Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View

Welcome to the 1999 Archives page of my weekly "Nikkei View" columns. Some day I'll break up this long and slow-loading page with an index and links to individual articles, but for now, please bear with me. NOTE: The most recent column is at the top of the page.

Thanks for reading, and remember: Each week's column is available on the main "Nikkei View" page!

-- Gil

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INDEX

QUICK THOUGHTS ON JAPANESE FAST FOOD
BEAT CRAZY OVER TAIKO
PEARL HARBOR, HIROSHIMA AND THE HATRED OF WAR
FINDING CULTURE WHERE YOU DON'T EXPECT IT
WRESTLING FOR A PLACE IN SPORTS
PRINCESS MONONOKE: A CARTOON FOR ADULTS
THE IMPORTANCE OF STAYING JAPANESE
BASE BEHAVIOR: MEMORIES OF A MILITARY BRAT
THE PAST FOR SALE: ANTIQUES AND CULTURAL CONTEXT
THAI FOOD AND LIFE LESSONS
RACE RELATIONSHIPS: SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS
JAPAN THROUGH VIDEO GAMES: FROM PONG TO POKEMON
THE TIES THAT BIND: FAMILY FRICTION FICTION
SAYONARA: HOLLYWOOD'S VISIONS OF JAPAN
CROSSING A BRIDGE TO JAPAN: MANJIRO SUMMIT '95
GEISHA CHIC: IT'S HIP TO BE JAPANESE!
MEMORIES OF HIROSHIMA
MY SPLIT PERSONALITY: LIFE AS A BANANA
CELEBRATING SAKURA IN SUMMER
DIMMING DAYLIGHT: THE CLOSING OF A FAVORITE LUNCH SPOT
INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES
THE DESIGN OF DINING: IT'S ALL IN THE PRESENTATION
SLACKING OFF & SHOPPING ONLINE
GANGSTER'S PARADISE: THE UNTOUCHABLE JOHN WOO
MEMORIAL DAY: PAYING HOMAGE TO HEROES
SCHOOL DAZE: THE SMART ASIAN SYNDROME
REMEMBERING THE SMELLS OF JAPAN
ASIANS MEETING ASIANS
FOOD FOR LIFE: NICE RICE
COLUMBINE AND CONFUCIUS: LESSONS FROM TRAGEDY
SLEEP WELL, COMMISSIONER
ANIME FROM ASTRO BOY TO POKEMON
SCI-FI FROM GODZILLA TO THE MATRIX
JAPANESE ROCK DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS
IMAGES OF JAPAN: SAMURAI AND GEISHA
MEMORIALS AND MEMORY
A TASTE OF JAPAN
BOYHOOD ADVENTURES: COWBOYS AND ... NINJAS
FOOTBALL, BASEBALL AND SUMO: FANS ARE FANS
NAILING DOWN THE AMERICAN IN ME
SLAP THAT JAP -- AGAIN
INTO THE FIRE: THE DEBT I OWE

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December 26, 1999

QUICK THOUGHTS ON JAPANESE FAST FOOD

American-style fast food was only introduced in Japan during the past 30 years -- when I lived there as a child, there were no McDonalds, Pizza Hut or KFC to be found in the alleys and skyscrapers of Tokyo. Those bastions of U.S. culture arrived in the late '60s and during the 1970s, and when they did, they often adapted to Japanese tastes, by featuring custom versions of the familiar Big Macs and Quarter Pounders we know and love. In Japan, for example, you can order a Teriyaki McBurger with fries.

This decidedly un-gourmet American cuisine has had some notable effects on Japanese culture. Over the past several decades, not only has Christmas become a very popular holiday in Japan, the "traditional" Christmas day meal of choice has become... a bucket of KFC chicken. According to a radio news report, no one quite knows how Colonel Saunders' chicken won out over the typical U.S. feasts of turkey or ham, but the management of KFC must be crowing over their good fortune. Can you imagine a Norman Rockwell painting of an all-American family about to have their holiday meal, gathered around a red-and-white-striped paper bucket?

In an already rushed and increasingly faster-paced society, the idea of "fast food" makes sense. In the past, food on the run came from street vendors or noodle shops; but mostly, I don't think of Japanese cuisine as being suited to quick cooking and serving.

At the same time that American junkfood was invading Japan, some Japanese food has made its way into the U.S. dining menu. In the 1970s, a "Japanese fast food" chain called Yoshinoya's Beef Bowl first opened outlets in the Denver area. The restaurants served donburi dishes -- meat and vegetables with sauce over a bowl of rice -- quickly and inexpensively, and did well for a few years. My younger brother Glenn even got a job as assistant manager at the downtown location, and our family is still friends with his boss from back then.

I have great memories of chowing down on beef bowls because they were so hearty and in their own way, pretty authentically Japanese with their thick-sliced marinated meat, onions and that sweet sauce, topped off with red pepper and slivers of red ginger.

I have to admit, though, that there's one reason that American fast food such as burgers and fries is better suited to the car culture that created "fast food" in the first place: It's easier to eat while driving! One night, I was so hungry on my way to visit a friend in Boulder that I stopped at a Beef Bowl location and ate the damn thing while driving on the highway using my knees to steer the car while I balanced the bowl on the steering wheel and shoveled the rice into my mouth with the chopsticks. A Quarter Pounder with cheese is just much easier to handle on the road....

For whatever reason, Yoshinoya's didn't last into the 1990s, at least in Colorado, though I hear they still thrive on the West coast. There are a couple of reminders of the chain here, though: The downtown location where my brother worked is still a Japanese restaurant serving up a variety of items including bowls. And the former Beef Bowl location on S. Colorado Blvd. was immediately converted by a former Yoshinoya's employee who settled in the Denver area, Mareo Torito, as Kokoro, with the same type of men as the Beef Bowls.

Over the years, the hard-working Torito has expanded his restaurant's menu to include other Nihon-shoku (Japanese food) such as tonkatsu, or fried pork cutlets, curry dishes, a small selection of basic sushi and even the somewhat exotic "korokke," or fried potato dumpling. Torito has also expanded his business to include a second location in the northern suburb of Arvada, in a nice bright building that used to house a Boston Market franchise, and started advertising both restaurants with eye-catching billboards scattered throughout the metro area.

Kokoro's newest menu item is tasty, hearty udon noodles, sold with the catchy name of "Splash" for non-Japanese whose curiosity might be sparked by the moniker. Despite its marketing spin, the dish is very traditional: fish cake, fried tofu, seaweed, shiitake mushroom, boiled egg and green onions swimming with thick udon noodles in a familiar broth flavored with soy sauce and a touch of sesame seed oil. It's Japanese comfort food that's perfect for cold weather!

I happened to stop by the Arvada Kokoro location for a quick lunch on Christmas eve, and I was pleased to see that even just before the holiday, the restaurant was busy with diners. Interestingly, the customers were evenly split between Asian and Caucasian faces -- Torito's recipe for success obviously has cross-cultural appeal. Across from me sat a "Leave It to Beaver" family with a young girl, a teenaged boy wearing his baseball cap backwards, and mom and dad looking like something out of a contemporary Norman Rockwell magazine cover, and they didn't seem out of place at all, having a beef bowl for one of their holiday meals.

Such is the power of food to cross cultural borders -- even ones that span vast distances. And, such is the appeal of fast food -- even if it's not a burger with fries.

While I was eating (I ordered the tonkatsu, a personal favorite, with a korokke dumpling), Torito came over and asked me about my cap. I was wearing a baseball cap with a Kanji character on the front, with the definition of "Heart, Spirit and Mind" on the back. Torito was excited by the cap because the Kanji was the character for the word "kokoro," or "heart."

I explained that the cap came from a store in a local mall, but that the manufacturer was based in Boulder, and called Kanji Kaps. I felt embarrassed to admit that I wore the cap because I thought it was a cool looking Kanji but that I didn't know it was the character for "kokoro." At times like this, I feel more American than Japanese.

Over the Christmas weekend, I thought some more about how I mix many traditions into my everyday experiences, including the celebrations of holidays. For instance, Christmas dinner with Glenn and his wife Michelle and their beautiful young daughters and the rest of my family featured traditional Italian food, but after dinner we had traditional Japanese snacks such as osembe (rice crackers) and yokan (sweet bean paste) alongside the fudge and other European desserts.

I didn't have a single bite of KFC chicken all weekend though.

NOTE: The addresses for the Kokoro locations are 2390 S. Colorado Blvd. in Denver (303-692-8752) and 5535 Wadsworth Bypass in Arvada (303-432-0600).

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December 20, 1999

BEAT CRAZY OVER TAIKO

I listen to traditional Japanese music from many types of instruments, from the pretty harp-like scales of the koto and the zen breeze of the shakuhachi flute to the eerily banjo-like shamisen, all used along with many percussion instruments to accompany kabuki and noh theater, and even in Imperial "gagaku" music. But I'll readily admit that much of the traditional music of Japan probably is too foreign to American ears to make much of a commercial impact in the U.S. -- the ancient gagaku style in particular can sound like avant-garde noise. Westerners will recognize both the melody of "Sakura" ("Cherry Blossoms") and the koto that most often plays the tune, but they may not develop a taste for other Japanese musical fare.

One type of traditional music from Japan has made tremendous inroads into the American consciousness, however: Taiko drumming.

The word "taiko" means drum, but it's been applied to the many styles of music played on many types of drums, from small, bell-like ones to the gigantic "odaiko" drums which are played by sticks ("bachi") the size of baseball bats. Taiko music is of course percussive -- historically, it was used to both frighten the enemy during samurai battles and to summon the spirit of the gods upon with the thunderous call. Ancient cultures around the world seized upon drumming as early forms of music, and used the powerful rhythms for rituals and battles. Japanese were no exception, and clay figures still exist from the Haniwa period (about the year 500 of the Common Era) with drums. Taiko drums, which were designed after instruments probably brought to Japan starting in 300 from Korea and China have also been used in religious ceremonies through the centuries.

Most of this music was played by one drummer playing one instrument, however. The sound that we associate today with the exploding popularity of taiko -- the ensemble rumble of a group of musicians playing complex rhythmic arrangements on different types of drums with the texture of the different tones weaving together for an almost hypnotic effect -- is actually a post-WWII phenomenon. The modern taiko style, or "kumi-daiko," was invented by Daihachi Oguchi, a jazz drummer who took a classical taiko arrangement and decided to add extra drums to suit his jazz group background.

The style stuck, and today there are an estimated 4000+ taiko groups beating a powerful pulse in Japan, with a complement of groups formed in the U.S. as well.

For all my appreciation for various traditional Japanese music, I didn't hear taiko when I was a kid in Japan In fact, I can't tell you where I first heard taiko, except that it was sometime after I became fascinated by the drumming and intricate rhythms of African and Latin American musical styles. In the context of "world music," taiko fits right in, which is in large part why the style has caught on with Westerners. Such high profile musicians as Mickey Hart, the drummer for the Grateful Dead and a scholar of world percussion, have helped raise awareness for taiko.

The first taiko group I saw live was Kodo, a remarkable group that tours the U.S. regularly. I had the great fortune to interview a member of the group a few years ago when they made several stops in Colorado. The group's members commit themselves to taiko as if it were a religious cult. They live on an island off the west coast of Japan and live, work and play music in a communal environment. They run miles each day and make physical fitness a part of their musical regimen, make their own drums, practice constantly and leave the island to spread the gospel of taiko to the world. They've become the best-known proponents of taiko music, and if they ever come to your town, I recommend not missing them. (Denverites will have to wait until February of 2001 for Kodo's return.)

Watching Kodo - or any taiko group - is a breathtaking experience, because the musicians don't just beat on drums for an hour and a half. I can only describe the performances as ballet-like because of the physical grace and endurance required to play the drums and also execute the often very complex and intricate choreography that accompanies the drumming. Some of the moves are simple, such as slowly raising your arms in time to the rhythm like a sunrise and then bringing them crashing down for a very loud crash, but the ensemble motion can become dizzying when the players begin pounding two or more drums at once, and then switch off positions with each other or spin to the next drum in a kinetic pantomime that visually echoes the polyrhythmic aural celebration.

It's an exciting and visceral type of music, so it's no wonder it's popular wit American fans (if you like rock music, it's hard not to like taiko).

This week I got to see the fruits of Japanese Americans who love taiko music, and saw the young students of Denver Taiko, an organization based out of the Denver Buddhist Temple, perform a demonstration for its various levels of groups from beginners to advanced drummers. Taiko's become popular enough that a couple of dozen kids now play in Denver Taiko, and there's also an adult group (which didn't play at this brief holiday concert, which was followed by a casual party for kids and parents). It was nice to hear the work of such dedicated students, and to see that taiko has become another way for the Japanese American community to explore its cultural roots.

Taiko music was introduced to California JA communities in the late 1960s, when the first U.S. taiko group was formed in San Francisco. Denver's group was originally formed in 1979, and the 20 years of performing and keeping alive the community spirit through the drumming has made Denver Taiko a vital institution.

Hmmm, I'm a dedicated amateur drummer who constantly beats my dashboard along to music while driving ... I wonder if I'd make the grade if I try out for Denver Taiko?

You can learn more about taiko drumming at an excellent Web site, The Taiko Resource.

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December 13, 1999

PEARL HARBOR, HIROSHIMA AND THE HATRED OF WAR

My father's family lived in Honolulu in the years leading up to World War II, but my grandfather took them to Japan in the summer of 1940. I don't know if my grandfather knew that war was coming in the form of the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base on December 7, 1941, but he surely was aware of the building tension between Japan and the U.S.

Since my dad and his brothers and sisters weren't directly affected by the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7 has never been a big date in my family's calendar. Growing up, I felt neither patriotism over the deaths of U.S. military personnel, nor embarrassment that the country of my heritage was responsible. As an adult, however, I find myself thinking a lot more about responsibility and consequences of brutal acts of war, not just over Pearl Harbor but also other horrors committed in the heat of battle.

Last week, I dwelled on these thoughts more than usual because of the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. But my musing was also sparked by a message posted to a Japanese American e-mail discussion group I belong to, called "Ties-Talk." The members of the group can openly and freely about issues affecting the Japanese American (and Canadian and Latin American) experience, and last week a flurry of e-mails were sent out in reply to one from Alisa Sanada, a 17-year-old young woman in Dallas who maintains the excellent "RealJapan" Web site.

Alisa was upset by a posting to her message boards, from a publisher promoting a new book by two Marines, General Raymond Davis and Georgia state Judge Dan Winn. Usually, having someone hype a book in our message boards is a minor irritation, but this message was disturbing, considering it was placed on a site celebrating Japan and Japanese American culture.

The book being promoted, "Clear Conscience," tries to justify the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki simply by considering it payback for the "rape, torture, killing contests, cannibalism, and the unrelenting murder of 30,000,000 civilian men, women, and children by the JAPANESE" during and in the years leading up to the war. This includes the rape of Nanking, and the brutal treatment of prisoners of war during the war. There's no doubt that the Japanese committed atrocities, and were particularly brutal with prisoners (even after Emperor Hirohito announced Japan's surrender over the radio, some officers took American POWs out of prison and murdered them with their samurai swords).

But to justify the mass killings of a city full of civilians with one bomb as revenge for atrocities seems so primitive and simple-minded that it's ludicrous. It reflects a fundamental level of hatred that obviously hasn't diminished over the years with this book's co-authors. "Clear Conscience" is a sad commentary on how the flames of hate won't die if you let them flicker in your heart.

Alisa's message to Ties-Talk ignited a vibrant discourse on the bomb and about Pearl Harbor (I've often heard how the A-bomb was appropriate because Japan started the war). Alisa later wrote how she didn't mean to cover old ground with her message, but most of us replied that it's healthy to bring up these topics so that younger people can know what happened five decades ago, and how the side effects of those nuclear explosions still reverberate through our culture. One member wrote that "What Japan did during the War was wrong. And what the US did by dropping the bomb was wrong. It was just one horrible time when many innocent people were killed. Two wrongs don't make a right."

I posted a note reminding the Ties-Talkers that in one night using conventional bombs to spark city-wide fires, a large portion of Tokyo was flattened and 70,000+ people were killed -- a comparable number of victims to the Hiroshima blast. This attack came on the night of March 10, 1945 -- months before the A-bomb was used -- and it was part of a systematic plan by the U.S. to destroy both Japan' ability to wage war and her people's will to fight. Did that night of bombing, during which thousands of people died not from the bombs themselves but from the fires and worse, from suffocation because the flames sucked all the oxygen out of the air, and the bombings of almost every major city in Japan make up for atrocities committed by the country's military?

Then I asked about atrocities committed in the name of war in general, starting with the brutality of the "Holy Wars" waged in the name of religion during the Crusades (not to mention atrocities committed through the ages in the name of many religions). I asked about the murder of the Jews by the Nazis, and whether Germany should have been blasted into oblivion to repay that human debt, or over the indiscriminate rocket bombings of London. The Allies did in fact bomb the city of Dresden into ashes towards the end of the war in Europe.

In the end, it seems to me that as civilized beings who have to share the precious Earth as our home, we need to stop trying to place blame or exact revenge on each other for the past, and plan a future together that's as free from hate as possible. I'm not naive enough to think that all Jews and Arabs will suddenly embrace each other, or that Hutus and Tutsis will live in harmony, or that Serbs and Croats can settle their racial differences, or that skinheads will see that minorities are just like them. Nor do I think that the two poor misguided fools who wrote this "Clear Conscience" will realize how backwards they sound.

I just hope that more people in the world think like me, and not like them.

You can read some archived threads and learn how to sign up for the "Ties-Talk" e-mail discussion group, or check out Alisa Sanada's "RealJapan" Web site.

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December 6, 1999

FINDING CULTURE WHERE YOU DON'T EXPECT IT

Isn't it great when being wrong can lead to enlightenment?

That's what happened to me this weekend. During a brief trip to San Diego, California, I was hoping to find a thriving Asian community and many Japanese Americans -- after all, isn't California the promised land for people from the Pacific Rim?

So imagine my surprise when I found no sign of an Asian community except for the occasional Japanese, Chinese or Thai restaurant, and no signs of a district like San Francisco's Japan Town, Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, or even Denver's one-block Sakura Square. I didn't even see many Asians out and about throughout the city. When I played the "Japanese tourist" and took a guided tour that included Coronado Island, Balboa Park, the Gaslamp District and La Jolla, I was further surprised to find no other Asian visitors -- at least, not on my bus. I asked several tour guides if there were areas of the city that are predominantly Asian, whether Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or whatever. One driver told me there's a Filipino area, but that otherwise Asians are scattered throughout.

So I had given up my search for Japanese American connections in San Diego by the time I returned to further explore the many museums contained within the beautifully landscaped boundaries of Balboa Park. After spending time wandering through the park's 1200 acres -- its museums were built for a world exposition in 1915, and the temporary buildings have since become a cultural landmark for the city -- I ended the day at the park's Japanese Friendship Garden. It had already closed its gates but the attendant just inside was kind enough to let me pay my $3 and enter anyway. The garden included carefully tended plants, precisely placed rocks and even a Zen rock garden.

I enjoyed the Zen garden from a small meditation room with a picture window that looked out over its raked white rocks, broken by boulders representing islands in Japan's inland sea, as well as a steep valley just below the terraced garden and the dramatic foliage of the rest of Balboa Park beyond.

I stayed there a long time, just enjoying the view but knowing that the park was closing outside. The tatami-covered benches were comfortable and the exquisitely simple design of the Zen garden really helped my mind wander. A tiny bird that looked like it could have leapt right out of a sumi-e brush painting alighted on the outside of the window and sat perfectly still for minutes, almost as if it too was meditating. Finally an elderly man came into the room to shoo me out, or so I thought.

I figured he was a volunteer whose job was to close down the Japanese Friendship Garden every night. He began to explain the display of origami near the entrance to the room, and I groaned in anticipation of a pseudo-lecture I didn't need and wasn't that interested in: "Did you know that you could create all these things with one little square of paper?" Oh, really?

But for some reason, he sensed the origami talk was unnecessary and instead turned his conversation to the Zen garden. He mentioned that the garden and the room were for meditating (oh, really?) and said I was supposed to meditate until I had a satori. Now, this was educational, since I'm a spiritual simpleton. He explained that a satori was a state of enlightenment that could be a flash of understanding or inspiration: an epiphany. People can have daily little satoris, like when you find the car keys that you misplaced, or major satoris, ones that can change the course of your life.

This was getting interesting.

He added that the Japanese gardens at Balboa Park will be expanding into the steep valley below us, and that the current gardens will become a walkway leading down to the expanded gardens. He joked about this not being completed within his lifetime, and when I said I didn't live in the city, asked where I was from. When I said Colorado, he mentioned he'd just been in Durango for a book signing.

This man was revealing more and more interesting details about himself all the time. Little by little, I learned more about this amiable and very knowledgeable garden expert.

His name is Lennox Tierney ("Like the actress Gene," I said, knowing that she was a star of his generation, and he smiled in agreement), and his book is "Wabi Sabi: A New Look at Japanese Design" (Gibbs Smith, 1999). Tierney, who is a spry 87 years old, is the art director of the Japanese Friendship Garden. He spends one week a month in San Diego tending to the garden's upkeep and future plans, and lives the rest of the time in Salt Lake City, were he's professor emeritus of the History of Asian Arts at the University of Utah (he earned a doctorate studying Japanese gardens from Sogetsu Ryu in Tokyo). He's also a consultant to the Mingei Museum in Balboa Park, and the current curator of Japanese Art for the Utah State Museum of Art -- all heavy duty credentials indeed.

In a sentence, he's a world-renowned expert. A garden he designed for the posh and exclusive Golden Door spa north of San Diego almost 30 years ago is so respected that Japanese officials regularly make their way to the spa to admire his work (what better place for Zen meditation than a spa?). He spoke eloquently of his efforts to make the Japanese Friendship Garden as authentic as possible, and admitted he'd lost some battles, pointing to the mixed color of some of the slate tiles surrounding the meditation room, and the somewhat light color of the boulders in another part of the garden.

Tierney's clearly still passionate about and proud of his work -- he's an inspiration to someone like me who's still just midway on my life's path.

As we spoke, I had a satori of my own: I was meant to meet Lennox Tierney. That's why I spent hours at Balboa Park, and ended the day at the Japanese Friendship Garden then dawdled in the meditation room until he found me. I needed to write about him, and to stay in touch with him. To mix spiritual metaphors, it was a karmic rendezvous.

We exchanged contact information after he shared wonderful anecdotes, and he recommended a fine Japanese restaurant for dinner. As he walked out of the garden to his car, he marveled suddenly at the fact that he was as old as Balboa Park, and that he was born during the reign of the Japanese Taisho emperor, who ruled after Meiji, the man who modernized Japan and opened the country to Westerners. "I'm almost a Meiji man," Tierney chuckled. "I've lived for most of the years of this century... this is my century."

Though I'd just met him, I feel honored to have crossed paths with this man of the 20th century. And, I feel humbled to know that after spending several days searching for some sign of Japanese culture within people who look like me, I found the source I was looking for in an octogenarian American like Lennox Tierney.

