Osechi is the Japanese New Year dish, whose origins go back over a thousand years to the ancient Yayoi Period. The dishes that make up osechi each have a special meaning celebrating the New Year, such as black soybeans for health, chestnuts for wealth, and konbu (kelp seaweed) for happiness. For the 2019 New Year, why not celebrate with osechi made by Japanese restaurant chefs elegantly displayed one by one in a box? Amounts are limited so be sure to place your orders early!
*Contents are subject to change based on availability. For the latest selections, please contact the restaurant.

Interviews and article by: Misa Murohashi, Harmony Kelly, Maiko Kobayashi, Reika Nemoto, Noriko Huntsinger

I Love Sushi on Lake Bellevue

Three-tiered Osechi

Jurou Oki, a famous souzai chef based in Japan, is supervising the osechi again this year and making a menu along with I Love Sushi chefs. All 28 items in the three-tirered box are made by extracting the best from the ingredients and using devices to extend their shelf life.

Three-tiered osechi: $350
Available servings: 100
Order by Dec 22nd
Pickup: Dec 31st 1 – 4 pm at the restaurent

Listing a few from 28 delicious menus
Miyazaki roast beef with special apple sauce | Japanese style roast beef in a soy-sauce base made with flavorful Miyazaki beef comes with a refreshing daikon radish oroshi sauce.
Softly simmered Tokobushi abalone | The Japanese tokobushi abalone is cooked slowly until it is soft. Simmered Arima scallops | Simmered scallops with the aroma of Arima sansho pepper is a sophisticated treat.
Saikyo-grilled Spanish mackerel | Thoroughly simmered in Saikyo white miso from Kyoto, the grilled Spanish mackerel is fragrant and delicious.

I Love Sushi on Lake Bellevue
23 Lake Bellevue Dr., Bellevue, WA 98005
425-455-9090
www.ilovesushi.com

Reasonably-priced omakase sushi with most of the fish flown directly from Tsukiji, is a popular menu item. Order your sushi platter or sashimi arrangement to make the perfect addition to your holiday party.

Nakagawa

Oshogatsu appetizer plate

Owner-chef Shinichi Nakagawa is highly skilled in both Japanese
and Western cuisine. Once a year, he puts forth in extra effort to make his Oshogatsu appetizer plate, which has both Nakagawa’s signature “yoshoku” menus and traditional Japanese osechi menus.

Available servings : 20
Orders taken until all 20 orders have been placed
Pickup: Dec 31st 12 pm – 1 pm at the restaurant

Listing a few menus from the colorful plate
Prawn terrine | A new menu item from Chef Nakagawa includes steamed shrimp minced into terrine form.
Lobster gratin | A luxurious gratin that uses a whole lobster, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.
Smoked salmon | Sockeye salmon (also known as benizake) is smoked on apple wood for a fragrant finish.
Simmered Chikuzen (chicken stew) | A returning favorite, the Kansai-style chikuzen stew teems with the flavors of dashi broth and root vegetables.
Yuzu Yokan (thick jelly dessert) | Homemade bean jam is topped with fragrant yuzu for a Japanese-style dessert.

Nakagawa
1427 228th St. SE., #D6, Bothell, WA 98021
425-483-2221
www.nakagawa-japanese-restaurant.com

The yoshoku (Western dishes in Japanese style) menu available only at lunch on Saturdays is popular with regulars. Sushi and sashimi platters as well as osechi dishes can be pre-ordered now.

Bring a small taste of Osechi

The osechi available at Japanese supermarkets is good value and offers lots of taste choices. At New Year’s Eve and Shinnenkai parties, this is a great way to share some of Japan’s traditional food culture!

Maruta Shoten

The kitchen in the Georgetown Maruta Shoten store is known for its precise preparation of each osechi dish and the wide array of choices available. Limited to 200 sets.

Maruta Shoten Osechi $52.95
Order by Dec 27th
Pickup Dec 31st 10 am – 4:30 pm at the store

Maruta Shoten
1024 S. Bailey St., Seattle, WA 98108
206-767-5002
www.marutashoten.com

Uwajimaya

Traditional osechi cuisine is available at all Uwajimaya supermarkets. Order from the Seattle, Bellevue, Renton, or Beaverton stores.

Uwajimaya Osechi $65.95
Order by Dec 27th
Pickup: Dec 31st 10 am – 4 pm at the　store

Uwajimaya
600 5th Ave. S., Seattle, WA 98104　206-624-6248
699 120th Ave. NE., Bellevue, WA 98005　425-747-9012
501 S. Grady Way, Renton, WA 98057　425-277-1635
10500 SW. Beaverton-Hillsdale Hwy., Beaverton, OR 97005　503-643-4512
www.uwajimaya.com

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Here are some holiday-inspired party drinks and dishes. Infuse your party with Japanese taste, and we guarantee your guests will love it!

Interviews and article by: Misa Murohashi, Harmony Kelly, Maiko Kobayashi, Reika Nemoto, Noriko Huntsinger

Avocado & Shrimp Carpaccio Cup Sushi

Do you want to try treating your guests to sushi, but not sure about roll or nigiri? This cup sushi recipe is easy to cook and the colorful presentation will surely uplift the party.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• Mizkan Sushi Seasoning….. 2 tbsp
• Cooked warm Rice……….. 320 grams
• Avocado……………………………………….. 1/2
• Mini tomatoes………………………………… 2
• Sweet shrimp (amaebi)………………… 8
• Scallops for sashimi………………………. 2
• Lemon Juice …………………………….. 1 tsp
• Chervil (to taste)

<Sauce>

• Olive oil…………………………………. 4 tsp
• Soy sauce……………………………… 2 tsp
• Aonori seaweed………………….. 2 tsp
• Lemon juice…………………………. 2 tsp
• Salt…………………………….. two pinches

Instructions

1. Mix sushi vinegar into the warm rice. Let it cool, then place in glasses.
2. Dice the avocado, add lemon juice. Cut the mini tomatoes into quarters.
3. Peel the sweet shrimp. Cut the scallops in half.
4. Mix together the sauce ingredients to make the sauce.
5. In the glass with sushi rice, place the scallops and sweet shrimp. Pour in the sauce. Place the mini tomatoes and chevril on top.

Try cup sushi with a variety of toppings
It’s easy to serve and looks great. Recommended toppings include sashimi tuna, cucumbers, egg, smoked or sashimi salmon, green onions, chicken soboro, and crab sticks.

Wasabi Mary

Try this craft cocktail using sake and wasabi. This is the fun mixture of American Holiday color – red and green – with Japanese ingredients.

Ingredients (Serves 1)

• Gekkeikan Traditional Junmai sake.. Suitable amount
• Tomato juice………………………………………………. Suitable amount
• Worcestershire sauce……………………. 1 dash
• Tabasco………………………………………… 2 dashes
• Wasabi…………………………………………….. a pinch
• Lemon juice………………………………. 1/4 wedge
• Salt, pepper………………………………………. a little
• Celery stalk……………………. suitable amount

Instructions

1. Prepare 2 parts sake for 3 parts tomato juice.
2. Shake all the ingredients except celery with ice.
3. Pour the liquid and ice in step 2 into a tall cocktail glass.
4. Place the celery stalk in the glass, and your cocktail is ready.

High-end sake makes a wonderful holiday gift for that special someone
Gekkeikan Horin Junmai Daiginjo (720 ml)
A combination of fresh spring water, Yamada Nishiki rice (known as the “king of sake rice”), Gohyakumangoku rice milled to 50%, and the skill of the sake master, Yukio Takagaki, result in this remodeled Junmai Daiginjo. Pursuing the aroma or flavor, Takagi brews the sake with the calm Umami and a lingering finish.

Tofu Oden Nabe

Nabe is a traditional Japanese social dish. Sharing one big hot pot with friends and family brings comfort in the cold winter. A tofu nabe with store-bought oden is easy to prepare and full of healthy isoflavone, protein and other nutrients from the soybeans.

Ingredients (Serves 4-6)

• Kibun Oden Package……… 1 pack
• Lettuce……………….. suitable amount
• Soy Milk, Unsweetened…. 2.5 cups
• Water……………………………………2.5 cups

Instructions

1. Cut the oden pieces into appropriate sizes (mochi in tofu pouch should not be cut).
2. Put the soup that comes with the oden package and the water in the nabe, add soy milk and cook on medium heat.
3. Add the oden pieces ① to the nabe ② . Without bringing to a boil, cook slowly on low heat. When you’ve finished cooking, add lettuce.

