Honouring Our People: stories of the internment

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.
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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”.
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Letter to the Editor

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.
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Rather a TCK than a Kikokushijo

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.
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after the quake

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 . . .
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President’s Message

Upcoming on October 17-18, Vancouver will be hosting the National Association of Japanese Canadian (NAJC) Annual General Meeting. This will be an important AGM as the NAJC membership will discuss the impact of the impending changes brought about by the changing global economy.
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