Incredible Lady

Quiet Land
by Aun San Suu Kyi (ASSK)

In the Quiet Land, no one can tell
if there's someone who's listening
for secrets they can sell.
The informers are paid in the blood of the land
and no one dares speak what the tyrants won't stand.

In the quiet land of Burma,
no one laughs and no one thinks out loud.
In the quiet land of Burma,
you can hear it in the silence of the crowd

In the Quiet Land, no one can say
when the soldiers are coming
to carry them away.
The Chinese want a road; the French want the oil;
the Thais take the timber; and SLORC takes the spoils...

In the Quiet Land....
In the Quiet Land, no one can hear
what is silenced by murder
and covered up with fear.
But, despite what is forced, freedom's a sound
that liars can't fake and no shouting can drown.

"But coolest of all is the shade of the Buddha's teachings"
Dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi by Karen Ethelsdattar, Union City, NJ

The shade of a tree is cool indeed
The shade of parents is cooler
The shade of teachers is cooler still
The shade of the ruler is yet more cool
But coolest of all is the shade of the Buddha’s teachings

---

On July 19, 2012, Burma celebrated its 65th and its first state-level Martyr's Day for "Bogyoke" (General) Aun San (1915- 1937) in Yangon. Her daughter Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Laureate (1991), was the one laying a flower wreath. Announced recently was a Bogyoke movie under planning to commemorate the hero Bogyoke’s 100th Birthday Anniversary due in three years, with Daw Suu Kyi serving as honorary Chairman, and the funding campaign for the movie has started.

Daw Suu Kyi just returned from her high profile European trip, addressing the UN ILO assembly in Switzerland, speaking as Nobel Prize Laureate in Norway, giving thanks at an Amnesty International Event in Ireland, receiving honorary doctorate at her alma mater Oxford, and meeting with Dalai Lama. Family-wise, she celebrated her 65th birthday with children she hasn't seen for years. Yes, she wouldn't have thought that taking care of her mother would keep her this long in Burma, missing her dying British husband in U.K. It was rumored she was a scapegoat for the should-be-returnee Aun San Oo, her brother, from San Diego, California. She was a housewife, mother, and hoping to study Burmese literature.

I've heard about Daw Suu Kyi's famous speech "Freedom from Fear" which started with memorable phrase "It's not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power...". Her intelligence and eloquence appealed to Burmese and brought the National League for Democracy (NLD) a landslide victory in 1990 over the National Unity Party (NUP), which is the military Junta. The Military Junta hastened to put her under house arrest and ever since she has been resisting bullying generals with the power of the powerless, fighting bravely to achieve democracy, protecting human rights through nonviolent means. She should be encouraged with the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 199l. In l992 she was awarded with the Jawaharal Nehru Award for International Understanding by the government of India and the International Simon Bolivar Prize from the government of Venezuela.

Now she is an icon, a fighter of Burma, and her movie about her was made in Thailand ahead of her father Aun San, which was just released in Japan very recently. The government has finally ceded, inching toward democracy, allowing her to travel and attend parliament.

Upon returning from Europe, she stood for the first time from her NLD seat toward the back of Naypyitaw parliament to call for an end to discrimination against ethnic minorities as part of the "emergence of a genuine democratic country." "Based on the spirit of equality, mutual respect and understanding," she said, "I would like to urge all lawmakers to enact necessary laws or amend laws to protect the rights of ethnic nationalities." Suu Kyi's comments came in support of a motion by a ruling-party lawmaker from the ethnic Shan state to uphold ethnic minority rights. Prior to her European trip, she had traveled Mae Sot, Thailand to visit ethnic Kachin and Karen refugees who fled war at home. I'm glad she highlighted basic ethnic issues, requiring urgent debates.