*Add as desired mushrooms, vegetables, thinly sliced pork.

After a warm nabe, how about a fruity dessert?
Kibun Tropical Daifuku Pineapple, Mango, Kiwi, Guava, Macadamia (2.82oz)
Four types of daifuku with white bean paste and authentic fruit puree, and one red-bean-paste-filled mochi with macadamia nuts are availabe. You can enjoy at room temperature or chill them, which gives them an ice-cream-like texture. It’s a nice treat even for people who don’t usually enjoy sweetened beans.

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Northwest Tofu opened in 2001. In its 17th year, the shop still makes fresh, delicious tofu daily at its store with no preservatives or GMOs. It’s a famous store among local Asians who have lived in Seattle a long time. It’s a family-run business that almost never advertises (except in the Post!), yet it’s busy every morning with customers who love the store’s fresh tofu. If you are having a nabe party, the Post staff recommends Yuba and Tofu Puffs will be good nabe hotpot ingredient. Tofu noodle and soymilk are also popular. For fresh tofu, you can choose from soft or medium-firm.

There’s also a Chinese restaurant operating in the store that uses lots of tofu in its many dishes. The most popular menu item is called “Salt & Pepper Tofu” and features silken tofu fried in batter and seasoned with salt and pepper. This famous Central District shop is definitely worth a visit. The store only accepts cash.

Northwest Tofu
1913 S. Jackson St., Seattle, WA 98144
206-328-8320

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Besides Osechi on New Year’s Day, it is another Japanese tradition to eat a humble bowl of soba noodles for New Year’s Eve dinner. People clean up their houses on New Year’s Eve in Japan, so they can welcome a new year. Soba is easy to cook after the clean-up day, and light enough to stay hungry for the big Osechi dishes the next day. The long soba noodles also represent longevity.

Kamonegi is Seattle’s premier homemade soba and tempura restaurant. It’s already taking orders for toshikoshi (New Year’s Eve) soba. The toshikoshi soba made by owner-chef Mutsuko Soma is known for its wonderful aroma and the way it goes down smoothly. Say goodbye to 2018 with some authentic toshikoshi soba. Each order is for two people and includes homemade soup.

Kamonegi
1054 N. 39th St., Seattle, WA 98103
206-632-0185
www.kamonegiseattle.com

CHECK!　Open on New Year’s Eve from 11am to 9pm!

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Fumie’s Gold

Christmas Cake

This popular shortcake bedecked with fruits is back again this year. The delicate treat of fresh cream surrounded by fluffy sponge cake is light and tasty. Santa and his reindeer bring a cute touch. No additives or artificial coloring is used. The cakes come with fresh cream or chocolate in three different sizes, enough to serve 5 to 12 people. Prices: $40 for the 6-inch cake, $45 for 8-inch, and $50 for 9-inch.

The “Buche de Noel Cake ($40)” comes in Mont Blanc or Matcha Cream types. It is perfect for 4-5 people.

Fumie’s Gold
10045 NE. 1st St., #CU2, Bellevue, WA 98004
425-223-5893
www.fumiesgold.com

For the past 10 years, the store has made wedding and birthday cakes to order. Gluten free, vegan and cakes without eggs are also
available.

Setsuko Pastry

Buche de Noel

At Setsuko Pastry inside Modern Japanese Cuisine restaurant, the
variety of Buche de Noel cakes line up together. The gorgeous “Mont Blanc Noel ($45)” and “Matcha Noel ($40)” are most popular.

Add $10 for gluten-free option. All of the cakes serve 6-7 people and preorder is required. A sushi holiday platter ($50-55) is available to order on Dec 23rd.

Setsuko Pastry (Modern Japanese Cuisine)
6108 Phinney Ave. N., Seattle, WA 98103
206-816-0348
http://setsukopastry.com

Pastry Mitten

Christmas Cake

The Chocolate orange “Mousse Cake ($50)” uses orange confit, passion fruit and a refreshing accent of cream. The popular “Christmas Strawberry Cake ($48)” is an eye-catching holiday treat. Each cake serves 6-8 people. Supplies are limited so place your order soon.

A new addition to the menu is a gift basket of scrumptious baked goods. For details, see the website.

Pastry Mitten
13226 SE. 30th St., #B-1, Bellevue, WA 98005
206-499-0508
www.pastrymitten.com

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By Stephanie Ikeda, the North American Post

The traveling exhibit Contested Histories was on view at the Nisei Veterans Foundation Hall November 24-25. The exhibit, which has already visited several West Coast locations, was organized by the Japanese American National Museum (JANM), and showcases World War II incarceration camp art pieces from the Allen Hendershott Eaton collection with the hopes of finding stories and individuals in connection with the artifacts. Eaton was a folk art enthusiast and author who visited the camps as well as hiring a photographer to research a book he would later publish called Beauty Behind Barbed Wire.

Eaton did not keep detailed records of what he collected during the war, but it was clear that the Japanese American families who donated items for his research did not want to sell them to him. Despite this, after his death the collection changed hands several times and in 2015 was put up for auction by a well-known auction house, Rago Auctions. The New York Times published an article about the sale which alerted the nationwide Japanese American community and led to the creation of the “Japanese American History: Not for Sale!” Facebook page. Although the community tried many strategies including online petitions, Rago Auctions did not cancel the sale until the Heart Mountain Foundation filed an injunction against them. Following this, the entire collection was transferred to custody of JANM.

Fast forward to 2018, JANM has organized and launched Contested Histories. The exhibit has several cases of objects from the collection but also full binders with images and data for the complete collection of artifacts and photographs that Eaton collected from various camps. JANM representative Clement Hanami also gave a presentation about the history of the collection and shared several videos recording stories they had already discovered in the process of traveling with the exhibit. The showing in Seattle attracted a multi generational audience with many families bringing older relatives to go through the materials.

One story related to the Seattle community involves a wooden chair that is one of the central pieces of the collection. The chair, valued by Rago Auctions as a starting price of 350 dollars, is “priceless” according to Mr. Hanami’s reflection on the community history. Nancy Ukai, a researcher and organizer of the “Not For Sale” movement, discovered an Eaton letter referring to the chair as the Homma chair. Historian Mitch Homma had no knowledge of the chair but Seattle relatives of the Homma family were able to identify the owners as Shige & Yorozu or Mary and Peter Homma,
known by other nicknames to the living descendants.

With the long – term goals of preserving, sharing, and researching the collection, JANM has also posted the exhibit catalog on their website at JANM website if you missed the showing in Seattle. According to Mr. Hanami, the journey of the exhibit has generated more and more interest and information the more places it tours and encourages everyone to learn about and spread the word about the collection.

The exhibit will continue to be shown after its West Coast tour including stops in Chicago and the Rohwer Pilgrimage. The full traveling schedule is available on JANM’s Contested Histories website.

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By Bruce Rutledge, the North American Post

Federal Way and Hachinohe, a port city on Japan’s northeast coast, celebrated 25 years of sister-city relations this year in a creative way that got residents in both cities involved in making art.

The celebration kicked off with an exhibit called “Hidden Gems” at the Federal Way Performing Arts & Events Center that featured photos taken by Hachinohe residents. During the exhibit, which ran through December 5, fourty Federal Way high school students attended a workshop on “photo deco” techniques, where photos are decorated with sequins and other artsy elements. The photo deco technique is popular in Japan.

The Federal Way students each decorated a photo they took and a photo by a Hachinohe resident; these photos were then sent to Hachinohe, where they will be featured in an exhibit at the end of January. After that exhibit ends, the photos taken by the Federal Way high school students will be returned and put on display at Federal Way City Hall.

Federal Way and Hachinohe formed their sister-city relationship in 1993. In 1990, the Hachinohe International Exchange and City Promotions Association was formed to find good partners for sister-city relationships. At the time, Japan was abuzz with the idea of “internationalization,” and many midsize cities began looking for closer relationships with cities overseas. At one point, the mayor of Tacoma suggested that Hachinohe and Federal Way would be a good match. The sister-city deal was quickly sealed after both cities hosted exchange visits.

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Misa Murohashi, translated by Bruce Rutledge

Mary Ohno (Kine-ie School /Hanayagi School), Director of the Kabuki Academy, instructing Japanese dance and Naga-uta Shamisen music, conducted a goodwill tour in Italy and Germany this October called “Sound of Japan.” Ohno was paired with a shamisen student from Napoli, Paolo Cotrone, whom she had been teaching online since 2015. In Italy, the duo played at the Museo d’Arte Orientale di Venezia, the Chiesa dei Santi Martiri Giapponesi, a Japanese church in the suburbs of Rome, and Naples Eastern University. In Germany, she held a shamisen workshop in Berlin with members of a shamisen enthusiasts group.

