I told him I was the writer; then the persons to my left, a brother and sister team, said my name sounded familiar and asked if I was the person who wrote an article about their sister in the States, and I told them I was. What a small world!

I think this is a familiar occurrence with Nikkei in Canada as it is in the United States. Frequently when I attend Nikkei conferences, conventions, pilgrimages, reunions, etc. in the States, I run into people who know my relatives, who have mutual friends, who once lived in my hometown, who are indirectly related to people I know, who briefly went to school with my siblings, etc. Since Nisei in both Canada and the United States lived in close-knit communities, mostly associated with their own people, had the same WWII experiences, moved to the same places after the war, moved many times to so many different towns, etc., it’s not surprising that everyone seems to know or has some connection to everyone else in the Nikkei community. This is unique in the Nisei generation but will not be replicated in the Sansei generation because of different circumstances.

One of the listeners in my group was related to the Tasaka family that had 19 children, of whom 17 survived. She showed me a family history book that one of her relatives had printed and said he will be teaching a class on genealogy at Nikkei Place. Another person I met at the conference, Harry Mizuta, said he had printed his memoirs in a booklet and generously offered me a copy.

It’s gratifying to know that Nisei and the younger generation of Canadian Nikkei are doing research on genealogy, family history, etc. and writing their stories, videotaping the elderly Nisei, tape-recording their stories, printing a family history book, etc. This has been going on for quite a while in The States, and it seems to be happening in Canada as well.

A conference like Honouring Our Peole: Stories of the Internment is a good beginning to hear these stories, and they should be recorded in some form as I was told it was. Some are already delving into geneaology; others will interview their parents, grandparents, and relatives to come up with a family story. Some Sansei in the States are flying to Japan to see where their ancestors came from. Whatever form it takes, people should take the initiative to find out about their family’s history because the Nisei are getting older, and once this generation is gone, their stories, if not recorded, will go with them.

Ed Suguro, Seattle, WA

Older readers who have ever attended a school class reunion or two will know what I mean about the special bond of that kind of friendship. It seems to grow stronger as the years wear on. As infrequent as the get-togethers tend to be, one is fairly astonished at how ex-classmates one never really “hung out” with back then suddenly turn into “dear old friends” close to one’s heart. That’s how class reunions are, but put them in the bi-cultural/multi-cultural context we are familiar with, the nature of that bond feels truly special.

I recently went to the class of 1962 reunion of an “American” (i.e. international) high school I attended for two years before graduating that year. It was a great opportunity to get reacquainted with old classmates, including some I hadn’t seen in 47 years. (Others I’d already reunited with at a much bigger all-alumni centennial reunion in San Francisco back in 2003.) The venue was in nearby Seattle, and I even had the good fortune of going with a Japanese Canadian ex-classmate, a good friend from back then who happens to live near us in Vancouver. He was kind enough to drive both of us in his car.

Over 20 ex-classmates from the US and Canada, Japan and Germany, some with spouses and grown-up children, met in a downtown hotel. We visited the wife (and once popular librarian at the school) of a much-respected teacher and principal, who passed away recently after an illustrious career with the school. We enjoyed a buffet dinner with drinks at her home with a spectacular view of the waters of the port of Seattle as the sun slowly set. Next evening, the group took a short cruise to Blake Island for a salmon dinner and show.

Throughout that weekend, including late-night wine-and-conversation sessions, we talked in twos and threes and in groups, catching up on news of other classmates and other school friends in locations as widespread as California, New York, Singapore, Hongkong, Bavaria and Japan. The get-together went by in a flash and soon we were in the hotel lobby, hugging each other to say goodbye, promising to meet again.

One question lingered as my friend and I drove back to Vancouver. How come my old classmates, some of whom I didn’t know well back in high school, have become so close?

Shared memories of the days when we were all about to go out into the big world were of course a big reason. I also thought about the unusual make-up of the student body in the pre-Tokyo Olympics days. Situated in Nakameguro (and soon thereafter moving to Mitaka), the high school was attended by children of businessmen, news correspondents, missionaries, diplomats and others of dozens of different nationalities, about 60% U.S. and the rest being Canada, European nations, Taiwan and other Asian nations as well as Japan.

