The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre bears witness to the internment of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War and the history of internment camps located in the interior regions of British Columbia.

Located at the heart of one of the camps constructed under the authority of the British Columbia Security Commission, it is one of the few sites that still contains tangible evidence of this episode in Canadian history. The buildings associated with internment constitute an important place of memory for the Japanese Canadian community, and the ongoing existence of these structures supports the survival of the history of this event.

On February 24, 1942, a federal Order in Council under the War Measures Act authorized the internment of “enemy aliens” and Canadians of Japanese descent were moved to camps for the duration of the war. By the summer, the British Columbia Security Commission, the provincial agency charged with implementing the federal government’s internment policy, had constructed a makeshift centre at New Denver, a hamlet in British Columbia’s southeast interior. The first internees arrived soon after.

In its layout and overall character, the New Denver camp was similar to other internment facilities in the interior. It consisted of a grouping of frame shacks or living quarters, a Japanese bath, which was soon converted to a community hall, and a series of outbuildings.

While other centres were demolished after the war’s end, some of the buildings still exist or have been reconstructed at New Denver. Managed by the internees through their own Kyowakai Society, the New Denver camp housed roughly 1500 persons during the war. At conflict’s end, the camp was transformed into a tuberculosis centre, while healthy inmates were required to abandon the British Columbia camps and start life anew elsewhere.

The Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre offers compelling insight into the Canadian government’s treatment of Japanese Canadians in the 1940s. For Japanese Canadians, the centre’s creation bears witness to the Japanese renaissance of the 1970s and to the redress movement of the 1980s. With its Centennial Centre and peace gardens, the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre has become a treasured place of remembrance and community identity for today’s Japanese Canadians.

Funeral of Masatora Abe

On November 7, 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, as the Last Spike was driven home in Craigellachie, not far from Revelstoke, British Columbia. In the process of building and maintaining this ribbon of steel that created a corridor across Canada, the lives of many people from different nations were lost.

In early March of 1910, a severe storm lasting some ten days lashed the western areas of North America, resulting in a number of massive avalanches. On March 1 of that year, 96 people lost their lives at Stevens Pass in Washington, Northeast of Seattle. Just three days later, on March 4, Canada’s worst-ever avalanche occurred at Rogers Pass in the Selkirk Mountains. Fifty-eight railway workers were killed as they dug out the debris of an earlier avalanche that had come down Mount Cheops in the late afternoon. Around 11:30pm, as the crew was almost finished digging a snow trench, another avalanche came down from Avalanche Mountain and buried them some nine meters deep in the trench.

According to articles appearing in the Japanese-language newspaper Tairiku Nippou (????), published at the time in Vancouver, both Japanese and Caucasian workers were on the site. Tragically, 32 Japanese and 26 Caucasians were taken by the avalanche. The 32 Japanese, all between 19 and 40 years old, came from prefectures across Japan: Miyagi, Nagano, Shizuoka, Fukui, Shiga, Okayama, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi, Fukuoka and Kagoshima.

After more than a year and a half researching the incident, the graves of the 32 Japanese victims were discovered at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver, as well as 11 families of the victims living in Japan. During the research process, some wonderful pictures of the times and the victims were also discovered, thanks to the families in Japan. Also uncovered were some previously-unknown details of Japanese involvement in the Canadian Pacific Railway.

This research was undertaken with great support from Revelstoke Museum and Archive in Revelstoke; the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre; Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver; the University of British Columbia (UBC) Rare and Special Book Library in Vancouver; Tuneharu Gonnami of the Asian Library, UBC; Professor Norifumi Kawahara, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto; Research Center for Natural Hazards & Disaster Recovery Niigata University in Niigata; the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affair archives in Tokyo, and several local Japanese newspapers,

On March 4, 2010, a winter commemorative event marking the 100th anniversary of the avalanche was held at 7pm in downtown Revelstoke. About 800 locals attended the ceremony, where 11,000 origami cranes folded by people in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, the USA and Japan were hung up on the main street of Revelstoke (strings of the folded paper cranes are a traditional memorial display in Japan).

This summer, a series of celebrations of the anniversary will be held; one of the highlights will be the participation of four of the Japanese families, who will take part in the commemorative ceremonies at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver on August 12, and at Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park and Revelstoke on August 15, 2010.

Everyone is most welcome to join in this remembrance of these somewhat unexpected Japanese builders of the Canadian railways, and unfortunate victims of the country’s worst avalanche disaster. The August 12 ceremony at Mountain View Cemetery will be held at 10am, and is made possible by the kind support of the National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre, Mountain View Cemetery, Buddhist Temples of Canada in Vancouver. The Rogers Pass event on the 15th will be held at 2pm, with kind support from Parks Canada, 1910 Rogers Pass Snow Slide Commemoration Committee, Revelstoke Railway Museum, Revelstoke Museum & Archives, Canadian Pacific.

Please contact Tomoaki Fujimura (canadianalps@gmail.com) if you have more information and pictures about 1910 Rogers Pass Avalanche,  Japanese involvement of Canadian Pacific Railway, Shokichi AKATSUKA photos in the early 1900′s and/or Japanese graduates from Britannia Secondary School.

Tomoaki Fujimura moved from Japan to the Interior of BC in 1995 at age of 18. After living in Fernie for seven years he moved Revelstoke in 2007 and now makes it his home. Over the past ten years, he has been learning how to forecast avalanches in the Interior mountains and is now a professional member of Canadian Avalanche Association.  In the winter of 2009 he was invited to become a member of the 1910 Rogers Pass Snow Slide Commemoration committee and to do research on Japanese victims and stories. www.canadianalps.com.

On December 16, 2010, Tomoaki Fujimura will give a talk on the 1910 Rogers Pass avalanche and Japanese involvment at the  National Nikkei Museum and Heritage Centre.

Left to right: Art Miki, Chief Robert Joseph and Alvin Dixon.

