Category Archives: japan & asia

Heading Far East: Traveling to Japan

By | | , ,
8 Comments
USAF plane and Mt Fuji

My father took this photo sometime in the 1950s when he was stationed in Japan with the US Army.

I panicked a couple of weeks ago when reports circulated that the Japanese government, in an effort to increase tourism, was going to give away 10,000 free trips. Then I was relieved to learn that though the Japan National Tourism Office is considering such a promotion, nothing’s been approved yet.

We’d already planned our trip and Erin and I, and my mother Junko are leaving early tomorrow for San Francisco, then on to Narita Airpot outside Tokyo, and a switch to a flight to Sapporo in the northernmost island of Hokkaido.

Seven months after the earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster hit Japan, we’re going to do the one thing that I think will help Japan the most, even more than the hundreds of dollars we’ve donated to various aid efforts.

We’re going to visit – with my mother in tow – and spend money there. Since the dollar is hurting against the yen, we’ll be spending even more money than we originally had expected.
Continue reading →

Anti-Chinese sentiment never seems to go away, even when the US Senate apologizes for past racism

By | | , , ,
3 Comments

Arthur Dong DVD collection

It took four decades before Japanese Americans received a formal apology for the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II. The apology was part of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The Chinese in America are still waiting for an apology from the top, 129 years after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was signed by President Chester A. Arthur.

The Chinese Exclusion Act was one of a series of laws enacted against Chinese immigrants starting in 1879 through 1904. The 1882 Exclusion Act squeezed Chinese immigration to the US to barely a trickle – and cut down rights for Chinese already in the US, for example by excluding Chinese from citizenship and therefore denying them the right to own any property. Amazingly, the act remained on the books until 1943, when it was repealed in large part because China became an ally during WWII. It remains to this day the only US legislation that singles out people by ethnicity or national origin.

On Oct. 11, with the help of organizations including the 1882 Project, JACL and OCA, the Senate passed a resolution apologizing for the Chinese Exclusion Act. Now these groups are pushing for a similar bill, House Resolution 282, to pass in the House.

Mainstream American culture goes in cycles when it comes to anti-Chinese sentiment, and we’re in one of those periods, mostly because China is ascending to its new position as one of the top world economies and that stirs up race-based xenophobia.
Continue reading →

Happy Birthday to the Republic of China (that’s Taiwan to you)

By | | , , ,
Leave a comment

100th Year Double Ten celebration

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising in China, which occurred on October 10, 1911. The date is celebrated annually as Double Ten Day in the Republic of China as the event that marked the end of dynastic rule and the close of the Qing Dynasty.

That’s the Republic of China, not the People’s Republic of China, or “Mainland China.” Double Ten Day is a national holiday for the government that is currently in exile in Taiwan.

Here’s the history: The Wuchang Uprising in 1911 led to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1912, but in 1927, the Nationalist Kuomintang Party (KMT) which governed the ROC began fighting the insurgent Communist Party of China for control of the country. After World War II, during which the two parties united to fight the Japanese, the Communists led by Mao Zedong won control, and the KMT, led by General Chiang Kai-shek, went into exile on the island of Formosa — renamed Taiwan — off the southeast coast of the now-Communist People’s Republic of China.

The two Chinas have had a rocky relationship in the decades since, although economic ties have led to trade and some closing of the divide between them. But China likes to rattle its sword whenever (like recently) the U.S. offers military aid to Taiwan — even if the military aid is more symbolic than threatening.Its part of the delicate diplomatic tightrope that every country walks if it has relationships with China and Taiwan. No one can ignore the relationship, because both countries have become global economic powerhouses. If you have an iPhone or an HTC phone, or an iPad or some other brand of tablet computer, you have products made completely or in large part in either China or Taiwan.

But today, to mark the centennial of the Wuchang Uprising, China seems to have extended an olive branch across the Taiwan Strait. In Beijing, Hu Jintao said that China and Taiwan should end antagonisms, “heal wounds of the past and work together to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”

For his part, Taiwan’s President Ma Yingjeou urged mainland China to embrace democracy and “face the existence” of Taiwan.

It doesn’t look like the stalemate has been ended by this exchange, although overall, the freeze has been thawing.

Colorado has an interesting connection to the Double Ten Celebration:
Continue reading →

AWESOME: Cool video mashup of “One Love” & Ue O Muite Arukou” (“Sukiyaki” to some) by Tohoku musicians

By | | , ,
5 Comments

I find this magically powerful. It’s a sweet rendition of one of my all-time favorite songs (and one I was just playing last night on the guitar). And it’s also an expression of hope, community and rebirth from musicians in the Tohoku region of NE Japan, set amidst the cleaned-up but still devastated area hammered by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Japan’s Ambassador to US visited Denver for 25th anniversary of Colorado-Yamagata relationship

By | | , ,
Leave a comment

Ambassador of Japan to U.S., Ichiro Fujisaki

It’s not often that Denver receives visitors at the highest levels of the foreign diplomatic corps, but the 25th anniversary of the start of the Colorado-Yamagata Sister State relationship brought Ichiro Fujisaki, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the United State of America, to the Brown Palace on August 6.

Fujisaki gave a keynote speech during a luncheon hosted by the Japan America Society of Colorado, which was also attended by Takashi Takahashi, vice governor of Yamagata Prefecture (state), and Kozo Taira, Chairperson of the Yamagata Prefectural Assembly. Also with the Yamagata delegation were several assemblymen, the assembly’s Chief Secretariat, and representatives of the Yamagata International Affairs Office.

The local speakers included Morgan Smith and James Terada, former chairs of the Colorado-Yamagata Friendship Committee. Smith helped forge the Sister State relationship when he served under then-governor Dick Lamm, who was not initially supportive of the idea. Smith recalled his efforts to get the relationship approved, and the accomplishments since then that have come out of the Sister State compact. Gov. Roy Romner, who followed Lamm, was much more supportive, as was Bill Owens after that, and Gov. Hickenlooper already has strong ties to Japan and with Yamagata through visits he made while he served as Denver’s Mayor.

There were also remarks by Colorado state officials including David Thomson, Director of Global Business Development in the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade; Sen. Brandon Shaffer, President of the state Senate; and Rep. Frank McNulty, Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives.

But the luncheon never felt like a dry political summit.
Continue reading →