“In Italy and Germany, I was surprised at the deep interest people at the performances showed in the classical performing arts,” Ohno said. The Italian performances opened with the Italian national anthem played on the shamisen. While Cotrone sang and played, Ohno performed Japanese dances called “Miyakodori” and “Echigojishi.” “At Naples Eastern University, we performed a song beloved by Italians, ‘Funiculi Funicula,’ and received a huge ovation,” Ohno recalled. “I was so impressed with the passion and warmth of the Italians.” In Germany, she performed the German national anthem and the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and talked about the history of Kabuki and the naga-uta. By collaborating with the group of shamisen enthusiasts, she deepened their friendship.

The Kabuki Academy was founded in 1984 by Ohno, who has taught in Tacoma and at Seattle Central College. Lately, her activities have taken her beyond Washington state, including performances in 20 US states, South Africa, and Myanmar. “My father was the chief announcer for NHK overseas broadcasting, and after the war, he helped spread English conversation ability in Japan through his radio show ‘Come Come English.’ In contrast, my mission is to teach and share the traditional Japanese dance and music to people from all over the world.” For more information on Kabuki Academy’s performances and classes, visit its website.

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By Deems Tsutakawa, For The North American Post

My wife is from the inland empire of Spokane and has far too many cousins to keep track of. Her dad was born in Bellevue Washington around 1914 and had eleven siblings. In those days Bellevue was all farmland. Today of course it is a bustling suburb of asphalt, condos, and shopping malls surrounded by miles upon miles of fancy homes. In 1928 Jean’s grandfather was tragically killed by a tractor in a farming accident. Subsequently her grandmother had to raise a dozen kids by herself through the Great Depression of the 30’s. I must admit that it is virtually impossible for us Sansei to comprehend the degree of difficulty they must have endured. John Yamamoto, Jean’s dad, had a younger brother named Harry. When we were first married Harry lived just across the street from John and bore a striking resemblance to him. During the family dinners in Spokane I would from time to time have a opportunity to quiz the uncles on what it was like when they were kids. Many of the stories were sad and heartbreaking for sure.

As times for her dad’s family were beyond lean and it was all they could do to put food on the table all the Yamamoto kids were sent out to find work from a very early age. When Uncle Harry was a mere eight years old a Hakujin family friend took the child to a neighboring farm to try and get him a summer job. The friend told the farmer to try Harry out for a week and if he didn’t like the kid he didn’t have to pay him. Naturally the first job that came up was quite a challenge. The neighbor told the youngster to saddle up a large horse and put a harness on too. The grade school aged Harry must have been barely three feet tall and at first he just stared up at that big old horse thinking ‘how the heck am I going to get a saddle on that animal’? Somehow he did in fact manage to saddle up the beast and ended up working all summer for the guy. Hats off to the Issei and Nisei for their dogged determination and hard work that made our lives so much better than what they had to go through just to survive.

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By N.A.P., Retrived from NHK WORLD-JAPAN press release

The Seattle Quaker peace activist Floyd Schmoe (1895 -2001) is featured in the NHK WORLDJAPAN documentary, Houses for Peace: Exploring the Legacy of Floyd Schmoe. The program will be screened on Sunday, January 13, 2019, at 2p.m. at the University of Washington Kane Hall 120 and is sponsored by NHK World in cooperation with the University of Washington Department of American Ethnic Studies, University of Washington Libraries Special Collection, Consulate-General of Japan in Seattle, Nisei Veterans Committee/NVC Foundation, Holocaust Center for Humanity, Seattle JACL, Japan-America Society of the State of Washington, and Seattle Hiroshima Club.

The documentary film centers on how Floyd Schmoe organized a diverse interracial/interfaith team of American and Japanese volunteers on a mission of peace to build houses for families who survived the World War II atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An impactful legacy of goodwill and friendships emerged from diverse people coming together to work cooperatively on this peace building project.

Immediately following the screening, Jean Walkinshaw, one of the volunteers who built houses in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the program’s directors, Ms.Jun Yotsumoto and Ms.Kumiko Ogoshi Takai of NHK WORLD-JAPAN will discuss the documentary and take questions from the audience.

Schmoe, who created the Peace Park in Seattle, was a Quaker and acted for peace throughout his life. During World War I, he refused to pick up arms and opted to become a conscientious objector, helping injured soldiers and civilians in France. After the war, he worked as Mount Rainier National Park’s first full-time naturalist and eventually became an instructor of Forest Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. After the outbreak of World War II, he set up the American Friends Service Committee office in Seattle and helped Japanese Americans who were forcibly rounded up from their homes and placed in incarceration camps by the U.S. government without due process during the war.

After hearing about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Schmoe made up his mind to build houses for those who lost theirs in the atomic blast. In 1949, Schmoe finally got his wish—and traveled to Hiroshima, still under the control of the Allied occupation forces. Over the next four years, “Houses for Hiroshima” project team built 21 homes in Hiroshima and a number in Nagasaki with the money donated by people from all walks of life. The project’s purpose was clearly stated in a sign posted at their building site: “1. To build understanding—2. By building houses—3. That there may be peace.”

Researching historical documents housed at the University of Washington Special Collections and interviewing people who knew and worked with him, Houses for Peace: Exploring the Legacy of Floyd Schmoe traces the 105-year-old life of a grassroots peace-builder.

Admission is free and open to the public. The doors open at 1:30 pm and light refreshments will be served after the program in the lobby of Kane Hall. For further information email aes@uw.edu.

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By David Yamaguchi, The North American Post

Naomi Osaka

A new instant celebrity is Japan-born Naomi Osaka. On the off chance that you have been living on a deserted island, this twenty-year-old won the Sept. 2018 US Open tennis tournament by defeating aging superstar Serena Williams in the women’s final. While there is a lot on the internet these days about the young, rising star, perhaps the funniest is her Nissin instant-ramen TV commercial.

The commercial opens on a women’s locker room, where a young, gaijin [foreigner] tennis player, apparently just off the court, is ranting in front of her locker. Her tirade goes something like

“Aahh, Oosaka hanpa naitte, Mou, aitsu hanpa naitte, Tama hayasugite, Oto okurete kikoete kuru mon. Sonnan dekihen yan futsuu… shitte tan nara yuttoite ya.”

The amusing 31-second clip doubles as a good test of one’s second-language Japanese. See if you recognize the double joke that runs through it.

PS. This video is on Vimeo, not YouTube.

Also amusing is a two-minute, 47 second YouTube video of a young Naomi playing a chopsticks game with her sister, Mari, in 2008. Today, Mari is also a ranked tennis professional.

Bilingual Elementary Education, Australia

A useful feature about watching streaming video is that when one does so, links to related videos appear on the bottom of the screen. One such YouTube link I clicked on highlights Japanese-English bilingual education at Wellers Hill State School in Queensland, Australia. What is striking is that when the elementary-school children there are playing among themselves, they are chatting in Japanese. Also notable is how the kids are being taught rapid addition by abacus, which supposedly helps later in life because one can visualize the beads.

Hotaru no Haka, live action TV drama (2005, IMBD rating 7.7, based on 315 votes).

Longtime film fans will recognize this title as a newer version of the 1988 anime film, ‘Grave of the Fireflies,’ which is a retelling of the semi-autobiographical life story of writer
Akiyuki Nosaka. The tale traces the sad lives of an orphaned young boy and his little sister who survive the fire-bombing of Kobe, only to perish in the hunger that stalked the land late in the war and after it.

The live-action version was made to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Perhaps owing to my age, I find this latest version a better telling. In part, this comes from the comfortable familiarity of cast family members from other films and dramas. These include Nanako Matsubara (The Ring), Mao Inouye (Eien no Zero), and Tsuyoshi Ihara (13 Assassins). For Japanese Americans, the drama’s telling of the war from Japanese civilians’ perspectives complements that of the JA-centered “Kyuju-Kyunen no Ai” [99 Years of love].

In researching the background to Hotaru no Haka, I learned two facts new to me that may be new to readers as well. The first is that American military planners knew they were inducing hunger among the Japanese populace through destroying civilian infrastructure late in the war. It was a deliberate strategy termed “Operation Starvation.”

Readers already know of the widespread aerial bombings. This followed a US submarine program to destroy Japanese wartime shipping. What I did not know is that the silent and overhead attacks included an aggressive naval mining campaign. The mines were broadcast into harbors and shipping lanes from B-29s. They were accordingly difficult to find postwar.