For many Aboriginal people attending the Truth and Reconciliation Commission national gathering at The Forks in Winnipeg on June 16, it was a significant and necessary event. This, the first of seven national meetings, is the beginning of the healing process for the survivors of the Indian residential schools and their families. This was the opportunity for the survivors to tell their stories, describe the living experiences in the schools and the effect that this had on their lives, even today.

Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in his opening remarks stated, “To all those who wish to share their experience with us, I promise you this: If you have something to tell, we will hear you. You will not be asked to prove anything. You do not have to share anything that you do not wish to share.” Justice Sinclair acknowledges that there is reluctance amongst the survivors to expose the painful past. (This was also true during the Japanese Canadian redress campaign when many internees did not want to talk about their personal experiences.) The three commissioners, Justice Murray Sinclair, Marie Wilson, and Chief Wilton Littlechild listened to accounts of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, of missing family members, of extreme pain and suffering that led to alcoholism and drug abuse, of separation and crippling of family relationships as well as the loss of language and culture.

The first day of the four day event began under clear blue skies as survivors were registered and renewed old friendships. The next two days, the continual rain and strong winds made some of the tent meeting areas at The Forks inaccessible, but the weather did not dampen the spirit of the survivors who gave their statements or joined sharing circles to tell of the pain and humiliation suffered in the residential schools. One Aboriginal woman commented that the rain and storm was the Creator’s way of showing that many tears were being shed and that the unsettling experience of abuse and pain suffered by the survivors remains. The final day of the gathering wrapped up with a visit from Governor-General Michaelle Jean and the closing ceremony in the evening. The Governor-General participated in a sharing circle with Aboriginal youth where she told them that “we need to confront history together”.

Survivors and their families came from all parts of Canada, the East, West and the North. One man walked with his father and friends from Ontario for 31 days to attend this event. Participants, dressed in the traditional regalia, came on horseback from Virden, Manitoba in the Unity Ride to honour the survivors. In attendance was Chief Robert Joseph who gave the keynote address in Vancouver at the Japanese Canadian Redress celebration in 2008. As the hereditary chief of the Kwagiuth nation on Vancouver Island he made this comment at the Opening Ceremony, “I’m 70 now and it took almost all of that time to share some of the secrets—dark, ugly, painful, degrading and dehumanizing secrets.”
On the final day I participated in a panel discussion with three Aboriginal leaders on “Signs of Reconciliation and Reflecting on our Experiences” sharing the story of the Japanese Canadian internment and redress. More importantly, I described the positive impact that redress the settlement had on the Japanese Canadian community and the parallels that existed between the two group’s experiences. This panel was organized by interfaith groups representing the Catholic, Baptist, Mennonite, Presbyterian, Anglican and United Churches. Representatives from these organizations were available each day to talk to any survivors who wished to share their story and offer their personal comments.

Following the panel presentation, Alvin Dixon, a survivor from British Columbia, offered his personal apology to the Japanese people. He explained that as a young boy he remembers that shortly after the Japanese were removed from the West Coast, his father brought home an organ that he bought for $7 in Ocean Falls. He found out later that the organ had belonged to a Japanese family and that their belongings were being auctioned off along with fishing boats and other items. He felt badly that they were benefiting from the misfortunes of the Japanese and offered his apology at the gathering. I talked with Alvin after the session. I found out that he is a member of the Indian Residential School Survivors Society and knew several Japanese kids when growing up in Namos, a BC Fish Cannery located south of Bella Coola on the central coast of British Columbia. He is a fisherman and member of the Aboriginal Fishermen Union. He said that when fishing unions in British Columbia were asked by the government whether Japanese who returned to the West Coast after the war be allowed to get fishing licenses, he said the only group to support that proposal was the Aboriginal union.

The four-day event was considered by the Commissioners as a success. Justice Sinclair said that healing was a necessary element so that survivors can move forward in their life. These meetings also provide opportunities to expose non-Aboriginal people to the residential school experiences. At The Forks there were display areas on the residential schools. Academic discussions were held and plays and films shown. Keiko and I attended a play called “Fabric of the Sky” by local Aboriginal writer, Ian Ross. This moving play relates the impact of the residential school life of a father upon his family members of different generations.

Justice Murray Sinclair said that a divide still exists between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people, and that the real history of the schools has yet to be told because many survivors are still too ashamed to come forward. He hopes that these national gatherings will bring out the truth that will lead to healing and reconciliation. At the closing ceremony the ashes from the Sacred Fire that burned throughout the four days were presented to the program planners from Inuvik in the North West Territories where the next national get-together will be held in June 2011. Justice Murray Sinclair in his closing remarks invited all Canadians to attend one of the healing events. Other events will be held in Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Vancouver with the closing ceremony in Ottawa.

Prepared by Art Miki who attended the Opening and Closing Ceremonies and participated in a panel discussion.

In the summer, the Japanese enjoy refreshing noodle dishes likely to please anyone sweltering in the late-summer heat. These dishes are truly cool—one presents the noodles floating in a bowl of ice cubes.
The classic way to prepare Japanese pasta, known as sashimizu or “add water” method, includes rinsing the noodles in cold water after they are cooked. With sashimizu, each time the water boils, add a cup of cold water. Repeat process up to three times, depending on the thickness of noodles.
Meanwhile, test noodles constantly by biting into a single strand. Noodles should be firm but tender. Drain well and rinse noodles thoroughly under cold water until surface starch has washed away. This keeps them from sticking together.
Cold buckwheat noodles can be served on a glass plate with a bowl of cold, savoury-sweet soy-based dipping sauce on the side. Or put the noodles in a clear glass bowl and ladle over the dipping sauce.
Iced thin wheat noodles with dipping sauce are perfect for hot days. To enjoy this angel hair-thin pasta, lift a mouthful of somen from the icy bath, using chopsticks or twirling the noodles around a fork, and swoosh them in a flavourful dipping sauce.