Then a term I learned several years ago came to my mind – third culture kids, or TCKs. It’s the term sociologists use to refer to “someone who, as a child, has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own” and are sometimes also called Global Nomads (Wikipedia). Starting with the missionaries, then the military, diplomats and others, more and more American families spent time abroad in the post World War II years. Sociologists began to notice that their children had acquired unique characteristics, which stayed with them into adulthood. These characteristics integrate elements of their original (first) culture with those of the foreign (second) culture(s) they grew up in, into a third culture.

Coined by sociologist Ruth Hill in the 60s, TCKs have become a “heavily studied subculture” (Wikipedia). Among other things, “TCKs tend to have more in common with one another regardless of nationality, than they do with non-TCKs from their own country.” This could explain the special kinship I felt toward my old classmates. Our conversations sometimes revealed totally opposite political views or big differences in lifestyle and other preferences. Yet there remained this unique bond.

Regardless of our nationalities, our collective memories of high school life are crowded commuter trains to and from Nakameguro, nearby coffeeshops and pachinko (pin-ball) parlors, Shibuya and Roppongi by night, home and away basketball games with U.S. military schools and churches and clubs frequented by foreigners, though American and Asian cliques had their own preferences.

For me, Tokyo was still home but I was already a TCK, having spent over four years in Britain and Italy. When we returned from Rome, where my father had been assigned to cover the Olympic Games, I wanted to continue my education in English, rather than go back to the Japanese system. I wanted to remain part of the English-speaking “outside world (Europe? U.S.?).” I remain forever grateful to my late parents for letting me go to the international school whose tuition was not cheap. It was then that my father also told me the tuition was “all that we can afford,” meaning I had to somehow earn my spending money. I’m again grateful in retrospect because that’s how I got started teaching English at age 15, and continue to do so occasionally to this day some 50 years later.

I was fairly steeped in British and U.S. teenage culture, and also rather reluctant to face what used to be called the “examination hell”—the daunting Japanese university entrance exams, including Japanese language and classics. Some 20 years later in the 1980s, the re-adjustment of the children of returning businessmen, media workers and so on to the rigid Japanese educational system would become a social issue as the kikokushijo (literally, children returning to Japan) problem, as Japanese corporate activities overseas reached their peak..

Kikokushijo is generally defined as “children of school age who return to Japan after an extended period of life overseas”and, according to a study by Momo Kano Podolsky of the Kyoto Women’s University sociology department, are “almost always perceived as being fluent English speakers with a profound knowledege of the host society and culture resulting in some type of ‘emancipated’ personality.” In fact, about one-third of all Japanese children abroad attend full-time Japanese schools and live a relatively secluded life isolated from host populations.

The Japanese Ministry of Education from early on sought to alleviate the potential “problem” caused by the increase in the number of Japanese overseas residents vis-à-vis the educational system, including their children’s proficiency in Japanese, and slowly managed to set up a system of re-integration over the years. Today, kikokushijo are no longer a major issue, the lingering popular perception being that they can be a bit unruly and have some trouble adjusting to the relatively rigid Japanese educational system.

In contrast, TCKs in North America, and probably Europe are still not widely recognized as a sociological grouping, much less seen as a problem, perhaps because North American societies were multi-cultural to start with, and the returning kids didn’t have a problem with English.

Ms Podolsky points out that while TCKs and kikokushijo “share common characteristics such as involuntary international mobility, immersion in various cultures, distance from ‘home culture’ and resulting feelings of ‘marginalization/emancipation.’” But the big difference is that while there is “eagerness on the part of the TCKs themselves to reaffirm a common identity based on those characteristics,” the kikokushijo have a tendency to regard being grouped together as a category as “constricting rather than comforting.”

So we were perhaps “reaffirming our common identity” as members of the class of ’62. And now that we are a bunch of senior adult TCKs, wherever each of us thought we were heading as teenagers back then in Tokyo, we were now here together in Seattle after all the thick and thin we’ve been though on different shores. For me personally, the renewed bond of friendship was a reaffirmation of the choice I made 50 years ago to become a “Japanese global nomad,” rather than a “stay-in-Japan Japanese.”

Incidentally, I did attend my Japanese primary school classmates’ reunion in Tokyo several years ago. As a rare participant, it was great to meet many ex-classmates again. But most of them live in Tokyo and meet every year. The only thing to vary being the venue, I found them to be somewhat blasé about the whole thing. They will, I guess, eventually have to witness their number dwindle from year to year. As for my reunion with my TCK friends, we promised one another “let’s go for the big 50th reunion, maybe in Hawaii” as we said goodbye. We may, or may not, see each other again. I like that better.

