John Endo Greenaway

When the earthquake and tsunami hit the Tohoku region of Japan on March 11, Kozue Matsumoto sat in front of the TV in her adopted hometown of Vancouver and watched in horror as the area where she grew up was…

The concert will kick off with internationally-acclaimed pianist and Vancouver native Jon Kimura Parker who returns to Vancouver for this special engagement. Together with over forty members of the Grammy award-winning Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, he will perform Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 27, K.595. Rounding out the first half of the show will be three member of Vancouver Opera--Erin Wall, David Pomeroy and Kinza Tyrrell--who are guaranteed to raise the hair on the back of our necks with a selection from La Traviata.

Amidst the pulsing rhythms of the drums at Taikotroniks, you might be surprised to also find a generous helping of blips, whirs, and other unearthly electronic sounds. For the May 3rd event, seven prominent Vancouver-based taiko groups—Chibi Taiko, Katari Taiko,…

A woman ran up the stairs, I live on the second floor, screaming, “Please help me!” She was out-of-control, so I had to shake her to get her into some sense of reality. I brought her into my apartment in the doorway, wrapped my arms around her telling her, “Gambatte.” She was delivering the early morning paper and had left her children alone at home. Then when the shaking stopped, we went outside, it was pitch black.

Filmmaker Linda Ohama, who splits her time between Vancouver and Onomichi in Hiroshima prefecture, was in Vancouver preparing to return to Onomichi when the earthquake struck. Like many others, she was galvanised by the images she saw of the awful destruction being wreaked on the countryside. As she wrote to friends in the community the day the news broke, “I cannot stand looking at all the images and hearing from so many friends about the earthquake victims and families. We need to do something.”

Over 50 members of the Japanese Canadian arts, business, culture, community and student groups, representing more than 20 different organizations, met together at the office of . . .

On behalf of the National Association of Japanese Canadians and its member organizations, I would like to offer our sincere condolences to the people of Japan and the Japanese Government for the loss of life and property . . .

“It is challenging especially in the first season when you think—this is so hard and I’m cold and wet and splashing everyone, I have blisters & bruises on various body parts and I ache! And you are absolutely horrified to be hitting other paddles because you haven’t got the timing, much less the technique. Then at some point you realize you are pretty well in sync most of the time and you haven’t drowned anybody with your splashing and the boat is moving through the waves and you are part of the engine moving this huge heavy monster. In fact the boat is gliding and you are alive and in a beautiful place.”

Boivin says he wants “to speak of connections between people and of the magnitude of their influence on one another. To whom do we owe the person we become? How do other beings collide with our own existence and ultimately, what shapes our identity? One by one, humans participate in the world, leaving behind a signature, a trace that someone else will find and make his own.