I know now that the Japanese spirit lives in many places and within many different people.

If you're planning a trip to San Diego, visit the city's Convention and Visitor's Bureau first, via its Web site. You can find a lecture about Japanese Gardens by Lennox Tierney online. It's part of a Web site dedicated to the Japanese Friendship Garden at San Diego's Balboa Park. And, while I'm at it, I want to recommend ContacTours, which does a fine job of offering many different individual and package tours. I took a solo tour of San Diego's city and harbor sites by bus and boat, and met some great folks. Ask for Dave Golston -- he was my funny, knowledgeable guide, and he's a great storyteller who obviously loves his job!

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November 28, 1999

WRESTLING FOR A PLACE IN SPORTS

Is it possible that Japanese Americans were put on Earth to excel at mental exercises, not physical ones? My brother Glenn, his wife Michelle and I were sitting around the other day, trying to name Japanese American professional athletes, and though I admit we’re not experts at this sort of thing, we couldn’t think of more than a couple.

Skater Kristi Yamaguchi and Colorado-based skier-turned-TV-sportscaster Hank Kashiwa came to mind. Who else?

Hmm, it’s not likely that there’ll be a Japanese American National Basketball Association star anytime soon - even if the current generation of JA kids is growing up bigger and stronger than previous ones. Even in hockey, a sport which seems less tied to a player’s size than his or her skills, I can’t think of a Japanese name on the ice. And though we’re seeing Asian Pacific Islander athletes playing now in the National Football League, I have yet to see a Japanese beefy enough to play professional football.

There are some Asians on the pro golf circuit, and people like Michael Chang excel in tennis. But I can’t think of many Japanese American names covered in the sports pages.

OK, OK, there are Major League Baseball players who are Japanese. But they’re not JAs.

In a way, we can take the excellence of Japanese athletes in Western sports as a role model. That quality of player is the result of Japan’s love of baseball and the commitment boys in Japan put to the sport. But Japanese are crazy about other Western sports besides baseball.

Take professional wrestling, for instance. That’s right: pro wrestling, as in Hulk Hogan, Jesse Ventura and all the other wild, flamboyant entertainers calling themselves “athletes” in the increasingly popular sport.

When we think Japan and wrestling we think of sumo, but during the 1950s, American-style professional wrestling helped revive the national spirit of the defeated Japanese archipelago. The country was still rebuilding its cities and re-creating a peaceful government and society from the ground up using a foreign blueprint (an American-style constitution forced upon Japan during General Douglas MacArthur’s Occupation). Though the population accepted American rule during the late 1940s, by the 1950s, quality of life was miserable for the Japanese and the spectacular defeat still cut to the core of Japan’s psyche.

That’s when western-style professional wrestling caught on. It caught on in such a big way that the sport helped establish the young medium of television in Japan, and caused the sale of early TV sets to skyrocket - just so audiences could watch Japanese wrestlers take on Americans … and often beat them. It was a thrilling form of cultural revenge played out as entertainment on a countrywide scale, and it worked to take viewers’ minds off their past defeats and current poverty and focus on the future.

Robert Whiting’s 1995 "Tokyo Underworld," subtitled "The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan," suggests that the matches between Japanese and American wrestlers were fixed (no, say it ain’t so!) by the post-war “Yakuza” (Japanese gangsters) that booked the events. Although some Japanese such as the former sumo champion Rikidozan were powerful athletes in their own right, the Western wrestlers were happy enough to lose a fight on purpose - if they were paid enough to do so.

The history of “puroresu” (a typically contracted form of the English “professional wrestling”) in Japan goes back much farther than the 1950s. Way back in 1883, a sumo wrestler named Sorakichi Matsuda went to the United States and became the first Japanese pro wrestler. The same year, another sumo star, Shokichi Hamada, known as Sangokuyama in sumo, also became a pro wrestler in the U.S. and a few years later brought 20 American wrestlers to Tokyo for a match. The event sold out because of curiosity, but after initial interest, the Japanese public wasn’t interested. It took until 1952, when Rikidozan retired from sumo and traveled to San Francisco for a match, for wrestling to catch on in Japan.

The first wrestling match broadcast by Japanese networks was in 1954, and the tag-team matches that included Rikidozan, the main event, attracted thousands of bystanders who gathered around publicly-mounted "street television" for people who couldn't afford television sets at home.

Rikidozan eventually was killed in a Yakuza revenge stabbing, but his talent was real: he won the World Heavyweight title from Fred Blassie in 1962 at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium and was the first Asian to win a world title belt.

This kind of international acknowledgement has also come from the signing of Japanese players to American baseball teams. And it reflects a national commitment to fitness as an important part of growing up in Japan. There’s even a holiday every October where sports and fitness is celebrated nationwide. It might be a good idea to adopt in the U.S., so we as a society can all applaud the physical accomplishments of all our students (not just JAs).

I wonder if Japanese society’s commitment to sports has been handed down to us through our immigrant roots. There certainly is a history of organized sports within our community. Others who know lots more than I do about JA sports leagues that were started in the early days of our Issei forefathers.

I know there were all-JA minor league baseball teams in places like Hawaii, and scattered throughout the Western U.S, at one point. I know there are all-JA bowling teams and leagues. And of course there’s the wide variety of Asian martial arts from judo and karate to aikido and kung fu that Japanese Americans compete in. The Denver Buddhist Temple has always sponsored all manner of sports for its young members - in fact it’s hard to think of any Japanese American community center that doesn’t have an attached gym for its youth. That’s a relic of the days when Asian faces weren’t welcome on the courts or pools of local YMCAs and health clubs.

So the Japanese American community isn’t lacking for interest in and support for sports - just for athletes in the national spotlight to serve as role models. Just maybe, with the increasing size of every generation of JA athletes, we may still get to see a Mayeda score a hat trick, or a young Asakawa play pro women’s soccer.

Or maybe another Rikidozan will rise up and take over the world of pro wrestling. I’d even tune in the WWF for that!

I knew my lack of professional sports knowledge would betray me on this column! Thanks to all of you who let me know there are already some Japanese American players in the National Hockey League....

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November 21, 1999

PRINCESS MONONOKE: A CARTOON FOR ADULTS

There's a Japanese cultural invasion underway, and a children' cartoon is leading the charge. The Pokemon phenomenon is interesting because the animated series ("anime" in Japanese) uses cute characters and fantastic situations to illustrate situations requiring moral choices and value judgments. Its popularity is surprising given the life lessons it teaches its young viewers -- both with the Saturday morning TV series (dubbed from the Japanese originals) and the new hit movie being shown in multiplexes across the country.

Pokemon is definitely kid stuff, though -- fun to look at, but simply presented, not just in its plots and characters but also in its somewhat static drawing style. That's pretty common in the U.S., where animation means primarily cartoons which are create solely to entertain kids.

Anime as a film genre in Japan isn't just for youngsters, though. In fact, I'd venture to say there's as much or more anime available aimed at adult viewers as for children (many are dubbed here in the U.S., some have English subtitles). Most are science fiction stories or quasi-historical samurai fantasies, and many are very violent and gory, with sexual undertones. There's even an entire sub-genre of sexually explicit adult anime.

So it's not surprising that in Japan, animated feature movies could be popular with adult audiences. That was the case with "Mononoke Hime," a full-length anime released in 1997 which was the highest-grossing movie in the history of Japan's film industry until the Japanese release of "Titanic" knocked it off the top of the charts.

Now, Miramax, the American independent film studio, has decided to bring the film to U.S. audiences as "Princess Mononoke," complete with a carefully translated English script (not just clunky "lip-synching") and the voices of well-known Western actors such as Claire Danes as the Princess Mononoke (who's called "San" throughout the film), the warrior who'd been raised as a wolf; "X-Files" star Gillian Anderson as the voice of Moro the Wolf, Mononoke's adopted mother; Billy Bob Thornton as the scheming priest Jigo; Jada Pinkett Smith as the sassy steelworker Toki and Minnie Driver as the regal Lady Eboshi, a character that walks the blurry line between being a villain and hero.

I think everyone -- Japanese and American -- should see "Princess Mononoke." I saw it with some friends, including two Japanese American teens who were engrossed in the movie and found it both entertaining and powerful. First of all, it's a sterling example of the fine artistic quality that's often achieved in anime. The background art is lush and very realistic -- some of the landscapes seem photographic in their detail and rendering of atmosphere. The characters are drawn in the typical anime style of large eyes, but the costuming and figure drawing accurately evokes an early samurai era. Within minutes, I forgot I was watching a cartoon and fell into the plotline.

The story's not set in a particular time or place, though, which is made plain by all the mystical creatures that populate the film: Hideous monsters, gigantic animal demons, and the cute, immediately likable "Kodama" wood spirits that look like Caspar the Friendly Ghost crossed with an alien. Nicole, one of the teens who saw the movie with me, couldn't help but melt every time the Kodamas made an appearance.

You can tell the story is Japanese from all sorts of cultural signs, both obvious and subtle, from the use of chopsticks and samurai swords to the cuisine of rice and miso soup, not to mention the characters' names. In one scene, Prince Ashitaka (voiced by Billy Crudup) has to cut the top-knot from his hair before leaving his village forever to search for the cure to the curse that is killing him. Cutting the top-knot was a tradition when a man was forced to leave his tribe. Many of these "Japanese-isms" may slip by American audiences, but they're a delight for anyone who's looking for them. Early on, when Ashitaka meets the priest Jigo, they camp out and Jigo heats dinner over a fire, and clearly stirs miso into a bowl of soup.

So what's "Princess Mononoke" about?

In a nutshell, the film is a metaphor for modern civilization's clash against nature, and the horrendous consequences we may be calling upon ourselves by indiscriminate development and industrialization. Director Hayao Miyazaki’s themes are clear from the first scenes. The story is about how indigenous people maintain their way of life in an untamed world, the conflict between industrial progress and the environment, and the power that myths have on our imaginations. The film isn't for kids because it's gory and violent, and because these themes are explored in complex ways. There are no easy answers in Miyazaki's worldview -- even the "bad guys" have a good side (Lady Eboshi may be destroying the forest in order to profit and make steel, but she hires and cares for prostitutes and lepers who are castoffs from society), and the "good guys" can get lost in evil intentions. The plot is straightforward but gives no pat answers to the problems facing our world today -- just a lot of nourishing food for thought.

"Princess Mononoke" makes its audiences THINK, which is the main reason people should see it. But alas, even Miramax understands that a box-office smash in Japan isn't necessarily going to be a stateside hit. "Pokemon" may be rolling through the mall multiplexes, but "Mononoke" is relegated -- at least in Denver -- to one art-house theater, and probably will suffer a short run. My suggestion: If you miss it in the theaters, be sure to watch for it on video. Better yet, try to find the Japanese version (I'm looking for one myself) and practice your Japanese while you're enjoying the movie!

You can learn about "Princess Mononoke," see samples from the film, read about how the American voice actors were chosen and play interactive games online at the film's U.S. home page -- http://princess-mononoke.com.

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November 14, 1999

THE IMPORTANCE OF STAYING JAPANESE

I'm glad when non-Japanese are so interested in Japan that they immerse themselves in the culture and even commit to learning the language. Conversely, it makes me sad when Japanese aren't interested in their own heritage.

I've written in the past about how growing up, I didn't think of myself as very Japanese. But my upbringing at home was full of Japanese culture and traditions, from rice with every meal (except when we had something like spaghetti) to taking off my shoes in the home. I also grew up with my parents speaking a combination of English and Japanese -- my friends marveled at how my mom spoke to me in heavily accented English with a few Japanese words thrown in, and I replied with a hasty "Yeah, okay mom" before running out the door. That's just how it is in a bilingual household.

It was only later that I realized that the mixed-up language I grew up with was a doorway to my roots, along with all the food and household rituals all around me. In recent years, I've come to cherish the Japanese side of my life, and seek out ways to emphasize it and learn more.

As with many immigrant groups -- I know many Italian Americans who don't speak Italian after all -- not every JA feels this way. Nor do I pass judgment on those who aren't deeply connected with their heritage. But because Asians can't just "pass" unnoticed within a primarily Caucasian society, we don't really have the luxury of ignoring who we are and where our ancestors came from. Sooner or later, someone with a racist attitude will remind us that we're not like them. Besides, if I turned my back on all things Japanese, I'd be missing out on a very rich culture, and deny myself a fuller knowledge of myself.

I know one adult sansei, or third generation JA, who until the 1990s had never had sushi and knew more about Mexican food than Japanese food or culture. Like me, he told friends he considered himself Caucasian. He was so militant that his anti-Japanese tendencies seemed forced. I still held on to my love of Japanese things even if I forgot my skin color in my daily life.

I also know many JAs -- even Nisei (second generation) but also Sansei like me, and Yonsei and Gosei (fourth and fifth) -- who aren't interested in traveling to Japan. I must admit that when I first returned to Japan as an adult, I felt nervous because I wondered if I would fit in, or if something about me would scream "AMERICAN!" to Japanese. As it happened, I did stick out as an American, but no one made me feel the lesser for it, and I enjoyed being able to straddle both countries as much there as I do here. Although they're the most Americanized, the younger generations surprisingly enough seem to have more of an interest, borne out of curiosity about their distant roots, in visiting Japan.

The younger JAs and future generations are the key to maintaining a sense of cultural heritage in the Japanese American community. We should all be nurturing an interest in all things Japanese in JA children, and never act as if any aspect of our Asian side is shameful, embarrassing, weird or inappropriate. My brother Glenn and his wife Michelle (who happens to be Caucasian) are very good about keeping their two adorable daughters connected. They use Japanese words as a part of their daily routine, include lots of Japanese food in their diet and even read them Japanese stories and play Japanese children's music recordings. For the past year they've also taken my nieces to Japanese language classes every weekend, even though they have to drive across the Denver metro area for the classes. They think it's important and wouldn't deprive their kids this experience, and I applaud them for making the commitment.

My nieces enjoy the classes but they're young girls still, and probably didn't ask to take them. When an older JA child asks to attend Japanese language class or wants to learn taiko drumming, I say "hooray!" and would urge parents to support these interests whole-heartedly. Jared, the teenaged son of a friend of mine, looks forward to such activities, which he's introduced to via the Denver Buddhist Temple downtown, a true community center for the JA community. And his mom eagerly allows him to explore his roots with these activities along with all the other things teenagers are interested in like sports, which aren't part of his Japanese side.

That's the way it should be. I'm no expert on child psychology, but it doesn't take mental gymnastics to know that giving a kid a sense of his or her own cultural identity, you're giving them a center that can serve as a foundation for the rest of their lives and interests. It's even more important in these times when the nuclear family tree has exploded into fragmented and sometimes brittle branches of former spouses' households. Parents who are lackadaisical about allowing their children to discover and learn about their ancestry, or worse, won't let them explore their roots because it's expensive, or inconvenient, or too far to drive to, are simply robbing their children of a part of their identity.

And that's a crying shame.

By the way, I don't mean to imply that any Japanese American should be fluent in Japanese.

I appreciate Japanese culture a lot more these days than when I was younger, but my language skills are still spotty. When I'm at a Japanese restaurant or the Pacific Mercantile grocery store, I find myself trying earnestly to speak in Japanese but end up mixing up my languages. Like my parents, I throw Japanese and English together in a savory stew of verbiage.

I guess that's all right. My friends from high school wouldn't be surprised.

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November 7, 1999

BASE BEHAVIOR: MEMORIES OF A MILITARY BRAT

I made a wrong turn today, and found myself driving through distant echoes of my childhood.

The images were all as if they were frozen in time -- flat open field of grass, low housing buildings and the stodgy office and school buildings of United States military bases. Only this one is a former base, Lowry Air Force Base east of Denver. One building still featured a proud memento of its earlier incarnation: A shiny air force bomber left as a monument reminds passersby that this is a decommissioned military base currently being redeveloped as a model suburban community.

The symbolism -- a military facility is adapted for peacetime domesticity -- perfectly parallels how suburbs were first developed to accommodate the explosion of families as wartime GIs returned home in the late 1940s. The drive also took me back to my childhood, when I was raised on or near U.S. military bases and attended American schools on those bases.

The issue doesn't seem to be in the Japanese headlines these days, but because of Veterans Day coming up, I have thought about the U.S. military's presence in Japan. I've thought about it because if it weren't for our two countries' continuing -- and from to time, contentious -- military relationship, I wouldn't be here. My father was in the U.S. Army and stationed in Hokkaido during the Korean War, first at a small city called Kushiro, and then in Nemuro, a smaller city that serves as the eastern-most point in Japan (and therefore a popular destination for New Year's Day, because the sun first rises on Nemuro). That's where he met my mother, a schoolgirl who'd been named "Miss Nemuro" when she was 17.

I can only imagine what my dad was like when he was a teenager, or in his early 20s. He was a lean, handsome young man who was quick with a smile and quick to fool around while working. (The Japanese have a great onomatopoetic word, "charra-charra," which describes the nervous energy of goofing around... but I digress.)

But he won my mom over, and went through the mountains of paperwork and various bureaucratic hurdles the U.S. put up to make it difficult for GIs to marry foreign nationals like my mom. After they were married, and the Americanization of my mom began, our family took root on military bases. My earliest memories are of vast, fenced-in expanses of open fields and roads made for marching, bordered by row upon row of barracks-like housing units and administrative buildings trimmed with cannons, tanks, missiles or planes strategically placed as pieces of military sculpture, much like the ghostly remains of Denver's Lowry Air Force Base.

My youngest recollections as an infant include lots of snappy khaki pleats and olive accents, shiny black shoes and always the American flag -- waving, being raised or lowered, the sound of its flapping and the clinking of its rope against the flagpole a daily part of my noontime lullaby. We lived and attended schools in places with names such as "Grant Heights" or "Green Park," and we socialized in places with names such as Tachikawa Air Base or Atsugi, the former Imperial air field where MacArthur's Occupation forces first landed weeks after the surrender.

We also lived for a brief time in southern Japan, in Iwakuni outside of Hiroshima. We lived off-base from the U.S. Marine facility at Iwakuni, but as usual, my American friends and I were bussed into school on-base, where I attended Matthew C. Perry Elementary School. I have fond recollections of having hamburgers at the greasy spoon hut set up outside our school, next to the baseball field, then after school riding bikes around town with Japanese and American friends, stopping for Japanese snacks like frozen pineapple rings while we played in our blissfully mixed-race world. It never occurred to me, for instance, when I visited the Hiroshima Peace Park as a boy, that my father's friends and co-workers are part of the military might that dropped the bomb on such a beautiful city. As a child, those deeper questions were beyond my ken.

My father was never hard-core military like the father in the 1979 film "The Great Santini," but military culture was definitely part of my life until I was 8 years old and about to enter 3rd grade. That's when we moved to the States, so my dad could work in a civilian capacity for the Army Corps of Engineers outside Washington, D.C. Since then, I'm only reminded of my familiarity with the Army life when go on-base somewhere, or find myself driving through a former base like Lowry.

In recent years, American military presence around the world has been questioned and much of our presence has been cut back. For decades, a movement in Japan has protested the concentration of U.S. military installations still in that country, with an emphasis on the bases on Okinawa. Every few years, a headline bursts forth like the ones in the early '90s where GIs were accused of raping a young Japanese girl -- headlines that haven't changed much since the immediate post-war days.

What those headlines don't mention is how much friendship there has been over the decades between and the U.S. and Japan, and how many GIs have been stationed in Japan and left there enriched by the experience in many ways both personal and political. And how many GIs have fallen not in war, but in love while in Japan.

My best memory of all from my childhood on-base is a vivid image of being with my dad at the noncommissioned officer's club at Tachikawa, a dark smoky place with lots of red, and helping him choose Glenn Miller songs for the jukebox. It's easy to forget that in addition to everything else my father was, he was also a veteran -- and that his military service has left its impression me.

Thanks, and happy Veterans Day, dad!

You can "virtually" visit Iwakuni, where I lived briefly, through a wonderful Web site, The Spencers in Iwakuni, created by Donella Spencer, the wife of a U.S. Marine stationed at the USMC base there. She loved the city and being in Japan, even though her family's now transferred back to the states. You'll find a lot of information about living in, traveling in and visiting Japan and Iwakuni at her site, and lost of links to other sites.

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October 31, 1999

THE PAST FOR SALE: ANTIQUES AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Shopping for antiques is a popular pastime -- holding onto the past becomes more and more comforting as we hurtle into a future where change is constant and everything new is valued over anything old.

I'm a fan of certain types of antiques -- pop culture junk such as toys from my baby-boomer childhood, for example, always warm my heart. And these days, I'm also interested in Japanese antiques as another way to absorb and appreciate my historical roots. But a recent visit to a dealer of Japanese antiques made me think about the purpose and power of these objects, whether they're 100 years old or just a few decades.

The occasion was the open house for Hanakago Antiques, a new business run by Mark and Anita Meyer of Boulder, Colorado.

The Meyers plan to operate Hanakago out of their home, with showings by appointment to anyone who's interested in Japanese furniture, baskets, textiles and decorative objects from artwork and handcrafted wood boxes to a variety of vases for displaying ikebana, or flower arrangements. The Meyers' home is a spacious contemporary style in a posh neighborhood, and the antiques for sale in the living room add a classy thematic boost to the clean lines of their architecture.

The couple had lived in Japan for over a dozen years and when they moved to Boulder, they realized there wasn't a source for the type of objects and furniture and clothing they had begun collecting. That's when they decided to form Hanakago.

Their taste for antiques is very refined -- at the open house there were many beautiful tansu (dressers), kimonos and obis (the sashes that are worn around the waist) and lots of appealing smaller pieces such as a variety of baskets and containers, including "bento boxes" (lunch boxes) with latches and handles which held smaller containers for rice, vegetables and the other elements of a mobile meal. I almost bought one because it was so exquisitely designed and crafted out of basket weaves. I also almost purchased an ikebana vase (not that I have a lot of ikebana to display) carved out of a burl of dark wood, shaped like a giant ginger root.

All of the items were dated by the Imperial eras -- Meiji, Taisho, Showa -- by which Japanese mark their historical periods. The Meiji emperor ruled from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s, and oversaw the Westernization and modernization of Japan after the country was opened up to the world by the U.S. commodore Matthew Perry. Taisho was the brief reign cut short by mental illness; the Taisho emperor's son, crown prince Hirohito, actually ran the country for some of the Taisho era before becoming emperor himself in the late 1920s. The Showa era under Hirohito is the Japan westerners know best because it's the Japan of World War II and the miraculous economic recovery since then (he ruled until 1989).

Because the Meyers are knowledgeable about Japanese history, going to their home to see their collection can be an educational experience. At the same time, though, the open house made me think about what happens when objects that once were part of someone's life are taken out of their original context.

This process of "recycling" old stuff for new enjoyment or other purposes is as inevitable as the passage of time, but in this case, some of the consequences of recycling nagged at my heart. The Meyers and the people who visited their open house certainly appreciated Japanese culture. But I felt a little bit protective of some of the objects being sold, because appreciation doesn't necessarily mean understanding or sensitivity. I saw a gorgeous and striking obi sash that featured Kanji, or Chinese calligraphic characters, woven black-on-black, which was handled by a buyer as if it were a bath towel on sale at a discount store. Because an obi is an important part of traditional dress and there's a ritualized and respectful way of handling them, and my friends and I felt somehow saddened seeing this beautiful piece treated not as part of a traditional ensemble but as a perfect decorative touch for atop a dresser.