Dipping Sauce:
1-1/2 cups dashi (recipe below)
3 tbsps. Japanese soy sauce
1-1/2 tbsps. sugar
1 tbsp. sweetened rice wine, sake or sherry
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, heat through, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Chill well. Makes 1-1/4 cups.

Dashi (Basic Japanese broth):
5 dried shitakke mushrooms
Green tops from I leek
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and cut into 4 or 5 slices
1 small parsnip, peeled and coarsely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 tbsp. Japanese soy sauce
In a medium saucepan, soak the shitakke in 1 cup hot water until mushrooms are soft, 20 to 30 minutes.
To mushrooms and their soaking water, add leek green, onion, ginger, parsnip, garlic and 5 cups water.
Over high heat, bring to a boil; reduce heat; simmer 30 minutes.
Strain, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard solids; return liquid to pot. Over medium high heat, cook until liquid is reduced to one litre (four cups). Add soy sauce. Makes 1-3/4 cups.
This dashi can be made ahead and frozen until needed. It can be heated and served as a clear soup, with cubes of tofu, sliced carrots and chopped green onions.

ZARU SOBA (Cold Buckwheat Noodles)
12 oz. dried soba noodles
1/2 sheet nori (dried seaweed), optional
1 recipe dipping sauce
1/4 cup chopped scallions
2 tbsps. grated fresh ginger
2 tsps. wasabi (Japanese horseradish) or any sharp mustard

Prepare soba, using sashimizu method. Drain, rinse well and drain thoroughly.
Divide the noodles among four small plates or bowls.
If using nori, hold sheet over direct heat until crisped, a minute or so.
Fold it several times and crumble in a clean paper towel. Sprinkle some of the crumbled nori over each mound of noodles.
If nori is unavailable, substitute four tsps. sesame seeds, lightly toasted, in a heavy dry skillet until they smell aromatic, about 4 minutes.
Divide chilled dipping sauce among four individual cups. Serve along with the noodles.
Serve the green onions, grated ginger and wasabi or mustard on a serving dish or in three separate small dishes, to add to dipping sauce at the table. Makes four servings.

I hope you’re all enjoying the great weather! Here on the West Coast, the great weather is especially nice as it allows us to enjoy to views of the Coast Mountains and Pacific Ocean, often just by turning our heads!. Although the weather has been hot during the day, at night the temperature cools down enough to make it bearable to sleep. During this hot weather I hope all our seniors are staying nice and cool and drinking lots of water so as not to get too dehydrated. Please make sure that you use necessary sunscreen and wear a hat when in direct sunlight.

Last year’s Powell Street Festival was held at Woodland Park but now it will be back at the newly-renovated Oppenheimer Park on July 31 and August 1. The official grand opening of the newly renovated Oppenheimer Park was held July 24th. Each year, the Powell Street Festival brings together most Nikkei organizations for a weekend of entertainment and traditional foods. The GVJCCA will again be participating in the Powell Street Festival, providing our popular salmon dinner, and we will be adding a couple of new items to our menu. We hope you will enjoy the new additions. The Bulletin/Geppo is again serving as the PSF Program Guide and the GVJCCA would like to thank ahead of time the many volunteers and donors who make the GVJCCA BBQ a success.

On Wednesday August 4, from 2 – 4 pm, the GVJCCA and Nikkei Place will be sponsoring an Obon Service and Odori at Nikkei Place, with Reverend Aoki from the Vancouver Buddhist Temple presiding over the service. We have been holding this collaborative event for the past 5 years so that the many seniors who live at Nikkei Home and Sakura-so can take part in this time-honoured event. We hope that you can be there too!

In September 2009, the GVJCCA and NAJC co-hosted the “Honoring Our People – Stories of the Internment” Conference.  Many of our Nikkei seniors kindly related their stories of growing up pre-Internment, during the Internment, and eventually post-Internment. Many of these stories had not been shared with the younger generations.  The GVJCCA Human Rights Committee received a federal grant to record the Conference and other individual stories and compile them into a book. We would like to add to our current story collection.  If you are interested in assisting our Committee by gathering stories from some of elders who lived in road camps or sugar beet farms for the duration of the Internment, we would like to hear from you. Please contact our book committee through the GVJCCA office at 604.777.5222, or email at GVJCCA@shaw.ca .

The GVJCCA would also like to extend best wishes to his Excellency Ambassador of Japan Tsuneo Nishida and his wife, for all their efforts and kindness during their stay in Canada and for his new appointment at the United Nations.

Ron Nishimura,
President, GVJCCA

Now, when something needs fixing around the house I pull out that old tool box and rummage through it to find the right tool for the job. And I feel good using these tools that were made to be used, that fit in the hand just so.

Why am I telling you about my father’s tool box? A few weeks back I was at the Nikkei Centre preparing for this month’s lead story on the late Canadian artist Aiko Suzuki, the subject of the latest exhibit at the Japanese Canadian National Museum. I knew of her peripherally but was not familiar with her work.

One of the people helping prepare the exhibit was Aiko’s daughter Chiyoko Szlavnics, a musician who lives in Germany. I was taking some photos for the article and Chiyoko was putting the final touches on the fibre sculpture hanging in the Ellipse Lobby, a monumental piece called Lyra Refrain. The work consists of hundreds, maybe thousands of single strands hanging from wooden slats. As we talked, she ran a comb through the strands, ensuring they lay just so. It struck me as I watched her work that just as I connected with my father through his tools, she was connecting to her mother in a similar way. She ran the comb back and forth through the strands, just as her mother must have done, years ago, and it struck me how precious it was to be able to touch, in a real and tangible way, those memories we hold most dear.

Photo by Kaz Ehara

Aiko Suzuki was a remarkable and prolific visual artist, known and loved in Toronto. Although she was born in Vancouver, until now she has only had one exhibition of her work on the coast (in 1984 at the Burnaby Art Gallery). When Midi Onodera contacted the Japanese Canadian National Museum in Burnaby, BC to suggest showing her DVD project on Aiko, it seemed the perfect opportunity to showcase this important Japanese Canadian artist.