The second finding is that the tale, Hotaru no Haka, is from a generation of Japanese writers known as the Yakeato Sedai [Generation of the Ashes]. The most famous of these is Kenzaburo Oe, whose words I have not read. Perhaps we can explore them in a later column.

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By Misa Murohashi

All Nippon Airways (ANA) has been flying direct flights between Seattle and Tokyo (Narita) since 2012. ANA has been awarded the 5-Star rating under the World Airline Star Rating by the UK-based rating organization SKYTRAX for six straight years. Top chefs and sommeliers collaborate on its inflight cuisine. A local Seattle vendor Flying Food Group catering for the flight leaving Seattle, regularly receives awards from ANA’s catering quality control program.

Flying Food Group’s Yoshinori Nishizawa has handled Japanese menus for the Seattle-Tokyo flights since the first flight. He is joined by David Pisegna, who is in charge of the Western menus. Recipes come from ANA’s headquarters in Japan, and the local chefs add a little Seattle essence to them. Veteran Chef Nishizawa has worked in restaurants in Japan as well as Nikko Restaurant, Nishino and Syun locally. His skill puts the Japanese dishes for Seattle-departing flights on par with ones for Tokyo departing flights. You will feel the Japanese “omotenashi – Japanese hospitality” before you land in Japan.

Business class Western cuisine

The appetizer is lobster salad and German pork ham with corn soup. For the main dish, choose from three selections: a surprisingly tender fillet of beef steak with mushroom sauce (above photo), a delicate sautéed Chilean seabass with lemon butter sauce, and vegetarian quiche with broccoli sauce. Desserts are cheese, fruits, and mille-feuille.

Business class Japanese cuisine

The appetizers include a grilled channel rockfish with miso sauce, simmered lobster, grilled leek roll with beef and marinated garland chrysanthemum. Deep fried tofu fishcake is served with Northwest mushroom sauce. Seared bonito sashimi is from Japan.

The main dish features a deliciously fatty Saikyostyle miso grilled sablefish. Try pairing the dish with a wide selection of sake served in flight.

Chef Nishizawa’s favorite grilled saba mackerel with plum sauce is served before landing.

ANA’s Seattle-Tokyo direct flights leave daily. From March 31 through May 31, the NH177-178 planes offer double miles through the ANA Mileage Club (AMC). To join and find out more details about the campaign, check out the ANA website.

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By Misa Murohashi, translated by Bruce Rutledge, Photos and information provided by Gekkeikan Sake Company, Ltd. and Gekkeikan Sake (USA), Inc.

“During the New Year holiday season, Maneki and Nikko Low served Sake and relish free of charge to all who stopped by. They decorated the table with a large one-foot carp especially shipped from Japan, salted and broiled, along with the specially cooked traditional Japanese New Year dishes and Chinese dishes. This made one forget he was abroad. Paying tips to the maids, we had them play the shamisen and sing “Okesa bushi” or other popular songs. Such was the jolly New Year’s Party scene at restaurants in which “real” Japan was vividly alive.” — Ito Kazuo, Issei: a History of Japanese Immigrants in North America

This is a scene from Seattle’s Japantown in the roaring 1920’s. For the hardworking Issei far from home, the sake at New Year’s must have tasted especially delicious. The export of Japanese sake to the US coincides with the history of Japanese immigration to the US. We would like to follow the relationship of Japanese Americans and Japanese sake by tracing the history of Gekkeikan Sake. Interestingly, as one of the largest sake brewers, it began exports to Honolulu in 1902, when Hokubei Jiji published its first newspaper.

The Sake of Fushimi, Kyoto

It is said sake history goes back to when rice crops started in Japan around the 10th Century BC. In a description of ancient Japan’s geography called Harimano Kuni Fudoki put together in 715, we find descriptions such as “Offerings for the gods got mold,” so “we brewed sake.” The ancient Japanese nation that was formed by the Imperial Family in the 7th century had a government office responsible for sake brewing called “Sake No Tsukasa.” As it took on a deep relationship with Japan’s government and religion, sake brewing techniques advanced. By the time Japan turned into a samurai-led feudal state in the 12th Century, Sakaya (sake brewing businesses) appeared all over the country. Sake brewing businesses flourished especially in the Kyoto area because the Imperial Court officially allowed them by collecting taxes on the sales, while the samurai government in the east banned the sake business. A list from 1425 in Kyoto shows there were 342 Sakaya operating in the city.

Gekkeikan Sake is based in Fushimi, a few kilometers south of the Kyoto city center. Sake brewing began here long ago because of the good water source and the proximity to downtown Kyoto. Fushimi grew into a large castle town when Hideyoshi Toyotomi built Fushimi Castle in 1592, and Fushimi’s sake businesses flourished. The castle was deserted when the Edo Era started in 1603, but in time Fushimi turned into a busy post town because of the well-developed waterways. The town’s brewing businesses continued to develop and the name of Fushimi became known nationally as a sake brand.

Gekkeikan’s predecessor, Kasagiya, was created in 1637 as Fushimi rose in prominence. The founder, Jiemon Okura (1615-1684), derived the name from his home village Kasagi, which is located at the southernmost tip of the current Kyoto Prefecture and close to Nara. Jiemon’s father was said to be an active farmer and merchant who also managed a sake business. That family business enabled Jiemon to establish himself in Fushimi. According to Gekkeikan’s company history book, Jiemon’s father was of the 41st generation of the Okura family. From the number, we can imagine how long the family has been dedicated to rice farming and sake brewing in the area.

Despite the success in the early part of the Edo Era, Fushimi’s sake industry declined during the era. The Edo shogunate continued to develop land and water transportation systems across the country, which set off competition between different sake regions like Nada Sake in Kobe. Fushimi, with no access to the ocean, was at a disadvantage. During the Meiji Revolution, the town of Fushimi became the stage of battles between the Edo
shogunate and the new rising power. In the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, the largest battle in 1868 which practically destroyed the Edo shogunate and gave birth to the Meiji government, most of the town of Fushimi was burnt to the ground. It was extremely difficult making a go in the sake industry. Of the 83 Sakaya in Fushimi listed at the beginning of the Edo Era, only two were still in business in the Meiji Era. One of those was Kasagiya.

Japanese sake crosses the ocean in the Meiji Era

The Meiji Restoration unveiled a modern Japan. Kasagiya had survived the challenges of the past and began to ride the wave of the new era, making great leaps of progress. In 1886, the 13-year-old Tsunekichi Okura became the 11th generation owner of Kasagiya. He led a series of innovations in sake brewing and selling. Gekkeikan’s Fushimi sake began to sell across Japan, and then to the rest of the world.

In 1889, the railroad connecting Kobe and Tokyo was completed. Kasagiya immediately anticipated the advantage in marketing to Tokyo, and by the next year, it had begun trading in Tokyo. Tsunekichi realized the importance of accounting when expanding the
organization, so he learned Western-style bookkeeping from a local insurance agent and applied it to his business in 1896. At that time, many family businesses were still using the traditional bookkeeping system from the Edo Era. In 1905, with the hope of establishing a high-quality sake, Tsunekichi trademarked the name “Gekkeikan,” meaning
laurel crown in Japanese. The new name translated from the Western language sounded modern and stylish back in those days. Through newspaper ads, store posters, and other novel techniques, the Gekkeikan brand began to expand across the country.

As it spread across the nation, the company also started exporting its product to Hawaii in 1902, where more than 60,000 Japanese immigrants resided at the time. Exports to California started in 1906. While all these young Issei set off across the ocean to explore new opportunities, the young head of the Okura family was sending his generations-old sake across the ocean to join them.

What especially stands out about Tsunekichi’s young leadership is his formation of the Okura Sake Research Laboratory in 1909. Most sake brewers of that time relied completely on the skills and experiences of brewmasters. Tsunekichi decided to research sake brewing techniques from a scientific perspective. Hide Hamazaki, a Tokyo University engineer, and other scientist joined the research. They began manufacturing sake in bottles at a time when sake barrels still signified the height of prosperity. That same research lab discovered a way to bottle sake without adding preservatives like salicylic acid*. In 1911, the company led the industry in selling preservative free bottles of sake. It won awards at trade fairs and established Gekkeikan as a premium sake brewer. At the
1915 San Francisco World’s Fair, Gekkeikan’s sake won the“Prize of Honor.” Gekkeikan’s sales steadily rose from the Taisho to the Showa eras, and it produced a pre-WWII record amount of about 11.3 million liters of sake in 1939. Gekkeikan’s brown sake bottles were probably lined up at the ever-popular Maneki restaurant for New Year’s festivities in the Seattle Japantown’s roaring 1920’s.