This is the process of all antiques, since collectors have differing levels of background knowledge for the things they buy. I even found myself thinking of much of the collection merely as decorative items, which made me feel a bit shallow about my roots. Would owning some old Japanese objects really make me more connected to my own past?

In Denver, a store called East-West Designs sells some of the same types of objects and furniture as the Meyers, though the emphasis isn't quite so "high-end" and there isn't as much focus on pieces from the Meiji era or older (in fact the tags at East-West Designs don't note the age at all). Perhaps because the prices are somewhat less expensive (though there are things that are pricey), and because the sales person is Japanese and because a Japanese customer wandered in while I was there, I felt less worried about cultural dislocation -- I felt the items in the store were grounded in their context.

Is that unfair? I'm not sure... I'm still thinking about how I feel about it. In the end, anyone who likes Japanese antiques has the right collect it, no matter whether they're Japanese or not. Antiques deserve to go to a good home where they'll be pampered, and perhaps that's the best we could hope for -- that way the object lives on even if its original owner's spirit is no longer part of its soul.

Note: Hanakago Antiques is located at 1177 Cascade Ave. in Boulder, and is open by appointment; call 303-938-8989. East-West Designs is at 303 Josephine St., Denver, 303-316-9520.

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October 25, 1999

THAI FOOD AND LIFE LESSONS

I write often about Japanese restaurants, but I love any kind of food, and this week I'd like to tell you about my friendship with a man who has opened a handful of great Thai eateries along the Colorado Front Range in a little over the decade that I've known him.

I first met Paul Santanachote in the mid-1980s, when he ran Tommy's Oriental Kitchen (now called Tommy's Thai), a tiny restaurant on East Colfax Avenue. An attorney friend of mine took me there for lunch one day, and I loved the food so much that I returned for lunch five days straight, and on the last day took bags of takeout food back to the office to share with my co-workers. Paul was the host and manager, and I found out later that his wife, Oranuch, was the talent behind the dishes -- she cooks, while Paul takes care of business.

The Pad Thai was delicious, extra-spicy (at my request) and filling. For those of you unfamiliar with Thai cuisine, Pad Thai is the "spaghetti" or "teriyaki" of Thailand, the one dish most foreigners have heard of, which is made with various meats and vegetables stir-fried with noodles and served with varying degrees of peppery heat. Over time I tried almost all the dishes, from the cold beef salad to the green and red curries and Sriracha, an explosion of flavor served in a spicy red sauce. And, I got completely hooked on Thai iced coffee, a concoction of strong coffee served over ice with sweet condensed milk added. Try one sometime -- it's like sucking down liquid candy, and it has the double-kick of caffeine and sugar so you'll be buzzing round for hours.

Whenever I had a business lunch, I suggested Tommy's for the meeting, and helped tell more people about the quaint hole-in-the-wall eatery which had started life as a KFC chicken outlet.

After a few years of running Tommy's, Paul outgrew Tommy's and tired of the fast-food pace. He longed for a larger, sit-down restaurant. After scouting locations, Paul announced he had found a space in Boulder -- which coincidentally had for years housed the Kobe An Japanese restaurant but had been vacant for some time.

He handed Tommy's to his brother-in-law, Sam (both are former mail carriers), and then began renovating the space in Boulder, which is right on the Pearl Street Mall at 14th Street. Paul redesigned the interior but he had to work with some of the existing architecture: Kobe An had tatami-mat rooms so Paul left them for groups who wanted the privacy of the enclosed rooms. Sawaddee, the new restaurant started off slowly, but within a year attracted a regular clientele.

During this time, I got to know Paul better, and discovered that he lived in Littleton -- the suburb south of Denver -- and I marveled at how he and his wife, and even his teenaged daughter Dipany, who worked with them during the summer, commuted to Boulder. The daily grind sounded horrible to me. They got up early every morning and headed to the restaurant, stopping only to pick up ingredients for the day's meals, and had the restaurant open for lunch. The entire family worked straight through to closing and got back home well past midnight after cleaning up the restaurant. Then they got up and did it again.

I admired the entire Santanachote family for its united effort to help the entire business succeed. Their single-mindedness was then, and still is, a great inspiration to me.

Paul again got the itch to start another restaurant after a couple of years, and this time to do it from the ground up and literally control every aspect of the building. He scouted locations in Fort Collins, the small college town another hour north of Boulder, where Dipany planned to attend Colorado State University when she graduated from high school.

I regrettably lost touch with Paul and his wonderful family about this time, because I got a job south of Denver in Colorado Springs, and only occasionally managed to visit Boulder. But I wasn't surprised at all when I heard that Paul gave Sawaddee to another family member and finally opened Sri Thai in Fort Collins.

Two years after he opened Sri Thai, I managed to finally visit Paul in Fort Collins last month.

I called ahead for directions for my friend Leland and me, and spoke briefly to Paul. It was great to hear his eager voice, and he told us how he had achieved his dream. He had bought the land -- a corner lot at a busy intersection -- and designed and oversaw the construction of the restaurant from start to finish.

When we got to Sri Thai, the place was packed, but Paul had held open the one table in the room that had a corner view of the entire restaurant. Paul wanted us to have the best seats in the house to watch the choreography of his friendly, knowledgeable waitstaff and the servers scurrying around with dishes.

The food tasted fantastic, naturally, and even though we were stuffed from dinner and ready to leave, Paul made us sit back down and was kind enough to finish us off with some mango and sweet sticky rice for dessert.

I hugged Paul afterwards and told him how much I admired him, and explained how I try to work hard, partly because of my own "Asian work ethic" but also because of role models like Paul in my life.

I'll go back to Sri Thai soon (I won't wait years again before I see Paul) but I can always visit the other restaurants closer to home that are Paul's legacy. Tommy's Oriental is still doing great business, though Sam who took over for Paul is now running his own fine restaurant called Wild Ginger. Sam handed Tommy's to family members to run, of course. And Sawaddee still serves up delicious Pad Thai and other staples.

This legacy reminds me always of the lesson that success has to be earned, but that it's always achievable if you're dedicated to it. And best of all, life's lessons never tasted so good.

Note: Sri Thai is located at 950 S. Taft Hill Rd. in Fort Collins, (970) 482-5115. Tommy's Thai is located at 3410 E. Colfax Ave., (303) 377-4244. Wild Ginger is at 399 W. Littleton Blvd., (303) 794-1115.

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October 18, 1999

RACE RELATIONSHIPS: SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS

I haven't read "Snow Falling on Cedars," the 1994 bestseller by David Guterson, but I got a sneak peek at the movie version of the novel last week at the closing night screening of the Denver International Film Festival. I enjoyed the film and hope it's a hit, with its twenty-something star Ethan Hawke as the main attraction.

For Japanese Americans, Hawke is a sidelight. We'll go to the film to see how it depicts our history -- or at least, the experience of a small JA community near Seattle. Much of the discussion over both the book and now the movie focuses around the topic of Internment and whether "Snow Falling on Cedars" does a good job of explaining what happened to Japanese Americans who were uprooted from their Pacific Northwest home and transplanted in concentration camps thousands of miles away.

Some people I've spoken to think "Snow Falling on Cedars" isn't politically charged enough, and that the film misses the chance to educate mainstream America about the tragedy of Internment and how Japanese Americans were treated as recently as a generation ago. That's probably true enough, but I find this perspective misses the point of the story.

I didn't see the movie as a political statement. I walked away thinking more about the inevitability of the story's romantic subplot, and I felt saddest not for the JAs who suffered the historic ignominies, but for Hawke's Caucasian lead character, and his devastating realization that he'll never regain the love of his life.

The story has several levels: First, it's a murder mystery. Second, it's a poignant if somewhat impressionistic look back at the Internment of Japanese Americans from the small island community of San Piedro. Third, it's a romance as star-crossed and doomed as Romeo and Juliet, with race serving to divide the Capulets and Montagues in this passion play.

The film -- like the book -- opens with the death of a fisherman on a foggy night in Puget Sound, and the arrest of a childhood friend, Kazuo Miyamoto, for murder. As the trial unfolds, we find out that Miyamoto hated the victim and was on his ship the night of his death. A journalist covering the trial for the island's community newspaper, Ishmael Chambers, is forced to deal with his emotions because Miyamoto's wife is Hatsue, a woman he's loved from childhood, and with whom he had a torrid teenaged affair just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor changed everything. Although he confesses his love for Hatsue before the war, he doesn't speak up to try and stop the evacuation of Hatsue's family along with the rest of the island's JAs. And though his father (played in a righteous cameo by Sam Shepard), the editor of the newspaper, championed the rights of the Japanese Americans to the consternation of the island's other Caucasians, Chambers doesn't immediately reveal crucial information that could affect the outcome of the trail.

On the other hand, Hatsue's family plays the role of stoic outsiders who endure the evacuation and then pressure Hatsue to give up her misguided affection for Ishmael Chambers and settle down with her own kind. When Japanese use the word "hakujin" for Caucasians, it stings because it's so obviously a racist slur, and reveals how much racial division and paranoia simmers below the "inscrutable" surface of our Asian skin. It doesn't surprise us when the townsfolk call us "Japs" and display their ugly prejudice during the courtroom scenes. But I bet Caucasians will be somewhat shocked to see the bluntness of the Japanese characters' racism against them.

As a film, "Snow Falling on Cedars" is lovely -- the lyrical camera work captures breathtaking scenes of the northwest landscape, though the quick-cut flashbacks and non-linear storytelling style can be confusing at first.

Some of the most affecting and effective scenes include the roundup of the island's JAs; the extended flashbacks of Chambers and Miyamoto's separate WWII experiences; and the tender moments of the young Chambers and Hatsue hiding out in a hollow of a gigantic cedar tree in the forest.

The out-marriage rate of Japanese Americans has of course increased over the decades since the period in which "Snow Falling on Cedars" takes place. It's hard to imagine a family insisting on marrying only Japanese -- it would seem as shockingly out of place as a Caucasian family refusing to allow a child to marry an African American, or -- gasp -- an Asian. Still, these sad situations occur, even now.

The movie will surely stir sales of the book again, and I hope with the combined popularity of the story, people will ponder the Internment and our country's legacy of race and hatred. But then I hope people will also think a little farther -- or closer to home -- and see how race can break hearts as well as communities.

You can read about the movie release at http://www.snowfallingoncedars.com, or order the book from Amazon.com, Tatteredcover.com or your neighborhood book store.

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September 20, 1999

JAPAN THROUGH VIDEO GAMES: FROM PONG
TO POKEMON

I recently watched Jared, the teenaged son of a Japanese American friend of mine, drop a few quarters into an X-Men vs. Street Fighter video arcade game at a movie theater. I noted with some interest that though the X-Men is an American comic book institution, the characters in this video game were clearly drawn in a Japanese cartoon style. Jared was slamming away at the game, using rapid wrist movements to control the "joystick" for movement and the fingers of his other hand to slam down the buttons that controlled various weapons and martial arts moves carried out onscreen by the characters.

After a couple of minutes, two other Asian young men came by, and the older of the duo slipped to the joystick next to Jared and pressed a button that brought a message on the screen announcing a challenger. Jared and the new kid on the game went at it, with teeth gritted, hands and wrists banging away at the controls and a furious fight onscreen: two superheroes (hell, I couldn't even tell which was the bad guy and which was the good guy) hitting, kicking and jumping at each other, then shooting balls of fire and other assorted powerful mutant weaponry at each other.

Jared lost this round, but I didn't find out until much later, when he told me. The second round, Jared kicked the other guy's ass. I had no idea what was going on at all.

The entire exchange was bewildering to me because everything moved too fast for my middle-aged mind to absorb. But it took me back to the earlier days of amusement arcades and video games, and how companies from Japan such as Nintendo, and later, Sega and Sony have taken over the market for computer-driven video games for both the home and arcades.

Not to sound too nostalgic, but I am a baby boomer, after all, and baby boomers are nothing if not nostalgic. I still remember when a little company called Atari introduced Pong, first as an arcade game (most popular in bars next to the foosball and air hockey tables and pinball machines) in 1972, with a home version in '74. The California-based company was named after a term used in the Japanese board game Go.

When I was in high school, my friend Bubba bought the first Pong game consoles, sold by Sears. By today's standards it's incredibly simple and unappealing -- it sort of replicated a ping-pong table on a TV screen, with cursors at each side as "paddles," and an electronic "ball" that bounced back and forth across the screen as players used a knob to move their paddles up and down to intercept the ball.

Not too challenging compared to Jared's encounter with the X-Men, but the silly pinging sound of the Pong ball as it bounced heralded a new age of games and entertainment. The stuff that has come since from Pac Man and Donkey Kong to Space Invaders and Super Mario all owe a debt to Pong.

Thanks to the dumb-named "Donkey Kong," Nintendo was the first superstar company of this new era of entertainment.

The Kyoto-based company has its roots in a small family business formed in 1889 to manufacture sets of a card game called "Hanafuda." The company grew and became Yamauchi Nintendo & Co. in 1933 and eventually Nintendo Playing Card Co. Ltd. before expanding from playing cards and started manufacturing other types of games in the early 1960s. The company created the first video game system in 1975 in cooperation with Mitsubishi Electric. Donkey Kong came in 1981, and the Super Mario Brothers came in 1985 with the very popular Nintendo Entertainment System for home use.

By 1989, the company was hugely successful, and got even huger with another hit: The portable, battery-operated Game Boy which allows users to take their obsessions out of the home or arcade (I'll admit, I own one and will mindlessly play "Tetris," a simple puzzle game, to waste time at the office).

Currently, Nintendo has a lock on the electronic game merchandise for Pokemon, the mega-hit anime TV show. I think they're doing all right.

The company doesn't have a lock on the industry at large, though -- Sega, the Tokyo-based company, is worth $3 billion dollars -- nothing to sneeze at. And Sony's PlayStation has shipped well over 30 million game systems worldwide.

Why am I focusing on all this commerce?

Because so much of it serves as an indirect ambassador of Japanese style to the world, and particularly to the U.S. I look at the characters and see Japanese manga (comics) techniques. Even on the X-Men game, I heard snippets of Japanese being spoken amidst the flying fists of fury.

There's a Japanese aesthetic that's hard to describe but which is tangible in these games. And Sony, in its TV commercials, pays the ultimate homage to its cultural roots by using the very recognizable voice of a Japanese female announcer whispering, "PlayStation" with her familiar accent (Japanese TV commercials often end with the soft voice of a woman saying the name of the company).

But you know, all this excitement can be tiring for an old guy like me, who was there at the dawn of the digital entertainment revolution.

And now that I think about it, I feel downright nostalgic about my own youth. I think I'll drag out that Pong game (I eventually bought it from my friend Bubba) and hook it up for some old-fashioned fun....

I bought the Pong from Bubba long after high school -- it's a miracle he still had it -- for research for The Toy Book, which I co-authored with my pal Leland Rucker in 1991.

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September 13, 1999

THE TIES THAT BIND: FAMILY FRICTION FICTION

Towards the end of her debut novel,"Why She Left Us," Rahna Reiko Rizzuto titled one chapter, "Shikata Ga Nai." A few pages into this chapter, Emi Okada, the supernova around which the other characters orbit, explains to her daughter Mariko: "'You know,' she said, 'my mother had a saying. "Shikata ga nai." She used it a lot, especially during the war. It means,"It can't be helped."'"

This is a very familiar phrase for Japanese, because it’s an all-purpose repository for anything that could be described as an act of God, a fluke of nature or more commonly, a man-made mess. It’s all about accepting what might appear as wrong -- or worse -- and resigning yourself to having the all-too-human element of emotion scarring your psyche.

“Why She Left Us” is an examination of how the emotional fallout of this phrase has infected three generations of the Okada family, starting with the first-generation immigrants Mitsuo Okada and his wife Kaori, their children Will, Emi and Jack, and their children.

Rizzuto tells the epic story, which starts before World War II and ends in 1990, with skill, vision and verbal dexterity - her deft telling of the Okada family’s cross-generational breakdown is an intense dig into psychological archeology.

The story’s revealed in novel ways, with pieces told from the perspective of four of the characters in non-linear fashion. Like archeology, the story emerges rather flows. The reader has to assemble the truth about the Okada family from memories preserved as shattered artifacts, jumping back and forth in time, place and voice - each perspective even exists within its own set of storytelling conventions.

The holistic tale is simple: A Japanese American immigrant family in California finds itself imprisoned at the Amache Relocation Camp near Granada, Colorado, during World War II. Each of the Okada children have different experiences -- Emi, the wild child, already is an unwed mother who has given up her son Eric for adoption. But as war looms, Kaori brings Eric back from his adopted family to raise with his birth family. Emi comes and goes from this nuclear family, giving birth during the war to her daughter, leaving her also with her mother and later coming back to claim just Mariko to take with her new husband to Hawaii.

Throughout the book, Mari is the protagonist who’s curious about her past, and who eventually discovers the secret of Eric, who she had been told all her life was her cousin. The plot is actually about the need for both disclosure and closure about the unspoken, unresolved wounds of past.

The fragmented memories suits the herky-jerky pace of the story. And, the different points of view serve as Rizzuto’s verbal playgrounds - there are terrific passages of dialogue that read like a killer screenplay (hint, hint), striking images and lusciously crafted passages everywhere.

In the very first chapter, when Eric thinks his mother Emi has finally come back to take him with her, just the sound of his name unleashes his emotions. “When at last she says his name, the woman’s voice splashes into Eric’s chest, cooling his insides down in a rush that reaches his toes. It floods his eyes, too, blurring the perfect lines in her face.”

Longing lingers throughout Eric’s story, as he grows up with his surrogate family of his grandmother, grandfather and uncle Jack. At one point Rizzuto writes, “Families, Eric thinks, are deadly.”

He grows up a troubled youth but settles down finally with a wife and children by the time Mariko undertakes her journey to discover the truth about herself and her family. Near the end of the book, Mari meets Eric again, and the two quietly begin to bridge the family chasm.

It's an enormous chasm to cross: The oldest generation, protecting traditional values of image and honor, commited brutal sins and effectively destroyed a family unit in the name of preserving it. The young generation can play peacemaker in a dysfunctional family, and if loose ends are still left hanging raw like a live wire shooting off sparks, at least the circuit was finally turned back on and the electricity can flow again.

Ultimately, “Why She Left Us” isn’t about the internment. It’s about the ties that bind families together - and the peculiarly Japanese knots of obligation that can snarl and tangle those ties over time. Perhaps Rizzuto’s great accomplishment here is in capturing the tortured dynamics that are inherent in the line, “shikata ga nai” - the Japanese side of her Japanese American background has served her well here.

Rizzuto’s proven she’s a first-rate storyteller - there’s some temptation to assume some of the characters and situations are autobiographical, because her mother was interned at Amache and after the war moved to Hawaii, where Rizzuto was born.

Despite the historical accuracy and observant details that could have been drawn on her own childhood, “Why She Left Us” is fictional. Rizzuto interviewed many former internees about their experiences and created composite experiences from the fragments of sad anecdotes she collected.

But as fiction, the book rings true -- there’s truth enough here for anyone who comes from a Japanese family to recognize the inexorable dynamics on display... and then to sigh, "Shikata ga nai."

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto will make two appearances to discuss and sign copies of “Why She Left Us”: Monday, October 4, 6 pm, Denver Buddhist Temple (1947 Lawrence) and Tuesday, October 5, 7:30 pm, Tattered Cover.

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August 30, 1999

SAYONARA: HOLLYWOOD'S VISIONS OF JAPAN

I love to watch movies for what they tell us about the world -- or at least, what Hollywood thinks about the world. I especially love watching older movies about Japan, to see how Americans have perceived Japan and Japanese people over the years.

Every few years, American filmmakers tackle a plot that takes place in Japan, and try to make sense of the foreign culture through homegrown lenses. The results, not surprisingly, can be one-dimensional, if not downright racist.

I especially enjoy renting videos of older movies which show Japan in the immediate post-war years and the late '50s-early-'60s years when I lived there as a child. I like to try to capture the feel of what the country was like during its rise from the ashes of war, and also to jog long-stored memories.

Recently, I've seen several older movies about Japan: "Walk, Don't Run," a cute and sweet 1966 romantic comedy starring Cary Grant that's set in Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics; "Geisha Boy," a truly silly 1958 vehicle for Jerry Lewis' obnoxious humor; "Teahouse of the August Moon," the 1956 comedy starring Marlon Brando, set in Occupation-era Okinawa; and "Sayonara," the 1957 drama set in Occupied Kobe, also starring Brando.

The difference between the two Brando films is that in "Teahouse," Brando plays the part of a Japanese interpreter, with his eyes hideously taped up into a slit and his speech tied up in a fake, lispy "ah-so" accent, while in "Sayonara," Brando's cast as a fighter pilot during the Korean War who ends up stationed in Japan.

All the movies are enjoyable in their own way, even though "Teahouse" especially makes me cringe for all its cutesy cliches about the earnest, hardworking folks the Americans found throughout the defeated country. Of the four, "Geisha Boy" is the most "offensive," but I have to admit, it's not because it's politically incorrect, but because I never thought Lewis was so funny.

What I like best about all of them are the scenes of Japan, caught by the cameras not so much as part of the plot, but as the incidental background for all the action. I'm fascinated by the glimpses of scenes with their streets filled with people, cars and bicycles, the fashions, the buildings and the many examples of exotic culture that every director captures.

"Sayonara" is my favorite of these movies because it's the one that asks the most questions about the relationship between Japan and America, Japanese and Americans.

Based on a novel by James Michener, it's a thoughtful story about U.S. military men falling in love with the "native" women while stationed in Japan. In the years since World War II, the image of GIs bringing back so-called "war brides" has become commonplace -- in fact, I'd dare say it's common wherever U.S. soldiers, sailors and marines are sent anywhere in the world, for them to find love in those faraway locations and bring back new families. It's been part of the recipe for the multi-cultural ethnic stew that makes up our "melting pot."

But soldiers during the Occupation and the Korean War (the Occupation officially ended in 1952, during the Korean "conflict") who fell in love while in Japan were discouraged from marrying their sweethearts. The military made it difficult with a mountain of paperwork and lingering, suspicious questions about loyalty for many couples to go through with their plans. This attitude lingered for years, even though the U.S. did make it easier for GIs to marry and bring back foreign-born brides after the Korean war.

I've come across a sheaf of papers from the mid-1950s, which my Hawaiian-born Nisei father had to sign before he was allowed to marry my Issei mother, whom he met while he was stationed in Hokkaido. It made me realize how much trouble the two of them had to go through.

