Film: Resistance at Tule Lake @ Tufts University

The Tufts Japanese Culture Club and Tufts United for Immigrant Justice will be screening Konrad Aderer's film Resistance at Tule Lake for their annual Day of Remembrance event titled "Incarceration and Resistance". Every year Japanese Americans around the United States commemorate February 19th, the day that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, the executive order that paved the way for the unjust incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants in a vast network of incarceration camps.

Tule Lake was the largest and most infamous of the camps. At its peak it housed nearly 19,000 prisoners and was the site of significant unrest. While the camp started out with the same status as other camps, it was eventually designated a "segregation center" where prisoners deemed disloyal by the so-called "Loyalty Questionnaire" were separated from their families and moved from other camps. (The official title of the document was "Selective Service Form 304A / Statement of United States Citizen of Japanese Ancestry".)

This is Konrad's second feature length documentary about the Japanese American incarceration. Although his family was incarcerated at other camps, he told me that he chose Tule Lake as the subject of his film because he said he's always been interested in the Japanese and Japanese Americans who resisted. Resistance at Tule Lake was last year's Centerpiece Film at the 9th annual Boston Asian American Film Festival and was screened earlier this month at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of their Boston Festival of Films From Japan.


Date & Time
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
6:00 - 8:00pm

Location
Tufts University
Aidekman Arts Center
Alumnae Lounge
40 Talbot Ave., Medford, MA 02155
Directions & Parking

Admission
Free

Note: Dinner will be served. Film screening followed by panel discussion with students whose families were incarcerated in Japanese American incarceration camps.

 

Resistance at Tule Lake

2017 | 80 mins | Documentary | Japanese-American
Directed by Konrad Aderer

Resistance at Tule Lake tells the long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese Americans who dared to resist the U.S. government’s program of mass incarceration during World War II. Branded as “disloyals” and re-imprisoned at Tule Lake Segregation Center, they continued to protest in the face of militarized violence, and thousands renounced their U.S. citizenship. Giving voice to experiences that have been marginalized for over 70 years, this documentary challenges the nationalist, one-sided ideal of wartime “loyalty.”

Resistance at Tule Lake premiered early 2017 and continues to screen in various film festivals, museum exhibitions, educational institutions and local community organizations. The documentary will be broadcast nationally in 2018 and made available for educational, institutional and home use as a DVD and other formats including Internet viewing.

2017 3.11 Events in Boston

If you are aware of a 3.11 event that I have not listed, please post a comment with a link to the event or details if the info isn't on a public webpage. I will update this post if I learn of any other events.

This year is the sixth anniversary of the tsunami, earthquake, and nuclear disaster that happened in Japan on March 11, 2011. Fukushima continues to face challenges in the massive clean up at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant which "the Japanese government estimates will take four decades and cost 8 trillion yen ($70.6 billion)". Some people in Tohoku are still living in "temporary housing". Communities have shrunk due to people moving away for jobs and housing and the likelihood of being able to repopulate grows smaller with every passing year.

Although the world's attention has moved on to other disasters, some groups in Boston continue to be involved in educating the public and supporting Japan through this crisis. If you are interested in learning more, please consider attending one of these events. Events are listed in chronological order.

I'm sorry I didn't get this post up soon enough to help publicize The Japan Society of Boston's event, Research and Reflections on Fukushima Today: Recovery Progress Since the Triple Disaster of 03.11.11, which was held on February 21, 2017.

Update 3/1/17: I just learned that MIT Japanese Tea Ceremony will not hold their annual 3.11 Japan Memorial Charity remembrance and fundraising event this year.

3.11 Memorial Event

Tewassa, a Cambridge-based volunteer group that produces "message quilts" for schools and organizations in the Tōhoku region, will be holding a memorial event.

Date & Time
Saturday, March 4, 2017
4:00 - 6:00pm

Location
GrayMist Studio & Shop
364 Huron Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Public Transit & Parking
GrayMist is accessible by the 72 and 75 buses from Harvard Square. There is free on-street parking along Huron Ave. and neighboring streets.