Daw Suu Kyi has been touching on Buddhism in her speeches including the recent Nobel speech. Her favorite word is "Metta" or compassion and she translates it as "loving kindness". Another one is "Mudita" - sympathetic joy. She seems to be practicing 14th Dalai Lama's teaching "Without love, human society is in a very difficult state: without love, in the future, we will face tremendous problems - Love is the center of human life". Another is "nyien chan" She explains it literally as a beneficial coolness that comes when a fire is extinguished. I was amazed that such short words have a profound connotation. The Australian National University listed the word in its language list of security as coolness - the state of ease.

The paper reported her travel plans for 2013, which includes USA and Japan. She had worked at the United Nations Building in New York and in Japan to study at the University of Kyoto during 1985-86, so she will be happy to reunite with many of her friends, I'm sure.

Burma aka Myanmar

I had a gut feeling that I was less than 200 miles (280 km) east of Myitkyina, Burma when I traveled to Dali, Yunnan, China. Yes, that's on the Allied Forces supply road to rescue Chiang Kai-Shek in Chongqing, Sichuan, during WWII. The reason I remember these foreign names is because of the map we used to draw at school with the rising sun flag where the Japanese Imperial armies occupied: Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, etc. However, in order to shut the above Burma Supply Road, the Japanese Army dared an impossible invasion into Assam, India, through the steep Arakan Mountains, with heavy guns, munitions, and limited supplies of medicines and miscellaneous necessary needs. A mere ideological tactic (Allied called it a folly), dismissing oppositions and negative factors such as the rainy season, and malaria. The Allied named it the Battle of Kohima and the Japanese coded it Imphal Operations. The battle ended in a death toll of 85,600 * Japanese soldiers; almost a total defeat, succumbing to thirst and hunger, terrible sickness, appalling dysentery (per battle records) and bones laying along the retreat road.

Myitkyina, capital of Katin, northernmost province of Burma, occupied by the Japanese, was retaken by General Stilwell, (1883-1946), a West Point graduate, the Allied Commander, more well known as Vinegar Joe.

Very few records of the war exist because most of the soldiers at the front perished. One best selling fiction Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama released right after the war became a movie and I had to see it. It was a tearjerker all throughout. One defected Japanese soldier became a monk to bury and mourn for dead friends. Takeyama, who had no war experience, claimed he wrote a children's story, fantasizing the battleground as a "Home Sweet Home" chorus competition between British and Japanese armies.

Mr. Koichi Tsukamoto (1920-1998), the founder and manufacturer of Wacol, Kyoto women’s apparel, was one of three survivors out of a 55 man platoon.

I recently read a sad story that one Japanese soldier sought shelter at his Burmese friend's house as he had no family in Japan. While he was taken care of by his friend's daughter, the two got on well. Everything seemed to be going alright, until one day he ventured out to see a dentist (he claimed he couldn't stand his toothache) and was caught by the police and sent to a concentration camp. Eventually he was sent back to Japan. He tried to recontact his Burmese family, but was out of luck.

Decades later, he learned through the news media that his son in Burma was looking for him. The reason he got no response from Burma was because the family was ostracized from the village for hiding a Japanese defector.

I was about to move on to another story when I saw a book titled: And I survived in Burma by Kojima Shoichi (1920-), published in 2011 in Fukuoka, which led me to pursue the war aftermath a bit more. Kojima lives in Fukuoka; actually his parents lived in Kitakyushu, where I now live. He fought in two wars, Guadalcanal and Kohima, both losing battles. I could tell that he was born under an unlucky star.

The 124th Battalion was from Fukuoka. At the Guadalcanal landing (Aug 1942), he wrote: the carrying boat was shipwrecked on the coral reef while fleeing from the Allied Air night raids, 300 meters away from the seashore. Soldiers had to swim to shore. On landing alone, one third of the battalion was lost. On the island during fighting, he injured his leg and was unable to walk. His Hancho advised him that they had to move on without him. He made a wooden stick for a cane in order to follow, limping. The retreat order came and they left Guadalcanal on January 1943. The 4,000 Fukuoka Battalion had only 200 soldiers left, all with injuries and health issues of some kind.