Calrose and Japanese sake

After World War II, Gekkeikan restarted with exports to Hawaii via the M. Otani Co. in 1949. In 1961, the company expanded sales to Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Guam. After that, you probably know how sake became popular in America and other parts of the world together with the Japanese cuisine boom.

Today’s Gekkeikan Sake (USA), Inc., was established in 1989 in Folsom, California, a suburb of Sacramento. Soon it became the North American base for sake brewing. Folsom’s brewing uses Calrose – a type of rice crop that Japanese immigrants brought from Japan to California and refined over time to suit the local climate. Gekkeikan produces its brand Gekkeikan Traditional in Folsom and the brand is sold worldwide. The brand would not exist without the efforts and wisdom of the Japanese immigrant farmers who made Calrose. In fact, Calrose rice is similar to Yamada Nishiki rice, which is considered the best kind of rice to brew top-quality sake. Both Calrose and Yamada Nishiki were made out of the parent type called Tankan Watari Bune, which was originally made by farmers in Shiga prefecture. The sake made from Tankan Watari Bune is gaining popularity in Japan.

When you enjoy some sake with friends and family in the New Year, please give some thought to the passion, wisdom, and efforts of the pioneers through the ages who helped make sake what it is today.

▲Gekkeikan Traditional is the American-made sake that combines Gekkeikan’s centuries-old techniques with the Calrose rice created by Japanese immigrant farmers. It is widely available at stores in the US.

References
Gekkeikan Sake Company, Ltd. website (http://www.gekkeikan.co.jp)
Sake Service Institute (SSI) portal website (http://www.sake-sennin.jp)
Fushimi Sake Brewers Association website (http://www.fushimi.or.jp)
*The sake industry (the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association) banned use of salicylic acid in 1969.

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Datemaki – Sweet Rolled Omelet

Serves 4-6 | Prep time 20 minutes | Cook time 25-30 minutes

What’s your favorite Osechi Ryori? Osechi Ryori are traditional Japanese New Year’s foods. You can buy assorted Osechi boxes from restaurants and grocery stores, or some dishes can be easily made at home, such as Namasu (daikon and carrot salad in sweet vinaigrette), Kuromame(sweet black soybeans) and Chikuzen-Ni. But most people still buy Nerimono (fish paste products) such as Kamaboko (a type of fish cake, often available in red and white for New Year’s celebration).

Datemaki (sweet rolled omelet with white fish paste called ‘surimi’) is also a type of Nerimono that is commonly available commercially. It was not my favorite osechi dish, because it was overly sweet for my taste. But that changed a few years ago, when I was invited to an Osechi potluck hosted by a friend of mine, at which everyone was asked to participate in making some osechi ryori. I decided to give a low-sugar, no-additive version of datemaki a try. It turned out it was much easier to make than I had thought. It has instantly become one my favorite Osechi since.

Ingredients and cooking steps are simple and straightforward. I used Hanpen (a type of soft fish cake) instead of surimi to make the recipe even easier and more economical. For the 2019 New Year, add this great homemade datemaki to your osechi repertoire for your family!

Ingredients

Dashi

• 3 inch sheet kombu
• ¼ cup bonito flakes

Datemaki

• 1 package Hanpen (3.5-3.8 oz.)
• 4 large eggs, beaten
• 3 Tbsp. dashi
• ½ Tbsp. Usukuchi (light-colored) soy sauce
• 4 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 Tbsp. mirin

Instructions

Make dashi

Boil 2 cups water in a medium sauce pan. Add chestnuts and cook for about 15 minutes. Strain and cool the chestnut to room temperature. Then peel the chestnuts using a pairing knife. Set aside.

Make dashi

1. Put kombu and 2 cups of water in a medium saucepan and heat over medium-high heat.
2. Once kombu is hydrated and water starts to boil, add bonito flakes and reduce heat to medium.
3. Cook for a minute and remove from heat. Cool to room temperature and strain. Discard the kombu and bonito flakes. Set aside.

Make Datemaki

1. Preheat oven to 390F (200C).
2. Line an 8×8 square baking pan with parchment paper to cover the bottom and sides of the pan.
3. Tear Hanpen by hand into small pieces and put them in a food processor or blender. Grind hanpen until smooth. Add eggs, dashi, soy sauce, sugar and mirin and process again for a few minutes.
4. Pour the egg batter into the lined baking pan and put it on the middle rack in the oven. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the surface turns golden brown.
5. While the omelet is hot, put a sushi mat with the flat side up on top of the omelet, and flip the mat and pan together, holding the mat with one hand wearing a glove. Remove the pan and parchment paper.
6. Align the omelet with the bottom of the sushi mat. With a paring knife, score a few shallow lines along the bottom of the omelet, about an inch from the edge. Then roll up the omelet with the sushi mat tightly and secure the roll with a few rubber bands.
7. Cool the omelet to room temperature then in the fridge for a few hours or longer. Remove the mat and cut the omelet crosswise into ½ inch slices.

Recipe by Kanako Koizumi | www. kozmokitchen.com

Kanako, a native of Akita, Japan, is a chef, author and instructor focused on authentic Japanese homecooking. Chef Kanako also offers in-home private cooking classes for groups up to 12. You can reach her at info@kozmokitchen.com.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!
Kanako’s popular Nabe hands-on classes at PCC Cooks will start in February, this with
an addition of a new recipe “SUKIYAKI”!
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Maneki celebrating its 115th anniversary in 2019

By Bruce Rutledge,

Fusae Yokoyama, a bartender and hostess at Maneki Restaurant for the last 56 years, still serves drinks at the front bar on Sundays and Tuesdays. She’s an 88-year-old ikijibiki, or “living dictionary,” of International District history, having grown up in the Togo Hotel (now a parking lot next to the Panama Hotel), which used to stand just a couple of blocks from the prewar Maneki. “The restaurant was a huge, beautiful castle back then,” she recalls. “I remember playing there. I used to do classical Japanese dancing and I danced there one time.”

Of course, the prewar version of Maneki ceased to exist when Japanese Americans were imprisoned in the Minidoka concentration camp during World War II. But Fu-chan, as her friends and fans call her, even remembers those days fondly – a testament to her mother and father’s ability to shield their children from the grim reality of that time. “To tell the truth, we all had fun,” she laughs. “My father and my grandfather – they’re the ones who lost their jobs and everything. We were little kids. We all ate together. We went to school and church. We had a great time. It sounds really bad, but I think we had a much, much better life than the people of Japan because they suffered. They didn’t have any food. We were fed three times a day. We had our 3 o’clock snack.”

Yokoyama, a sansei, remembers the old Japantown, which extended down to the water, as a very safe place during her young adulthood. “We used to walk around at 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning, and we were never scared,” she says. “Nobody used to lock their car or their house. It was all Japanese stores and restaurants.”

At home, she spoke Japanese, she remembers. “My grandmother and grandfather made sure we knew how to speak Japanese. They taught us to speak casual Japanese at home and more or less formal Japanese outside.”

Yokoyama got married when she was 17 in 1948. “My husband used to do Kabuki. I think I fell in love with him when I was only 9 or 10 years old,” she recalls. They raised six boys, all of whom eventually worked at Maneki as busboys. Today, she has 17 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren. “Three of my grandchildren worked as busboys at Maneki too,” she says. “They loved it. The girls (on the staff) babied them.”

When she started working at Maneki in the early 1960s, it was a lively spot. “We were the first to do karaoke. My husband started it. We used to have a live 3- or 4-piece orchestra,” she recalls. “When I was bartending, it would be full at 1:30 or 2, and I’d have to tell everyone to drink up and go home.”

In the late 1960s, Shiro Kashiba started serving nigiri sushi in the back bar, thus beginning a culinary revolution. Fuchan, as Chef Shiro affectionately calls her, is still close to the Kashiba family. She even carded Bill Gates when he dropped in for dinner. “I was supposed to card everyone,” she says with a grin, “so I said, ‘May I see your ID?’ And my boss said, ‘Mom, did you card him?!”

Japanese movie stars used to dine here. “The guy who eats weird things …” Yokoyama says, searching her memory? Anthony Bourdain? “That’s it. He came too.”