Aiko Suzuki (1937-2005) was born in Vancouver, and was interned with her family in the Slocan region before moving to Ontario. For 25 years, she was a mentor to many artists, and was involved in arts education with countless students throughout Toronto. In 1994, Aiko was a founder of the Gendai Gallery in Toronto —dedicated to contemporary art by Asian artists. She received numerous awards for her contributions, and in 2005, she was elected to membership in the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In her final work, Bombard/Invade/Radiate she used video, audio and photography and turned the camera onto herself to produce a bold and intimate reflection on her experiences with breast cancer. Aiko Suzuki lost her battle with cancer on December 31, 2005.

Getting to “know” Aiko through this project makes me really wish I could have known her in person. By all accounts she was a dynamo—an energetic and intriguing person who was intensely creative and a lot of fun. Aiko was known for creating minimalist yet stunning dance sets, and she was an early proponent of collaboration, using sound in some of her early pieces, and often including jazz, contemporary music, poetry and dance at her openings.

Aiko Suzuki, Bourrée, 1985. Watercolour and india ink on paper.

Aiko was constantly searching for new materials, and worked in a wide variety of media, ranging from monumental textiles, to acrylic, oils, and monoprints. This exhibit pays tribute to Suzuki’s life and work through a display of some of her original work and three multimedia installations by writer Joy Kogawa, composer Ann Southam, and visual artist Grace Channer, who were each inspired by Suzuki and worked in collaboration with Toronto filmmaker Midi Onodera. Midi consciously chose this “fragmented” non-linear approach, feeling it was impossible to capture the energy and vitality of Aiko in a more traditional film documentary.

Visitors to the exhibit are immediately welcomed with Aiko’s monumental hanging fibre work, entitled Lyra Refrain, 1984. Lyra Refrain has a unique form, but echoes the huge sculpture called Lyra that Aiko created in 1981 for the main lobby of the Metro Toronto Reference Library. In one of her interviews, Aiko explained that “Each suspension was created by laying down the fibres one by one, then securing them with wooden dowels. Each piece took several months to complete—there was a lot of walking and ladder work—they were very physical.”

The other works in the exhibit illustrate the diversity of Aiko’s practice. She was sometimes criticized for switching mediums so often, but she explained that she was drawn to use the medium that best suited her inspiration. From huge brightly coloured oil paintings to dramatic swooping india ink works, Aiko’s work is deceptively minimalist—in fact, she fills the space with movement and energy.

One of her few non-abstract works is the charcoal diptych, The Package, 1990. She says: “My father sent me some bamboo from his garden. He stitched burlap pieces together and used found string and made rope out of it. I loved the rope—all tied together—lots of knots. The parcel was so beautiful, I couldn’t open it. The package was a statement of love, and I did a lot of sketches of just the package—all large scale. I needed to do it big.”
The three DVD works developed by Midi Onodera reflect varying approaches from artists who knew Aiko well and were inspired by her in different ways.

Ann Southam is an acclaimed Canadian composer who first met Aiko when they worked together for the Toronto Dance Theatre: Ann was composing music and Aiko was creating sets. They collaborated often over the years and became close friends. For this piece, Ann created an exquisite minimalist piano work inspired by Aiko’s painting Spatial View of Pond. Midi paired this music with film footage of two other works by Aiko. In the gallery, the film is shown in a black box, with a reflecting pool in front of the screen. The viewer is mesmerised by layers of reflections and richness of sound.

The second piece in the DVD is a video poem, written by acclaimed author Joy Kogawa in homage to Aiko. Joy was born in Vancouver in 1935 and during WWII, Joy and Aiko knew each other slightly when they lived in the same internment camp in Slocan. The poem, Portrait of the Artist as a Donkey, highlights aspects of Aiko’s personality: her “stone” quality and resilience. Midi matched the poem with shifting, split screen imagery taking the viewer between the busy movements of an urban landscape and the graceful textures of nature. Aiko’s daughter, Chiyoko Szlavnics, a composer now based in Berlin, created the accompanying soundscape.

The final work focuses on Aiko’s hands, their energy, their fluidity and the connective imagery they evoke. Grace Channer is a Toronto-based artist and animator who shared a studio with Aiko for some time, and was greatly inspired by her. In Estuary, she employed digital animation techniques with music, again by Chiyoko Szlavnics. An estuary is a transition zone where fresh water from streams mingles with the salt water of the ocean. In the same way, Grace states, Aiko was the one who created these tributaries that led to different places… she had the capacity to bring communities together.

Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki runs through to August 28 at the Japanese Canadian National Museum, 6688 Southoaks Crescent, Burnaby, BC.

Copies of the DVD Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki are available for sale in the Museum shop.

Thank you to our sponsors: Powell Street Festival , Deux Mille Foundation, The Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation, and The Hamber Foundation.

by Beth Carter

Conversation Piece

Midi Onodera and Chiyoko Szlavnics

I’m standing in the main gallery of the Japanese Canadian National Museum in Burnaby. Packing materials are strewn about; a few paintings are mounted on the wall already, others lay on tables or against walls. In various parts of the gallery, staff and volunteers are busy assembling viewing stations and booths. Out in the lobby, an enormous fibre sculpture hangs suspended from the ceiling, transforming the space with its gentle presence.

The works are by Aiko Suzuki, the Toronto-based artist who passed away in 2005. With me are filmmaker Midi Onodera, musician/composer Chiyoko Szlavnics, and JCNM Director-Curator Beth Carter. Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki, the new exhibit the three are in the process of mounting, is in some respects a posthumous introduction to those of us on the west coast that know little or nothing about the life or work of this seminal Canadian artist.

Chiyoko, Aiko’s daughter, has travelled from Germany, where she lives, to help mount the exhibit and to take part in the opening reception here on June 29. As executor of Aiko’s estate she loaned a number of her mother’s works to the Museum for the exhibit.