In "Sayonara," Brando plays an ace pilot on a career officer's path who's brought to Japan by the general whose daughter he's supposed to marry. At the start of the film, he's a typical American, who lectures one of his men (played by Red Buttons in a terrific role) for wanting to marry a Japanese woman. But after he attends the marriage ceremony as best man, Brando's character starts to see that love is color-blind, and eventually falls for a Japanese woman himself. But because the Army won't allow his friend to return to the U.S. with his new wife (played by Miyoshi Umeki, a famous Japanese actress in a very subservient role), the couple commits suicide, leaving Brando to take a personal stand himself to try and change the rules.

By contemporary, politically-correct standards, the race issue competes with how women are shown (especially those exotic Asian women, who are treated as objects and act like love slaves), but the original intent was to show the tragedy of racial separation. The movie simply captures the tenor of its times in an unfortunately accurate manner.

Today's Hollywood might want to focus a little more on feminist issues. Perhaps it will, in Steven Spielberg's upcoming version of "Memoirs of a Geisha." Any film that takes place in modern Japan could also show an American woman soldier stationed across the Pacific who falls in love with a Japanese man -- that might be an interesting twist.

Then again, romance still crosses the color line, but these days, mixed-race marriages won't raise eyebrows as they did 50 years ago. And that's a good thing.

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August 22, 1999

CROSSING A BRIDGE TO JAPAN: MANJIRO SUMMIT '95

NOTE: This column is a re-edited version of a story I wrote in 1995. Now sponsored by the John Manjiro-Whitfield Commemorative Center for International Exchange, this VERY AFFORDABLE trip has since been renamed a "Seminar." You can read about the 9th Annual Japan-America Grassroots Seminar, scheduled for November 3-10, 1999 in Shizuoka, Japan, or call IACE Travel at 800-526-4223 for information.

Before I left Colorado Springs for the "1995 Japan-America Grassroots Summit," sponsored by the Manjiro Society for International Exchange, I half-expected the trip to be an elaborate package tour. Nobody could explain to me what happened at the summit. Would there be panel discussions? Lectures? Historical presentations? Or would it be sightseeing?

It turned out to be all of the above.

And more: Attendance at the summit also included two nights of homestay with a Japanese family. The homestay is what makes the summit truly "Grassroots." After attending the summit Oct. 28-Nov. 6, the American participants - there were about 200, with several dozen from Colorado - came home with a better understanding of how Japanese live their day-to-day lives.

The summit took place around Kagoshima, a beautiful port city at the southern end of Kyushu that has as its centerpiece Sakurajima, a live and smoking volcano in its bay. The location was notable because the region was home to Manjiro Nakahama, a teenaged sailor who in the early 1800s was shipwrecked and rescued by an American whaling ship and educated in New England (as John Manjiro or John Mung -- Chinese names being much more familiar to Americans at the time) before returning to Japan.

Because of Sakurajima's majesty, I had decided on a homestay in Kagoshima to get to know the city and its volcano better. Attendees chose in advance from ten regional homestay locations, including remote villages such as Wadomari, on Okinoerabu Island two hours' flight from Kagoshima, and Nishinoomote City on Tanegashima Island (the headquarters for Japan's space program).

One reason it's hard to describe the summit is that much of its programming structure depends on where you spend your homestay. This summit opened with an afternoon of welcome speeches in Tokyo, but after one day of cultural performances (traditional music and dance and a tea ceremony) and history lectures in Kagoshima, the attendees split into small groups according to their homestay locations. For the next two days, each locale planned its own agenda, from loosely structured sightseeing to pretty serious panel discussions.

The Kagoshima homestay group spent the first day meeting with the city's mayor and lunching at City Hall; sitting through more history lessons, which are enlightening but a burden to endure during such an otherwise exciting experience; and a brief but beautiful traditional dance performance at a reception where we met our hosts for the next two nights.

Then we went off with our homestay families for our unique one-on-one experiences.

Not everyone got a real-life look at daily Japanese living, though: Jeff Brown, a Colorado Springs art teacher who had his homestay in Wadomari, had a wonderful time. But he was treated like a visiting dignitary, and villagers dressed their best to visit him and take his picture. He didn't get an accurate view of those villagers' lives. And though accurate, some Americans got to see a privileged view of Japanese life, because they were assigned to wealthy homestay families and showered with extravagant gifts.

Luckily, my homestay was with an unusually large (for Japan) family that doesn't live extravagantly and didn't treat me like a curiosity. Mr. and Mrs. Yamashita have eight kids who range from 7 to 23 in age. Tsutomu Yamashita is a professor at the local technical college who works the long hours typical of Japanese employees; I didn't get to spend much time with him. Sayoko-san, my English-speaking, 51-year-old homestay "mother," is a housewife who volunteers with the local traditional dance troupe.

We shared ideas and knowledge about the Japanese education system (she thinks it asks too much of her children); about racism; about the difference between Japanese and American work ethics; about things that affect our lives, not just our countries.

She took me to the 120-year-old local elementary school where her youngest children walk to classes every day; the local hospital, where her older son Shinya was having his sore throat investigated by a doctor (the prognosis: didn't want to go to school); and Kagoshima's downtown entertainment district, where hundreds of bars with tiny, discreet square signs attract the working population after office hours. I slept on the floor on a futon; used their Japanese-style furo (bath); ate sukiyaki communally with the family.

Somewhere in between the talking and eating, we also squeezed in a lot of sightseeing, including a breathtaking ferry ride and drive halfway up Sakurajima's smoking spout (the first night in Kagoshima it erupted a fountain of ash that forced contacts-wearers to put on their glasses). We also visited the mountainous area around Kirishima, a hot springs resort north of Kagoshima; and the local botanical gardens, where a Chrysanthemum Festival was being held.

The climactic moment of the trip came at the end of the homestay, when all the American participants gathered back in downtown Kagoshima to join in an annual street festival and dance, or "obon."

But the most lasting moment will be the one when I first stepped into Sayoko Yamashita and her family's entryway, where the family took off their shoes, and saw a crudely-drawn sign with a Japanese and United States flag crossed, and the words "Welcome Gilbert" written across it.

I felt like Manjiro Nakahama, returning to Japan after years away in America.

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August 16, 1999

GEISHA CHIC: IT'S HIP TO BE JAPANESE!

If cultural trends ebb and flow like the ocean being pulled by the magnetic mysteries of the moon, the tide is definitely running high for all things Japanese these days. Ever since the 1997 publication of Arthur Golden's enjoyable novel "Memoirs of a Geisha," there's been a slow buildup of interest in Japanese culture, which seems to be culminating in a veritable tsunami of influences from the west shores of the Pacific lapping on the beaches of the United States.

A lot of the Japanese affectations have been about geishas -- an often misunderstood symbol of artful talents -- and this year the fashion world was all a-twitter over Japanese elements such as kimono sleeves and Westernized versions of the traditional dress, topped off with chopsticks used as hairpins. Even popstar Madonna got into the act, donning a kimono-esque robe for a music video and her attention-grabbing performance during this year's Grammy Awards telecast. Articles in august publications such as the New York Times have officially announced the Japan-fad, opening the way for moderne Americans to feel hip and cutting-edge for mimicking and co-opting styles and artistic expressions that are sometimes hundreds of years old.

This commodification of Asian culture is nothing new. Americans have flirted with various forms of Asian style at various times over the decades, whether because of the sheer exoticism of the Far East or because our military spent time in Asia (there's an obvious cycle of Asian "war brides" from post-WWII Japanese women to brides from Korea and Vietnam and Southeast Asia marrying GIs during subsequent military engagements). Maybe it's a combination of both -- certainly, Asian women have long been objectified in Western sexual fantasies.

Food, as always, is an early harbinger of cultural change. As each new Asian community establishes a foothold in America, a wave of new restaurants emerge. In Denver, a clear culinary shift could be tasted in the past 20 years, from long-established Chinese and Japanese restaurants to many restaurants serving first Vietnamese, then Korean, then Thai food becoming popular with young non-Asians.

In the past couple of years, I've noticed a resurgence of Japanese restaurants, albeit often the Americanized type of "fast food" Japanese that serves up not-too-traditional bowls of gloppy teriyaki beef or chicken served over over- or under-cooked rice. Now that sushi's become an American staple, there seem to also be sushi bars galore, of varying quality. There's even the combination of a sushi bar with an American tradition, the all-you-can-eat buffet, here in Denver. I didn't like it because it just didn't feel right to be eating sushi by the handful with no regard to the delicate presentation f a true Japanese meal.

And now, you can turn your kitchen at home Japanese.

The latest mail-order catalog from Williams-Sonoma, a bastion of staid, tasteful, upper-crust American consumerism, features four pages of "Asian style" that includes such "classic" (that's a sarcastic "classic") Japanese products as stainless steel chopsticks that looks like something a surgeon might use to remove a kidney during an operation; "Square Asian Plates" (I didn't know that Europeans were so clever they invented the round plate!) and bamboo place mats and runners.

The text next to one inviting photo of a table setting crows, "Even a few simple strokes can create a visually exciting table and set the stage for Asian-style dinner parties, exotic potlucks and other gatherings." The photograph shows a careful arrangement of bamboo place mats (they look like misplaced sushi maki rollers) square plates, bowls, wine glasses (not very Japanese), candles (surrounded by moss, no doubt yanked out of the backyard) and a bunch of silly smooth river rocks, laid out to capture the essence of a rock garden. Yeah, right... a dinner party in the Zen rock garden.

My mother immediately saw through the well-intentioned but phony style, and worried that anyone who didn't know better might think this is really how Japanese eat their food. "Inchiki Japanese style," she huffed, and walked away from the catalog. "Inchiki" means "cheating" or "fake."

She's right. It's weird to think that Japanese culture's being molded into something that's not a true reflection of Japan but more of a mix-and-match hybrid that depends on style as a shallow hook to reel in consumers like catching carp in a pond.

On the other hand, at a time when troubled Americans are going around on shooting rampages that include Asian-American victims, I guess I'd rather have the spirit of Japan being introduced even in diluted form as something that's hip and desirable. Even phony style can help bridge the cultural gap between the U.S. and Japan, and I'd rather have a conversation with someone who has an earnest, if misguided, appreciation for my roots than someone who looks at me and sees only a yellow face and feels only hate.

When these "Japanese Lite" products hit the shelves of Kmarts, Targets and Wal-Mart stores nationwide, I'll know that geisha chic has become so saturated that it's about to fade. Then we can concentrate on what may be ultimately a much more powerful force in U.S.-Japan relations, and the TRUE Japanese fad of the year, because the kids are all crazy for it: Pokemon!

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August 9, 1999

MEMORIES OF HIROSHIMA

Thomas Takashi Tanemori knows about violence at school. He was playing hide-and-seek with second-grade friends at his school on a summer morning more than 50 years ago, when he saw something he hopes no one will ever again see.

"I saw a flash in the sky -- it was pure white," he said this week during a layover at Denver International Airport, on his way back to his home near San Francisco. "I quickly covered my eyes, but I was blinded. Then, there was dead silence, and nothing moved."

On August 6, 1945, Tanemori's school was less than one mile from ground zero of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and he was about to feel the full effects of the blast. "The air began to be compacted," he recalled. "I started scratching my throat for air, then began to hear rumbling sounds like tanks which got louder and louder and closer and closer."

That's when his world exploded.

The 7-year-old found himself buried under the debris of his school building, which ironically may have saved his life. "I began to smell the heat and began to hear the cry of my classmates, who were asking for their parents to come and pick them up."

They also immediately screamed something he was to hear many times in the days to come: "Mizu! Mizu! Mizu!" ("Water! Water! Water!")

Tanemori saw flickers of "fire leaping like a serpent's tongue," listened helplessly as his best friend died, and "felt hot liquid dripping from my head all over my body." He doesn't remember much after that, until a soldier pulled him loose from the debris and carried him towards his home. The horrors he saw on that day's journey have been seared into his memory: People were wandering in a daze everywhere. "It was unrecognizable whether they were men or women," he said, "because they were just charred."

Except for one person, whom you could tell was a woman because she was carrying a baby on her back. But she didn't seem to know that the baby's head was gone. "The memory's so vivid," he said, choking back tears as if the tragedy had happened last week. There were elderly men begging passing soldiers to kill them, and the pitiful cries for "Mizu! Mizu!" were everywhere. When young Takashi was brought home, "My father took me from the soldier's arms and my father hugged me. He was crying, and he must have thanked the soldier 100 times -- and that's not an exaggeration. The soldier just saluted and left, and my daddy stood there just bowing."

Even though he'd been reunited with his family, the suffering wasn't over. Tanemori's mother and baby sister were never found. The city was washed by an incongruous black rain which carried more radiation with its cooling liquid.

The family roamed the city for three days amongst the carnage and the walking dead blistered by the blast, and finally crossed the river into the countryside by stepping over a "human bridge" of corpses of those who had died and fallen into the river, or died trying to cool their burning injuries and dry throats.

"Then the burns and cuts started to smell, and the black flies were swarming -- the flies were everywhere, and I had no idea where they came from." Tanemori still wonders at the fact that 75,000 people were killed by one bomb but the flies seemed unaffected.

On the fourth day, the family reached a train station, where authorities had stacked wood at the end of the platform to cremate bodies as victims fell. Two days later they managed to squeeze onto a train to Kotachi, where his mother's family lived. His father died from his injuries, and Tanemori and his brothers and sisters suffered the common plight of children orphaned by the war. They were ignored, forgotten, and discarded, and lived by their own wits, often sleeping under bridges, foraging for food among trash and learning to subsist on weeds. He didn't return to Hiroshima for years.

Tanemori wanted vengeance for the death of his parents and the hardship of his life. He failed at a suicide attempt when he was a teenager, and when he immigrated to the United States at the age of 18, his goal was to "kill American parents so that the children would understand what it was like to live as an orphan."

But the kindness of a nurse helped him turn his lust for revenge into a need to forgive and "make peace with the painful past." These days, Tanemori -- who is suffering from the long-ago effects of radiation exposure with advancing blindness and stomach cancer -- is an activist and storyteller with the San Francisco-based "First Light Project" who uses his personal experience to help urge a nuclear-free planet.

Hiroshima, the port where many Japanese Americans have their familial roots (the region is where the early immigration of farm laborers to Hawaii and America began) is today a bustling city, but it hasn't forgotten its past. The Hiroshima Peace Park is a striking memorial to the bombing, with the ominous skeleton of an observatory building left standing as mute tribute to the destruction.

My family lived near Hiroshima for a brief time in the mid-1960s, and as a child the same age as Tanemori was when the city was bombed, I remember visiting Peace Park. I vividly recall the deep sense of tragedy that still envelopes the place even though the park is quite beautiful. A family friend took my brother and I crabbing in the bay that day, but I remember being worried -- I thought that 30 years after the war, the radiation would affect me if I ate those Hiroshima crabs.

Now I know that the terrible bomb still does have its effects, on victims who still suffer lives lessened by not only the radiation, but the horror of the experience. Perhaps the ones who died that day were the lucky ones.

Note: You can learn more about the atomic bombings of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki (three days later, on August 9) at the A-Bomb Museum online (the site includes photos and documentation not suited to young children). You can also learn about Takashi Tanemori and his activism at the Silkworm Peace Institute.

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August 2, 1999

MY SPLIT PERSONALITY: LIFE AS A BANANA

I am a banana. That's what I've been told, by people who know -- Japanese Americans who've been involved in community activism all their lives. When I first joined the JACL, I didn't know much of our shared history, and asked about the "no-no-boys" who refused to swear allegiance to the U.S. when they were interned during WWII, or about Vincent Chin, the Chinese American who was murdered in Detroit in the 1980s when he was mistaken for a "Jap."

Because I didn't know about the history, I was told I was a banana: Yellow on the outside, but white on the inside.

It's true that I grew up amongst Caucasian friends -- especially after we moved to the states -- and wasn't involved politically or socially with Asians or Asian causes.

But I like to think of myself as more than just a fruit. I'm really a dessert. I'm a banana split, with both my "yellow" and "white" sides sharing equal attention.

I know more about Japan than some other Japanese Americans, for one thing. Since I was born there, I have vivid memories of Japan (albeit the Japan of 35 years ago, before the first McDonalds or KFC stormed the Yamato shores), and feel at home when I visit. I've also immersed myself in Japanese history and pop culture in recent years, and I feel I'm as much a Japanese as I am American.

My Nihongo is pretty wretched, I'll admit. I've written about this before -- my mother tried to teach my brother and I to read and write Japanese after our family moved to the states, and we refused. Instead, I learned every American obscenity I could, and went around the summer of 1966 proudly mouthing some of the most foul language on Earth, even though my 8-year-old mind had no idea what any of those words meant. My idea of a cool four-letter word wasn't "kana," and my vocabulary didn't include any Japanese alphabets.

Still, I can understand a fair amount of Nihongo, and if I say so myself, my accent on the few words I know is pretty authentic. Not that I'd "pass" for a Japanese in Japan, but I can surprise an employee in a Japanese restaurant by sounding first-generation, at least on a limited scale. When I'm not cursing loudly in English, anyway.

It's my appearance that's more American: Rumpled jeans, baggy clothes, loud colors, the loping way I walk (as if I'm moving to the beat of rock music in my head) with my head up and making eye contact with others. And my tastes: Colorful car, loud music, loud voice and colorful language.

Even when I was attending art school, it didn't occur to me that I might be a banana -- or any ethnic flavor. My work followed the paths of centuries of white, Eurocentric artists from Leonardo Da Vinci to Andy Warhol. I learned about Japanese art including the Ukiyo-e woodcut prints that so influenced the French Impressionists I loved so well, yet I never felt the urge to make "Japanese-inspired" art.

All my life, though, I was Japanese in all sorts of very visible ways -- not the least of which is my face and my skin. The banana peel, I guess. I ate Japanese food, I usually took off my shoes in homes, I was polite to seniors and people above me. I respected authority. Well, sort of.

And slowly, as I got older and began to feel the need to get involved in the community around me, I began to realize that the part of me that was the banana peel wanted to reach below the surface. I wanted to be around others who looked like me (whether they were also bananas or not didn't matter). That's when I joined both the Japanese American Citizens League and the Japan America Society of Colorado. These organizations serve as an outlet for me to connect with both my internal and external selves, and they help me make sense of my self-image. And ultimately, the interaction with others has helped me accept my split personality and feel comfortable in my own skin.

Sure, there are millions of people who are more Japanese than me. Good for them. I've also met JAs who are even more banana-like than me, people who can't speak any Japanese without fumbling over the syllable, and people who've never dined on Nihon-meshi but prefer hamburgers and fries all their lives. It's taken me a while, but I feel more aware of political issues and the pervasive racism that surrounds all people of color in our culture. I know who Vincent Chin was, and why the No-No Boys deserve some respect.

It's tough to be an American -- a lot tougher than most Americans realize. Being a banana has helped me appreciate both of my selves, and it's a nice feeling.

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July 26, 1999

CELEBRATING SAKURA IN SUMMER

Denver's Japanese community celebrated Sakura Matsuri, the annual Cherry Blossom Festival, recently under the blazing July sun. I know, I know, the cherry blossom season is in the spring when -- DUH -- the delicate pink buds bloom. That's when they celebrate the cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C., where sakura trees from Japan were planted in friendship around the Jefferson Memorial in 1912. And, all over Japan, group outings are carefully planned for the best viewing of the blossoms in late March and early April.

But here in Denver, this annual rite of spring has been pushed back over the years to accommodate other events and now the home game schedule of the Colorado Rockies baseball team. So once again, the festival was held mid-July at Sakura Square, the downtown Denver block that houses a handful of Japanese businesses, the Denver Buddhist Temple and Tamai Towers, a high-rise apartment building for Japanese seniors. The block of Lawrence Street in front of Sakura Square, between 19th and 20th Streets, was blocked off and a stage erected along 20th St. The other end of the block was crowded with booths and tents for merchants and organizations and sponsors such as the Japan America Society of Colorado, Korea Air, the Japanese American Citizens League and Sister Cities International.

Upstairs on Sakura Square's mezzanine level were more cultural displays and demonstrations from Japanese swords to a Japanese photo exhibit sponsored by the Museum of Contemporary Art. And in the Buddhist Temple, more demonstrations (a full tea ceremony was conducted several times throughout the day) , lectures and the "main event" -- a dining room full of Japanese food such as teriyaki chicken and beef, samplings of simple sushi, chow mein and a variety of manju, or pastries filled with either meat or sweet bean paste, all cooked up by festival volunteers. On Saturday evening, the festivities were topped off by an Obon street dance.

I was honored to play master of ceremonies for the stage both days, even though I was also supposed to be volunteering at the JACL booth the whole time. The stage featured the gamut of talent from Japanese music both traditional and contemporary, martial arts demonstrations, lovely dance performances and even a fashion show of Anne Namba, a Hawaiian-born JA designer, who takes kimono fabric and incorporates it into high-class couture.

The festival has been held for 27 years -- it was begun the same year that Sakura Square was completed, 1972 -- and it's become the most visible public display of the area's Japanese and Japanese American population.

It's unusual in Colorado to see so many people in one place who look like me, and hear Japanese being spoken everywhere, and enjoy Japanese culture from hand-made dolls and clothing with traditional motifs to the many dances and musical performances. It's the one time of the year when Denver feels a little like Los Angeles or San Francisco, cities with dense Japanese communities concentrated in areas such as LA's Little Tokyo, which makes you feel like you're indeed in Tokyo, not California. Each year, I've made new friends at the Cherry Blossom Festival. Growing up, I didn't have many Japanese acquaintances, but that's certainly not the case here.

But looking out over the crowds all weekend, I was happiest about the number of NON-JAPANESE faces milling about, smiling in appreciation at the performers, admiring the crafts and gifts for sale, and eating and drinking their way across cultures. I saw more than a few folks walking out of the temple with a tall sack of the Styrofoam containers of meals -- a lot of hearty Japanese meals were eaten over the weekend, and that's a good thing.

Because of the popularity of sushi and the burgeoning Japanese restaurant scene, and because of the current "geisha glam" fad in fashions (it makes me smile every time I see a young woman wearing straw sandals, even with precariously high platform heels, because they're such a classic Asian design), Americans seem very open to and curious about Japanese culture. We should take advantage of this openness, and organize as many public events as possible while the interest is still high, to educate as many people as possible to Asian American issues and the richness of Japanese culture.

The opening and closing acts for both days were taiko drum groups, those thundering percussion ensembles which have caught on with non-Japanese rock and roll, jazz and world music fans. Denver's lucky to have two popular resident taiko groups, the Buddhist Temple's Denver Taiko group (with dozens of musicians ranging in age from pre-teen to adult with some members who've been involved in the group since the 1970s) and One World Taiko, a talented family troupe (its founding members worked as a taiko duet at Disney World for a couple of years before transplanting to Colorado). On both days of the festival, One World Taiko kicked off the morning and Denver Taiko closed the stage at night.

During both groups' performances, hundreds of people crowded the stage in awe of the pounding rhythms and precise group choreography, where musicians circle from one drum to the next and take turns keeping the multi-rhythms rolling in waves over the block and mingling with the humid heat. The cheers of appreciation inevitably followed the echoing taiko drums and left both the musicians and audiences moved... and exhausted. Swaying at the side of the stage, it felt to me like magic was in the air.

With such a kinetic, powerful interaction of cultures, who needs cherry blossoms, anyway?