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. In the early days, most thought they came for dekasegi (literally, going overseas to make money). When World War II broke out, some Nikkeijin who happened to be in Japan had to stay there. After the war, some Nikkei Canadians were deported to Japan. Some of these folks might have confronted that choice. To this day, I hear folks in their 50s, who have lived here for decades, talk of eventually returning to Japan for “medical reasons.” I’ve also met such “returnees” in Tokyo in recent years. Such was their choice, and I am also glad I made mine. I hope my account of how I made that choice might be of some interest to the readers.

MISCELLANEOUS Productions POWER directed by Elaine Carol, photo by Chris Randle

MISCELLANEOUS Productions is a Vancouver-based community-engaged arts organization pioneering new frontiers in performance, art and new media and merging them with community development and popular culture, with a particular focus on youth and intercultural dynamics.

Founded in 2000 by Elaine Carol, Jules Rochielle and a community-based board of directors, the company is a vehicle for diverse collaborative and solo artistic projects including performances, screenings of media works and visual art exhibitions with a goal of making art accessible for both audiences and community participants. Participants are drawn from a diverse range of professionals and non-professionals aged 13 – 70, who find their roots on 6 continents and speak more than 25 languages and dialects.

MISCELLANEOUS Productions collaborates with multi-barriered and mainstream youth, adults and elders in their projects.

e-race is an interdisciplinary performance and DVD adaptation of a hip hop musical performance that was presented in Richmond, BC at the Gateway Theatre in September 2005. The story of e-race works backwards in time and explores young people’s obsession with “speed” including street racing, the “fast life” of gangs, crystal meth and “fast girls,” i.e. early sexual activity. e-race features a cast of young people aged 15 – 27 years old and also examines the erasure of race and racist stereotyping in the mass media.

What You Carry With You… deals with emigration/immigration, violence and xenophobia, aging and inter-generational relationships, memory and belonging and was created and developed by a team of professional artists and technicians who collaborated with non-professional youth 14 -20 years old and elders to age 77 from Richmond, BC.

THE REENA PROJECT / Outcasts & Angels, created in memory of Reena Virk, is a journey through the phat side of teen life in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada exploring the troubling contemporary issues of bullying, violence and discrimination featuring young people from the community.

This roving, site-specific performance began and ended at the Gateway Theatre and travelled to six sites that have cultural significance to teens in Richmond, BC.

In January and July 2009, casting calls drew youth from Vancouver high schools, community centres and workplaces. Since then, under the guidance of Director/Writer Elaine Carol and other professional artists, the participating youth have had intensive training in interdisciplinary performance, theatrical monologue, stand-up comedy, ritual performance, spoken word, World music, hip hop music and dance. In June 2009, youth from POWER performed their works-in-progress to standing-room-only crowds for three nights running at the Rhizome Café. This November, POWER 2 – the polished final product – will be presented at the Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre.

“For most, if not all, of the multicultural, immigrant and Indigenous multi-barriered youth we work with, POWER 2 is the first and only access they have had to the arts,” says MISCELLANEOUS Productions’ Artistic Director Elaine Carol. “These are young people who have, in some cases, fallen through the cracks of the educational, social and justice systems of our society.  Through this project we hope they will learn to use art as a vehicle for healthy, lasting personal transformation and social change.” The beginnings of that change are clear in the youth performances:  they are at once angry and hopeful, funny and frightening and brave.

In Her Own Words
Kaoru Matsushita

What is your background in music/composition?
I started my training in classical piano when I was three in Japan but quit when I was in high school. The reason for quitting was that I didn’t quite understand why I was putting so much time and effort trying to learn music pieces that were written by others. By this time my interest in music has shifted to Jazz and trip-hop so I guess exploring different genres of music had a big impact on me quitting classical training and encouraging me to write something of my own. I also played flute, trumpet, saxophone and keyboards in bands—they were school programs, community programs, or with band members. I taught myself to play them.

How did you become involved with POWER 2 as composer?
I was first involved in MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTIONS as an actor/singer for REENA PROJECT Outcasts and Angels and What You Carry With You, but attending university had limited me from getting involved other than as an actor. But Elaine was kind enough to give me a chance to write bgm (background music) for a scene, and that’s where I became involved as a composer.