Midi, an award-winning filmmaker for over twenty years, has flown in from Toronto to oversee the exhibit. Her recently-completed DVD, also titled Tributaries: Reflections of Aiko Suzuki, forms the basis for the exhibit.

Over the course of an hour we walk through the gallery, looking at the various works and talking about the exhibit. The discussion ranges from the DVD to the east-west divide within the Canadian Nikkei community, to Japanese Canadians in the arts, and of course Aiko Suzuki herself.

by John Endo Greenaway

Following are edited excerpts from our conversation.

Chiyoko Szlavnics and Midi Onodera w/ Beth Carter

John Endo Greenaway Going through this DVD, it isn’t a documentary as such, is it . . . ?

Midi Onodera I didn’t want the DVD to be simply a documentary about Aiko because number one, I never felt that Aiko was a linear kind of spirit. I felt that she was kind of like all over, but in a really organized way. She had an incredible energy to her that wasn’t linear, And I’m also not a linear thinker in my work, and I’m not a documentary filmmaker, so I felt like this DVD, conceptually, was the best way to articulate what she was about or what her spirit was in a way, and then to have those other artists translate their feelings about her or her work just abstracts it more, and so it’s not just simply a memorial about the artist.

Chiyoko Szlavnics And what’s nice is that each of the three artists and you were very close to Aiko, so the pieces really do reflect something of her, of her spirit.

MO And at different points of her life, too. I only got to know Aiko close up, you know, only a few years before she died, really. So we’re also reflecting different periods, I think, in Aiko’s life.

Basically I found out that Aiko had cancer and I thought oh my God, I have to do this now, or else there’s not going to be the opportunity. So I remember I called her up and I said let’s have lunch, and she was a bit suspicious about my intensions. I said I want to start shooting you. I told her, I don’t know what it will be, but I want to do it, and in exchange I will help you with your show, because she had a retrospective up at Gendai Gallery, and so she had to get from downtown to Gendai all the time, and I had a car, so that was it. It was an exchange, because that’s kind of the way Aiko worked. So I really got to know her driving up, all those times to Gendai and shooting a lot of footage of her preparing for her show.

The main reason that I wanted to do this DVD is for educational use, because I feel that there aren’t enough works by senior contemporary Canadian artists to begin with, but there are even fewer about Japanese Canadians, and we’re at the point in our culture where we are losing some of the more senior members. So what does that mean for the preservation of our own culture in Canada? It’s a history that I think needs to be recorded somehow. So I received some Canada Council funding to produce a DVD. It’s a non-linear DVD that is somewhat fragmented, there are many different elements to it.

I guess the entire DVD has quite a strong feminist framework as well, because they all talk about feminism, and then there are interviews with the contributors, and Chiyoko’s on there too because she contributed the sound to Grace’s piece, and we worked together on the Donkey piece.

A section that you might find interesting is a conversation that Aiko and Kerri Sakamoto and myself had, mostly talking about her last installation piece, which was a bit of a departure for Aiko, wouldn’t you say?

CS Mm hmm. She created some video installations. Midi worked on the project with her, she was basically addressing her experiences with cancer.

MO This was her last installation, Bombard/Invade/Radiate.

CS This video installation was inspired by Susan Sontag’s writing about cancer, the terminology and language that’s used, how war terminology is used by oncologists when talking about cancer and treatments. Aiko then relates this to the second world war, pointing out the irony in the fact that the chemotherapy she was receiving, you know, contained mustard gas and other chemicals that are, or were used in warfare. So that’s what the whole exhibition was about, and I think that was her way of processing and coming to terms with the disease, her own involvement in it, and the victimization one feels as a cancer patient: you’re out of control of your body, and the medical system is basically controlling you. One video installation showed bomber planes dropping bombs during the Second World War, with the single word, “Witness,” flashing on the screen. That was also about her whole cancer process, and struggle––her battle with cancer. She was never literal like this in her work previously, it’s the only non-abstract piece I know. I think she really wanted to bring these kinds of messages across. That was also the idea of using semaphore for the words “Bombard.Invade.Radiate.” as well—like signalling from a ship at sea to try to get the message across with words, but in an abstracted way.

She also did a series of new works about three months before she died, a whole new series of these incredibly gorgeous, intense, rich collage and paint combinations, five in total. Some were triptychs, some were in five pieces, some were ten. But it was just phenomenal, she was so ill and had so many side effects and stuff, it’s amazing that she just put out a table in her backyard that summer, and created this additional series.

MO And Chiyoko did these . . . what would you call them?

CS Aiko called them “listening posts”. She wanted to have some recordings of visits with her oncologist in the exhibition, so she created these “listening posts” where you could more or less eavesdrop on very intimate conversations about her cancer, its diagnosis, and its treatment.

MO So there’s that conversation, and then there is this 30-minute piece, which is Aiko talking about her work. We basically went through a bunch of slides with her and she just answered questions about her work. And then the last part is myself talking about my feelings about Aiko, the project, and things like that.

JEG Did she feel a need to document her art and her life, do you think?

MO I don’t think so. I think that she just got used to having me hanging around. We talked about art a lot and since there are so few Japanese Canadian women artists, it was a great opportunity for me, to get to know her, someone I had so much respect and admiration for.

CS She was very good at documenting her work and being very organized about getting professional photographers in to document it, and so on, but I think she was more interested in creating art than creating a career, so she put all her energy into the artworks and documenting them . . .

JEG The mediums she was working in were so diverse. As opposed to, say, a poet, where everything can be contained in a collection, this seems more ephemeral in a sense . . .

MO Oh, yeah. You can see from the wide range of her work. She was not an artist who was limited by her choice of media at all. Aiko did a series of works based on the bamboo wrapped in burlap . . . the package was sent to her from her father, who was in Vancouver. So in a way, this has traveled to Toronto, and now it’s back here. Aiko talks about that story in the DVD, doesn’t she? She talks about that package and what that meant, and you know, just a bit of her relationship with her father, and then the creation of these art works.