You can visit the Web site for the National Cherry Blossom Festival, and you can read about Denver's Cherry Blossom Festival and see photographs and video clips of One World Taiko at asiaXpress.com.

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July 19, 1999

DIMMING DAYLIGHT: THE CLOSING OF A FAVORITE LUNCH SPOT

Last week I had lunch every day at a donut shop -- not just any donut shop, but one that served Japanese food every weekday after the donuts for the day had been made and bought.

I first ate at this Daylight Donuts franchise in the west Denver suburb of Lakewood more than a decade ago. Tatsuo and Sachiko Ikeda have run the donut shop for 15 years, but last week was their last serving up donuts and coffee in the morning and teriyaki chicken and green tea for lunch. They sold the business and are getting set to visit Japan before retiring to their Lakewood home.

The donut shop is located in a nondescript suburban strip mall, and there's no indication from the outside that passersby could dine on anything but a glazed donut or a bear claw. The only sign outside is the pale yellow "Daylight Donuts" sign. But every weekday, nearby workers discovered the unadvertised secret: That the Ikedas switch from sweet snacks at 11 a.m. and start stirring up the miso soup, rice and entrees for the lunch crowd. The unadorned, unglamorous room with about a dozen tables and a short counter with four stools would fill up by noon, with many of the faithful coming from the Denver Federal Center, a nearby complex of government offices where word-of-mouth had spread amongst the bureaucrats about great food at cheap prices.

How cheap?

The Ikedas could never be accused of being greedy... in the time I've been lunching there, I think the prices have increased only twice, and by small increments. The "menu" -- a plastic sign on the wall near the cash register with letters and numbers slid into grooves -- isn't large, and the small selection made for an efficient operation, where Tatsuo knew exactly how much of everything he'd need to cook up his daily dishes. The regular items on the sign included:

-- Chicken teriyaki for $2.30 (a huge full leg of chicken broiled to perfection and served on a bed of soft, sticky rice)

-- Chicken yakitori for $3 (skewered pieces of chicken breast broiled and topped with a thicker teriyaki sauce)

-- Chicken cutlet for $3.50 (a breaded fried chicken breast served with the Worcestershire-flavored tick sauce that's a staple on Tonkatsu, or Japanese-style fried pork cutlets)

-- Beef teriyaki for $3.95 (a full serving of sliced beef marinated in a refreshingly non-gloppy soy-based sauce and served over that steaming rice

-- Shrimp tempura for $5.85 (the only item over $5)

-- A weekly special that almost always was a homemade wonder or a traditional Japanese dish, such as Japanese-style stew-like curry, or the final week's Ginger chicken ($3.89), served with the usual salad and miso soup.

Daylight Donuts also served Gyoza, or fried dumplings, that tasted just like my mother's.

In fact, my mom was the one who introduced me to this suburban oasis of budget gourmetdom. When she worked at the Federal Center (she was a cartographer, or a mapmaker, for the U.S. Geological Survey for years), she heard about the Japanese delights being served up a few blocks away. By the time she retired, my mom was going to "Daylight" every week with a large group of her co-workers, and taking back large takeout orders for others who couldn't join the group. She's continued her weekly pilgrimage since retiring, but she was visiting Japan when Daylight closed.

That's one reason why I ate there every day last week: to make up for my mom's absence.

Another is that I loved the food that Sachiko-san served every time I visited Daylight, and the way she insisted on speaking in Japanese whenever I saw her, to force me to improve.

Tatsuo trained as one of the early flashy, knife-wielding chefs for the Benihana restaurant chain, and also cooked in other restaurants while his wife raised the kids at home. Eventually, the couple decided to go into the donut business. If they worked together in a donut shop and made Japanese food for lunch, they'd be home by 3:30 every day when their kids got home from school.

Sachiko-san once told me her schedule: Getting up at an ungodly early hour, making donuts by the dawn's early light, cooking and serving lunch and cleaning up just in time to get home and cook dinner for the kids. When I first started driving to Daylight, Sachiko-san and her husband's kids were in elementary school. They're now out of college and have their own lives, making it possible for the couple to finally slow down and enjoy life a bit.

I hugged a very tired Sachiko-san on Friday, as she counted down the minutes until she could turn around the "Closed" sign for good. I could tell she was both relieved and saddened. All week, regular customers shrieked with heartbreak when she told them, and many returned the next day bearing going-away gifts, balloons and flower arrangements.

It was sweet, the kind of send-off restaurants never get.

Today I got my lunch at a drive-through hamburger joint. A chicken sandwich and order of large french fries cost more than a special from Daylight Donuts. I miss you already, Sachiko-san!

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July 5, 1999

INDEPENDENCE DAY BLUES

The Fourth of July holiday is the United States' biggest celebration, a birthday party to honor the country's founding on principles of freedom and fairness, which states that "all men are created equal." But this year's holiday has been marred by a reminder that there are Americans who don't think all men are created equal.

In Illinois and Indiana, police spent much of the weekend searching for a man who they think committed eight drive-by shootings aimed at Jews, African-Americans and Asians. The suspect committed suicide during a high-speed chase Sunday night. Americans are shocked and outraged at the atrocities that can be committed in the service of blind hatred in places such as Kosovo, but we forget that among us are people who are capable of deep-rooted violence for the same misguided reasons.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm truly proud to be an American citizen, and don't plan on moving anywhere else. It's worth remembering, after all, that freedom of speech and thought means those who harbor hate have the right to their opinions. They just shouldn't act out their thoughts in violence.

The holiday also made me think about patriotism and what it means to be Japanese American.

A generation ago, 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry spent part of World War II in concentration camps in godforsaken locations away from their homes merely because of their ancestry, and many lost everything because of this unjust imprisonment. The wounds of internment have been healed to a great extent since by the U.S. government's official apology in 1988 and subsequent redress payments to many of the families who suffered half a century ago.

But, not all the pain has been erased.

The Japanese American Citizens League is currently undergoing an agonizing process of self-examination over an emotional issue left unresolved since the war. As an organization, we're struggling with our role in the internment.

Some Japanese Americans think the JACL helped the federal government carry out its internment policy during the war. The JACL has been accused of helping to identify anyone who opposed the government during the war, and helping to convince JAs that being relocated in prison camps without complaint was a sign of patriotism. And, the JACL has long been accused of treating anyone who disagreed with the war, or who refused to sign up for the draft when Nisei soldiers were finally accepted into commission, with contempt.

The current rift is one that was inevitable as times changed and a younger generation began to shape the organization's policy. One by one JACL districts and chapters across the country have announced resolutions apologizing to draft resisters during WWII, and the topic is sure to be one of the major debates of next year's national convention. The world is a different place than in 1942, and values have changed. The unpopular Vietnam War made my generation feel that draft resistance in the service of our principles was noble, but during WWII, resisting the draft was a much more radical, and therefore more difficult, stance. The JA resisters fought the draft because they couldn't accept fighting for their government while their families remained imprisoned by the same government.

Many JACL members -- especially the heroic veterans who were drafted from internment camps and served with great valor in both Europe and Asia -- feel that it may be worth acknowledging the poor treatment of resisters during and since the war, but that an apology would be an insult to the memory of those who fought and died.

Here in the Mile-Hi Chapter of the JACL (I'm the current president of the chapter), we held a recent board meeting where we discussed how to vote at an upcoming district meeting, where a resolution apologizing to draft resisters will be presented. After emotional testimony on both sides of the issue, the board decided to abstain from the vote, and poll our local membership first to see how they feel. The chapter will represent the opinions of the membership to the district and national levels. A veteran pointed out how while he was serving in Europe, the draft resisters abused his family in camp for sending its sons to war. Another board member countered with documented cases of resisters being ostracized, separated from their families and sent to higher security prisons.

My personal thoughts are that the JACL has suffered too long from the perception that we colluded with the government to facilitate internment and convince JAs to act like "sheep" in accepting the injustice of imprisonment. Our membership is a small fraction of the number of Japanese Americans in the country, and part of the reason is this deep-rooted animosity towards the organization. To become a stronger representative of all the JA community in the future struggles for civil rights, we should take the high road and do whatever's necessary to bridge this rift, even if it means apologizing when many members feel the JACL has done nothing wrong.

Apologizing to draft resisters doesn't mean we can't still honor the heroism of those who chose to fight in the war.

The freedoms guaranteed by our country allow people to disagree with it by refusing to fight a war on principle, and they also allow people to harbor hatred against minorities. I think the manifestation of the latter is a much more critical issue to focus on.

Hate crimes like the shootings this weekend remind me that we have work to do in the here and now. The JACL needs to look forward with a united membership and support from the community. Let's not let pride paralyze us internally while there's so much work to do in the world.

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June 28, 1999

THE DESIGN OF DINING: IT'S ALL IN THE PRESENTATION

I've heard it so often that it's almost a cliche: Half of the joy of Japanese cuisine is in the presentation.

So it's with a sad heart that I tell you of a great concept in Japanese dining that falls flat for its lack of finesse.

Todai, a national chain that recently opened a large outlet in Denver's swank Cherry Creek Shopping Mall, is a concept that I should love, because I'm a hearty eater. And when it comes to Japanese food, and especially sushi, my appetite is downright gigantic. I once ate about $100 worth of sushi myself during one family outing -- dad was paying, so I had to get my money's worth. Todai feeds on that same instinct, getting your money's worth. It's an all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant, with mountains of sushi and other Japanese entrees mass-produced and presented buffet-style.

It's not cheap (over $12 for lunch, over $23 for dinner), but it's worth it if your goal is eat enough to get your money's worth. After all, sushi is an expensive commodity, and when you're used to paying $2 per piece of tuna or $4 for a handful of little seaweed-wrapped rolls, it doesn't take much to plow through at least $23 worth at Todai. I ate plenty of sushi, and also sampled the teriyaki beef, barbecue chicken, fried shrimp, various salads and other side dishes. The food was all right but not great. Some of the dishes tasted fresher than others; the rice didn't have enough of the vinegar flavor that I've grown up with; and the sushi wasn't made with dabs of wasabi inside, though we could scoop a mound as a side dish.

The meal was good enough to get stuffed on, but we had an empty feeling despite being full. My friend Samantha put her finger on exactly why the experience was lacking: The presentation.

Sam's a sushi fan who loves not just the food, but the presentation, with the sushi perched on a little lacquered tray, and each piece hand-pressed to perfection. Todai's sushi is hand-made too, by the chefs who stand behind the buffet and shape little ovals of rice and slice the sashimi to top off the ovals by the dozens. But it's a factory line, manufacturing sushi.

The sushi selection is constantly replenished so there always are a dozen or more pieces of each type on the ice, ready to be plucked by hungry (or curious) diners. And diners oblige by stacking plates to overflowing with a mishmash of food.

There's no presentation -- just a rush to move the food from the buffet into our mouths in the most efficient fashion.

When Sam pointed out the lack of presentation, I realized that's what had been nagging at me too -- the restaurant itself is s huge open room with high ceilings, painted blue and lit as if it were a Miami lounge. It doesn't feel like any Japanese restaurant I've ever been in. It's fine for people who come for volume and swallow their body weight in rice and fish, but not for those of us who enjoy sushi for the experience.

That's why I was glad a few days later to dine at another Denver Japanese restaurant, Domo. Domo is operated by Gaku Homma, a chef and Aikido martial arts teacher who used to own a restaurant but closed it to run his Aikido Dojo (school). Last year, he opened Domo in a large building to house both his Aikido school and the restaurant, which is both special and the "real deal."

Visually, the dining room is a stunning recreation of a Hokkaido farmhouse, with handmade lamps and other accessories, and the addition of rough-hewn tables of Colorado slate and seats made from tree stumps covered with padding and Japanese fabric. Homma even created an authentic Japanese garden outside with a fish pond and an attached "museum" of Japanese farm implements and other items showing the everyday life of rural Japan a hundred years ago.

But the food is what's really special. You won't find any sushi at Domo, which is the first clue that Homma isn't just catering to popular tastes. His very instructive menu educates while it whets appetites, and even familiar-seeming items such as teriyaki are served more authentically marinated in flavoring rather than served with a sweet, thickened sauce drizzled over the meat. The food, of course, was served with a visual emphasis, on lacquered trays with separate compartments for the meat, rice, and many homecooked vegetables and pickled "tsukemono" of the day.

A couple of hours at Domo reminded me how satisfying authentic Japanese food can be, not just because of its flavor, but also its presentation. Best of all, I left Domo just as full but much more satisfied. Gochiso sama deshita!

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June 21, 1999

SLACKING OFF & SHOPPING ONLINE

I'm addicted to shopping. I started when I was just a teenager, buying books, photography equipment, food, gasoline and lots and lots of record albums (this was way before CDs were invented -- those came later). I used to love walking up and down the nearby Villa Italia Mall, buying up stuff like a squirrel collecting nuts for the winter.

This trait -- oh, habit if you must call it that -- has its good side and bad side.

In life's plus column, I have lots of stuff. In the deficit column, I have, well, a deficit. Money comes, and money goes.

Unfortunately, the Internet hasn't made my penchant for spending any easier to control. In fact, it's made it easier for me to spend my money.

This e-commerce thing that everyone's talking about is already an economic force to be reckoned with. One of the best-known online retailers, Seattle-based Amazon.com, started as an Internet bookstore, and then added departments for CDs, videos, gifts and now even online auctions. It's truly a "virtual" store, because Amazon.com was started only on the World Wide Web. There's no "brick-and-mortar" storefront, no cash registers, no clerks and no shelves stacked with books.

I've become a regular shopper at Amazon.com, using its search capability to look up titles, then reading others' reviews before clicking the handy One-Click Shopping button. I visit any time of the day or night when I think of a CD I like, or when I find that an old movie I like is available on video. I've bought a bunch of Japanese music CDs (no J-pop, unfortunately, but more traditional music of koto, shamisen and shakuhachi).

I hit that One Click button and go back to surfing the Web, and my order is delivered a few days later at the office. How cool is that?

In a way, I do the same thing at Amazon.com that I've always done at shopping malls and my favorite book and record (excuse me, CD) stores: I hang out. I read the descriptions. I try some of the music out (there are samples of several songs that you can listen to for most CDs). I post reviews and read others' opinions just as I would hanging out at my favorite real CD store.

This hanging out is what young people have always done at shopping malls, coffee shops and burger restaurants.

Adults of each era has come up with names for this behavior. Today, young people who hang out are called "slackers." In the 1980s, young women who spent spare time at the malls of Southern California's San Fernando Valley and made institutions of chains such as The Gap were called "Valley Girls." I guess when I was a kid, the word was "hippies," though that usually covered anyone who was young and anti-establishment, whether we were hanging out or not. In the 1950s, "JDs" -- juvenile delinquents -- was the handy label for the rebellious teens who listened to rock and roll music and hung out, like the song said, "at the Hop."

This labeling crosses boundaries of time and place. I came across the same practice in Tokyo -- 70 years ago.

In the 1920s, when wealth returned to the world after World War I and before the Great Depression, a decadent decade of dancing and youthful exuberance hit not just the United States. In Japan, young people were so infatuated with being Western -- which represented all that was modern -- that they became known as "Moga" and "Mobo," for Modern Girl and Modern Boy. And these young people found their own perfect place to hang out in the increasingly crowded urban landscape of Tokyo: Amidst the bright, contemporary, cool neon shopping strip called the Ginza.

The Japanese even came up with a word for hanging out in the Ginza. They combined the shopping district with an onomatopoetic word, "bura-bura" which loosely translates to "hanging out" or "lollygagging" and came up with the new word "Ginbura."

Hanging out in the Ginza -- doesn't that sound like hanging out at the local mall? Or in my case, hanging out online? Maybe I should coin a new term: Amazonbura.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to place an order.

I enjoy the convenience of buying online, but I also love to touch and inspect books and CDs at my favorite "brick-and-mortar" stores: The Tattered Cover and Twist & Shout, both in Denver.

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June 9, 1999

GANGSTER'S PARADISE: THE UNTOUCHABLE JOHN WOO

I just finished reading "Tokyo Underworld" (Pantheon, 1995), a book by Robert Whiting subtitled "The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan." Whiting is an American journalist in Japan, and the book is more or less about Nick Zappetti, the late self-described "King of the Tokyo Mafia," and his post-World War II rise and eventual fall as a semi-notorious crook and restaurant operator.

But the book is most interesting to me for its vivid history of the early post-war Occupation years in Tokyo's rough-and-tumble underworld, and the rise of the Japanese gangsters -- the Yakuza -- and the evolution of the crimes they commit from petty extortion and territorial rumbles to white-collar financial crimes involving the top levels of the country's government.

I know it's silly to think that gangsters are somehow more dangerous or evil today than in the past, but back when I was young, the image of a gangster was romanticized through characterizations by tough but cool actors such as James Cagney, and by the dimly-lit black-and-white TV program, "The Untouchables," which aired in the U.S. between 1959-1963. It was also shown in Japan, and although the rise of the Yakuza was well underway by then, the show had an impact on the young Japanese who flirted with the "Dark Side" of their day.

I also recently saw a funny video, "Minbo no Onna," or "The Anti-Extortion Woman," a 1992 film by director Juzo Itami, the man who brought us "Tampopo." It stars his wife Mahiru Inoue as a lawyer who specializes in the wily ways of the Yakuza, who often bully people with fear without breaking the law to accomplish their goals. She's not scared of them, and she helps a hapless crew of Yakuza-fighters save their hotel from a ruinous reputation as a gangsters' haven.

This burst of interest in Japanese gangsters comes on the heels of a streak of watching Chinese gangster films on video.

Many of them were directed by John Woo, and many star Chow Yun Fat. Both of these men are now breaking into the Hollywood world -- Fat recently co-starred in "The Corruptor" with Mark Wahlberg, and Woo has directed U.S. action thrillers such as "Broken Arrow" and "Face/Off," and he's currently working on the "Mission: Impossible" sequel with Tom Cruise.

I've come to really enjoy these movies partly because the handsome, round-faced Chow is incredibly charismatic whether he's playing a cop with heart or a gangster with heart, and also because Woo is a remarkable visionary (in his Chinese films, anyway) who addresses a multitude of moral dilemmas while he choreographs some of the most poetic scenes of violence imaginable. Woo takes the famous climactic scene of Martin Scorsese's 1976 classic, "Taxi Driver," where Robert DeNiro goes on a rampage with guns and shows it in slow motion, and turns it into an art form.

In all of Woo's movies, there are numerous shootouts between cops and robbers, and they're all shown in slow-motion grace. In one, the 1992 "Hard Boiled," Woo orchestrates an awe-inspiring shootout at the end where an entire hospital goes down in flames and gunfire, and Fat holds a baby to his breast while he shoots his way to safety. The scene is almost hysterically funny in its over-the-top imagery. But Woo's also an intriguing director because his movies all have an underlying moralism to them.

In Woo's famous "The Killer" from 1989, Fat plays an assassin who spends the movie trying to find redemption for accidentally blinding a beautiful nightclub singer during a shootout. In the 1990 film "Once a Thief," Woo follows the criminal careers of two brothers and a woman who grow up together as expert thieves -- and how they find their redemption. It's as if Woo sees crime as an inevitable reality of modern life, but that even criminals can be heroic.

The rest of the bad guys in Woo's films are really bad, of course, and it's always a relief to see them dispatched in the inevitable slow-motion showdown. But this glimpse of the heroic in the bad guys somehow returns me to the days of "The Untouchables" and James Cagney. I haven't noticed a lot of titles in the video store in the "Yakuza" genre like John Woo and the many other Chinese filmmakers who now copy his style.

Then again, from the way they're portrayed in both the book "Tokyo Underworld" and the movie "Minbo no Onna," maybe there isn't much heroic you can find in the Yakuza lifestyle.

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May 31, 1999

MEMORIAL DAY: PAYING HOMAGE TO HEROES

Today is Memorial Day in the United States. It's a holiday where patriotism takes center-stage, where those who've served in the military -- and given their lives for our principles -- are given their due. All over the country, ceremonies and services are held to remember the contributions of military personnel who've made the "supreme sacrifice."

In Denver, the Japanese American community has gathered for decades on this day, to honor the memory of husbands, fathers, brothers and friends who've died over the years. They gather at the Nisei War Memorial, a fine, sculptural monument that sits in a serene quadrant of Fairmount Cemetery, which consists of five stoic slabs of concrete. Four of them feature the words "Freedom," "Honor," "Justice" and "Equality." Beneath them are etched the names of Japanese Americans who were killed in action -- most of them during World War II, as members of the fabled 442nd Regiment -- the most highly decorated unit of its size. On the other side of the monument are etched the names of Japanese American veterans who died during peacetime, including the names of heroes who died long after they retired from the military. My father's name -- George H. Asakawa -- is on this side of the monument, for his years spent with the U.S. Army and Army Reserves.

The annual event is organized by Colorado's American Legion Nisei Post 185, whose members are sadly thinned by age as the years go by. Those that aren't there in person are added to the list on the back of the memorial, and those that can make it don their light-blue uniforms and military caps.

The ceremony is short, but sweet in the true sense of the word. With the balmy sun beating away the storm clouds for a few hours, the members of the Nisei Post introduced the fiery reverend Nobuko Miyake-Stoner of the bilingual Simpson Methodist Church, who made an impassioned plea for peace and understanding between people, drawing a line from the Japanese American internment to the racism of Kosovo. Then, reverend Kanda Okamoto of the Denver Buddhist Temple -- himself a former internee -- chanted his tribute. One veteran relived heart-wrenching scenes from WWII, when several buddies got killed by a sniper, and he held one friend as he died.

Family representatives of recently-deceased veterans laid flowers at the base of the monument, followed by representatives of over a dozen Japanese American community and military organizations. As the president of the Mile-Hi chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League, I was there to lay a flower at the memorial on behalf of the JACL. The hundred or more who assembled near the Nisei War Memorial included Asian and Caucasian faces, babies and old folks.

I have mixed feelings about war. But I've come to understand the inescapable need for soldiers -- throughout all of history. War has been part of the inescapable fabric of human endeavor, whether it's for noble or awful reasons, freedom or false spirituality. And, I think it's important to honor soldiers who serve their countries honorably. It's patriotic, and patriotism is different from nationalism. I guess sometimes it can be a fine line.

Memorial Day celebrates patriotism, and those who believed enough in their duty to give their lives in the spirit of patriotism. Looking out at today's ceremony, and feeling the collective gratitude of the assembled group for the Japanese Americans who fought for the United States, I was moved by the power of the monument.

Another monument, the National Japanese American Memorial planned for a spot two blocks from the United State Capitol building in Washington, D.C., would be an even greater tribute to not just the Japanese Americans who served in the U.S. military, but for all Japanese Americans. It would also reflect the tragic patriotism of the 120,000 people who were interned during the War -- even as many of their sons went off to battle on behalf of the U.S.

But the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation is still struggling to raise the finances needed for the project. President George Bush in 1992 authorized the plot of land for the monument, but the NJAMF only has until this August to come up with the $8.6 million needed for the creation of the memorial.

