Forgotten history remembered: I took a Digital Storytelling class through StoryCenter that was held at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and this is the story I produced as a result. The focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have obscured in history, the months of firebombings and air raids on dozens of Japanese cities in 1945 before the atomic bombs were dropped....
I get it. I understand. Traveling to someplace you’ve never been, where the culture and language is foreign to you, can be challenging. I know lots of Americans–including some Japanese Americans–who’ve either been hesitant to go to Japan, or who’ve gone and struggled to adjust to the oddly familiar, yet unfamiliar, sights, sounds, tastes and culture. It can be discombobulating. That’s...
Even if you haven’t seen the opera, most people know the title “Madama Butterfly,” Giacomo Puccini’s famous work which debuted in 1904. More people today are probably familiar with “Miss Saigon,” the gaudy but popular Broadway musical based on “Butterfly” that takes the same plotline as “Butterfly”—American soldier stationed in Asia falls in love with a local woman, and returns...
Maybe not surprisingly, I’ve been a stickler for “authenticity” in food—especially Japanese food. I was born in Japan, and I’ve loved Japanese food all my life. I even wrote a book about the history of Japanese food in America, Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! I’m a foodie who takes #foodporn shots of many of my meals. I love all cuisines and seek out...
I had a blast talking to John Daub, a YouTube creator who runs several "Only in Japan" channels. He's lived in Japan for decades, and lives with his wife and son in Tokyo. He travels throughout Japan finding fascinating stories and telling them like a journalist, doing research and putting the subject of his videos into context for viewers. https://youtu.be/Zi1KdqWrnEc ...
Like most countries including the U.S., Japan is struggling with the spread of the Omnicron variant of covid-19. Aside from its internal battles to vaccinate and provide boosters to Japanese, the country’s pretty hardline solution to help manage the pandemic has been a strict blockade of foreigners entering its borders – even foreigners with resident visas and students. Never mind...
Note: An edited version of this post will run in the Holiday Issue of the national JACL's Pacific Citizen newspaper. Japanese Americans and the wider Asian Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities are seeing more of ourselves reflected in pop culture these days, but the high arts has a ways to go. It’s important to recognize the ongoing challenges of...
(Note: This is a sponsored post.) If you’ve ever dined at a nice Japanese restaurant, you’ve probably had misoshiru (miso soup) out of a lovely, thin bowl with lacquered fish – maybe red or orange inside, and black outside with an intricate Japanese pattern, probably in gold. Or maybe you’ve had sushi served in a round container with several layers and...