And then there’s an essay by Cindy Mochizuki, you can download a PDF, and there is also another essay on my website by Kyo Maclear that was commissioned. So really it’s designed so that, for instance, if you were involved in new music you might look at the Ann Southam piece, if you’re interested in Aiko alone, you might just look at the Aiko section, look at how her earlier work developed and progressed through the years. You know, there’s a number of ways to sort of access the material. So it’s not structured like a feature, where you just throw it in and it’s like a passive viewing experience. That’s why I call it a fragmented narrative.

Beth Carter If you watch the whole thing, all the different sections, it really, really works. Like I started just going through the Aiko early works, because I wanted to know more about her actual art work, and that’s precious, to have her talking about her work documented that way and you get such a good sense of her, and how she expresses herself.

CS Yes, the interview segments are really fabulous. You get a sense of her personality, also through all the recollections, memories, and so forth.

BC And then when you put together the artists, all these different approaches, how inspired they were to create something else because of Aiko, the meaning she had for them as artists, and being in the community. I think it’s brilliant.

JEG I’m glad to see Aiko’s work coming to the West Coast, too, because you know there’s such this great divide between Toronto and Vancouver basically. We know nothing about what’s going on out there . . . it’s three thousand miles but it sometimes feel like a million . . .

CS A relative told me a very compelling story last night about how that divide might have begun. After the war, BC refused to allow Japanese Canadians to stay in this province. And so a number of people signed up to go back to Japan, but apparently the first ones who did go sent messages back to Canada saying, “Don’t come, don’t come, it’s horrible here, there’s no food, we’re starving!” etc. And then a bunch of people got the BC ruling overturned after the political atmosphere settled down, and ended up staying in BC after all, while some families, including mine, had already moved east. Could that have played a part in the division, besides the geographical distance? It’s an interesting anecdote, because I wasn’t even aware of it, and you talking about this difference, your bringing it up now . . . it could have deep-rooted reasons. In any case, it’s very complex.

BC I was really interested that Midi contacted us and offered, you know, the opportunity to do the show, and I thought it was great for that reason, you know that we want to build bridges, we want to be pulling community together, and I just didn’t think that Aiko was well enough known here on the coast.

JEG We have our little world here, our little pond. People from the east come through, but it always feels so fleeting . . .

CS But she knew Roy Kiyooka and Tamio Wakayama . . .

JEG Perhaps within the artist world there’s more cross-pollinization, but otherwise . . .

The conversation turned to Roy Kiyooka and Japanese Canadian artists in general . . .

MO Well, I think also too, though, it’s the fact that there were just so few artists of that generation, period. You know, so I think that the overall reception wasn’t that strong from the mainstream community itself. You know, they wanted to have their children become doctors and lawyers, not bankrupt artists who were living hand to mouth. I mean, even for me, my parents want me to become something like that as opposed to an artist because it’s that thing that they felt they missed because of the war, because of being interned.

CS It’s interesting because I think also for Aiko’s generation, there was a very difficult personal struggle with identity because of the war and post-war experiences. I think redress was extremely important in bringing the community together again, and right at that time of redress, significant people in Toronto suddenly came together. There was a kind of political momentum, and it gave people a sense of empowerment, I think, and new connections were made within the community that might not have existed before because of the war, and post-war experiences.

MO But also, as we all know, redress wasn’t a black and white thing. There were still people who were, like, no way, you know, and people who were, yes, absolutely, and you could see those tensions and frictions throughout and I think that was probably the most dramatic moment, besides the internment in our history.

JEG Yeah, in one sense it was pulling the community together, in other ways it was driving another wedge . . .

MO Yeah, exactly. It was like another, you know . . . .

JEG Line to cross?

MO Yes, exactly.

JEG It’s interesting, Chiyoko, you were talking about the rift developing because of people going back to Japan and so forth. I’ve also heard that the people who went east were so bitter about the way they were treated by BC that they swore they would never step foot in BC again . . .

CS My grandfather was extremely bitter about how they had been treated, but he moved back to Vancouver when he retired. He loved it here.

BC I think Aiko speaks herself too about her relationship to being Japanese Canadian and whether she . . . I mean she basically says she didn’t link herself with that in her art practice. But then through the course of discussing her art work, she’s, oh this one’s very Japanese and this one . . . you know, she’s pointing out that.

MO I was asking her about how she named her work, you know, Hokusai’s Dream or something, and she said, I couldn’t name it McCaffey’s Dream or something. So what does that mean? What are all those connections all about? So you know, hopefully that is a marker of some kind for the younger generation to see that those discussions happened or to see what relevance it is in their own lives and their own identity. I think that having this discussion framed in an art context makes it a bit safer, it’s not about you personally. It’s distanced.

I hope that the DVD will encourage other artists not just Japanese Canadian artists, but other women artists, other emerging artists to have this kind of document, to see what other contemporary Canadian artists have been doing for the last what, how many years, you know.

CS It’s fabulous that you started this project before she died, because you were able to gather a lot of interviews. I wonder whether a video was ever made about Roy [Kiyooka]. . .

JEG The thing is, Roy died suddenly, so in a way it kind of negated any chance of that.

MO But then again it comes back Chiyoko as well and her role in the preservation of Aiko’s work . . .

CS But it helps when there are more people working who are interested because to have all the responsibility yourself––what do you do with that?––it’s just overwhelming. Especially since I live in Germany, it’s more difficult when all the art work is in Toronto and I live over there in Germany. It would be fabulous to commission essays and publish a really great art catalogue with all her work in high quality photographs. But such a project is pretty much impossible to organize from afar.

BC What comes across to me is how collaborative she was. I know she did the works herself but she was really inspired by music, by dance, by other artists, and did a lot of teaching and educating. It seemed to me that even though she was really focussed on her art work she also carried with it the spirit of collaboration all the time.

CS Yeah, she didn’t always like to be just by herself in her studio.