Yokoyama, whose family roots extend back to Hiroshima, greets guests with her cheery smile two nights a week when she isn’t bartending. She’s lived most of her life in Seattle’s Japantown and spent much of her adult life working in Maneki. So many of her memories are packed into a couple of blocks of the ID. “Both good and bad, but mostly good,” she says. “This is my life and I love it here, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Maneki Restaurant
304 6th Ave S, Seattle
(206) 622-2631 | manekirestaurant.com

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By David Yamaguchi

TO WRITE FREELANCE articles for this paper is a mixed bag. Most of the time, I am left free to live my life, during which I jot notes and snap photos when I happen on something interesting that readers might enjoy. This approach involves grabbing the low hanging fruit. An apt Japanese phrase for it is “Hidari uchiwa de kurasu.” It means to live with ease, by fanning oneself—ineptly—with one’s left hand. The implication is that one is too lazy to fan properly, with the right hand.

Occasionally, however, I have to earn my pay when Post manager Misa Murohashi emails to ask if I would be interested in covering an upcoming event. The request she sent on Tuesday, Dec. 4 is typical. Could I cover an evening talk on Nisei baseball last-minute at Ebbets Field Flannels, downtown near First and Jackson, in two days’ time?

When such requests come, I weigh the pros and cons. Sometimes it is easy to reply, “Yes.” At other times, like this one, I vacillate.

There were many reasons to say no. I’m not really a sports guy. I can count the number of pro and university games I’ve watched in Seattle across the past 20 years on one hand. I had never heard of the author, Kerry Yo Nakagawa. It is cold and dark out in wintertime Seattle.

Still, there is something about mostly “just saying yes” for the team. By stepping out of my comfort zone, I might also learn something. And so after replying positively to Misa, Thursday afternoon I found myself heading out to find Ebbets Field Flannels. I picked up
copies of the three International District English papers en route to clue Mr. Nakagawa into the local scene.

FROM THE MOMENT I stepped into the doorway of the tiny shop, I found myself carried aloft by a rush of new things and ideas. The feeling would persist across the next two-plus hours, which included grabbing a bite to eat with Mr. Nakagawa on the way home.

The dream shop of owner Jerry Cohen, Ebbets Field sells newly made historical baseball shirts. In business since 1987, Mr. Cohen has always liked such shirts, and finding them unavailable, decided that he had to make and sell them himself. It is the kind of niche business that works today because local sales can be augmented by those nationally with the help of the internet. What caught my eye were the many shirts on display from Japanese teams.

Moreover, in the back “museum” room where there is tight space for 10-15 sardines, there was an immediate sense among the few gathering there that we were about to see something special. Two large video cameras were set up on tripods in the back. A slinky young woman photographer was shooting candids. Tony Black, whose day job is to report the morning news on KING5, was setting up mics. Mr. Nakagawa was dressed sharply, easily chatting with the arriving guests.

While waiting, I began conversing with Julie Ann Oiye, whose face I know from her occasionally attending dance class at the Nisei Veterans Hall. At any community gathering, I find that it is interesting to see who attends and why. It turns out that Julie Ann is Kerry Nakagawa’s cousin. She had been the one who contacted the Post to let us know that Kerry would be speaking. Julie Ann had the same impression of Ebbets Field Flannels that I did. Moreover, we both agreed that it is important for all of us to venture out of our little boxes, now and then, to see what else there is in the world…

KERRY BEGAN his talk by explaining his local roots, while adroitly interviewed by Mr. Black. Kerry’s mother was born at the historical Neely Mansion, near Auburn, well-described in this paper. His grandpa, Matasuke Fukuda, had owned a dairy farm there until the Great Depression, when he had to pack up the family including 11 kids, and drive to California, to start anew. It was a Japanese-American “Grapes of Wrath” saga.

Long story short, playing baseball has run through the Nakagawa family for generations. Kerry, on finding that the story of Nisei baseball was being left out of the history books, has made it his mission to correct the omission. Along the way, he established a nonprofit—the Nisei Baseball Research Project, wrote two books, and had a hand in producing two films, including “American Pastime” (2007) a fictional account of baseball in the internment camps. In short, Kerry is something like a combined version of our own Ken Mochizuki, Tom Ikeda, and Frank Abe (“Conscience and the Constitution”).

During the next hour, which went too quickly, Kerry gave an overview talk, which will shortly become a podcast on the Ebbets Field Flannels website. What I came away with is that there were countless Nisei baseball players, the top end of whom might well have played in the major leagues, were it not for their color of the skin. They were like black players before Jackie Robinson. Nonetheless, through many goodwill playing trips to Japan and Asia, they did much to promote and develop the level of play in Japan. Their collective story was nearly forgotten, save for Kerry’s efforts.

On hearing Kerry’s tale, I was struck by how it fits with two baseball narratives from my own life. First, it reminded me of a story of a Nisei carpenter from Hawaii, with whom I worked part-time as a high school student in the 1970s, shared with me one day over lunch. He told of how he and his friends—who played in an “old man’s league”—had beaten a local Sansei team—my age peers—and how the Sansei had left the field fuming mad.

“What they don’t understand is how much ball we played as youngsters,” my workmate had said.

Kerry’s talk also reminded me of the obscure but charming film, “MacArthur’s Children” (1984), which I saw at the Varsity Theater as a UW student. It depicts postwar Japan from the viewpoint of rural schoolchildren. It ends with a friendly baseball game between Occupation troops and the kids.

Back to Kerry, despite his ability to spin a great yarn in person, for me the bottom line remains whether or not his books are any good. That is, do they make a reader want to turn the page, whether he is interested in baseball or not? I close with an excerpt, so that readers can judge for themselves if his words pass the test.

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By Stephanie Ikeda

In November, I visited the Japanese Overseas Emigration Museum for the first time. Located in the busy port area of Yokohama along with other tourist attractions, the modest but informative and engaging museum is a project of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to promote greater understanding of Japanese overseas migration—in other words, the story of the Nikkei. The museum exhibits mainly discuss historic Japanese emigration to Hawai’i and the Americas. According to JICA researcher
Shigeru Kojima, most of the Nikkei who live in Japan are from South America, and therefore the story of Japanese Americans isn’t as visible in Japan.

When I visited the museum, I was pleasantly surprised at the prominence of displays featuring the Northwest Nikkei community. Upon entering the exhibit one of the first things visitors will see is a giant, life-size model of a vegetable and flower float made by the Yasui family in Portland, Oregon for the Rose Festival. The museum also has a large wall decal of Seattle’s Nippon Kan theater backdrop, the original of which is housed at the Wing Luke Museum today. A volunteer guide was happy to show me around the exhibits and explain various trivia about the hardships that the first immigrants faced in their new
countries, as well as events that greatly affected immigration to the U.S. such as the plantation labor pipeline and immigration laws. After my visit, I learned that documents about my greatgreat-uncle’s emigration to Brazil are held in the museum archives, which are viewable by appointment. I consider it one of many reasons to return next time I am in Japan.

A month after my visit, Mr. Kojima happened to visit Seattle to interview Japanese Americans about their personal or family experience with Japanese American exclusion during World War II. I was able to meet Mr. Kojima and sit in on his interview with Nobuko Ohgi, the niece of Genji Mihara. Mr. Kojima, like myself, wanted to know more about the experiences of Mr. Mihara, who was an Issei leader in Seattle for several decades after emigrating in 1907. Mr. Mihara was the first Japanese immigrant to receive the Second Order of the Sacred Treasure, a high-ranking civil honor from the Emperor of Japan, for his service to Japanese people in both the U.S. and Japan.

Mrs. Ohgi brought the or iginal medal received from the Emperor as well as sharing her memories of her uncle, whom she lived with on Mercer Island for 18 years. When Mr. Mihara passed away in 1982, he had dedicated his entire life to serving the Japanese
American community, a dedication so intense that it was said to have replaced his personal life. Mr. Mihara spoke about his unconstitutional arrest after Pearl Harbor at events and could give speeches at events with no script, but hardly ever spoke about his experiences at home. Mr. Kojima also filmed the exhibit and Nobuko’s memories of the objects and photographs within, and will hopefully be able to share it with Japanese audiences upon his return.

My visit to Yokohama and Mr. Kojima’s visit to Seattle have given me a great deal to process. As a fourth generation Japanese American, I can scarcely imagine what my ancestors sacrificed to come to the United States. However, the more I lear n about
others’ stories and meet others who are passionate about the history of our people, the closer I feel to them.