Like Denver's Nisei War Memorial, the NJAM would be a tribute that would stand so future generations could see and appreciate the efforts of those who came before them. It sounds corny, especially coming from someone as normally cynical as me. But I've given the foundation a donation, and when I moderated a panel last week about the Japanese American experience in Colorado, for an international educators' convention meeting in Denver, the panelists agreed that a donation should be sent to the foundation in lieu of fees.

That's how I celebrated my Memorial Day. I think my dad would approve.

Contact me at 303-708-7224 if you're interested in donating to the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, or send your donation to: 1920 N Street NW - Suite 660, Washington DC 20036. You can read more about the NJAMF at their Web site, http://njamf.org

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May 23, 1999

SCHOOL DAZE: THE SMART ASIAN SYNDROME

Aren't all Asians supposed to be smart, especially in subjects such as math and science? Well, I was a good student -- the model minority and all that. I was near the top of my graduating class, but I wasn't a straight-A student in high school.

I also never took any more advanced math courses beyond algebra and trigonometry. That's as far as I needed to go in the math department. I can honestly say I've never had to deal with a sine, cosine or tangent in my life since high school.

I left that super-smart stuff to my brother Gary, who's a year older than me. He was headed to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study engineering, and he was the one playing with computer data cards (they used cards and magnetic reel-to-reel tapes on gigantic computers that covered a wall back then).

Me, I split my days between the English Resource Center (a fancy 1970s word for the library) and the art department. My friends may have thought of me as a brainy kid, but my energy was channeled more towards words and pictures. I was on the Alameda High School yearbook staff as a photographer, and the newspaper staff as a photographer, reporter and cartoonist. And when I wasn't in the ERC, you could find me drawing in the art room.

In the end, my interest in art won out over my interest in journalism. I went to art school in New York City and got a BFA in painting. But look where I ended up -- I became a journalist in spite of myself, and make my living now with words. (I have a confession to make here -- sorry mom: I was lazy in college, and though I graduated "with honors," I skipped classes and crammed a semester's work into a couple of weeks, preferring instead to learn guitar, volunteer in the school radio station and write music reviews....)

I mention all this personal history because I love to tell students that they should follow their hearts, and if they're committed to it, they'll find a way to make a living at it.

The same goes for students of Asian heritage, though it does seem that Asian students can have more options open to them because of their successes in school. Asian American students do well because of a lot of reasons, but I'm not sure it's because of their skin color. I think a big part of it is the way they're brought up, which in a way is because they're Asian. A cliche? Yes, sure. A simple explanation? Yep.

I knew that I was supposed to get good grades, or else. Well, actually, I'm not sure what would have happened. I know the most angry I ever saw my father was when I got a "C" in handwriting. But then, he wasn't as mad at the grade itself than at the way I tried to hide the report card from him. I guess I felt I would be overcome with shame if I got bad grades. It wasn't about failing my classes, it was about failing my parents.

The author T.R. Reid writes in his great new book, "Confucius Lives Next Door," about the Japanese school system, and the East Asian family structure that instills Confucian values in children. Reid's right. I think I was raised with those values too, even though I never heard of Confucianism growing up.

I've been thinking about my high school years (boy, they were a long time ago -- the class of '75 celebrates its 25th reunion in the year 2000!) today because this morning I attended the 14th annual award ceremony sponsored by the Asian Education Advisory Council. The event was a wonderful celebration of students who worked hard and deserved every accolade they received.

Like other events I've attended lately, the best part about the AEAC banquet was its pan-Asian spirit. Way back when I was a high school student in suburban Denver, my older brother and I were almost alone as Asian American students. There was one other Japanese family in the area, and their daughter attended while we were at Alameda. But this was a show of unity for all the Asian communities that call Denver home. Award winners were Vietnamese, Korean, Chinese, Indian, Thai and more, and ranged from a darling kindergarten student to elementary, middle school and a stage full of high schoolers. And the program featured performances from a talented young Chinese woman singing a bilingual pop song and a young quartet of Laotian girls in a traditional dance.

The keynote speaker was a student this year instead of a "grownup" as in previous years. Hanh Phi gave a moving tribute to her parents and the sacrifices they made -- they came to the U.S. during the Vietnam War and wanted her to attain the "American Dream." She's well on her way, with a long list of accomplishments through school, and graduating as class valedictorian for John F. Kennedy High School.

I feel sure if these kids continue their hard work and commitment to their studies, they can take any path they choose in life, and succeed. I just hope they'll take college a little more seriously than I did!

You can see photographs from the AEAC awards ceremony at asiaXpress.com.

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May 16, 1999

REMEMBERING THE SMELLS OF JAPAN

They say that smells are tied closer to memories than any of our other senses. Binney & Smith, the manufacturers of the Crayola brand of colored crayons for children, has determined that the waxy smell of a box of Crayolas is one of the 20 most identifiable odors to adult Americans. The top two? Coffee and peanut butter.

As a Sansei (third-generation Japanese American) who spent my childhood in Japan, I have very distinct "smellmories" that wouldn't be familiar to Americans.

For instance, I don't mean to be indelicate, but I have very vivid olfactory memories of Japanese toilets from the early 1960s.

We lived in a district of suburban Tokyo called Ogikubo for part of the time, in an apartment complex nestled tightly among crowded homes along a narrow street. Once a week, a truck came around the back of our building and sucked out the sewage from the "obenjo" -- the traditional type of toilet where you squat over a hole in the floor covered with a ceramic cowl. The smell of those trucks is one memory I don't exactly enjoy. I'm reminded of it whenever I'm at an outdoor event and have to visit a "Porta-Potty."

My nose has much more pleasant memories, of course.

Food, for instance, is an ever present way to journey back to my childhood. I can smell the Japan of my youth in good Japanese restaurants -- believe it or not, I depend on my nose to tell me in part whether a restaurant is authentic or not, by sniffing out the spices that waft from the kitchen. There's a certain aroma that seasons a "real" Japanese restaurant that you don't get from the phony fast-food variations or yuppie theme restaurants.

There are also certain times when the smell of city traffic -- not the carbon monoxide haze of highway backups, but the more acrid smells of burning rubber, screeching brakes (and perhaps the steel-on-steel odor of a subway, which we don't have in Denver but do in New York) -- sends me back in time to busy Tokyo streets with my dad honking the horn and yelling "bakayaro!" ("you idiot!") out the window at another grumpy driver.

Another childhood smell that I've tried to recreate for myself is the smell of incense. Not the smell of patchouli, jasmine and other sweet-burning sticks often associated with Indian culture or caricatured in the hippie-dippie lifestyle, but the simple, pure-smelling smoke that's burned at Buddhist ceremonies and in so many Japanese homes in front of the Buddhist altar. I love walking into a Japanese home and noticing that comforting smell. In my memory, the smoke from these green sticks of incense swirl together with the scent of green curls of a mosquito repellant incense called "katori senko."

My memories are those of a child, with too many years in between, so I'm sure I'm simplifying things and confusing terms in my head. But that's the beauty of memories, isn't it? They hold true to our own experience, even if we subconsciously mold those memories to suit our present realities.

One distinct memory isn't from Japan, but conjures a strong image of the trip our family took when we moved from Japan to the United States in 1966.

I was eight years old, and we stopped for a few days in Hawaii and spent the time with my father's brother, my uncle Ken, and his family. I remember very little of the visit, of the things we did or places we went to.

But I have an incredibly vivid memory -- a mental snapshot in brain-cell Kodachrome -- of standing in uncle Ken's Honolulu backyard, with the ever-present breeze rustling the always-green foliage and pushing the puffy cotton-ball clouds along their blue sky course. I'm in the center of this snapshot, my face inches away from the biggest flower I had ever seen. It seemed like it could swallow my head. It was a hibiscus, I know now, and it smelled wonderfully, intoxicatingly sweet.

I think of this smell from time to time and I can see the giant white petals unfolding silkily in my mind again.

I know what they mean about smells being the most vivid of our senses for activating our memories. And yes, I love the smell of Crayola Crayons.

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May 9, 1999

ASIANS MEETING ASIANS

I met a bunch of Asians yesterday, and it was a great experience. So what, you might ask? Sure, I meet lots of people all the time, and especially in the past couple of years, I've met many Japanese and Japanese Americans. I have Chinese friends, my sister-in-law is Korean, and I've eaten most types of Asian cuisines whenever I see a restaurant that serves something I haven't tasted.

But yesterday was different: I met Laotians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Filipinos and more, of all ages, and all at one event.

I was at Denver's first-ever Asian Cultural Festival, sponsored by the Asian Roundtable and held in a luxurious auditorium of a downtown bank building. The Roundtable is an umbrella organization that covers the many facets of the Denver area's Asian population, with representatives from organizations as diverse as the Japanese American Citizens League (which I'm associated with) and the Kunming (China) Sisters Cities Project to the Filipino American Community Center. The event was organized because May is Asian Heritage Month nationwide, but very little is done in Colorado to celebrate the heritage of a huge part of the world's population. In fact, when early calls were made to potential sponsors, one unfortunate but not wholly unexpected response was, "Oh, we already sponsor Cinco de Mayo" -- as if the corporate conscience can only accommodate one ethnic show of support per month.

The festival was casual in its setup, and very community-oriented. As one organizer noted afterwards, "it was by Asians for other Asians. If it was for the outside public, it would have been more of a show."

I agreed with her assessment. The best thing about this festival was the inescapable sense of people learning more about each other in a relaxed environment. There was a palpable atmosphere of cultural sharing amongst a couple of hundred folks who in many ways looked alike -- but often knew little about each other.

All the different community groups brought samples of our cultures, including food (of course). Japanese cuisine in the form of many varieties of sushi (including niku-maki, or meat-roll, an Osaka specialty) and other tasty samples was supplied by Sushi Tazu, a local restaurant. And another eatery, Yoko's Express (a personal favorite of mine) made a distinctly Japanese American specialty from Hawaii, "Spam Musubi." There was also donated refreshments for adults from Anheuiser Busch who brought samples of Kirin Beer, the popular Japanese brand, and also Hakushika Sake, which is brewed just west of Denver for the U.S. market.

Japanese culture was also well represented by an exhibit of handmade dolls, a display of beautiful bonsai trees and an Aikido martial arts demonstration. Other performances included a Chinese choir, a troupe of young Filipino dancers, and an enchanting Vietnamese dance with girls swaying with lit candles to an enchanting melody.

All this was enjoyed by an appreciative audience of Asian faces. It seems obvious, but it was a revelation to realize that though we might share similarities in appearance, we all have distinct heritages and discrete cultures.

A Laotian friend told me that though he comes from the same country, he'd never seen the graceful motions of a traditional Hmong dance performed by several beautifully-dressed girls.

And, during the feeding frenzy for the different types of food served up by every community, I found myself unexpectedly explaining the basics of sushi -- even what to put soy sauce on -- to people I served. I realized that I took for granted that the cuisine I love might be familiar to others... especially other Asians. Partly, that's because I've gone out of my way to try all types of food. In fact, one of my lifelong rules has been that if something is eaten by people someplace, I'm willing to try it. Once.

But suddenly I realized that not everyone is exposed to a variety of food. The line of diners passing by me included those who had never tasted tofu, or who recoiled from the idea of raw fish. Like other non-Japanese I know, a California roll with avocado was more appealing to them than a piece of fried squid. In the end, of course, every last scrap of food was gone.

Afterwards, I felt I had learned a valuable lesson. Asia's an awful big place, and a lot of different people have roots that reach deep into that part of the world. We -- the Japanese and Japanese Americans -- make up one part of this rich garden, but there are flowers blooming all around us.

So the great success this first year is that Asians learned more about, and shared a meal with, other Asians. Next spring for Asian Heritage Month, maybe we can start to show off our many flowers to the rest of Denver.

You can read this column reprinted along with photographs from the Asian Cultural Festival at the Web site of Denver's Asian community, asiaXpress.com.

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May 2, 1999

FOOD FOR LIFE: NICE RICE

It's been 20 years since I graduated from college (!), and I realized I don't have much to show from those days.

Old, laughably out-of-date clothes were turned into rags years ago; I've upgraded my cheap stereo with better equipment and newer CD technology; and I've driven several cars since my beloved Mazda Mizer. What I do have still with me are a some books, a few pieces of artwork(I went to art school), jade plant (it's huge) and my rice cooker.

It's a small, three-cup cooker made by Matsushita, with an old "National" logo on its switch. My parents bought it for me when I went off to Pratt Institute in New York City in the hot summer of 1975, the same model they had given my older brother Gary the previous year when he took off for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

I didn't use that rice cooker very regularly during college -- my roommate Joe was such a great cook (he's Italian) that we both took turns mixing up cuisines. I wasn't very "ethnic" in my cooking anyway -- I learned very creative ways to use "Hamburger Helper" without any hamburger.

In the years since then, I've used my rice cooker intermittently.

Still, I've been admiring my rice cooker lately. I'm amazed that I still have it, and that it still works fine, despite some nasty-looking dents in its white enameled exterior. There's even some paint splattered on part of the lid -- some kitchen painting project from 15 years ago, no doubt. I even have the little plastic measuring cup that came with the cooker.

Lately, I've gotten into the habit of making a full cooker of rice and snacking on it for the next few days.

I've gone to Pacific Mercantile, the local Japanese grocery store, for various additions to my plain white rice. I have a couple of kinds of furikake, flavored bits (one has red pepper, garlic, ginger, sesame seed, salt, bonito, seaweed and a lot more) that are shaken and sprinkled over rice. I buy ochazuke, a seasoned soup base with tiny rice crackers and seaweed flakes which you sprinkle over leftover rice then douse with hot water. I have a couple of jars of a gloppy, salty seaweed paste I smear over rice. And, I have natto, which is vile to even many Japanese. It's fermented soybeans with a strong and somewhat foul smell, which comes packed in a slimy, mucus-like film.

I know, I know -- it sounds gross. And maybe it is. But I like it -- I grew up with it, after all.

I was speaking with a Japanese American woman the other day, and once again was reminded that food is the last bastion of one culture as it assimilates into another.

Even JAs who speak hardly any Japanese, never take off their shoes in anyone's homes and have never felt the inkling to visit the Land of the Rising Sun identify with rice. My family had rice with almost every meal. The only dinners without rice were when my mom would make spaghetti or later, when she mastered pizza. (An early example of Italian food pushing into my culinary territory!)

And usually, that was white rice, the plain stuff. My mom used to yell at my brothers and me if we even drizzled soy sauce on rice (OK, so it was more like we poured the Kikkoman on).

I could never understand a couple of things about how Americans eat. They seem to enjoy just cooking meat with no flavoring only to drown the meat in a sauce like "A-1" after it's cooked. And, they think rice should be cooked in such a way that my mom would call it "porro-porro" -- so fluffy it falls apart. We used to shriek at the TV commercials for Uncle Ben's Minute Rice, which made a point of saying it was better because it wouldn't clump together

Don't they know rice is supposed to clump together, so you can pick it up with chopsticks?

I'll stick to my sticky rice, thank you, and my 25-year old National rice cooker.

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April 25, 1999

COLUMBINE AND CONFUCIUS: LESSONS FROM TRAGEDY

As I write these words, Vice President Al Gore is speaking on the television, bringing comfort to the community of Littleton, where 14 students and one teacher died at Columbine High School last week. The memorial service is being held in a parking lot of a multi-plex movie theater -- the place where many Columbine students undoubtedly congregated many times before, in happier circumstances -- to accommodate the 70,000 mourners who are still reeling from the worst school massacre in U.S. history.

The tragedy literally hits close to home. I attended another Jefferson County school, Alameda Senior High, just a few miles up the road from Columbine, which was opened when I was a senior, to accomodate the growing population of affluent suburbanites moving to the area.

Those class distinctions and thoughts of "That can't happen here" have been shattered by the carnage.

Like a lot of people this week, I've been pondering the meaning of the deaths, and talking with friends and family about how as a society, we can prevent such a thing from happening again.

The Columbine killings resonate partly because of its sheer scale -- 12 innocent students, one heroic teacher, and two sad young men who killed themselves after destroying the lives of so many others -- and partly because of the media coverage. Within the hour, the high school was surrounded not only by police and emergency medical providers, but also every local media outlet. Although it now appears that the two student killers may have committed suicide within half an hour, no one on the outside knew that the murdering was over, and treated the site as if it were under siege all afternoon, and with the discovery of bombs strewn throughout the school, for days afterwards.

The TV cameras caught gripping footage of kids escaping the building, their hands up over their heads so police wouldn't mistake them for perpetrators. The cameras caught the harrowing rescue of a wounded student who was pulled over jagged broken glass through a library window, only to bounce against the roof of an armored truck. The cameras caught students fresh in their fear and horror, telling their stories unfiltered to the world. And in the days that followed, the cameras caught many moving moments and memorials to the victims; there were dozens of interviews and heroic and tragic stories to tell, which drew tears from even cynical viewers.

Those images crossed the oceans almost as quickly as the news spread across the Denver area.

I got a frantic e-mail within the hour from a man in London who was desperately trying to contact a woman in my office; he was concerned about my co-worker's daughter. It turned out that she attended a nearby junior high school, and she was safe. A few minutes later, my mother called. The first she had heard about the killings was when my brother, who was on a business trip in Japan, called from Tokyo because the story was already all over the Japanese media.

I wondered if the Japanese media would assume this is what all American schools are like, and that fear and hatred run rampant in our school hallways. I hope not, but chances are, the Japanese media will simply see this as another example of America's weakening grip on fundamental social values.

The day of the Columbine killings, I was in the middle of a new book by T.R. Reid, the affable National Public Radio commentator and former Washington Post Tokyo Bureau Chief. The book, "Confucius Lives Next Door," is subtitled "What Living in the East Teaches Us about Living in the West." It's a well-observed and thought-provoking look at the other Asian miracle -- not the Asian economic miracle, but the social miracle that has allowed countries of East Asia to become world players but still maintain low crime rates and drug use, stable families and educational systems.

Writing from a combination of bemused first-person experiences and his journalist's sense for research in Japan and throughout East Asian countries such as China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Taiwan and others, Reid offers a fascinating conclusion: These countries have maintained their cultural harmony (or their "wa") because of their social underpinnings in Confucianism, the wisdom of the Chinese teacher Kung Fu Tzu.

Reid, who's now the Post's London Bureau Chief, makes his case eloquently. He begins by outlining statistically how Asian countries (he focuses largely on Japan because that's where he lived, but also explains how each of the Asian countries differ from each other) have maintained their social structure. Then he recalls his family's arrival in Tokyo, and the many surface cultural differences that he observed, with his usual wit and aplomb.

After he introduces us to the "Confucius" who lives next door, a neighbor named Matsuda-san, and the philosophical lessons he learns from the constantly apologizing elderly gentleman, Reid gives us a biography of Master Kung Fu Tzu and his teachings, as well as a history of how those teachings were introduced to the West. All along, he points out where Confucius' wisdom paralleled the Western teachings of Socrates, Jesus and other European, Judeo-Christian leaders through the ages -- an important point he returns to at the end of the book.

Then he tells the story of his daughters' introduction to the Japanese school system and its group ethic from top to bottom -- how students all wear the same uniforms, clean their school, work in small groups as they learn to create consensus. Later, Reid explains how this group ethic, a basic principle of Confucianism, permeates all East Asian social structures, including rituals such as the day every year when everyone who is about to turn 20 is welcomed in a ceremony as adults, and the annual ceremony when corporations nationwide induct their new hires.

I'm oversimplifying Reid's book here because I don't have the space to explain it, but I found his observations compelling and profound, even when he admits to weaknesses in his theory. For my taste (and perhaps for the condemnation of violent video games and movies that's sure to come in the wake of the Columbine deaths), Reid doesn't address enough how the violence in Japanese pop culture isn't reflected in violence in society-at-large. There also isn't much mention of the stress in Japanese culture that causes death from overwork or the suicide of students from bullying. These are sometimes the costs of Japan's social hegemony.

I don't expect a perfect society in this day and age. But, we in the West have obviously paid a price for our individual freedom, as Reid points out. And the price just went sky-high this week. Maybe the answer is a focus on moral (not necessarily religious) values, and maybe it's something as simple as a ceremony every year that tells young people that they're now adults, with accompanying rights and responsibilities.

I'm struggling to apply some of the book's insight to the tragedy that's hit our community. I think I'll be ordering the "Analects of Confucius" next.

"Confucius Lives Next Door" (Random House, 1999, 276 pp $24.95 hardback) by T.R. Reid is available from Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

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April 18, 1999

SLEEP WELL, COMMISSIONER

I guess I'm lucky. I haven't had to deal very often with death in my life.

The first time I knew someone who died was a couple of years after our family had moved to the United States. I heard from my mother that Victor, a slight boy who was a friend of mine in first and second grade in Tokyo -- and who was the first person I knew who used an inhaler -- had died from an asthma attack after running to catch a school bus. I remember feeling remote sympathy, but didn't know otherwise how I was supposed to act.

Yesterday, a very good friend of mine, Alan Dumas, died suddenly of a heart attack in the parking lot of a local shopping center.

Dumas was a writer, an actor, a radio personality, a music fan, an avid reader, an art appreciator, an intellectual, an everyman, a wonderful human being and a terrific liar. Which is to say, he was a great storyteller but sometimes a scary reporter. Unfortunately (or fortunately for the world), he was a reporter by trade -- he was an entertainment reporter and feature writer at the Denver Rocky Mountain News.

I first met Dumas when I was a fledgling music critic at Westword, Denver's alternative newspaper. This was back in 1980, when the paper was still a struggling bi-monthly publication. Alan had been writing for Westword since its very first issue in 1977. He had written about the Grateful Dead -- a hippie rock band that I despised at the time. He was an awful speller all his career, and he even managed to misspell his favorite band as the "Greatful Dead."

In the early '80s, after I had been hired fulltime as music editor by Westword and the paper had become a weekly institution, I wrote one of the first articles that got me a bit of local notoriety. It was titled "My Dinner with Dumas," and it was a transcription of an argument Alan and I had about the Grateful Dead while we ate pizza at the Wazee Supper Club. The bar was on the ground floor directly beneath Westword's offices at the time, and we held many staff meetings there.

Alan wrote for Westword through much of the 1980s, and also flirted with a series of high-profile (and better-paying) radio jobs, including as the morning host on one of the most popular FM rock stations in town. He later hosted a late-night talk show on the same station, and had me as a guest a couple of times. I thought it was ironic that Dumas -- a somewhat square, balding and overweight avuncular professor (for the past few years he taught journalism at Metro State College) who was blessed with a booming, stentorian voice -- was giving out advice to pimply-faced teenaged listeners who wanted nothing more than to "Rock the Rockies."

When he got a job at the Rocky Mountain News, Alan found his pace. In fact, he really increased his pace. He would readily admit to being a lazy writer, but you'd never know it from the amount of work he cranked out week after week, interviewing writers, musicians, artists, anyone coming to town who needed to promote a performance, any number of quirky local subjects who would otherwise not have gotten the exposure a daily newspaper article guaranteed.