JEG So do you think—I mean it’s probably obvious—did the knowledge of her own mortality shift her focus, do you think?

CS I think after she discovered she had cancer, she tried to learn as much about it as she could. She did her own research, to really be engaged in the process as it was happening, so that she could make informed decisions. So I think her life became occupied by those things, and that’s probably why it came out in her work. She was definitely consciously working through it, and yes, in her last exhibition, she really needed to process it––to bring her inner world, all of that which was occupying her, out into the world.

JEG It sounds like she was an artist right to the end?

MO Oh, absolutely.

CS In fact, even while she was dying, she exclaimed, “But I have to organize the exhibition, otherwise it won’t happen!” She wanted to organize an exhibition for her last series of works, the ones she had made the past summer. She was still calling galleries in December, the month she died, trying to find a venue for the works. And at some point she really was dying, and said, “But I need to organize this exhibition!” She was basically saying that she couldn’t die because then the works would never be shown. (laughs) Physically, the disease and chemotherapy are so debilitating. She didn’t have that much energy in the final year, but when she did get it back, what she did with it was create more projects.

MO Oh yeah for sure. At points during the production of her Bombard/Invade/Radiate piece, I could see that it was very hard on her. I know It was very hard just to be out in the sun and physically working, take after take after take. We had several cameras set up so she wouldn’t have to do as many takes but it’s just the nature of production, so it was very intense at that time. And then we had to go back a second time because we didn’t quite get enough footage, so I know that it was difficult, but she was absolutely determined to do it. There was no way that you could talk her out of it . . .

“A”s, they’re one thing. Joy. Now that’s another matter. Sometimes these days it seems everyone I know is so consumed by deadlines and other pressures that there is precious little left over for luxuries like joy. We can charge our i-Pods and smart phones by plugging them into the wall overnight. How do we recharge ourselves physically, mentally or spiritually?

For our kids it’s the summer holidays—their chance to leave behind the pressures of assignments and homework and rediscover, yes, joy.

Although spring has been here for a while (you wouldn’t know it sometimes), I’ll leave you with another lovely lyric from Mr. Ritter . . .

hello blackbird, hello starling / winter’s over, be my darling
it’s been a long time coming / but now the snow is gone

Photo: Topher Ouellette

Butoh, the powerful and often controversial dance form that came out of post-war Japan, is known for its stark imagery and denunciation of the superficial. In both its choreography and its costuming, butoh often embraces an aesthetic of what many would consider ugliness—rejecting the idea that dance is the sole domain of thin, lithe dancers.

Kokoro Dance, Vancouver’s post-butoh dance company has made an international name for itself as one of Canada’s most uncompromising dance companies, taking elements of butoh and fusing it with modern dance. In a quest to escape the confines of stage, the company has taken its performances everywhere from restaurants and nightclubs to the sound towers of the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, the Powell Street Festival grounds and the rooftop of Sunrise Market on Powell Street.

Every summer for the past 15 years, the company, under the direction of founders Jay Hirabayashi and Barbara Bourget, have taken their stripped-down approach to dance one step further, performing at Wreck Beach, Vancouver’s clothing-optional beach. Kokoro Dance provides the dancers (including international guests) and Mother Nature provides the rest: stage, lighting, score, costumes and even performance times, which are conditional on the tidal patterns.

On the eve of their 15th Annual Wreck Beach performance, Jay Hirabayashi provides some insight into his thought processes as he takes part in this annual dance ritual.

Diary of a Typical Wreck Beach Butoh Performance

by Jay Hirabayashi

Photo: Yuri Kikuchi

Fortunately, there is no wind. The sky has darkened, however, and a few small drops of water start to create small explosions on my skin. Around me are the white-painted bodies of more than twenty other beings, naked like myself.
We appear to be walking slowly, but inside time has a different velocity. With each step, a week goes by. In one step we travel 100 kilometers. Our bodies lean forward to fight with resistance against the force of energy that confronts our bodies. We edge toward the ocean.

The water is numbingly cold and slowly climbs up my legs as I plow deeper into the ocean toward the North Shore that forms the backdrop to this enormous stage. To my right, I see the downtown Vancouver skyline. To my left is the dim outline of the Gulf Islands. Finally, I feel myself immersed and sense the tide pulling me against the direction I want to go. I start to swim but I feel like I am making no progress. It seems like a metaphor for my life.

Slowly, our group struggles against the tide and we swim our way westward. Underneath the water, an occasional rock covered with barnacles, cuts my legs and I shout out warnings to the others that follow.

The next part of the journey begins. We have drifted back near the shoreline and we float on our backs and bellies, rolling over when we feel the impulse of the waves that roll us first toward the shore and then wash us back out to sea. Our bodies become logs shorn from a forest, stripped of branches. We roll incessantly, restlessly, toward the beach and away from it. Eventually, I feel the beach under my body and I roll back and forth gaining new ground with each series of rolls. After gaining ten metres of beach, I curl my body into a fetal position and become still. I wait for the metamorphosis to begin.

I am no longer a log, I am some kind of organism. My body uncurls and then retreats back to being a fetus. I roll back toward the water but stop to fold in and out again. I roll back further up the beach. My need is to leave the water and find a different environment. The sand scrapes my skin, covers my face and my wet, trembling body. I have become a creature. There are spectators watching me, trying to understand what is happening to me, trying to identify with my transformations. For them, twenty minutes have passed. For me, I have evolved already through three lifetimes.
I roll on to my hands and feet and arch my back to the sky. I roll back the other way and end up on my buttocks with my hands and feet reaching for the sky. I continue this back and forth rolling, always ending in a new position, a new expression of being, a new attitude in relation to the environment of sand, sea, and sky, of me alone and of me in a community of other beings, all of us searching for how to express who we are and why we are here. I retrace the physical formations I have discovered. My companions are similarly discovering themselves as animate beings. Together, we create an unusual dance of sand-covered creatures, our morphing bodies creating a new language of communication. Eventually, we find ourselves back on to our feet and find a unity in our movement. Like a colony of ants, we form an intelligence with our group movement telepathically conveyed. We travel westward on the beach. Over the next hour, we will discover each other in this annual ritual of connection of our bodies and spirits to sand, water, and sky.