Children of the Tsunami Screening & Fundraiser for Ashinaga

 

Children of the Tsunami (watch for free on vimeo)
Directed & written by Dan Reed
2012 | Japan | 59 mins | Documentary  

On March 11th 2011 Japan was hit by the greatest tsunami in a thousand years. Through compelling testimony from 7-10 year-old survivors, this film reveals how the deadly wave and the Fukushima nuclear accident have changed children's lives forever. The story unfolds at two key locations: a primary school where 74 children were killed by the tsunami; and a school close to the Fukushima nuclear plant, attended by children evacuated from the nuclear exclusion zone.

The Tufts Japanese Culture Club's event is a fundraiser to benefit Ashinaga, a Japan-based non-profit that provides financial, educational, and emotional support to children worldwide "who have lost one or both parents as a result of illness, accident/disaster, or suicide, as well as children who have a parent with a disability that prevents them from working". Since 2011, the Tufts JCC* has been very active in fundraising and educating the Tufts community on the ongoing post-3.11 challenges.

Snack Sale & Crane Folding

Stop by the Mayer Campus Center to purchase mochi, cookies and rice crackers! JCC* students will also be folding origami cranes for a senbazuru (one thousand origami cranes) which will be installed later in the Tisch Library.

Date & Time
Thursday, March 9, 2017
noon - 3:00pm

Location
Tufts University
Mayer Campus Center
44 Professors Row, Medford, MA 02155


Children of the Tsunami Film Screening

Date & Time
Thursday, March 9, 2017
8:00pm

Location
Tufts University
Aidekman Arts Center
Alumnae Lounge
40 Talbot Ave., Medford, MA 02155
Directions & Parking

Admission
Free, but donations for Ashinaga gratefully accepted.

Voices from the Waves (Nami no Koe) | Shinchimachi

Screening will be followed by Q&A with Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Film Director and Reischauer Institute Resident Fellow.

Moderator: Alexander Zahlten, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University

Voices from the Waves (Nami no Koe) | Shinchimachi
Directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi & Ko Sakai
2013 | Japan | 103 mins | Documentary

From 2011 to 2013, RYUSUKE HAMAGUCHI and Ko Sakai conducted a series of interviews with residents in the Tohoku region of northern Japan, an area heavily hit by both the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011. Their research resulted in three films which have since come to be known as the Tohoku Trilogy: The Sound of the Waves (Nami no oto 2011), Voices from the Waves (Nami no koe 2013), and Storytellers (Utau hito, 2013). In Voices from the Waves, residents from the region face the camera in close-up view to deliver recollections of the earthquake and tsunami. Centering on the rich regional folk tradition of storytelling, the film explores the experience of discovery in the encounter between speaker and listener. Through Hamaguchi’s lens, Voices from the Waves poignantly showcases how a single event may live a thousand lives through the act of telling and how different voices can render that one event into similar yet unique pieces of storytelling. This interaction between speaker and listener becomes an empowering and transformative process, an affirmation of human resilience, and provides hope for recovery and a return to normalcy in the region. (Screening time: 103 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles)

Reischauer Institute Japan Forum special film presentation

Date & Time
Friday, March 10, 2017
4:00 - 6:15pm

Location
Harvard University
Kang Room (S050), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA 02138

トレイン トレイン 

TRAIN TRAIN

Students from Tohoku University of Art and Design are coming to Boston Children's Museum for the fifth year to mark the anniversary of 3.11. For the third year the students will have an art and friendship exhibit. The public is invited to attend the exhibit opening. The exhibit is open through Monday, September 30, 2017. Children can meet the artists from Japan and engage in a hands-on activity. See photos from 2014 (here and here) when they had fun making monsters. The exhibit is brought to the museum by artist Minatsu Ariga and her “ART THINKING” project team at the university.

Exploring trains as a symbol of determination and kindness carrying HOPE to our Future!

This art exhibition “トレイン トレイン TRAIN TRAIN” invites visitors on an imaginary adventure to our future.

Trains are not quitters. They just keep moving forward every day whether in the rain, in the wind, against the summer heat, or against the winter snow. Trains often remind us of the importance of hard work, patience, tenacity, and willpower.

Trains carry many things and people, and trains help them reach to their destinations. Trains remind us of the importance of kindness, generosity, and compassion for all humanities and the earth we live in.

In this art exhibition, artists use “trains” as their storytellers and welcome us to reflect our lives through exploring those stories. Where is your train going? Between a station and a station, trains connect us together and lead us to our tomorrow with hopes and dreams.... Please also tell us your train stories. What is your train story like? Is it romantic, dynamic, soulful, gentle...?