Alan did a thousand good deeds this way. He had a big heart, and he loved his craft. He also loved popular culture of all types: Science fiction, "Star Trek," "Bonanza," James Bond, John Wayne (he told a funny story about dating John Wayne's daughter during his childhood in southern California). And he loved obsessing about JFK and the president's assasination. He wasn't alone -- a handful of us called ourselves "The Commission" and read every book and watched every video about JFK ever released, just so we could get together and solve the conspiracy. After several years of this silliness, some of us finally decided Oswald did it alone after all.

In between, Alan acted, directed, and even officiated weddings (he was licensed to officiate weddings through a mail-order church he had written about). His own wedding was one of the most fantastic parties I've ever attended. He and his fiancee Pam booked the Mercury Cafe, a funky nightclub, and turned their ceremony into a night of comedic performance art on stage.

The marriage sadly failed, as did Alan's health. For a couple of years, he seemed to be breathing hard and sweating profusely every time I saw him, and we all worried about him. He was hospitalized last year with a series of ruptured hernias in his chest. When I saw him at our friend Phil's house to watch Broncos football games last fall, he explained he had almost died at the hospital -- a priest was reading the last rites when he awoke -- but now felt fine.

I even spoke with Alan just a few days ago, and learned he had been hospitalized again with a ruptured hernia in his chest, but that he was happily back at work.

He called because he found out that while he was in the hospital, the writer T.R. Reid had been in Denver to speak at a luncheon for the Japan America Society of Colorado.

Alan was disappointed, because T.R. Reid was one of his heroes, and he had just been reading and enjoying Reid's latest book, "Confucious Lives Next Door." Because I've become friendly with Reid -- the former Tokyo Bureau Chief and current London Bureau Chief for the Washington Post had lived in Colorado, and was a member of the JASC -- I promised Alan that next time Tom was in town I would introduce him.

Alan died just three days later.

His death at age 44 comes as a shock, of course, but I'm somehow not saddened. Unlike my childhood friend Victor, though, whose death seemed remote, Alan's is palpable. Yet, I'm not saddened because thinking of Alan, I can't help but think of a vibrant, joyful spirit. Alan may be gone, but that spirit lives on in everyone he touched.

Sleep well, commissioner. Breath easy. And say "hey" to Jerry Garcia -- thanks in part to you, I don't hate his old band's music as much as I used to.

For those of you who didn't know Alan, thanks for your indulgence with this column. I've been asked to post a separate Web page to post tributes to Alan (including this column). I think Dumas would have chuckled at the thought of a Web site with remembrances about him, and I intend to keep it online permanently.

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April 11, 1999

ANIME FROM ASTRO BOY TO POKEMON

I've been enjoying a Saturday morning cartoon lately, for the first time since I was a kid. "Pokemon" is a Japanese animated series about a trio of kids who go around in search for creatures that are called "Pokemon," which is a typically Japanese condensation of "Pocket Monster" into one cooler word.

The plot of "Pokemon" is simple -- the protagonist, Ash Ketchum (in the English series) is trying to be the best Pokemon trainer in the world, by finding and mastering or befriending every fantastic creature in the Pokemon pantheon (they all have interesting powers, such as the ability to affect the weather, or a song that puts everything within hearing to sleep). He's helped by two friends and a mouse-like Pokemon sidekick, Pikachu, which can harness the power of electricity against Ash's foes. The bad guys aren't very bad -- the three members of "Team Rocket" are bumbling baddies who are lovable in their inept way.

I like the show because it's exciting and funny and in its way, wise -- the episodes I've seen have all had underlying themes about being accepting of others. I also like the show because to me, it's so obviously Japanese.

What is it about Japanese animation, or "anime," that's so distinctive?

There's a graphic sensibility that's a lot more dynamic than many U.S. cartoons... in fact, it's hard to call Japanese animation merely a "cartoon." It's more sophisticated, and somehow deserves to be called anime instead of cartoon. But it's not just the sophistication of the style. With their roots in the way manga, or comics, are drawn, Japanese artists have created a distinctive look for characters in anime: Large, round eyes, tiny button noses and expressive mouths that can cover the entire face when a character yells, to great comic effect. They took the look of Japanese comics and added the magic of the classic early Disney movies "Bambi," "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty" (Osamu Tezuka, the creator of many of Japan's best-loved manga and anime, reportedly watched "Bambi" 80 times and memorized every frame).

Some of these stylistic rules were evident early in the development of anime.

As a baby-boomer, I have fond memories of many American television cartoons from Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker to Superman and Spiderman, but I also remember clearly the black-and-white images of "Testuwan Atomu" (by Tezuka, translated into "Astro Boy" in the U.S.) and "Tetsujin 28-Go" ("Gigantor"). The animation was crude, but the round-eyed features were already there. Just before our family moved to the States, I remember being infatuated with the robot superhero Eighth Man, the cool-driving Speed Racer and Kimba the White Lion (another Tezuka creation, "Jungle Taitei" or "Jungle Emperor" in Japan, which apparently evolved into Disney's "Lion King" more than two decades later).

In the past few years, anime has become increasingly popular -- not just the stuff for children, but also anime for older viewers. The Sci-Fi Channel on cable television regularly broadcasts anime. And there's an entire section dedicated to anime -- mostly various forms of science fiction -- in every video rental shop. Some are for adult viewers. But many of the mainstream releases, including titles such as "Project A-Ko," "Sailor Moon," Doraemon,""Akira" and "My Neighbor Totoro" (a cute anime that my nieces are crazy about), are available dubbed in English (I prefer subtitles) and are very family-safe.

One anime I'm proud to own, "Hotaru No Haka" ("Grave of the Fireflies"), avoids every cliche of cartoons, from its beautifully detailed drawings which are almost photographic, to its heartbreaking story of the fate of many children who were orphaned at the end of World War II. It's almost documentary in its unflinching bleakness, and you won't be able to watch it without tissues nearby. It's certainly not a "cartoon."

A recent book, "The Anime Companion" (Stone Bridge Press, 1999), makes clear the connection of anime to Japan. It's an engaging and enlightening encyclopedia of sometimes obvious, and often trivial, references in anime. The book's author, Gilles Poitras, who's obviously a fanatic for anime who catches every detail in a scene, explains the entry, then explains where to watch for it in various anime. The book touches on such everyday bits of Japanese life as the sweet dish "anmitsu," and then points out that you can see it being eaten in "Urusei Yatsura" and also "Electric Household Guard." Other cultural touchstones include entries for "geta" (wooden sandals) and "sotoba" (Buddhist graveyard tablets).

The point of the book isn't to analyze anime obsessively, but to show how much of true Japanese culture appears -- and is absorbed by Western viewers -- in the innocent entertainment of anime. It's great for fans of anime as well as fans of Japanese culture.

Ironically, it took an American cartoon character -- the animated "Colonel Saunders" that now serves as the TV pitchman for KFC chicken -- to alert me to "Pokemon." The fast-food chain currently has a promotion where it's selling Pokemon character toys, and that's what got me to tune in the series.

So I suppose animation has come full circle, and Americans are set to learn from the style and stories from across the Pacific. Osamu Tezuka, who died in 1989, is probably smiling wherever he is, at the thought of someone watching anime over and over, absorbing every nuance and trying to adapt this criss-crossing cultural gift once again, for a new generation.

You can learn more about anime and find links to every imaginable anime Web site at The Anime Web Turnpike, or learn about and order "The Anime Companion" from Stone Bridge Press. There's also a companion Web site for "The Anime Companion."

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April 4, 1999

SCI-FI FROM GODZILLA TO THE MATRIX

I saw the new science fiction thriller movie The Matrix today, and I was reminded how a well-done sci-fi movie can be a terrific escape from the humdrum of everyday life.

The Matrix, of course is meant to be exactly that -- an escape -- on more than one level. Not only is it an escape in the way that any movie is, an entertaining shelter from the real world, but it's also about the possibility that the "reality" of our lives might not even be real. It poses the intriguing possibility that the lives we lead are actually an illusion, in this case an intricate imaginary existence created by the machines and computers that rule the world of the future.

Although the special effects are simply fabulous and make the film a thrill to sit through, the question raised in this movie isn't new. The clever 1990 movie "Total Recall" starring Arnold Schwarzenegger also did a good job posing the question of reality vs. fiction (with the help of the most cutting-edge special effects of its day). And if you really wanted to get pretentious, you could say these types of films are asking the same questions the great philosophers through the ages have posed, about the purpose of our existence and mankind's place on Earth and in the heavens.

OK, OK, I'm probably getting carried away here, but the best science fiction stories have a subtext of deeper thought that make them resonate. The genre isn't new by any means. It began with the imagination of European writers such as Britain's Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) and H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds)and France's Jules Verne (Journey to the Center of the Earth), but of course American-style sci-fi has ruled modern popular culture from Flash Gordon to Star Trek and Star Wars.

But until computer animation and special effects made possible the contemporary monsters of the Alien and Terminator movies, my main image of sci-fi creatures came from my childhood in Japan, and monsters such as Godzilla. The giant lizard has been so durable that it has starred in over a dozen Japanese movies over the decades and most recently was featured in a 1998 U.S. mega-budget flop.

Those early sci-fi movies had a strong impact on my young imagination, even though the special effects were cheap and clumsy. I could tell that "Gojira" as he is called in Japan (a combination of the words for gorilla, "gorira" and whale, "kujira") was really just a man in a rubber suit, stomping on a scale model of Tokyo. Still, the message was clear to me: Mess around with mother nature in the form of atomic bomb tests in the Pacific Ocean, and a mutant monster will rise to punish humankind.

The original movie came out in 1954 in Japan, and was released in 1956 in the U.S. with a few scenes cut in starring Raymond Burr to create the illusion that it was an American film. Subsequent Godzilla movies were campy caricatures of the initial film, with the lizard fighting a pantheon of goofier and goofier monsters.

I must have watched a lot of them when I was a kid in Tokyo, on our old black-and-white TV. I believed that some of these monsters could really exist deep in the sea or out in outer space, and that Japan's capital could someday be destroyed by a giant moth, or even a giant tidal wave. That era's special effects were crude and seem silly now, but they were state-of-the-art then.

The Godzilla movies have had mixed success in the U.S. (Raymond Burr even appeared in a 1985 sequel), but the monster made an impact across the Pacific. In one celebrated poll, the three best-known Japanese named by Americans were Emperor Hirohito, Bruce Lee (who was from Hong Kong) and Godzilla.

The movie industry's come a long way since 1954, and so has the limits of what we consider to be "science fiction." A lot more things seem possible today -- when the first Godzilla movie was made, the moon landing wasn't even a possibility.

I hear The Matrix will be followed by at least two sequels... maybe the series will affect the youth of today as deeply as Godzilla affected me. The movie is a great two-hour escape from the real world, but there's a lot to think about.

Note: You can find a fun Godzilla Web site at http://members.tripod.com/~world_of_godzilla, created by a teenaged fan who first saw a Godzilla movie in 1988, when he was four. The site is rough, but very passionate.

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March 28, 1999

JAPANESE ROCK DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS

The South By Southwest Music and Media conference in Austin has a well-deserved reputation as something of a "spring break" for the music industry. Although on one level it's a place where hungry young bands hope to showcase their talents for both record-company executives and national and regional music media, it's also a week-long party of music and heaping helpings of Texas culinary specialties such as barbecue and Mexican food.

Since I was a rock music critic for many years, I've attended SXSW for over a decade -- I was at the first, back in 1987, when 600 people showed up. This year, more than 6,000 attended and caught showcases by hundreds of bands and performers both famous and hoping-to-be.

To understand the musical appeal of SXSW, you'd have to understand Austin, Texas' love for live music. Many of the nightclubs that showcase bands during SXSW are either on or just off the downtown strip of 6th Street.

6th Street is in the heart of Austin's downtown district, just a few blocks away from the Texas state capitol. Every Thursday-Saturday night, the police cordon off a section of the street -- I think about ten blocks -- and create a pedestrian party scene like I imagine New Orleans must be like during Mardi Gras. There's a tremendous cacophony that rises up off the street like heat after a hot summer day, from what seem like hundreds of bars and nightclubs, all featuring live music of one sort or another.

In recent years, one showcase has caught my eye: "Japan Nite," an annual lineup of cutting-edge Japanese bands hoping for some U.S. attention.

Japan Nite this year was held in a room called Copper Tank Main. Unlike last year, when I first attended a Japan Nite showcase, there was a big crowd, and a long line waiting to get in. Somehow, Japanese underground music had become trendy. I found a spot near the left speaker, put my earplugs in and waited for the next band, Ex-Girl.

A large Japanese flag hung behind the stage, next to the banner for SXSW. Cigarette smoke swirled in the orange spotlights as I looked over the crowd. The audience was mostly comprised of curious Americans, not sure of what to expect. Sprinkled here and there were Japanese fans. One Japanese girl near me had bleached her hair platinum blonde and topped it off with fuzzy kitty-cat ears sticking up.

The house sound system played a Japanese band singing the words "Okashi Dansu" -- "Strange Dance." Another song over the sound system had me laughing to its chorus: "Blah-Blah-Blah Cha-Cha-Cha."

Ex-Girl, a trio of women, turned out to be a hoot.

The group sauntered out in flourescent ultra-mini skirt dresses with colorful flowers over their chests, and huge foam headpieces shaped like 1960s beehive hairstyles. The drummer stood at her small kit, pounding precisely at it like a taiko drummer. The guitarist and lead singer wore a bored expression at the right side of the stage, and the bassist stood just a few feet from me.

A Japanese man muscled his way right next to me with a video camera and faithfully recorded Ex-Girl's entire performance. I felt sorry for him, because he didn't have earplugs in, and he was right in the line of fire of the speakers. I could feel every bass note and drum beat rattling my teeth, but my earplugs saved my hearing.

Ex-Girl's music was a wacky combination of ear-shattering avant-garde noise with campy pop-culture sensibility. They echoed the silly innocence of '60s American "girl groups" such as the Shirelles, Shangri-Las and Ronettes, but added the cutting-edge wit and self-awareness of more recent groups such as the B-52s.

During the first song, each woman shimmied and shook until their foam headpieces fell off, then during the bridge, they stopped playing their instruments and picked up various toy flutes and noisemakers for a few measures before tossing them to the side. The songs were mostly short, and built around a chanted lyric, sung mostly in English. And like many Japanese rock groups that seem to gain attention in the U.S. (such as Pizzicato 5, Shonen Knife or Cibo Matto), the songs were about mundane subjects. One was about a brown frog -- the bassist explained to the crowd that Japanese hear "kero! kero!" instead of the "ribbit" sound Americans use for frogs.

Ultimately, no matter how loud -- and this was a very loud band -- and strange the presentation and some of the unison singing and Yoko Ono-style screeching, Ex-Girl is a pop band. In "Upsy Daisy Ramsy," the menacing beat and atonal guitar slashing was offset by the refreshingly unaffected, bubblegum-sweet chorus, "Every day, walk in the darkness but I don't care, you are my sunshine."

Looking around the room, I saw delighted American faces. They thought this stuff was COOL, which was pretty cool for me to see.

I didn't stay for the remaining bands -- Number Girls, Nicotine and Thee Michelle Gun Elephant (I'm not making this up) -- but I felt sure some bridges had been built that night between young Japanese musicians and U.S. music fans.

If you're a music fan, you might enjoy reading my day-by-day journal of this year's road trip to the SXSW Conference. It's long and self-indulgent, and not for everyone (it's as much about food as it is about music). Hope you like it!

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March 16, 1999

IMAGES OF JAPAN: SAMURAI AND GEISHA

It's difficult to argue with many Americans' immediate identification of Japan with some tried-and-true symbols: the Samurai warrior and the demure geisha.

That's because so much of Japanese tradition is reflected in these images -- for Japanese people too.

I recently discovered a wonderful Web site, an online Ukiyo-e Museum, which features pictures from the golden era of Japanese woodblock printing, the late 1700s to the late 1800s, and some of the greatest works shown are of samurai and geisha -- both formal portraits, and casual scenes of everyday life back then. These images are still fresh in the mind of modern Japanese.

Even today, the visage of the fierce samurai scowls everywhere, including down from the skies on kites and even from the TV screen in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, dressed as a samurai and selling ramen noodles in commercials. And the geisha is an ever-present image, from the placid, oval Noh theater masks of the woman's face on walls to characters in manga comic books. Japanese television dramas and films also keep alive these archetypes of Japanese character.

If the Japanese identify so much with these symbols, why shouldn't Americans be using them to identify Japanese too? Are these stereotypes or cliches? Or are they accurate reflections of a part of Japan's heritage?

But even if they're historically accurate, are they appropriate as images representing contemporary Japan? They are often used that way -- even respected national media have covered trade friction between the U.S. and Japan with cartoons of samurai representing Japan's business policies.

And geishas seem to be a popular fad these days too. Many Americans have become enraptured with the image of the geisha because of the book by Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha -- even the pop diva Madonna dressed in a geisha-chic faux kimono for a performance during the recent Grammy Awards ceremony.

I've been grappling with the meaning and use of the geisha image on a personal level too, not just because I love Golden's book. One of the organizations I belong to, the Japan America Society of Colorado, has been working on posters to advertise our presence and mission to the public. And the advertising firm which has been good enough to come up with some poster ideas pro bono (no charge) had a couple of striking, colorful ideas, including ... a geisha.

Don't get me wrong, the designs were truly stunning (the other one was of the lucky cat with the upheld paw that you see in Japanese restaurants, a good-luck charm for business). But I brought up several points about this motif. First, it's such an instantly recognizable image that although it's laudable from an advertising standpoint (instant recognition is a good thing), it seemed like an awful easy, and therefore shallow, choice. And second, the geisha as an icon carries some baggage -- both from a western, feminist view of subservient roles, and from an eastern, Japanese cultural perspective, where geisha can be perceived as prostitutes.

How can people know what's "politically correct" or culturally acceptable? It's hard work, but education is the key. Memoirs of a Geisha is a wonderfully written life story narrated in the voice of a woman who was raised in Kyoto and trained as a geisha from her childhood. It explains a lot about the role of the geisha in traditional Japan -- and how vestiges of geisha culture still survive to this day. I now know more about geishas than I had ever pondered before, and I feel richer for it. Besides, these lessons were a pleasure to learn!

Golden's great gift as a storyteller is his ability to effortlessly use similes and metaphors that add descriptive depth and bring his characters and settings to vivid life. But he's not merely a colorful and evocative writer -- he did his homework and researched the life of a geisha in the early and mid-20th century. We learn in his book that there are high-class geisha who are truly artisans and performers, as well as lower-class ones who are prostitutes. And, he explains that even the high-class geisha can become courtesans and become long-term lovers for wealthy (and married) sponsors who bid for their favors.

Ultimately, Memoirs of a Geisha is a powerful, romantic and believable novel. I enjoyed reading it immensely, and would recommend it for anyone, especially if you're interested in Japanese history and culture.

I don't think the book is demeaning to Japanese women in any way, but it bugged me that Madonna has decided to use the geisha "look" just for the sake of style in her hit video and Grammy appearance. To me, that trivializes the historic beauty of the geisha -- and the resonance of Golden's novel.

As for the ad agency that came up with the geisha design for the poster, of course they didn't mean to offend anyone. The talented artist who created the original sample is coming up with a new design using some ideas suggested by the Japan-America Society of Colorado.

But it's not easy finding a symbol that shouts "JAPAN!" at a glance. By definition, such an image needs to be somewhat of a cliche. So what else is there? Mount Fuji? A bonsai tree?

How about a poster featuring a giant piece of sushi? Now, that would get my attention....

You can visit the online Ukiyo-e Museum on the Internet at http://www.nbn.co.jp/ukiyoe

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March 6, 1999

MEMORIALS AND MEMORY

Minoru Yasui's name is preserved forever.

At a recent ceremony, the civil rights leader was memorialized as the namesake of the very building he worked in for years, as director of what is now called the city of Denver's Agency for Human Rights and Community Relations.

The ceremony was attended by a large contingent of Japanese Americans and Yasui's family, and Denver's Mayor Wellington Webb, among others, spoke eloquently about Yasui's contributions to the civil liberties of all people. At the end of the ceremony, the Mayor unveiled a bust of Yasui, who died in 1986, in the building's lobby.

Yasui was one of three Japanese American heroes (the others were Fred Korematsu and Gordon Hirabayashi) who first fought in the courts the injustice of the Japanese American internment during World War II.

Born in 1916 in Hood River, Oregon, and a graduate of the University of Oregon Law School, Yasui was working for the Japanese Consulate in Chicago when Pearl Harbor was bombed. The next day he returned to Oregon, and began representing Japanese Americans. On Feb. 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 into law, paving the way for internment. That April, in order to set a legal precedent, Yasui purposely ignored a Portland curfew, demanding to be arrested.

He was eventually sent to Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, and spent part of the time in solitary confinement. He fought the charges all the way to the Supreme Court -- and lost his case. But he never stopped fighting to right the wrong of internment. In the late '70s he became involved with the Japanese American Citizens League's efforts to gain governmental redress for internment, a battle that was finally won after his death.

It's worth noting that Yasui's life wasn't just focused on the experience of Japanese Americans. He came to Denver in 1944, and served as early as 1946 on a Denver mayor's committee which became the Commission on Community Relations. He became director of the commission in 1967, during a time of turbulence throughout the U.S., and ran it until his retirement in 1983. At the building dedication ceremony, Bill Hosokawa, one of the speakers who had known Min since childhood, reminded people that it was largely because of Yasui's pioneering community network efforts that Denver was one of the few major American cities which didn't suffer race-related riots and civil unrest in the late '60s.

I never met Min Yasui, but now I feel as if I knew him. I certainly know of his accomplishments, and now know that others who walk into the Minoru Yasui Plaza at 303 W. Colfax Ave. will know that he had a great impact on the city he loved.

That's the power of a memorial -- it reminds the future of the legacy of the past. And I can think of hardly a more appropriate memorial to someone of Yasui's accomplishments than to name a building after him.

Which is why, the week after the Yasui dedication, I raised the question to the board of the Mile-Hi JACL chapter to donate $1,000 -- which for us, a small chapter in terms of membership and corporate support, is a significant chunk of our finances -- to the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation.

Seeing Min Yasui's name forever gracing the edifice of a city and county building was a powerful statement to me that this man made a difference in his community.

And in the larger American community, the Japanese American Memorial would be an equally powerful statement, that our community served patriotically during WWII but also that we were wronged by our own government. A plot of land has been set aside for the memorial, just north of the Capitol Building. An artist has already designed a striking crane. And the memorial foundation has undertaken a national campaign to raise the over $8 million needed to bring the project to fruition.

I'm usually too much of a cynic to believe that a memorial can affect people in any way other than mere nostalgia, but I have to admit, I think this memorial is important. It's important to me as a third-generation Japanese American, especially because no one in my family was affected by internment. It's important to me because the memorial would remind others like me, who grow up with no idea of the pain an entire generation suffered.

I urge everyone who has any interest in the history -- and the future -- of the Japanese American community to send in any amount you can afford to the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation, at 1920 N Street NW, Suite 660, Washington DC, 20036.

I'd bet anything that if Min Yasui were alive today, he'd be asking you to do the same.