I had read that former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (1941-) listed Guadalcanal Diary written by Richard William Tregaskis (1916-1973), as one of his favorite books. I wonder why he specifically mentioned it. I'll read it when I finish reading Kojima's story.

The 200 Fukuoka survivors were then sent to Saigon on June 1943 to be incorporated into 34th Army Division for the Impahl Operations, but he redeveloped malaria which he suffered in Guadalcanal. He was sent to a Hong Kong Hospital from Saigon for special treatment. When he recuperated, he traveled alone to catch up with his troop via railroad, and random rides available, which led through retreating routes.

I was impressed with his way of thinking that you can't walk the ocean back from Guadalcanal, but once you were on the continent, the road led to Japan. Even limping, he had the fortitude to continue walking. He and two friends walked over 1,000 kilometers to Chiangmai, Thailand. He was very thankful for all the help and alms from local Burmese along the way.

Notes:

*This figure was taken as the most reliable number from the "Museum of Kohima" of York (UK) Website - "85,600 Japanese soldiers participated in the Imphal Mission, 30,000 died in action, of starvation and illness and 20,000 were injured or succumbed to malnutrition and illness. The road between Kohima and Imphal was called ‘White Bone Road’ on which lay the remains of many corpses in military uniform who have never been taken back to their home."

A monument was built at the Kohima site with the script: "When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today", a British soldier inspired by the Greek poet Simonides' (556-468 BC) epitaph "Oh, stranger, tell the Spartans that we live here obedient to the world." See the photos of Kohima Bridge (battle zero ground), and the Monument.

The same website has a link to Sato Memorial, posted on Feb 13, 2012, by Akiko MacDonald, Honorary Secretary of Burma Campaign Society, related with the Anglo-Japan Alliance.

Czech Compassion

I am writing about 26 Japanese children (all in 8th grade) from l) Rikuzen-Takata and 2) Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, Japan, who were chosen to travel to the Czech Republic, sponsored by many charity organizations, corporations and donors, in late March this year for a week or so. The name of Rikuzen-Takata became famous for the lone pine tree that survived the Tsunami.

These 26 children (20 from Ofunato and 6 from Rikuzen-Takata) are among those who lost parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and homes during the 311 Tohoku Earthquake/Tsunami disaster of last year. Transportation was donated by Korean Airlines and travel and lodging in Czech Republic co-sponsored by the Czech-Japan Association, Praha Zoo, Charles University (Karlova Universita in Czech), local municipal cities and citizen volunteers, including short home stays.

The Czech side president of the Czech-Japan Association is Věra Čáslavská, the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympic gold medalist and the Japan side president is Setsuko Otaka, author and daughter of a military attache to the Japanese Embassy in Sweden who strongly opposed war. Otaka served as the head chaperon of the 26 children.

The trip itinerary was reported to be entirely tailored and different from those routinely offered by travel agencies. The itinerary was filled with dream-filled and heart warming events by welcoming Czechs to encourage the children.

Day one was spent in Praha. Lead to the Vysehrad Hill overlooking the River Vltava, children saw a play in which a pretty white-robed Princess Libuse of the Czech legend gave her prophecy "I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars. And you shall give it the name Praha". Translation was provided by a Charles University student interpreter majoring in Japanese. They then traveled to downtown Praha, where the medieval atmosphere is still maintained with hundreds of spires and towers and a mysterious Kafkaesque maze.

On day two, they went to the Praha Zoo for entertainment and for another surprise. One lucky child christened the a baby Rothschild Giraffe by winning the game of Janken.. A girl named Saya won and her name was immediately placed on a calligraphy paper with brush and Chinese ink prepared by the above mentioned Charles University volunteer.

On day three, children clad in colorful souvenir T-shirts with their individual names printed on them, visited schools, enjoyed plays, games, puppet shows, and singing with Czech children. First, they were welcomed by kindergarten children singing the song "Kimigayo", the Japanese national anthem. Then a jump rope contest followed on how long one can continue to skip. Three winners were all Japanese and they received medals from the Czech Olympic medalists, a real honor.