The artworks in this exhibition are created by the members of the “ART THINKING” project team at Tohoku University of Art & Design in Japan. After the devastating earthquake and tsunami in their hometown in March 2011, they decided to use the special power of ART to make the world a better place and connect with many friends like you! So they bought this exhibition to Boston as their fourth annual international friendship making project.

Our hope is that this exhibition also brings opportunities for the visitors to peek into today’s youth culture and children’s experience in Japan. Visitors are encouraged to make connections and share their own stories. Through this cross-cultural experience in this art exhibition “トレイン トレイン TRAIN TRAIN”, we hope to engage visitors in joyful discovery of learning and foster their appreciation of the world.

Date & Time
Friday, March 10, 2017
6:00 - 8:00pm

Saturday, March 11, 2017
12:00 - 3:00pm


Location
Boston Children's Museum, Japanese House Gallery 
308 Congress St., Boston, MA 02210

Admission
Please see the museum's website for admission details.
Please note that "Adults unaccompanied by children must leave proper photo identification at the Admissions Desk. Examples: State Driver’s License or Passport."

Cranes on the Square

Cranes on the Square 2016

This year is the fifth annual Cranes on the Square event organized by local Japanese language teacher Timothy Nagaoka. Volunteers will teach people how to fold origami cranes which will form a temporary public art piece in Copley Square then be collected and delivered to people in the disaster area. See photos from last year's event here.

Date & Time
Sunday, March 12, 2017
11:30am - 4:30pm

Location
Copley Square, Boston, MA 02116

Tour: Bend by Kimi Maeda

 

Update 2/14/16:  I'm sad to report that Robert Maeda, the subject of Kimi's play, Bend, passed away in January. Kimi's tour will continue as planned as a memorial to her father's life.


Japanese American theatre artist, Kimi Maeda, is bringing her one-woman show, Bend, back to New England this month. She'll have five shows in the Boston area (details below) as well as three more at Marlboro College in Marlboro, Vermont, Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (please see her website for details on these shows). The tour was made possible by the New England chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League through a grant from the national JACL Legacy Fund Grants Program. Kimi's tour is part of the New England JACL's commemoration of the Day of Remembrance.

I saw Kimi perform at Brandeis University last April. The show was deeply moving and the most innovative theater I had seen in a long time. It seemed like the sort of show you need to see more than once so I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

Bend

Using sand, shadow, and projection, Bend tells the story of two men interned in a Japanese American relocation camp during World War II. The first is Robert Maeda (puppeteer Kimi Maeda's father) an Asian Art historian who was only a young boy when he went into the camp. The second man would become the subject of Dr. Maeda's research: Isamu Noguchi, a half-Japanese-half-American sculptor whose work appears in a wide range of spaces and contexts from the giant Red Cube in New York’s Financial District to countless lamps, tables, and stone sculptures in private homes.

Late in life, Dr. Maeda began working on a book about Noguchi, but as dementia gradually overtook his life, his work was never finished. His daughter, Kimi, was inspired to take on the task he started decades ago, exploring the life of Noguchi in relation to his (and her) own personal history. Using sand as her canvas, Kimi skillfully transforms image after image, combining live feed projection of these drawings with archival footage from WWII. The result is a sublime evening of visual theater that captures the transient, elusive quality of time and memory.

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Date & Time
Friday, February 19, 2016
3:00pm

Location
UMass Boston
Snowden Auditorium, Wheatley Hall, 1st Floor, 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125

Admission
Free

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Date & Time
Sunday, February 21, 2016
1:00pm

Location
Tufts University
Balch Arena Theater, 40 Talbot Ave., Medford, MA 02155

Admission
Free

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Date & Time
Thursday, February 25, 2016
7:00pm

Location
MIT
Tang Center, Bldg E51 Room 095, 2 Amherst St., Cambridge, MA 02142

Admission
Free

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Date & Time
Friday, February 26, 2016
8:00pm

Saturday, February 27, 2016
8:00pm
Followed by a reception hosted by the New England JACL.

Location
Puppet Showplace Theater
32 Station St., Brookline, MA, 02445

Admission
$15 - purchase tickets here

2015 New England Summer Festivals

We have three upcoming matsuris in the New England area.

