a mixed plate of Japanese American news and culture
Few things in life are irrevocable, but renouncing your citizenship from the U.S. is one of them. And yet that is what I plan to do in order to gain Japanese citizenship. The words sound so crazy, and I always feel like I have to explain my reasoning right away, even though I’m sure most [...]
More viable Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) candidates will be running for state and federal offices than in any other time in U.S. history. The Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) recently reported that 19 AAPI candidates have filed to run for Congressional offices in 2012. In 2010, only eight AAPI candidates filed [...]
You might say that we live in interesting times. This coming year will probably be an extremely interesting one, with a high stakes election campaign facing us along with the economic turmoil and instability that makes it increasingly difficult for anyone to plan for the future. So, given that it’s very hard to predict what [...]
It was the end of a unique, remarkable sporting era for California’s colorful, historic Japanese American baseball world. A sad day, when one of its cherished, most popular diamond assets — Masato “Mauch” Yamashita — suddenly passed away Dec. 7, 2011. Mauch Yamashita, 88, died at Lodi Memorial Hospital, following a heart attack. A native [...]
The New Year’s season is a special time for wrap-ups and updates. One interesting, if slightly frustrating, part of doing my Nichi Bei column is that my research does not stop with publication of a given essay. Instead, I continue to discover more information about the people I write about even after the pieces have [...]
Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for reading my “Heart of Kanji” column this past year. Please continue to read any future columns in 2012. 内 (nai or uchi) means “inside,” which represents an entrance door to a house with a short curtain hanging on the inside. 観 (kan or miru) means “look or observe [...]
Well, the beginning of every year is always filled with change. From simply hanging up that new calendar you purchased at Borders … whoops, that’s change in itself since there is no Borders, to crowning a new NCAA national champion in football via the convoluted BCS ranking system (I guess if LSU goes undefeated, it’s [...]
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part series. Our final destination was known as the “High Place of Sacrifice” platform (which was supposedly gold covered in ancient times) where animal sacrifices were carried out. Channels can still be seen where blood drained away. Riding horseback close to this area allowed me to conserve [...]
I recently had the fortune to be invited to a whole hog dinner at Town restaurant (3435 Waialae Ave. in Honolulu). What’s a whole hog dinner anyway? Well, taking a step back, one of the regulars of our informal wine group won a silent auction benefiting the culinary program at Leeward Community College. The item [...]
Editor’s Note: This is the first of a two-part series. I left Damascus by again taking a shared SUV for $20 to Amman, Jordan that takes about three hours, not including the time it takes to clear passport. It took about two hours to clear passport control for both Syria and Jordan, but it would [...]
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