You can read more about the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation at its Web site and learn more about Min Yasui at the Auraria Library Archives in Denver, Colorado.

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February 15, 1999

A TASTE OF JAPAN

You don’t have to travel the world to know something about other cultures. Perhaps you’ve never been on a Roman holiday, but of course you’ve had spaghetti and other Italian food. And you may have never crossed any border but you’ve probably tried tacos, burritos and other Mexican fare.

Food is the most accessible way that people are exposed to ethnic cultures. Food can break down barriers between counties and cultures, and serve as a point of shared experience.

Cuisine is a cultural ambassador, and restaurants are the embassies where you can find the ambassador.

Anyone who’s ever spent the night at a sushi bar with friends understands this concept: Japanese restaurants bridge the Pacific and can bring together not just generations of Japanese and Japanese Americans, but people of all races and countries. Whether it’s something as commonly ordered as meat marinated in teriyaki sauce or something more “exotic,” the Japanese food that’s served up introduces diners to a taste of Japan -- not just in the ingredients, but in the presentation, and the ambience of the restaurant, er, embassy.

This goes both ways, of course -- American pop culture of all types are ubiquitous throughout the world, and Japan’s no exception. Even with variations such as “Teriyaki McBurgers,” McDonalds is an ambassador of American values -- serving up fast food for modern Japan’s on-the-go society.

And, there are other cross-cultural currents that crop up through cuisine. One of the popular types of restaurants in Japan is called "Viking-style," pronounced "bikingu." The word denotes a restaurant that serves food buffet-style -- all you can eat. I encountered this in several places in Japan during a 1994 trip. And it occurred to me later why these restaurants were called "Viking-style": The word was a bastardization of "smorgasbord," the Scandinavian word that's commonly used for an all-you-can-eat buffet. To the Japanese ear, of course "smorgasbord" would be too difficult to pronounce. But "Viking-style" works just fine.

There's nothing like a great meal to bring people together, and one of my most memorable evenings was spent over a great meal, in the heart of Tokyo.

During a 1995 trip to Japan, I had dinner with my friend Jeff Brown, an artist and teacher from Colorado Springs, and Tetsuo Shiitani, a journalist with the Tokyo Shimbun. Tetsuo is a typical Japanese worker, who worked long hours at a Tokyo office, then dined and went back to work some more before heading home to his wife and daughters (who were no doubt asleep by the time he got home).

He took Jeff and me to one of his favorite dinner spots, a raucous restaurant down a crowded alley from the busy Shimbashi train station that served a variety of dishes all displayed in wax in the front window. We had an incredible feast of many different kinds of skewered meats and vegetables and a huge ceramic bowl of delectables (more meats and vegetables) simmering at the table over a blue gas flame. I couldn't believe we ate it all, and by the time we stumbled out the door, Jeff and I felt we had truly bonded with the rowdy Japanese students and tired business-people who were regulars there.

We felt right at home at that restaurant.

Back here in Colorado, I also feel at home at Japanese restaurants, with the menus, the decor (especially the small, family-owned eateries), the smells of the ingredients mixing in the air, and even the murmur of Japanese being spoken, wafting out of the kitchen.

I schedule lunch meetings at a Japanese restaurant called Samurai near my office in south Denver. I like introducing my friends and business partners to the variety of food served there, which ranges from a full selection of fresh sushi to the type of meal my mother often serves herself: salty grilled salmon. I feel so comfortable at Samurai that sometimes I leave the office to dine alone there.

During one recent lunch at Samurai, its role as a cultural embassy struck home.

As I slurped away at the fat udon noodles I had ordered to fend off the cold of the winter day, I overheard a group of American businessmen introducing a man with a British accent to the joys of Japanese cuisine.

“You’ve never eaten at a Japanese restaurant before?” asked one man who was apparently a regular, and was familiar with most of the offerings. He proceeded to recommend some of the more esoteric dishes. “Oh, everything here’s great. You can get teriyaki chicken or beef, but you should try something else. The tempura’s great, but I like the donburi,” he urged his lunchmates, explaining the combination of rice and ingredients served in a bowl.

I’m not sure what they all ordered, but they must have enjoyed their meal -- the conversation faded as the food was served. Chalk up another step towards world peace and understanding.

An earlier version of this column originally ran as part of a longer article about food and culture in the 1998 Holiday Issue of "Pacific Citizen," the weekly national newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League.

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February 7, 1999

BOYHOOD ADVENTURES: COWBOYS AND ... NINJAS

During my childhood, I didn't really fantasize about being a cowboy. Oh sure, I had the requisite cowboy outfit -- western hat perched cockily to one side like a young John Wayne, a real leather holster belt with a pair of shiny pistols hanging down my side (I tied them to my thighs with strips of leather) and a silver sheriff's star on my chest. I played cowboys and Indians like American boys did back then. But not all the time.

In Japan, there was another, more romantic character that boys could play -- the Ninja. The Ninja were the elite samurai corps specially-trained to be silent assassins. They were able to leap incredible heights over palace walls, walk silently through a sleeping castle, and noiselessly kill their prey with their samurai swords (which they wore across their backs instead of hanging on their sides) or shuriken, razor-sharp steel stars like many-sided daggers that ninja could throw with deadly accuracy.

Ninjas even looked cool -- instead of fancy, bulky, multi-layered samurai outfits, Ninjas were wrapped in a simple outfit of midnight-black fabric (better to skulk around in the dark) just loose enough to allow freedom of movement in martial arts hand-to-hand combat. They covered their heads with a black hood, and only their eyes were visible through the veil.

Although the Ninjas were, like the cowboys of America, a romanticized icon of an earlier, "frontier-era" spirit, they also made sense for the early 1960s. They were precursors of spies in a modern world deeply divided by the Cold War. With James Bond and the Man from U.N.C.L.E. looming just around the pop-culture corner, I was ready-made for sneaking around my small yard in Tokyo, fantasizing about being a Ninja.

I used to balance precariously on the cinderblock wall around our yard, pretending to be a Ninja breaching the defenses of an evil warlord. I'd leap the couple of feet it took to grab a hold of a low-hanging branch of the persimmon tree, and in my head, I was jumping effortlessly 15 feet straight up. I'd throw the dozens of plastic shuriken I'd hide in my shirt (the Ninjas in the black and white movies I loved to watch kept their shiriken hidden near their hearts, and they'd reach in and flip them with a flick of the wrist) all over the property, losing a couple each week to neighbors' yards or the street beyond the wall. For hand-to-hand combat, I'd pull my plastic sword out of its scabbard strapped to my back, and whack away at hapless branches, or stuffed animals, or whatever handy victim that happened to be lying around.

Oddly enough, I don't remember playing Ninja with other boys. But then, the lot of a Ninja can be a lonely one -- working solo is not uncommon in the stealth trade.

Ninjas were popular in samurai movies, and I recall being glued to our early TV set, entranced by the fuzzy, black and white images. I even got to see real-life Ninja paraphernalia, on special occasions when our family would go to a fancy Japanese restaurant in the bowels of Tokyo. I don't remember the name of the place, and I would be surprised if it's still there, but I loved going, because the restaurant had a samurai theme. Right inside the entrance was a display of full samurai armor, with its imposing horned helmet and chain-mail body. There were also swords on display, but they didn't capture my attention. I would always go straight to one glass case filled with real shuriken -- shiny, sharp and scary-looking.

I've been thinking about Ninjas recently because a young man I work with came up to me to ask my nationality. It turns out he's fascinated by Ninjas -- he later gave me a printout of instructions he found on the Internet for the Ninjas' trademark "stealth walking" -- and thinks it's great that I used to play Ninjas.

Ninjas have come a long way since I watched them on a fuzzy TV set. They were turned into cartoon characters -- the Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers -- and have become key characters in a host of computer and video games -- including the popular Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat.

It's nice to know that American pop culture has finally caught up to my cutting-edge tastes, and that young people today still find Ninjas exciting. Now, if I could find someplace that sells plastic shuriken....

You can learn more about Ninjutsu, or the art of the Ninja, and also find Web links on the topic, at "Ninjutsu: The Art of Winning."

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January 28, 1999

FOOTBALL, BASEBALL AND SUMO: FANS ARE FANS

It would be an understatement to say that I've never been much of an athlete.

Growing up, I played little league baseball for several years, and was lucky enough to be on a championship team, without ever once having a hit and thankfully rarely had to field a ball in the outfield. I was too short for basketball, too small for football, and too lazy for much of anything else. I hate to sweat, and that gets in the way of being an athlete too.

So I live vicariously through the giants of professional sports -- after all, there's no way I could ever be like Michael Jordan, no matter how many Nike sneakers I buy. Besides, there's a great sense of pride in being just a fan, and cheering for the hometown team.

And in my hometown, of course, the team is the National Football League's Broncos.

I've followed the Broncos ever since my family moved to Colorado in 1972, when I was in high school. I've been a fan through the low years and the three Super Bowl losses. And, along with tens of thousands of other fans, I cried tears of joy (and I admit, disbelief) when quarterback John Elway, running back Terrell Davis and the rest of the team defeated the heavily-favored Green Bay Packers for the NFL World Championship last January.

It sounds corny, but I feel privileged to have been a fan during the era of Elway, and fortunate to follow the rise of Davis. There are many great players that have helped the Broncos over the years and this season, but these two have elevated the Broncos to a level of greatness under the leadership of coach Mike Shanahan.

As I write this, the Broncos are preparing to play another Super Bowl, against the Atlanta Falcons. This year, the Broncos aren't underdogs -- they're the ones favored to win. But with the memories of three earlier Super Bowl defeats and years of heart-wrenching disappointment, I'm still nervous. Don't get me wrong; I think we can win, and I hope we will win. But I'm too superstitious to be over-confident of the outcome.

In one way, I want to feel that same disbelief I felt at last year's achievement. If we win another championship, I want to be amazed, not blase at the win.

That's the "thrill of victory," the phrase made famous by the intro to the long-running TV sports show "Wide World of Sports." The thrill is what fans live for, and in seeking this thrill, like the athletes themselves, we fans often have to settle for "the agony of defeat."

In the competitive arena of sports, someone has to win and someone has to lose.

This equation holds true in sports across political and cultural borders. In 1994, when I visited Japan, I found out that the love of sports knows no bounds. I was there in October -- which, for any baseball fan, is that sport's championship season. And though we were in the small city of Nemuro in the eastern edge of the northernmost island of Hokkaido, we couldn't escape the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat as the final games of the year played out.

We were having a wonderful sushi dinner with my grandmother, uncle and aunts, but the family conversation was often punctuated by rousing cheers and shouts of horror from the kitchen. The chef and staff were watching the game as they cooked up our feast. The equally matched Yomiuri Giants (70 wins, 60 losses) defeated the Chunichi Dragons (69 wins, 61 losses) that night, and I watched the final moments and the locker room celebrations over and over on the news in the days that followed.

Even my mom can be a sports fan, though football, basketball, hockey and even baseball mystify her. My mom's sport is the traditional -- and to me, mystifying -- Japanese sport of sumo, where gigantic men wearing gigantic thongs push each other around in a carefully groomed dirt ring. The goal of this sport, for those unfamiliar with its high ritual and unorthodox tableaux, is for these behemoths to shove each other around until one steps over or falls out of the ring.

My mom watches sumo via satellite broadcasts, and doesn't miss a match. She videotapes them if she won't be there to watch them live. I find it comical, until I realize I've watched a videotape of last year's Super Bowl several times, and I've just watched a documentary of the 1997 Broncos season.

We all have our favorite sports, and our favorite athletes. And we all want our heroes -- and heroines -- to win The Big One.

Here's hoping the Broncos can do it again. GO BRONCOS!

The official Denver Broncos home page is at http://denverbroncos.com. You can learn about Japanese baseball at Latham's Guide to Japanese Baseball (much of the site's in Japanese, but this page for the Yakult Swallows is in English, and a good place to start exploring) and get an introduction to sumo wrestling at Sumo Web.

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January 18, 1999

NAILING DOWN THE AMERICAN IN ME

About this time last year, I wrote in one of my very first "Nikkei View" columns about my history with Denver's Japanese community, and how it had taken me a long time to join organizations such as the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and the Japan America Society of Colorado (JASC).

Now I'm on the executive board of directors of the JASC, and last weekend I was installed as the 1999 president of the JACL's Mile-Hi Chapter. I'm not announcing these positions as a boast -- in fact, I'm pretty terrified, and find it almost comical that I would be in a position of responsibility with either group. We'll see how I handle my duties (once I figure them out).

After all, I've spent most of my life as a typical American baby boomer: Spoiled rotten.

I had every toy I wanted growing up. Instead of studying something useful, I went to art school. As an adult, I've been a critic and pop culture fanatic, working outside the mainstream and dressing weird. When my mother asked me to go out and buy a nice-fitting dark colored suit for a trip to Japan, I bought another wildly-colored baggy shirt. I couldn't help it.

There's a Japanese saying that translates loosely to "The nail that sticks out will be hammered down," but all my life I've strived to be a nail that sticks out.

So imagine my surprise to find myself wearing a suit (it's not even baggy, mom!) at fancy dinners, mingling with properly dressed lawyers, executives, movers and shakers, and working with these organizations. Have I grown up? Naw -- at least, I hope not. But it feels right to be involved with both groups.

The JASC's goal is to serve as a bridge between the U.S. and Japan -- the organization fosters cultural and business ties between the two countries. The first event I'm involved in for the JASC is a Feb. 5 tribute dinner for longtime Denver resident Bill Hosokawa, who's served as honorary Consul General of Japan in Colorado since 1974.

With the JACL, my main goals for this year are to take the organization's civil rights mission to a wider audience, by hosting more cultural events for the general public; sponsoring a documentary video on Camp Amache, Colorado's sole internment camp during WWII; reaching out to other Japanese and JA groups (like the JASC) and also to the wider Asian community for partnerships and events; and putting up a Web site for the chapter. And of course, to be ever vigilant for acts of racism and discrimination.

I was honored that Katsuhiko Kubo, the Acting Consul General of Japan who has just arrived to oversee Denver's first fulltime Consular office, was able to attend the JACL installation dinner. Also gracing the event were Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, Mel Okamoto, the first Asian American judge appointed to the Denver County Court (thanks to Mayor Webb), Bill Hosokawa and mistress of ceremonies Adele Arakawa, the Japanese American evening news anchor for 9News.

But during the screening of a short preview of the Amache documentary video, I wondered what Consul General Kubo thought about being in a room of people that outwardly looked Japanese, but as one of the Amache survivors declared in the video, are "American, not Japanese."

I hoped that our unabashed Americanism didn't sound strident or off-putting. I want the JACL to be an organization that welcomes the presence and the involvement of anyone, including Caucasian Americans (it's a great organization for "Japanophiles"), people of mixed Japanese ancestry (a common sight as the Nikkei assimilate into American society) and first-generation Japanese (students, businesspeople and immigrants).

I've come to cherish the American in me -- even though I was "made in Japan." I'm American through and through, from my outgoing personality and loud voice to my sometimes extremely salty language. I'm immersed in U.S. culture -- that's why I was so happy writing about rock music for many years. But I'm also always eager to explore the Japanese side of my roots. Japanese Americans are a unique bunch, because we have such distinct cultures running through our veins.

I plan on having a long talk with Kubo-san while he's here establishing his consulate, and welcome him and his staff to Colorado. I want to know more about how the Japanese see Japanese Americans.

Not as nails that need a little tap, I hope.

You can learn more about the Japanese American Citizens League by visiting the national organization's Web site at http://www.jacl.org. The Japan America Society of Colorado has its own Web site at http://www.us-japan.org/colorado

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January 10, 1999

SLAP THAT JAP -- AGAIN

I don't remember the first time I was called a "Jap."

But I have vague, unsettling memories of being called a "Jap," "Nip" or "Chink," when I was a kid and I understood them even then as expressions of hatred, pumped up with power and presumed superiority.

In high school, when some obnoxious troublemaker (I originally wrote "redneck" -- ouch, see how easily we slip into stereotypes!) called me a "Jap" at an intersection, my friend Bubba (that was his nickname, honest), a very large football player, got out of our car, grabbed the kid's shirt and practically dragged him through his window, saying, "Don't you ever use that word again!" Thanks, Bubba.

"Jap."

It's just short for "Japanese," like "Brit" is short for "British." Many ethnic nicknames probably had somewhat practical roots: "Wop" for Italians came into use because so many immigrants arrived "Without Papers," and "Mick" for Irish was used because so many immigrants' names started with "Mc." This doesn't justify the use of the words -- they still served to classify people of one background into one faceless, stereotyped group. But if someone used them, it probably meant they were ignorant, not necessarily racist. I think there's a difference.

But I also think these words have outlived their use.

I'm not sure when "Jap" became a racist epithet, but it probably took on its mantle of hatred when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and I think hatred still resonates in the word, even if someone uses it out of ignorance, not animosity.

The headlines screamed "JAPS BOMB PEARL HARBOR" and news stories of those years typically referred to Japanese as "Japs." Wartime billboards for the Burma Shave company read: "SLAP THAT JAP." (In the '30s and '40s the company used to put up billboards in series so you would read one word of a message at a time as you drove down the road.)

A few years ago, when I worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette, every reporter and editor helped out on a series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II -- a very significant observance for a town with a substantial U.S. military presence. I got to interview a very pleasant retired man who told me great stories about his time in the Army, hopping across the islands in the Pacific and being among the first Occupation soldiers to arrive in Tokyo Bay after the war.

I didn't flinch, but I found it interesting that he kept referring to the enemy half a century ago as "Japs." A half-hour into the interview, he stopped himself, turned to me and said, "Hey I hope you understand, I call them 'Japs' but I know you're Japanese. It's just that back then they were Japs."

Yeah, back then.

So, imagine my dismay a couple of weeks ago, when I got an e-mail on a Japanese American discussion group I belong to, asking all of us subscribers to write an e-mail to the San Antonio, Texas-based H-E-B supermarket chain. The stores were stocking a brand of chile peppers labeled "Jap-Style Chiles," the e-mail said. I sent an e-mail asking if this was true, and saying that I found the word offensive. The company replied and said they did carry such a product, but couldn't control what names their vendors used, at which point I suggested that the company could switch vendors.

They also gave me the vendor's phone number. I spoke this week with Manual Velasquez at Fiesta-Bollner Spice Company, the quality control manager, and he said they had received the complaints made to H-E-B and they were re-labeling the peppers either as "Japanese-Style" or "Oriental."

He said until it was pointed out, nobody at the company had given the name any thought -- and they had sold these peppers for 45 years with that name. In fact, he said, "That's the name that's used in the industry. Our suppliers call them 'Jap Chiles.' We're not here to offend anybody. I guess you don't really think about it until it's focused at your group."

I appreciate Manual's candor, and hope I never see a pepper in any grocery store in Texas or anywhere that's called a "Jap Chile." But the fact remains, the folks who grow the peppers and sell them to the suppliers routinely use the term.

I can't change everyone, but I hope I can help educate the people I can reach. After all, "back then" and "right now" may not be as far apart as we'd like to think.

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December 27, 1998

INTO THE FIRE: THE DEBT I OWE

Take my word for it -- it's not easy writing a regular column, coming up with ideas and crafting words with passion week after week, month after month and year and after year. But Bill Hosokawa has done just that, putting his musings since 1942 into a column called "From the Frying Pan" within the pages of the "Pacific Citizen," the national newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League.

And this on top of a career as an esteemed newspaper editor, author (he has nine books to his credit) and diplomat (he's been Japan's honorary consul general in Colorado since 1974). It's a legacy that few journalists can claim.

As an aspiring columnist and a Sansei who's deeply interested in connecting my Japanese roots with my American identity, I owe an enormous debt to Bill's pioneering work. But I never realized how much I was following the trail he had blazed. Anyone who reads my "Nikkei View" on page 2 of Denver's "Rocky Mountain Jiho" newspaper after reading Bill's column on page 1 probably thinks of me as a "Junior Bill Hosokawa," and that's a label I'll gladly accept.

My debt to Bill started when I was a teenager. I've told this story so many times it may be apocryphal, but I swear Bill was the one who shook my hand and handed me my JACL merit scholarship at an award ceremony the year I graduated from Alameda High School in Lakewood, Colorado. At the time, he was editorial page editor of the Denver Post, and a name I already knew and respected.

I didn't know then, that I would become a writer myself. And my debt as a writer became obvious when I read Bill's latest book, "Out of the Frying Pan" (University Press of Colorado, 192 pages, $17.50).

The book is half autobiography and half recontextualized "Frying Pan" columns over the years, thematically woven together. And it's entirely readable in Bill's easygoing, conversational voice.

That voice developed despite early efforts to silence it. As Bill explains in "Out of the Frying Pan," he was told at the University of Washington faculty advisor to change his major from journalism to something like business, even though his grades were good.

"I don't think there's a newspaper publisher in the country who would hire a Japanese boy," he was told. "You'll never find a job. It's not fair, but that's the reality."

In his frank, non-confrontational way, Hosokawa admits early in the autobiographical half of the book that the advisor was right. He couldn't find a newspaper job, so he ended up a secretary for the Japanese consul in Seattle, writing speeches and press dispatches. But that connection led to a recommendation for a job in pre-war Singapore, launching an English-language paper, the Singapore Herald.

That kicked off Hosokawa's journalism career, which he maintained even during internment, as editor of the Heart Mountain Sentinel. Journalism saved Bill and his family from internment when he got a job as a copy editor for the Des Moines Register during the war, and brought him to Colorado to work for the Denver Post in 1946.

The book deserves attention for Bill's acute memories of the evacuation from his hometown of Seattle and life at Heart Mountain, because his reminiscences bring a touch of personal reality that most histories of internment can't capture. But for me, the book's a testament to Bill's resilience in the face of such experiences. The book isn't full of invective and angry declamations against injustice, though there are plenty of thoughtful points he raises about racism, and he doesn't shrink from criticizing injustice.

Mostly, the book shares Bill's often bemused, soft-spoken wisdom and his perspective on a half-century of Japanese Americans finding our own voice.

The book ends with a 1977 column that describes how life at Heart Mountain was made better in December of 1942 when a jeep-riding Santa Claus brought gifts donated from all over the U.S. to the 120,000 Japanese Americans imprisoned in concentration camps. It's just like Bill to put the emphasis on that scene, not a bitter one.

And it's also like Bill to continue working with words. I learned a new one from his vivid description of Singapore as war against Japan became inevitable. He writes of Scottish troops with "bagpipes skirling" march down to the shore and sail home. I scurried to the dictionary to look up "skirling" and found it's the shrill piercing noise that bagpipes make.

I'll file the word away, and I know I'll use it sometime. It's just another debt I owe Bill Hosokawa.

You can order "Out of the Frying Pan" and other books by Bill Hosokawa online from Amazon.com.

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1999 ARCHIVES

Copyright 1998-2006 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission.
Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication.
Thanks for reading!

1999 ARCHIVES

Copyright 1998-2006 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission. Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication. Thanks for reading!

Copyright 1998-2006 by Gil Asakawa -- not for use without permission.
Contact me if you'd like to run "Nikkei View" in your publication.
Thanks for reading!