Next weekend is the 32nd Annual Black Ships Festival in Newport, Rhode Island. It runs Friday, July 17th - Sunday, July 19th. Check their website for details. The festival commemorates the history of kurofune, Western ships that opened up trade with Japan. Rhode Island might seem like an odd location for such a festival but Newport is the birthplace of Commodore Matthew Perry who negotiated the Kanagawa Treaty, the first treaty between the US and Japan.

Update 7/19/15: I just found out there are two natsu matsuri on Saturday July 25th. Circle of Boston Nursery School in Watertown, Massachusetts will have a Summer Festival from 10am - 1pm. Given that it's a nursery I'm sure it will be very child-friendly.

On Saturday, July 25th and Sunday, July 26th from noon - 3pm you can go to Medford for the Ebisuya Summer Festival at the only remaining exclusively Japanese grocery store in the Boston area. According to the flyer "If you come wearing a Yukata, Kimono, or other traditional Japanese clothing you will be given a free Green tea Shake!" Based on what I've seen at past Ebisuya festivals they will not be offended if non-Japanese people wear traditional Japanese dress. I doubt the MFA protesters will show up.

Next month on Sunday, August 26, 2015, Hana Japan Restaurant in Newburyport, Massachusetts will host their fifth annual Natsu Matsuri (summer festival). Unfortunately, details aren't up on their website or Facebook yet. The Natsu Matsui is small and family-friendly and includes games, dancing, usually taiko, and wonderful food. Photos from last year's matsuri. I will update this post when I have the hours. Based on previous years I'd guess it will be in the early afternoon.

2015 3.11 Events in Boston

If you're aware of a 3.11 event that I haven't listed, please post a comment with a link to the event or details if the info isn't on a public webpage. This page will be updated if I find out about more events.

March 11, 2015 will be the fourth anniversary of the historic triple disaster that Japan experienced in Tōhoku on March 11, 2011. Although the world's attention has moved on to other disasters, some groups in Boston continue to be involved in supporting Japan through this crisis and educating the public. If you're interested in learning more, please consider attending one of these events. Events are listed in chronological order.

Film Screening: Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story

In conversation with Film Director Regge Life
Trailer

This remarkable documentary offers a glimpse into the life of Taylor Anderson (JET Program, Miyagi prefecture, 2008-11), a young American woman who dedicated herself to teaching Japanese children, through in-depth personal accounts from her loved ones. Laced with emotional recollections, moving photographs and home movies which are as many bits of the wonderful puzzle that was her incredible existence, the film walks the viewer through Taylor's 24 years on earth and untimely end caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of 2011. In light of the tragedy, the film sends a message of hope for all to follow their hearts. [90 minutes. USA, 2012. BD.]

Regge Life has been making groundbreaking films for over two decades including the acclaimed Doubles: Japan and America’s Intercultural Children , and most recently Reason to Hope, which chronicles the events surrounding the 2010 Haiti earthquake.

Date & Time

Wednesday, February 25, 2015
6:00pm - 8:00 pm

Location

Harvard University

CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St., Tsai Auditorium S010, Cambridge, MA 02138

Admission
Free

3.11 Japan Memorial Charity 2015: Remembrance of Earthquake and Tsunami

MIT Japanese Tea Ceremony will hold their annual remembrance and fundraising event at the Sanzashi-An Tea House on Showa Boston's campus. Each session is about 45 minutes, includes Japanese Tea Ceremony performance with Japanese confectionery and green tea. Children are welcome to join and babysitter available upon request.

Date & Time

Sunday, March 8, 2015
10am/11am/12pm/1pm/2pm
RSVP by Thursday, March 5, 2015

Location

Showa Boston, Sanzashi-An Tea House

420 Pond St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

Admission
Free admission, with suggested donation from $20
*Donations without participation in Ceremony or at the door is also appreciated

All Proceeds from this event with be donated to Japan Earthquake Relief Fund, Japan Society of New York to support reconstruction of the disaster.

Cranes on the Square

This year is the third annual Cranes on the Square event organized by local teacher Tim Nagaoka with support from the Boston Parks & Recreation Department, the Japanese Consulate, and the Japan Society of Boston. Volunteers will teach people how to fold origami cranes which will form a temporary public art piece in Copley Square then be collected and delivered to people in the disaster area.