The second half of the itinerary consisted of trips outside of Praha. One was the trip to the city of Panenske Brezany, 50 kilometers north of Praha. This city sent 90,000 yen to Rikuzen-Takata collected by various city charities. A big applause came from the citizens gathered when the chaperon reported the money was used for transporting victims from temporary shelters to the nearby playgrounds for physical exercise. I cannot find the city by that name but found a very close phonetic name near the German-Czech border superhighway. Another one was to the Japanese Panasonic (another Czech donor) plant, which was to be around Pizen, 90 kilometers or 50 miles southwest of Praha.

I read in the paper report that one girl commented before leaving the Czech Republic that it was an unbelievable and "Mottainai" ("unable to express how grateful I was") experience, their kindness sank deep in my soul. I found a Praha blog post about hosting "Daichan" from Ofunato. The host happened to be a Japanese woman who has children of about the same age and I thought Daichan was lucky to have stayed with a host family where he was able to express himself freely, with no language barriers. Daichan talked about his experience on 3/11 with some humor, but it was clear to listeners that the tragedy had left great scars on his young mind.

Lastly, I wish to thank all our Czech friends, on their interest and concerns, through Pardubice Toastmasters networks for giving children food for thought and endless dreams for tomorrow. Glory and hallelujah to their bright futures!

Note:

Excerpt from Praha Radio news:

A group of 26 children from the tsunami-devastated region of north-east Japan are to spend a week-long wellness stay in the Czech Republic. The visit has been arranged by the Czech-Japanese society which set up an aid fund for the victims of the natural disaster which struck Japan a year ago. The event was organized with the aid of the Czech Olympics Committee and gymnastics queen Věra Čáslavská who won three gold medals in the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo and is extremely popular in Japan. In 2010, Japan honoured Věra Čáslavská with the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun for her contribution to cultural understanding between the two countries.

Holocaust Connections

I Never Saw Another Butterfly
- Pavel Friedman, June 1942

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun's tears would sing against a stone ...
Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high
It went away, I'm sure, because it wished to kiss the world good-bye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this Ghetto.
But I have found what I love here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut branches in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
The butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don't live in here.
In the Ghetto.

---

A happy surprise! Jiri Psenicka, a Czech Silver Iron man, emailed the following day I uploaded my "Panama Hotel" blog entry.

He wrote:

What a coincidence! I got the book The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet as a Christmas present from my Canadian friend! Well, my book was not autographed by its author, but I liked it very much too. And, another coincidence! I watched a documentary film "Inside Hana Brady's Suitcase" (2011) by Larry Weinstein* on Czech TV a couple of days ago. It was a moving story too. Both Hana and her brother Jiri (George) came from Nove Mesto na Morave*, which is a place where I took part in my first 50K cross-country skiing race in the 1984 or may be even earlier. The town is in the Czech-Moravian highlands and about ten years ago there held cross-country skiing race which included the World Cup series.

I recently emailed to Jiri that I had read Hana Brady's Suitcase written by Karen Levin*. The book preceded by Canadian Jewish News and Karen's radio documentary on CBC Radio One that stirred worldwide sensation. As Karen penned in the introduction, the story took place on three continents over a period of 70 years - Czechoslovakia, Japan and Canada. Jiri and Hana, brother and sister, born and raised in Nove Mesto, were among thousands of Jewish children detained at Terezin* (Theresienstadt) Concentration Camp, eventually sent to Auschwitz* in the 1940s. Jiri, survived the incarceration and war, and immigrated to Toronto.

A Tokyo woman named Fumiko Ishioka*, working at a small Holocaust museum, after visiting Terezin and Auschwitz, solicited certain mementos with which she could easily demonstrate history to children. She got Hana Brady's Trunk. She found Hana and her brother after examining papers and photos and her intense pursuit started. Fumiko's close-to-obsessive chase hit the bull's eye. She succeeded in locating where Jiri lives. Fumiko sent her letter to which Jiri responded. Two parties met in March 2001, and surprised the world media.