Music is a powerful force in society, particularly among young people. How does music impact your own life?
Music plays a big part in my life for sure. I have friends who are musicians or work in studios. I am always checking out what I hear and evaluating what I like about it or what I don’t like about it. When I hear something nice, it hits me somewhere (in the brain?) and gives me motivation to create something. When I hear something not so nice, I guess I become that much wiser not to do the same. I think music is a powerful force in society, but lately it seems that for young people it is the image that comes with the music that are driving them to do things. Unfortunately, many times those images are created by mass media and deliver wrong messages. I like music for the sounds and the images and colours that I get from listening to the sounds that collaborate into a piece.

POWER 2 uses hip hop, soul, Salsa, Brazilian Samba Reggae/funk and contemporary new music. Did you compose music within all those forms?
I wrote a hip hop beat for an actress to rap to, and two other pieces that are not so defined by genre. I wrote them to match to their scene, and thought they would be played as a subtle background music.

What does the show POWER 2 mean to you?
I think the show POWER 2 is composed of a series of messages that should be reconsidered by society. I believe the show has so much that one can relate to. I personally leave rehearsals deep in thought, recalling my past and things that I forgot about society and other people’s lives. Then I get motivated. It’s similar to when I hear good music or sound and something sparks in my brain.

POWER 2
Moberly Arts & Cultural Centre
Friday, November 27 and Saturday, November 28 8 PM
7646 Prince Albert Vancouver, BC V5X 1C7
Tickets $5 – 15 sliding scale

From that auspicious beginning sprang a writing career that has seen Murakami sell millions of books in multiple languages. With an idiosyncratic writing style that fuses surrealism with strong western influences, Murakami has achieved a level of popularity that has resulted in criticism from the Japanese literary establishment. His appeal can be summed up in this description by Tenzing Sonam, a Tibetan filmmaker: How do you describe a Murakami novel? Take one part hard-boiled detective fiction à la Raymond Chandler, throw in some Philip K. Dick, add a dash of Kafka, a sprinkling of Borges, and for good measure, shake the whole thing up with lots of oddball love and sex and… well, you get the idea.

1987s Norwegian Wood was a breakthrough for Murakami and he received national recognition, selling millions of copies among Japanese youths and making him a literary superstar in Japan. Unusually, the book was printed in two separate volumes, sold together, one with a green cover, the other red.

Murakami left Japan in the mid-eighties, travelling throughout Europe before settling in the United States. In 1994 he published The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a novel more socially conscious than his previous work, dealing in part with the topic of war crimes in Manchuria. The novel won the Yomiuri Prize.

During the writing of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Japan was shaken by the twin traumas of the Kobe earthquake and the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack. In the aftermath of these events, he returned to Japan and published his first work of non-fiction, Underground, and the short story collection after the quake.

This month, Pi Theatre and Rumble Productions team up to present after the quake at Studio 16. Running November 19 to December 5, after the quake is an adaptation of two stories from the book of short stories by the same name.  The production features local actors Manami Hara, Alessandro Juliani, Kevan Ohtsji, Tetsuro Shigematsu and Leina Dueck.

Co-directors Richard Wolfe and Craig Hall, along with actor Tetsuro Shigematsu, took time out of a busy rehearsal schedule to talk to The Bulletin about after the quake.

Having read through the two stories that the play is based on—Honey Pie & Superfrog Saves Tokyo—I’m intensely curious. I’ve never read Murakami before and they’re beautifully written. The stories are very different from one another, though, and I’ll be curious to see how they are woven together into a cohesive whole. How did you come upon the idea of presenting these two stories as a singular piece of theatre?
Richard Wolfe Although Craig and I had spoken a few years ago about doing an original adaptation of Murakami’s work, permissions are quite difficult to obtain. Last year, while I was doing my programming reading for possible upcoming seasons, I discovered that a recent adaptation of after the quake had been done at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago and the rights for this script were being made available for the first time. Steppenwolf company member and Tony Award winning director and author Frank Galati had done the adaptation based on the Jay Rubin translation of the English short story publication. I went back to Craig, we read the script, both liked it, and the two companies decided to go ahead with a co-production of the Canadian premiere.

Frank Galati created an adaptation that uses the story–teller convention to bring the two stories together. The two stories represent Murakami’s work in terms of style. One, Honey Pie, is a love story, and the second, Superfrog Saves Tokyo, is a fantastical tale of a man and his visitation by a six foot frog. The show as a whole features a narrator who speaks first and basically welcomes us into the theatre. It also has a character (Junpei from Honey Pie) who is a writer and who, along with the Narrator, creates the different worlds we see on stage.

