Gil Asakawa's Nikkei View | pop culture
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July 15, 2013

montbellodrumline-vidcap It was at Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock's suggestion that the nine members of the Montbello High School Drum Line got the chance of a lifetime -- to take the second historic flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner on United Airline's new direct flight between Denver and Tokyo. The students raised money for the trip with the help of sponsors, and they performed their synchronized drumming at the U.S. Ambassador's home in Tokyo, and several times in Takayama, Denver's sister city. The news report below is a sample of a half-hour special that airs this Friday, July 19 at 9:30 on KDVR Fox31. These students were cultural ambassadors for Colorado in Japan. So the Colorado Dragon Boat Festival is proud to introduce the Montbello High School Drum Line as one of the highlights of this year's Opening Ceremony. The Opening Ceremony, which begins at 10 am on Saturday, July 27, also includes a spiritual Eye-Dotting Ceremony with chanting Buddhist monks to awaken the spirit of the dragon boats; a dynamic Dragon Dance; and an Olympics-style Team Parade. The Drum Line will get the chance to perform in front of Mayor Hancock, who will speak during the ceremony.
June 28, 2013

nhkhomepage I was amused to see a recent news story about a 71-year-old Japanese man, Hoji Takahashi, who has sued Japan’s public television broadcaster, NHK. His reason for filing suit? He’s suffering “mental distress” because of what he considers NHK’s excessive use of foreign words. He’s no elderly gadfly with a silly gripe. He’s a member of an organization that is dedicated to preserving the Japanese language, so this is an organized effort to try and stop the influx of foreign words. What foreign words, you ask? Here are a few cited by news reports including from the BBC: If you tune into NHK’s news or entertainment shows, you can easily make out words such as "toraburu" for “trouble,” "risuku" for “risk” and "shisutemu" for “system.” I’ve been at my mom’s house when she has NHK satellite programming on and I’ve heard “toppu hoh-ty” for “Top 40” in a story about pop music, and many other words that I can make out as English, albeit somewhat mangled in pronunciation. My mom isn’t a member of any group fighting this trend, but she’s griped to me plenty about the same issue.
June 13, 2013

daleli Colorado's first Asian American theater company, Theatre Esprit Asia (TEA), has launched its debut season with a pair of one-person plays in repertory, and I was fortunate to see one of them, "Dust Storm," last week starring Dale Li. If you haven't seen this or the other play, "Spirit and Sworded Treks" starring Maria Cheng, hurry -- they run tonight through Sunday, and then close after next weekend. "Dust Storm" is a monologue about the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. It's loosely constructed on a real incident, an attack on Chiura Obata, a celebrated artist, in Topaz, an internment camp in Utah. The story is told from the perspective of Seiji, an angry teenager who's imprisoned at Topaz (with his family, but he abandons them to hang with a bunch of tough teens). Like Obata, Seiji was rounded up in Berkeley, California after President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which allowed the camps to be built. Anyone of Japanese descent in the Bay Area, including U.S.-born citizens like Seiji, were told they could pack whatever they could carry, and were first sent to a temporary holding center before being transferred to Topaz.
June 4, 2013

The Montbello High School Drumline -- an awesome precision drumming group -- is traveling to Japan for a once-in-a-lifetime cultural exchange, on the new United 787 Dreamliner's direct flight between Denver and Tokyo. After performing at the home of U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos, the students will travel on to Takayama, Denver's Sister City, to perform for schools and in a concert hall with a famous taiko drum group. The Montbello group was invited by Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock, who had traveled to Takayama himself when he was a high school student, and who was a principle player in bringing the direct Tokyo flight to Denver International Airport.
June 3, 2013

This awesome commercial, titled "Just Checking," for the popular cereal Cheerios, the first snack of choice for generations of families with kids, has hit a nerve with people who object to the multicultural family it depicts. It shows an adorable mixed-race little girl asking her white mother if Cheerios is good for the heart. Mom answers that according to the...

May 29, 2013

Not many cats get their own Wikipedia entry, but Maru the Cat does. If you're a cat hater, Maru may leave you cold. But anyone with a soft spot for furry animals in generals and felines in particular won't be able to resist grinning over this "best of" collection by Maru's owner, a woman who remains off-camera and anonymous, under...