How was this miracle possible?

Enter Friedl Dicker-Brandeis* (1898-1944), an Austrian artist and educator, once student as well as lecturer at the famed Weimar Bauhaus.* She spent two years in Terezin Camp, along with her husband Pavel before being railroaded to Auschwitz. She gave art lessons to the children there, as a way for children to understand their emotions and environment. In her limited capacity, she was giving art therapy. She asked them to put their names on the drawings before submitting them. Apparently she stored the drawings and entrusted them to a friend. The Director of Girls House, who returned after the war, found them, so he put them into 2 suitcases and carried them to Pinkas Synagogue in the Prague. It took 10 years to have those suitcases opened and children's names were individually recognized on 4000 drawings with a dozen poems. Hana Brady's drawings were among them. The poem quoted on the top came from the same source.

Per Emma Furman, pediatrician, taught by Friedl, survived the war, "the times spent drawing with Friedl, are among the fondest memory of my life. The fact that it was Terezin made it more poignant, but it would be the same anywhere in the world. Terezin had many world specialists in every field who taught me. But I think Friedl was the only one who taught without ever asking for anything in return. She just gave of herself".

Perhaps I may be overdrawing, but my image of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis very much resembled that of Clara Breed (Dear Miss Breed)! Both women gave children strength to live, dream and hope for tomorrow in spite of adversity. They blended into one in my world of idealization.

* Notes:

1) Larry Weinstein
Director of the 93-minute documentary Inside Hana Brady's Suitcase, based on Karen Levin's Hana's Suitcase. The film won audience awards in many cities worldwide. Weinstein lives in Toronto, Canada.

2) Nove Mesto na Morave
A town in South Moravia, 70 km (43 miles) northwest of Brno. Pop. 10,000. Hana Brady's house is on the tour map in downtown Nove Mesto.

3) Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levin, Canadian
First published in UK in 2003 by Evans Brothers Ltd.

4) Terezin (Theresienstadt in German)
65 km north of the Prague. The fortress built by Hapsburg was named after Maria Theresa. The Nazis transformed the fortress town into a transit camp through where 150,000 European Jews passed en route to extermination camps.

5) Auschwitz-Birkenau
Built as extermination camp by the Nazis. The Auschwitz State Museum displays 4 million death toll. I didn't visit Terezin nor Auschwitz on my trip to the Czech Republic. My Malaysian friend visited both and sent me the Penguin Book Auschwitz - A History by Sybille Steinbacher, 2004.

Excerpt from page 108:
A transit camp to mass extermination was the ghetto of Terezin, Jews from the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. What was unusual - at least temporarily - was their treatment: they were neither separated according to sex nor subjected to any selection process, and they did not have to give up their luggage; they were allowed to keep their civilian clothes, and the children were allowed to stay with the adults. They received all kinds of privileges, and only some of them were assigned to the work units. There was a school and kindergarten, housed in the barracks, and the children were allowed to paint.

6) Fumiko Ishioka
Received a Masters degree from University of Leeds, UK. Author, Director of the Holocaust Center in Tokyo and President of Anne Frank Fan Club. Received Honorary PhD in education in 2011 from York University in Toronto, Canada. Lectures in Japan and abroad on Hana Brady.

7) Bauhaus
Bauhaus was the first model of the modern art school. Founding place of the Bauhaus movement is UNESCO World Heritage city Weimar, 220 km (138 miles) southwest of Berlin. I visited the unique Bauhaus-Archiv Museum in Berlin.

8) Anne Frank (1929 -1945)
Anne's diary ended on Aug l, 1944. The family was sent to Westerbork Transit in the Netherlands and then to Auschwitz. In October 1944, Anne and her sister Margo became separated from their parents, Otto and Edith. They were all put on the last transport from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen (near Hanover), where both girls died of typhus, about two weeks before the camp was liberated. Edith died but Otto survived Auschwitz.