15th annual Wreck Beach Butoh
Saturday, July 10, 10:30am
Sunday, July 11, 11:15am
At the foot of the #4 Trail that starts 100 metres west of the UBC Museum of Anthropology.
No photography or video capture is allowed.
Donations are gratefully appreciated.

“Is the vendor name Japadog offensive or tasteful?” asked Alison Scott for GVJCCA HRC in the May issue of this magazine. She mentioned one of the two Japadog stands on Burrard Street, the one near the corner of Smithe Street. That one and its “sister” stand at Pender Street have been attracting a steady stream of customers with “dogs” creatively seasoned with Japanese condiments. When I drove by the Smith Street stand recently, I saw three employees in their orange uniforms sporting the JAPADOG website address, busily hovering around the complex-looking structure of their street stand.

Judging from the website, Japadog is looking to become a minor Vancouver meibutsu, (fixture). But leaving our gourmet readers for now to check the site for the many ingenious ways the old hot dog can be “Japanized,” let’s go back to the issue at hand: is the name offensive? Another way to put it might be, is the brand name too reminiscent of “Jap,” that old epithet/abbreviation which goes back a long way in the English-speaking world? There is no doubt the word took on much more of a pejorative connotation during and after World War II when Japan was that world’s “enemy.” It’s obviously a word we in our community don’t feel comfortable with, allowing for individual differences.

First, let’s look at it linguistically. A native English speaker might hear it as three words, “Jap a dog,” in the same way as, say, the game “Whack a Mole.” With a stretch of imagination, some might hear “Jap” as an abbreviation of the verb “Japanize,” meaning in this case “Japanizing a (hot) dog,” thus expanding on the original meaning of the “J-word.” But even in combination form, the word may still tweak the ear of people who have experienced hearing it used pejoratively against them either directly or indirectly, and feeling slighted.

In the Japanese language, the name is pronounced “Japadoggu” Because long words both foreign and Japanese are often abbreviated, “Japa,” as short for Japan or Japanese, is sometimes used. At an international university I attended in Tokyo in the 1960s, students from abroad were officially referred to as “non-Japanese” to avoid using the word “foreigner.” Japanese students and staff found “non-Japanese” too much of a mouthful, so they all said “non-Japa” instead. Pretty soon, Japanese students with mixed cultural and educational background were being called “han-Japa,” meaning “half-Japanese.” Another example, a much more current one, would be “Japanime,” i.e. “Japanese animation” abbreviated, though “anime” is now more widely used even outside Japan.?Most important, “Japa” has always been clearly distinguished from “Jappu,” the old epithet pronounced in Japanese, which is of course considered a pejorative.

Is the word pejorative or an abbreviation in the English-speaking world? Some readers may find it hard to accept but there are still many in that realm who would insist that “Jap” is nothing more than an abbreviation, short for Japanese. Such people would also maintain that it is their God-given right to decide what words mean in their own language, including those with racist connotations. Sometimes, they might just use the word “Jap” in front of a Japanese, often the only one among a group of listeners, just to make that point, as I discovered back in 1981 when I first went to Singapore to work for a newspaper. During a group meeting, the deputy editor, a bright Chinese Singaporean, used the words “the Japs” instead of “the Japanese” as was normal by then in North America or Europe. Having had the experience much earlier elsewhere, I wasn’t fazed, but I did take the trouble afterwards to ask the guy whether calling us Japs was a common practice in Singapore. He said it was “just a local abbreviation” and “no insult was intended.”
I’d heard that one before, and I’m pretty sure he knew we didn’t like being called that.

I was nevertheless inured to it from having attended school just outside London in the late 50s when my journalist father was transferred there. I still remember the time I was called into the headmaster’s office after some mischief, and him telling me “. . . when we decided to accept you, a Jap who seemed to be doing well . . . etc.” I was 11 and maybe, in hindsight, I was having trouble adjusting as my English was still inadequate, but more to the point, it had been a little over a decade since the war, and “Jap” was a fairly common word from war movie poster blurbs to popular newspaper headlines. My favourite English Sunday paper headline , which I saw much later maybe in the late 60s, is about a pet dog supposedly of British pedigree being mistreated in a Japanese household. “BRITISH DOG IN JAP HELL!” it screamed.

So back to Japadog. Whether or not a part of that brandname sounds like the old pejorative, the image of Japan and her people has undergone a change for the better over the decades so that the kind of stubbornness about clinging to some linguistic “right” to use that word seems to have largely given way to a sensible general recognition—and my personal belief—that words used to describe races shouldn’t be used if these races themselves don’t like it. This evolution reminds me of the fate of the word “Shina,” which the Japanese commonly used up to the end of the war to refer to China. The Chinese have always disliked it and its use has largely disappeared, but there are still some “linguistic” conservatives who insist that it’s a perfectly good Japanese word.

Even in Singapore, the scene of some atrocities by the Japanese Army during the war, the word had practically disappeared from the public arena and pretty much even from personal conversation. by the time I left in 1997. (I don’t rule out the possibility that the word is still used in the absence of Japanese people.) In this day and age of Ichiro, Nintendo and now the Blue Samurai at the football World Cup led by emerging superstar Keisuke Honda, the preferred abbreviation for Japan and Japanese seems to have become, by and large, the letter J, as in CoolJ, JPop and J League.
In conclusion, conceding that I probably hear “Japadog” more as a Nihonjin than as a native English speaker, I would guess it is not offensive or distasteful to other Japanese, nor to most Japanese Canadians or Japanese Americans who are young enough never, or almost never, to have been insulted by that pejorative. For what it’s worth, my teenage kids who are Canadian by nationality and acculturation say Japadog is “totally OK.”