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Former Seattle Superintendent of Schools John Stanford was a visionary who saw diversity as a strength, not an obstacle to be overcome. His legacy lives on at John Stanford International Elementary School in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, where 468 students are enrolled in the Spanish and Japanese immersion programs. Since the language immersion programs started in 2000, Seattle Public Schools have educated hundreds of students in the Japanese Dual Language Immersion program. Students spend half the day with an English-speaking teacher and the other half with a Japanese speaking teacher. The North American Post sat down to chat about the school with some enthusiastic parents of students in the Japanese immersion program and Dr. Michele Anciaux Aoki, international education administrator for Seattle Public Schools and a linguist who was part of the planning committee for John Stanford International School. Joining the conversation were parents Heidi Wrightsman, Deilyn Osby Sande, Yuki Sofronas, and Emily Menon Bender.

Interview by Bruce Rutledge

Why choose Dual Language Immersion education for your children?

Heidi: Half my family is Japanese, so it wasn’t just a good academic choice; it is inspiring and deeply meaningful to be here. When my son was born, I wanted to make sure he had Japanese in his life. As soon as I heard about John Stanford, I knew it was where he should be. John Stanford has a strong academic reputation, and along with the language learning, I really wanted the extra cultural learning for him.

Emily: There is definitely cultural immersion as well as language immersion here. That is a very rich part of the experience. I think one of the big strengths in this school is that there are two languages being taught here, so not only do they get immersed in Japanese language and culture, they also get to see what’s going on with the Spanish side of the school. It’s not just us and Japan, it’s us and the world.

Yuki: I was a teacher in Japan, and all the students study English, but it is hard to make it feel natural for them. They study a lot, and Japan spends a lot of money, but still, it doesn’t get to the point where the kids feel natural with it as a second language. When I was in L.A., I visited an immersion school and I was so impressed how the kids pick up the language naturally. When I heard about the Japanese immersion program in Seattle, I was like, OK, let’s go there! I volunteer a lot at school, and I see the kids pick up words naturally in just a couple of months.

Deilyn: It does open up your world. Just the idea that there are options and different ways of looking at things and doing things expands your horizon. It’s very valuable.

Your husband is from Osaka. Does he speak to your twins in Japanese?

Deilyn: Yes.

And do your twins speak to each other in Japanese?

Deilyn: Very rarely, unless they don’t want mom to understand. They think it’s very funny that mom doesn’t speak Japanese!

Where did the idea of Dual Language Immersion (DLI) education come from?

Michele: It’s been around for 50 years. What we think of as immersion education came out of Anglo parents in French Canada who realized that their children would be at a tremendous disadvantage if they were not fluent in French. They started language immersion programs in French for those students, and a lot was learned in those early years.

Many of those early schools were what we now call one-way immersion. The students are English speakers and they are all going to be immersed in French, say, so that they become fluent in French. A lot of programs that were like that around the country excluded children who spoke the language at home.

What began happening was that people started getting interested in maintaining a language. So, if you were a Spanish speaker, you could have Spanish time and English time. There has been a lot of research in the last 20 years that shows that the most effective model is actually one where you have students who are contributing in both languages, that two-way model so the students are learning not just from the teacher but from each other.

Heidi: Actually, since the school became an option (open enrollment) school four years ago, we’re seeing more native speakers enrolling. It’s happening in both the Spanish and Japanese classes.

How did the Dual Language Immersion program come to be established here?

Michele: What brought this school into existence was when John Stanford came to this district in 1995 as superintendent. He was a retired Army general, and he had a very different global experience about the value of languages, that they could mean life or death. When he went around to the schools, people kept telling him, oh my gosh, we have 130 languages, how are we supposed to teach these kids? They don’t even speak English. His response was, you are talking about a huge asset. These kids all come with
other languages that can be so enriching to us as a country whether it’s in security or business or economics. Whatever it is, we need language capacity to be part of the world.

He shifted the whole dialogue from, “that’s a deficiency because they don’t have English yet” to “this is an asset.” How do we create an environment where everybody is a language learner? His vision was an international school where everyone became a language learner. He would talk about it, and at one meeting, Karen Kodama, who was the principal at TOPS Elementary School, said she wanted to get involved. He put her in charge. At the time, the district was losing students. We were closing schools, so we were trying to find something that would make people want to come to this district.

Kodama put in for a federal magnet grant to establish an international school. At the time, we knew language would be part of it, but no one really knew what it would be like. There were several years of planning, and it was supposed to be a K-12 school, but the district couldn’t find the location to do that.

The new international school opened in September 2000. It had a transitional year at the Lincoln High School site, with Karen Kodama as the principal. And then it came back to a remodeled Latona Elementary School building, and was renamed for Supt. John Stanford, who had passed away from leukemia a before the school could open. Now we’re coming full circle with the re-opening of Lincoln as a Dual Language Immersion High School Pathway. (Editor’s note: Lincoln High School will reopen in the Wallingford neighborhood in September 2019.)

Supt. John Stanford was very attuned to the business community. Karen did a survey, and the business community said, right now we really need Spanish and Japanese, and in about five years, we’ll need Mandarin Chinese. The decision to teach Japanese came from the business community, but Karen Kodama is a sansei (3rd generation Japanese American), and many people on the planning committee recognized that the Japanese community here had a lot taken away from it. The idea was that not only was Japanese important to the business community in the late 90s and 2000s, but it had a very important cultural significance to this region.

What would you say to a family considering Dual Language Immersion programs when they have no heritage ties to that language?

Emily: It’s about global citizenship. This exposure to the idea that there is more than one way of doing things. Once you have that flexibility, once you’ve lived another way of doing things, then you have these tools and can ask, how can I make my society better? How have your children changed through the experience of a Dual Language Immersion education?

Heidi: I wasn’t aware of how much my son had learned until my mom came to visit. Every time she visits now, it unlocks in him the conversations he can have, that I couldn’t have. To see them talking just reaffirms all the decisions we made. For him to have that relationship with my mom is just priceless.

Deilyn: Similarly, we alternate between going to Japan and meeting in Hawaii on spring break, and in both situations, my girls serve as interpreters for me. I love that. They are so proud. That’s a confidence they can take other places.

We are also Jewish, and we can connect things like Oshogatsu and Passover. It’s like a cultural bridge for them. They have an understanding of being many things at one time. They call it intersectionality now. I didn’t have that word when I was growing up.

Emily: My family doesn’t have these kinds of heritage connections to Japan, but there’s another kind of benefit that shines through. Takako-sensei (Takako Reckinger) organizes a trip to Japan after the fifth grade where they get to stay with host families and parents get to tag along as chaperones. The kids are roughly 12 years old at that time, and to see them navigating in a country where for many of them it is the first time they have been there, maybe the first time they’ve been out of the United States, and they have the skills to do it. It’s such an enormous confidence boost.

On a lighter note, my sons were doing potty talk at the dinner table, and my husband decided to crack down on that. So, they switched to Japanese. My husband could tell they were still doing potty talk in Japanese, but, you know, they earned it.

Yuki: I had an exchange in Ohio. In the textbooks, we were taught that the US was a melting pot, and everyone mingled together. But when I got to Ohio and saw the cafeteria, all the tables were grouped by race. It was the opposite of what I had learned.

What we found at the International school was some of the parents don’t have any heritage connection to Japan, but they want to learn about Japan and talk to me about it. This whole community is mixed and together. If the kids get that mindset at a young age, a lot of problems we see in the newspaper can be solved.

About John Stanford International School
John Stanford International Elementary School in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood is a public school that specializes in Japanese and Spanish Dual Language Immersion education. It is an option school (with district-wide open enrollment), but students who enter the school from second grade on must pass a simple assessment in the Japanese or Spanish language. In June, when there is room, enrollment opens to people living outside of Seattle. For more information, please visit the school’s website. Note that McDonald International Elementary School, located just to the north of John Stanford, is another option school that also offers Japanese and Spanish Dual Language Immersion. They both feed into Hamilton International Middle School, and starting in fall 2019, the Dual Language Immersion students will have a guaranteed pathway to attend Lincoln High School.

To learn more about enrolling in Seattle Schools’ Japanese Dual Language Immersion programs, please go to the Admissions Fair 10 am – 2 pm January 19, 2019 at Mercer International Middle School. If you’d like to receive a summary handout, please email Dr. Michele Anciaux Aoki maaoki@seattleschools.org

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By David Yamaguchi, The North American Post

THIS IS MY 100TH COLUMN since Shihou Sasaki, former editor of the North American Post, deemed my prior occasional voluntary writing worthwhile enough to make it a regular feature of the paper, and started paying me as a freelancer to keep him supplied. That was in February 2016. Since then, we have armchair-traveled the world, plumbed the Japanese past, and surveyed films, books, and J-Pop culture. At this milepost, 70,000 words in, it is worth pausing to consider who cares and why I believe it matters.