Panama Hotel

New York Times Best Seller Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet was a Christmas gift from my daughter. The author Jamie Ford autographed and wrote: "Rio, inspiration comes from life and good books. Keep writing" and an actual size "Do Not Disturb (reading)" book marker attached, jutting half an inch out of the book. My daughter wrote, "I met Jamie Ford in person at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. He signed the book for you and for me." About the time I finished reading it, the Japanese translation came out with the title Panama Hotel, with a picture of the hotel on the book cover. This historic hotel was built in 1910 and was the first home to most of the early immigrant Japanese.

It has been said that the Japanese arrival and formation of J-town in Seattle and Tacoma, around the early 1900s, was due to 1) The Great Northern Railway (job placement) and 2) two Pacific Ocean passenger liners, NYK (Seattle) and OSK (Tacoma). Kafu Nagai (1879-1959), a writer who landed there in 1903 on the way to the east coast, wrote that he saw the same old Japanese shops from bean-curds, bean-soup to Sushi, buckwheat noodle shops in Seattle, not much different from Tokyo. However, the day the 1942 Executive or Civilian Exclusion Order took effect, there were 8000 Japanese American evacuees detained at the Puyallup Detention Center (Camp Harmony), and the thriving J-town collapsed and was gone, except for the Panama Hotel.

It is currently owned by Jan Johnson (see photo). Johnson renovated the hotel and made it a B&B (bed and breakfast) and a tea & coffee house. She was honored in 2009 by the Japanese Seattle Consul General for her endeavor to restore the century old building for historical and educational purposes.

Jamie Ford's book is fiction. The story is about Henry Lee, an immigrant Chinese who met Keiko Okabe, an immigrant Japanese, living in the same neighborhood (now called the International District). They were also fellow classmates at Rainier School among the dominating white students. They worked as school kitchen helpers and fostered a friendship and platonic love.

A major problem was that Henry's father literally hated Imperial Japan and Japanese as Chiang Kai Shek's foe and there was no way he was going to meet Keiko and her family. Keiko's family photos, entrusted with Henry, was found by Henry's father and thrown outside. Father even planned to send Henry back to China to sever relations with Keiko. He soon suffered from a cerebral stroke, which rendered him unable to talk. He never accepted anything pro-Japanese and impeded the exchange of letters that eventually resulted in separation soon after Henry's visit to Minidoka Camp in Idaho.

What could teenager Henry do without his family's understanding of Keiko's departure? Mrs. Beatty, Rainier school teacher, came to his rescue. Just like the school kitchen, Mrs. Beatty offered Henry a temporary summer job and transportation, to work for her as kitchen help at Puyallup. Henry succeeded in a reunion with not only Keiko, but Keiko's family, too.

Next, what is the significance of Minidoka, Idaho? Henry asked their mutual friend and sax player Sheldon Thomas to accompany him as a chaperone. Sheldon's jazz recordings bound Henry and Keiko. Sheldon and Henry first took a Greyhound bus to Wala Wala, Washington, then another bus to Jerome, Idaho through Twin Falls. They were surprised upon arrival by a giant sign "18 miles (29km)" to War Relocation Center Minidoka, and luckily were offered a truck ride by the local Adventists, among the religious volunteers. Hurray!

Personally speaking, Raymond, my son-in-law and I drove, in the summer of 2009, over 300 miles (700km) through the state of Idaho, from the Continental Divide Targhee Pass (the northeastern corner of the state, over 2000 meters above sea level) to Boise. We were returning from Yellowstone National Park to Boise Airport to return our rented car. We dropped by on the way to visit Moon Crater National Park, located in central Idaho and my wild fancy was that Minidoka would be as barren as Crater Park.

I was relieved somewhat, reading Jamie Ford's book, that the actual camp was closer to Twin Falls, further south of Idaho Falls, about 140 miles (220km) along the Snake River Plain. I saw a photo of the old Minidoka visitation building, and I recognized water that was called a canal.