As is the case with the whole collection, Murakami explores themes that dramatize the inter-connectivity of a culture that has faced a traumatic event, in this case the Kobe earthquake of 1995. Murakami lays out a universe where the real and imagined overlap. That is the experience we are constructing for our audience—we’re blurring the line where reality ends and imagination begins—not just in terms of how the audience perceives the characters’ lives within the play, but for the audience itself.

Murakami has become almost an iconic figure of not only Japanese literature, but world literature. What is it like bringing his words to life on the stage?
Craig Hall In a word it’s magical. Murakami is one of my favourite authors. I stumbled across his writing almost fifteen years ago now. I say “stumbled” because I bought his short story collection The Elephant Vanishes with no previous knowledge of his work. I just liked the title. I devoured it and then went out and purchased every piece of his writing I could get my hands on and began recommending his books to anyone who would listen. I’ve heard similar stories from a number of other people. I think it’s because his work is so accessible. While his characters and settings are Japanese, there is an ethos at their heart that is universal and will speak to audiences of any cultural background. His stories are also infused with a sort of magical realism that lends itself to creative staging. Things like a six-foot tall talking frog and an Earthquake Man who tries to shove people into a tiny box, these are the very best kinds of challenges to give to a director.

Tetsuro, I understand you were in Japan during the earthquake. What was that experience like?
Tetsuro Shigematsu I was living in Tokyo during the Kobe earthquake and the sarin gas attacks. So that was a really remarkable time for me personally but of course for Japan as a nation. While I was there I remember a friend of mine saying that even before these events took place that there was a change happening that you could really feel. There was wildness in the air. That it felt like something was about to happen. It was almost as if people were able to tap into their animal sense. Just as animals sometimes act a little strangely or erratically before a flood or an earthquake. I noticed friends commenting on the fact that there was a restlessness, there was a pent-up energy.

Does it help you relate to your character in the play?
TS I felt that this was a story I could really relate to because even before my role as an actor I consider myself a writer. So here is a character, Junpei, who I think is essentially sort of an alienated person. He’s lonely, and he sublimates his need to connect through his art form. That’s something I can really relate to because though I’m often “out there” so to speak, I’m actually an extremely shy person. I can be on stage or on the radio but really, for me, it is just a coping mechanism to learn how to connect with people. Like Junpei, we all have had experiences of unrequited love. At end of the day, just before you’re falling asleep, if someone does have regrets it’s probably not about things that you did do, but the things that you didn’t do. And those things that you didn’t do often have to do with missed opportunities in terms of relationships. That you didn’t say something in particular. So I’m thinking that it’s interesting that Murakami…well Junpei is a thinly disguised version of the author. You know you usually find the author in just about any play—here it’s a little more clear. It’s interesting for me that he is able to maybe create closure on something, that it’s probably an open loop in his own subconscious.

Murakami’s writing has elements of surrealism woven through it—I imagine that lends itself to some interesting moments in stage adaptation. Can you talk about some of those elements?
TS Oddly the imagery in after the quake, of speaking to this frog figure about saving Tokyo from an earthquake, really doesn’t strike me as surreal at all. When I was in Japan I was studying butoh. That was really trippy for me because this is a dance form that involves a form of mysticism in the sense that they engage in very detailed visualizations. This dance form really began to play with my mind. I experienced degrees of depression and loneliness that didn’t really seem to coincide with what was happening in my life at the time. Because of butoh I had a shift in consciousness. And then these events were taking place and it was almost as if I was being shook by forces external as well as internal. I was living in a 6 mat apartment which was tiny, and it was only 20,000 yen. It was nothing. But the thing was, the walls were paper-thin. The people who lived there were either poor students or people slightly on the fringe of society. So both literally and figuratively you got the sense of people on all sides of you.

I remember there was a window that was just literally three feet away from a fence. I was constantly seeing cats sort of skulking by in the periphery of my vision. And sometimes I would see huge gokiburi-cockroaches in my apartment. Once I left out my 7-11 bento box and there was this thick trail of ants crawling out of it. So at certain points, even though I was surrounded by people, I was also having these strange interactions with animals. At one point there was this cat living on the floor beneath me, and it would scream at night—like wailing. It was my first time I realized that animals can lose their sanity. This cat that was moaning and screaming literally 12 feet away from me, right beneath my head as I was trying to sleep, and given my peculiar state of mind…it was very, Cronenbergesque, you know, Naked Lunch. So the surreal tone of this play and the imagery and the feel of it is all oddly familiar to me. I never thought I would enter another world that would reflect that experience.