Date & Time

Sunday, March 8, 2015

11:30am - 4:30pm

Location

Copley Square, Boston, MA

Survival and Recovery after the Great East Japan Earthquake

Survival rates and recovery rates from the Great East Japan Earthquake and resulting tsunami have varied tremendously across the coastal towns in Japan's Tohoku area. A few villages and towns have rebuilt all of their schools, repopulated homes, and reestablished businesses and infrastructure, while others struggle to do so.

Using quantitative data, Professor Daniel Aldrich of Purdue University will illuminate the factors responsible for these outcomes in a lecture, followed by a reception with light snacks.

Date & Time

Monday, March 9, 2015

8:30pm

Location

Tufts University, Olin Center, 180 Packard Ave., Room 012, Medford, MA 02155

Survival and Recovery from the Tohoku Disaster

Daniel Aldrich, Purdue University
Chiaki Moriguchi, Stanford University

Weatherhead Center Program on U.S.-Japan Relations Spring Seminar co-sponsored with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Harvard Kennedy School Program on Crisis Leadership

Date & Time

Tuesday, March 10, 2015
12:30pm - 2:00pm

Location

Harvard University

CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge St., Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), Cambridge, MA 02138

Harvard has been doing a great job of hosting talks year-round about the problems Japan is still facing after 3.11. Talks are open to the public, though inconveniently scheduled for people with 9-5 jobs. Some of the talks are posted on the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations Vimeo page.

Meditation for Fukushima 

Tewassa, a Cambridge-based volunteer group that produces "message quilts" for schools and organizations in the Tōhoku region, will be holding a memorial event. 

Date & Time

Saturday, March 14, 2015

4pm - 6pm

Location
GrayMist Studio & Shop
364 Huron Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Public Transit & Parking
GrayMist is accessible by the 72 and 75 buses from Harvard Square. There is free on-street parking along Huron Ave.

Updates from Tohoku & A Night of Remembrance

The MIT 3.11 Initiative's Shun Kanda will be speaking at this event.

"Updates from Tohoku, a journey to new life," is a commemoration of the fourth anniversary of 3.11, the disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011 in the northeastern region of Japan and affected nearly 500,000 people, including 20,000 deaths and missing.

Hosted by the Consulate-General of Japan in Boston, Berklee College of Music, Fish Family Foundation, Japan Society of Boston, and the U.S.-Japan Council/TOMODACHI Initiative, the event will be held from 6pm to 8pm on Tuesday, March 31, 2015 at Berklee College of Music.

With the purpose to not let Tohoku be forgotten, the event will celebrate the friendship between Boston and Tohoku, and showcase individuals and projects working on the disaster ground, including Shun Kanda of the MIT Japan 3/11 Initiative, Anne Nishimura Morse of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Megumi Ishimoto of Women's Eyes. Two Berklee students, recipients of the TOMODACHI - Suntory scholarship program, will also perform short pieces as tributes to Tohoku.

Date & Time

Tuesday, March 31, 2015
6pm - 8 pm

Location

Berklee College of Music, The Red Room @ Cafe 939 
939 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02115

Admission
Free. Please register here.

More 3.11 Events

I updated my post of 2014 3.11 events to include a screening of Children of the Tsunami at Tufts on Wednesday and an event called Arts, Friendship, and Tohoku at the Children's Museum on Friday and Saturday. See original post for details. 

If you have information about an event that I've missed, please leave a comment with details.

2014 3.11 Events in Boston

If you're aware of a 3.11 event that I haven't listed, please post a comment with a link to the event or details if the info isn't on a public webpage.

March 11, 2014 will be the third anniversary of the devastating triple disaster that Japan experienced in Tōhoku on March 11, 2011. Three years on, media interest in Japan and around the world has waned and the world's attention has moved on to more recent disasters.

Although they have made progress in the disaster area, some people are still living in temporary housing and it will take communities decades to rebuild and recover. Some people who lived in the nuclear exclusion zone will never be able to return home. It is still unclear what will happen to all the nuclear waste at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and all the contaminated soil that has been "cleaned up" from surrounding areas.

Some groups in Boston continue to be involved in supporting Japan through this crisis and educating the public. If you're interested in learning more, please consider attending one of these events.