WHO CARES? As I have written, to my knowledge, only a few of my sixty-something Japanese-American age peers read this paper. For most, it is simply “too Japanese” of a paper. I suppose this is to be expected, for we descend largely from families that have been separated from Japan since the 1924 cessation of the first wave of immigration from
Japan, now 95 years ago. By contrast, I find my readers—people who say they read these words when I meet them—among older JAs, age 70 and above, and among post-1968 Japanese expatriates. Perhaps the former, the older grandchildren of Issei immigrants,
demarcate the limits.

A smaller group of readers finds me online. These include visitors to Discover Nikkei, the online magazine of the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles. DN gathers
and posts writing from the Japanese diaspora. Their readers include those in other parts of the US, in Brazil, and in Japan. About every seven months, DN emails to ask if they can repost one of my articles there. My columns there supplement those of Tamiko Nimura, their regular Tacoma writer, in providing views from the Pacific Northwest.

Beyond these generalities, I know only that 7500 print copies of this paper circulate twice a month to subscribers and distribution points—mainly Nikkei businesses—across Seattle and the Eastside.

WHY IT MATTERS. I think this column counts for something because I am one of about five regular, native-English writers who are each doing what we can to help keep a bilingual community paper alive. In doing so, we are maintaining a rare place where greater Seattle Nikkei can read in depth about their own experiences and community events. Without this paper, there are few other places where we can do so, or for Nikkei nonprofits to publicize their events. In short, we are harnessing these pages—setting them to work—while we have them.

One might argue that the local Nikkei landscape is already covered in English by the International Examiner and Northwest Asian Weekly. Yet I find that these Asian-American papers are so chockablock with news of the various immigrant groups that space devoted to JA/J content is necessarily sparse.

Second, with in the Nikkei community, I believe that I am helping to lessen the cultural divide between JAs and Japanese expatriates. Historically, the two groups have existed side by side, with only limited interaction, despite our shared roots.

Beyond documenting All Things Nikkei, I see these words as contributing to the written records of Sansei, together with Voices page-mate Deems Tsutakawa. As readers know, the stories of the first two mainland generations of JAs, from 1910-1920 immigration through World War II and 1980s JA Redress, have been extensively described. Yet, that flood of words fizzles to a trickle after that. Thus, the curious are hard-pressed to find
answers to questions like the following: Whatever became of JAs? What kinds of kids did the Nisei raise? What are JAs thinking about today?

I see our Sansei perspective as worthwhile because we are the most capable generation to date of expressing ourselves on paper in English and in other media. The flip side of this is that we are the first that is helpless on the streets of Japan.

Now 60 to 80, Sansei have also seen our fair share of history. We are the last to have known the Issei, our pioneering grandparents. We have watched Yonsei Millennials come into their own.

Accordingly, we are among the best positioned to understand and transmit our universal story of how immigrant communities evolve across four generations. Fourth, I am probably contributing—in a small way—to the ethnic awareness of self-selected working-age JAs. For us, without special effort, Japanese language and culture—beyond food—might as well come from Mars. Nonetheless, some understanding of these things is nonetheless expected of us by the internet-connected world today. Here, I believe this column provides a manageable way to get there. Whenever such readers shop at Uwajimaya, they can pick up a free copy of this paper. If they like this column, they can follow it online.

Lastly, I hope that I am something of a role model. I know that growing up in the 1970s, I regularly read the columns of Nisei writers Bill Hosokawa, based in Denver, and William Marutani, based in Philadelphia. I perused their sparse, inspiring words in Dad’s copies of the Pacific Citizen, the newspaper of the Japanese American Citizens League. In those days, there were few other places to read about JA life and concerns.

I remember admiring those men who came home from their day jobs, said hello to the wife and kids, and then sat down at their typewriters to crank out another column on everyday JA life for their faraway West Coast people. Both hailed from greater Seattle. From those insightful words, and from my parents, I gradually learned to see the beauty in the rhythms of an ordinary day.

WHY DO I DO IT? Like most writers, I compose for many reasons, but it is mainly out of love of words. While it is hard to say exactly when this crush began, I know that a key formative period was the early 1980s, when I was a forestry graduate student at the UW. In those days, I was in the forest for months on end. Thick books, beginning with ones I plucked off Dad’s shelves, became a way to pass quiet evenings off the electrical grid. Influential titles I remember reading by gas lantern included Hosokawa’s “Nisei, the Quiet
Americans,” and John Toland’s “The Rising Sun, The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936-1945.”

I especially remember reading James Michener’s “Hawaii.” I carried a paperback version of it in my duffle bag on an expedition to the Brooks Range, northern Alaska. There, summers were commonly like Seattle winters.

There was one particularly miserable Alaskan night when every piece of clothing I had besides the one clean “tent set” I had on was soaking wet. I recall laying down thinking, “It better not rain again tomorrow, for what am I going to wear to work?”

Those nights could be especially uncomfortable because we were confined to our tents. A solid wall of mosquitoes awaited our emergence. Moreover, beyond the relative safety of camp—where three to four of us clustered around a shared shotgun—there could be grizzly bears. We feared drawing them from the surrounding landscape by our cooking, which frequently included freshly caught fish.

Accordingly, in the half-light of those arctic nights, we listened, like soldiers, for strange sounds. Yet for an hour each evening, until I fell asleep, I was warmed by a dazzling sun, as I paddled an outrigger canoe from Tahiti to the Hawaiian Islands.

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By David Yamaguchi, The North American Post

FOR FIVE YEARS I have been a regular user of YouTube, mainly because it allows me to maintain my second-language Japanese in the near-absence of real conversation opportunities. I just have to watch a J-drama or movie a week. Through such viewing, I continue to be pleasantly surprised at the content that becomes available on this free provider.

One such opportunity is a beta English-subtitled version of “Tori Girl,” a popular 2017 movie.

Translators for English subtitles sometimes post such versions temporarily to get feedback on their work. I found this version so amusing that I watched it three times, in part to catch funny lines that I missed.

The opening scenes of the film introduce cute Yukina Toriyama (Tao Tsuchiya of “Rurouni Kenshin”), a drifting-through-life college student on her way to her first day at a technical college. On catching the bus to campus, however, Yukina-chan finds that she is surrounded by geeky guys wearing glasses and plaid. The observation prompts her to get off the bus, to reconsider her college choice.

The film had me, right there, for I have worn glasses since the sixth(?) grade, and have been partial to plaid for years.

What renews Yukina’s interest in continuing on to campus is that the bus is suddenly passed by a jock on a racing bike, Taishi Sakaba (Shotaro Mamiya; of the riotous TV drama, “Mr. Nietzsche in the Convenience Store;” also on YouTube). So there is at least one cool guy on campus.

In class, Yukina meets classmate Kazumi Shimamura (Elaiza Ikeda, of “ReLIFE”), who becomes her muse, and gently steers her toward the human-powered flight club. A popular activity among college engineering students, their goal is to yearly design and build an airplane whose propeller is turned by bicyclist[s]. It helps Yukina that the club leader is also an ikemen—a good-looking guy— Kei Takahashi (Mahiro Takasugi), who
also catches her eyes. Sakaba and Takahashi are the two best cyclists on campus, so are the ones on whom the bespectacled engineering students place their hopes and dreams.

The annual contest, a real-world event, is a summer competition held at Lake Biwa, the large inland lake that one passes on the shinkansen on the approach to Kyoto from Tokyo. While human-powered flight vehicles lack commercial applications, they make for a great design competition. According to Wikipedia, a key is the power-to-weight ratio of the cyclists.

Tori Girl weaves this point into its plot. For it turns out that Yukina is the number-three cyclist on campus—determined by lab testing on stationary bikes—owing to her having pedaled a heavy, old-fashioned “mama-Charlie” bike daily to high school. Thus, when Kei is injured in a flight-test accident, Yukina must get into the airplane with the first Mr. Looks-Good-in-Racing-Tights. Accordingly, Yukina starts spending her days practicing bicycling with Sakaba.

You’ll find that you can’t help but root for the two as their plane is pushed off the cliff at the end of the competition launch pad. I encourage readers to watch Tori Girl while it
remains available online.

Separately, YouTube recommends the real Birdman Festival competition as a must-see Kansai [western Japan] event. Here, essential advance viewing includes footage from the
record-holding 2011 flight made by the tsunami-inspired team from Tohoku University. That outstanding flight appears to be the one on which the film is based.

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