How has the rehearsal process been for you?
CH Really incredible so far. This is a very special group of people that we have managed to assemble. The cast is gelling really well and we are having a lot of fun with the material. Murakami’s writing seems very simple on the surface, but once you begin to analyse it in the rehearsal process, to delve into things like character motivation and story arch, you realise that there are hidden depths there. Even at this early stage in the process, the actors are unearthing moments of sorrow and levity that were not immediately apparent. I think the world of the play will just keep getting richer as we move through the process.

Given that the story is set in Japan, were there challenges in casting the production?
RW Representation in the theatre is an important issue and Craig and I engaged in a very rigorous conversation about how to cast the play. The choice ran from complete colour blind casting, to using a variety of Asian actors, to engaging a fully Japanese cast. Our preference was for a Japanese cast. We felt that, although Murakami is a universal writer and the subject matter is modern (his work has been translated into 33 languages), the rehearsal process would be that much more interesting and the results more detailed if we had people who could understand, first hand, the subtle cultural nuances of Japan. As it turns out, we were able to assemble a great cast made up of individuals whose backgrounds range from first to third generation Japanese Canadian. The non-Japanese actor is Alessandro Juliani who plays the Narrator and a giant frog. His parents are from Chinese and Italian backgrounds. This is a fantastic company and we are very pleased.

Any teasers you can provide to provoke audiences into attending after the quake?
CH Well I’m hoping that the opportunity to see Murakami’s writing for the first time on a Canadian stage will draw a lot of folks. We also have a fantastic cast that includes Manami Hara, Alessandro Juliani, Kevan Ohtsji, Tetsuro Shigematsu and Manami’s daughter Leina, and a top-notch design team that includes award winning electro acoustic composer Yota Kobayashi. If that isn’t enough, then perhaps mention of a six-foot tall talking frog will spark people’s curiosity.

As I lay there listening to the first stirrings of the day, Amy and the girls getting ready for work and school, the sky still dark outside, it was difficult to summon up any clear images of my father. Somehow, that inability to remember him with clarity underscored the finality of his absence.

Today, a year to the day after I got that long-expected call from my sister Rachel, I was going through some scanned family photos that she had sent me this past spring. Although my father was behind the camera a lot more than he was in front of it, there were a dozen or so photos of him at various stages of his life. I have always loved old photographs with their patina of age and amazing depth, and clicking through those black and white photos, I am able to summon the essence of my father in his prime. It was both reassuring and comforting.

The past year has been instructive for me. Having turned fifty in the spring, my own mortality isn’t quite as abstract as it once was. I have been shielded from the reality of death for much of my life, and I have come to see my father’s passing as drawing me more intimately into the circle of life and death. In the face of death, life goes on, and it is the living who shoulder the burdens (and the joys) of daily living. Still, watching my three children come into their own as teens and young adults, somehow the burden grows lighter, if that makes any sense.

Today, as I reflect on the death of my father, I am reminded of others who have passed away this past year, two in particular. At the upcoming Remembrance Day ceremony at the Japanese Canadian cenotaph in Stanley Park, there are two long-standing community members whose absence will be deeply felt. Bev Inouye was the longtime coordinator of the ceremony, spending countless hours rounding up donations for the ceremony and reception, arranging for the various speakers and participants. The daughter of a World War One veteran, Bev maintained, up to the very end, a steadfast commitment to keeping alive the memory of those Japanese Canadians who chose to fight for Canada and we are all the better for it.

Pearl Williams was another familiar figure at the event every year, presiding over the exhibit at the reception following the ceremony. A lifelong film aficionado, the recently concluded Vancouver International Film Festival also reminds us of her passing. Before her health declined precipitously, she always attended as many films as possible at the annual Festival. She had a particular interest in Japanese cinema and if she got particularly incensed at a Japanese film showing at the Festival she would call me up and let me know exactly how it had failed her. A few days later, a barely legible fax would show up in my machine with an always-pithy review of the offending film.

With fall turning slowly to winter, what better time for contemplation and remembrance. If you have never attended the Remembrance Day ceremony at Stanley Park, why not make the effort this year? There is something magical and life-affirming about this intimate gathering around the stone cenotaph etched with the names of the Japanese Canadians who fought and died for their country. Bring gloves and an umbrella.

I hope to see you there . . .