Talks @ Harvard

Harvard has been doing a great job of hosting talks year-round about the problems Japan is still facing after 3.11. Talks are open to the public, though inconveniently scheduled for people with 9-5 jobs. Some of the talks are posted on the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations Vimeo page.

The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ): Leadership, Structures, and Information Challenges During the Crisis
Kenji Kushida, Takahashi Research Associate in Japanese Studies, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Reischauer Institute Japan Forum co-sponsored with the Weatherhead Center Program on U.S.-Japan Relations

Date & Time

Friday, March 7, 2014

4pm - 5:30pm

Location

Harvard University

CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St., Porte Room S250, Cambridge, MA 02138

Three Years after the 3.11 Disasters: Lessons and Reflections

• Professor Andrew Gordon, History Department, Harvard University 
• Professor Miaki Ishii, Harvard Seismology Group, Harvard University
• Professor Hiro Saito, Department of Sociology,University of Hawai'i at Mānoa & Postdoctoral Fellow, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations

Weatherhead Center Program on U.S.-Japan Relations co-sponsored with the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Date & Time

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

12:30pm - 2pm

Location

Harvard University

CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge St., Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), Cambridge, MA 02138
Location changed to: CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St., Tsai Auditorium S010, Cambridge, MA 02138

Tewassa 3.11 Memorial Candle Event @ GrayMist

Tewassa, a Cambridge-based volunteer group that produces "message quilts" for schools and organizations in the Tōhoku region, will be holding a memorial event. Candles may be purchased for $5. Attendees will hear about the current situation in Minamisōma.

Date & Time

Saturday, March 8, 2014

2pm - 6pm

Location
GrayMist Studio & Shop
364 Huron Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138

Public Transit & Parking
GrayMist is accessible by the 72 and 75 buses from Harvard Square. There is free on-street parking along Huron Ave.

Cranes on the Square @ Copley Square

This year is the second annual Cranes on the Square event organized by local teacher Tim Nagaoka with support from the Boston Parks & Recreation Department, the Japanese Consulate, and the Japan Society of Boston. Student volunteers will teach people how to fold origami cranes which will form a temporary public art piece in Copley Square then be collected and delivered to people in the disaster area.

Date & Time

Sunday, March 9, 2014

11am - 4pm

Location

Copley Square, Boston, MA

Children of the Tsunami Screening 

Sponsored by the Tufts University Japanese Culture Club 

I'm told that Tufts will be holding a 3.11 event but details have not been finalized. I will update this post when I have more information. The Tufts JCC has been very active in raising funds and awareness of the aftermath of 3.11.

The Tufts JCC will be screening Children of the Tsunami, a 2012 BBC documentary. Tewassa will also be on hand to talk about our work and attendees will have a chance to decorate a square for our next quilt.

Directed by Dan Reed
2012 | 60 mins | Documentary 

On March 11th 2011 Japan was hit by the greatest tsunami in a thousand years. Through compelling testimony from 7-10 year-old survivors, this film reveals how the deadly wave and the Fukushima nuclear accident have changed children's lives forever. The story unfolds at two key locations: a primary school where 74 children were killed by the tsunami; and a school close to the Fukushima nuclear plant, attended by children evacuated from the nuclear exclusion zone.

Date & Time

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

7pm

Location

Tufts University

Barnum Hall, Room 104
163 Packard Avenue, Medford, MA 02155

Parking

Visitors may park in faculty lots for free after 5pm. The closest parking lot is the Upper Campus Lot.

Arts, Friendship, and Tohoku @ Boston Children's Museum

Boston-based artist and art therapist, Minatsu, and students from Tohoku University of Art and Design will show art made by elementary and middle school students in Tohoku. There will also be hands-on activities.

Date & Time

Friday, March 14, 2014, 6pm - 8pm

Saturday, March 15, 2014 1pm - 4pm

Location

Boston Children's Museum, The Common and 2nd floor bridge

308 Congress St., Boston, MA 02210

Admission

I believe that you must pay admission to the museum to attend this event. Admission is sponsored by Target on Fridays from 5pm to 9pm and is $1 for ages 1 and up. On Saturday admission is $14 per person for ages 1 and up.

MIT

The MIT 3.11 Initiative is still active, unfortunately, I've been told that MIT is not holding any 3.11 events this year. (If this is incorrect, please let me know.) I was really hoping they would have a 3.11 event this year because last year's event was excellent. It included short talks from Professor Shun Kanda, Professor Richard Samuels, and Mio Yamamoto (a PhD candidate at the Sloan School who runs NPO World in Asia). I meant to write about it, but never got around to it.

Wellesley

Wellesley College is hosting a kabuki workshop and performance on March 11th and 12th, although it doesn't appear to be related to 3.11.

Nihongo Toshokan - The Library at the Japanese Language School of Greater Boston

Last Saturday I set foot in a Japanese Saturday school for the first time in 25 years. The Japanese Language School of Greater Boston has been at Medford High School since 1975. A while ago I'd read on their website that the library is open to the public but not being able to read Japanese anymore, I didn't see any reason to go. Recently I got to wondering if they might have origami books so a friend and I decided to check it out. I found a shelf of books that appeared to be the home & cooking section - it had mostly cookbooks and one beading book, but I didn't find any origami books and I was too shy to ask anyone.

The library was much larger than we were expecting. There were thousands of books. It fills a former lecture hall that my friend tells me is the sort of room usually used for detention for Medford HS students. At 10:30am the library was packed full of parent volunteer librarians and parents who were reading and checking books out. Students were in class. I didn't get too many pictures since I didn't want to take photos of anyone without permission. The one above gives you the best sense of scale - there are more books to the right and the left and behind me. In addition to textbooks and children's books, they had an extensive selection of adult fiction. There's also plenty of manga and even some books in English (these seemed to be mostly books about Japan). They also have magazines and CDs.

There are several carts of books in the front of the room that are for sale. They receive a lot of donations (we saw many boxes full of books) and they sell the ones they don't want to add to their collection. They also hold an annual book fair in late October.

It was very surreal to be at a Saturday school again, but at least I didn't break out in hives. Japanese school was unfortunately not a good experience for me and after dropping out after 6th grade, I never thought I'd voluntarily set foot in a Saturday school ever again. Still, there was something nostalgic about being there. 

The library is only open during the Japanese school year from 8:45am to 11:30am so check their calendar before going. You'll need to enter the school through the main entrance at the front of the building. There will be a map in English & Japanese in the center of lobby. The library is located in the rear of the school.

Happy New Year!

Once upon a time New Year was considered the most important holiday in Japan but I've heard that Christmas in all it's capitalist KFC glory has overtaken it which seems too bad. I grew up eating osechi (traditional New Year's food). I love any holiday that's all about food. I got prepared osechi foods from the grocery store exactly once after leaving home and realized it's just a huge pain for one person. These days the only thing I try to eat is mochi. I wasn't aware until this year that there was any place to get fresh mochi in Boston and I told myself I was going to have some, but I never got my act together to place an order at Mochi Kitchen or Ebisuya. Instead I just had some packaged mochi from Miso Market (pictured above).

Luckily for me one of my Japanese friends decided to have a New Year's Eve party at the last minute so I got to eat all manner of tasty Japanese food last night. Someone brought what seemed to be stewed kumquats, which I'm told are a traditional New Year's food, although I don't recall having it as a child.

Kumquats

There was datemaki, one of my personal favorites.

Datemaki

There were other things I didn't manage to get pictures of including kuri kinton, umeboshi, annin tofu, and tasty nabe with salmon, pork, tofu, enoki, and Chinese cabbage.

Temaki fixins

We made temaki with maguro and salmon and had the most delicious buta no kakuni (braised pork belly) that had been cooked with whole eggs and daikon (here's a recipe in English that's similar to the one my friend used, although with the addition of star anise).

Buta no kakuni

There was non-Japanese food as well: smoked salmon and cream cheese, dried figs with cream cheese, pumpkin pie, and chocolate cake. Fortunately or unfortunately we were too full to eat everything our hostess could have fed us. We didn't even get to the soba or oshiruko (azuki soup with mochi).

Tomorrow, Ebisuya in Medford is having a hatsuuri (first sale of the New Year) event from 10AM to 8PM that I might check out.

Announcing our HATSU-URI!
Please visit us on Weds, Jan 2nd. for special sales and delights.
All children will receive a money gift, and all adults in Kimono will too!
This is your chance to wear special outfits. Come enjoy! 

Akemashite omedetou!