There was the building where Henry waited for almost half a day to meet Keiko. Henry finally accomplished this difficult trip at a tender age of 13! The story comes to an end when widower Henry and widowed Keiko meet in New York in 1986 all afresh, when Henry's son Marty and his fiancee Samantha made arrangements after the couple discovered Keiko's sketchbook among the unclaimed boxes, crates, and trunks of the 1942 evacuees' personal effects, buried and forgotten in the basement of the Panama Hotel. Keiko's sketchbook contained a portrait of young Henry. Hurray, again!

NOTE: This book won the 2009-2010 Asian / Pacific American Literature Award (APALA) for adult fiction.

Okinawa and the Flame Tree

As area governor of Toastmasters, I have visited Okinawa a few times. There were two clubs, Kadena and Pacific Pearls, both on U.S. Marine Corps bases, around the turn of the century during the calm before Desert Storm, George Bush's Iraq War.

My first visit to Kadena coincided with a helicopter accident which was quite a tumultuous time. Having been stationed in the naval town of San Diego, close to Miramar and Montgomery (civil) airports, I encountered a few airplane accidents. One time, a navy jet fighter plunged into my plant's backyard. The pilot tried to maneuver out to the ocean in vain. He bailed out and landed safely and I heard he helped the plant crew extinguish the fire. The jet grazed a part of the plant roof, but luckily there were no loss of life.

On my return flight to Kyushu, I saw local papers denouncing the U.S. base helicopter accident, dangerous to off base citizens. Pacific Pearls used Camp Foster chapel for their meetings, but the chartering ceremony was held at Kadena Officer’s Club. Receiving an invitation, I flew to Okinawa for the first time. At the airport, I was given transportation by an air traffic control officer who wanted to join Toastmasters. At Kadena, I met a Marine Corps Colonel, the Club founder of Pacific Pearls (name sounded beautiful) who inducted the chartering with his excellent speech. Quite different from the Japanese way, families were also invited and it was fun to observe the very joyous celebration. The Colonel handed out candy to children first and then to all the participants. It was a very enjoyable Friday night.

Luckily, my friend from San Diego days was stationed in Naha, and he arranged for me to stay at the JT club in the guest house near the Fuzhou Chinese Garden. My stay in the historical heartland of Kumemura helped deepen my understanding of Okinawa.

The following morning, the matron of the house suggested that I walk to the nearby Matsuyama Park and the Chinese Garden before my San Diego friend showed up to visit northern Nago. Matsuyama Park was a big park, located in central Naha, which was a venue for recreational sports, particularly tennis courts. I rambled around the entrance area with water fountain and shady trees of Chinese or Indian banyans. There were statues and epitaphs mourning for high school girls who died in the Okinawa wars.

My attention, however, was drawn to the burning red flame trees (poinciana regis) along Matsuyama Street, against the white walls of Fuzhou Garden. I saw the same trees in Mexico and Hawaii and it was quite a surprise to see them in the islands of Okinawa. The name came from a sacred bird of Chinese mythology, as the flower is shaped like a phoenix spreading its wings. According to mythology, the world has no wars, no storms, no floods, no earthquakes, when the phoenix flies.

Very recently, my Taiwan friend referred me to the book Flame Flowers Have All Fallen, written in 2011 by Sakuo Imabayashi (1923-), a Fukuoka citizen, a returnee from Tainan, Taiwan. Imabayashi was born and raised in Tainan and repatriated to Fukuoka at the end of World War II. He revisited Tainan in 1990 after almost half a century and said he was sorry that the Tainan of his youth all vanished, including the giant Chinese Banyan trees and burning red flame trees that shaded the streets from the Tainan RR Station to Tainan Downtown Circle. He analyzed the causes - exploding population, influx of cars, roads widened for increased traffic, vermin damages, street cleanup nuisance, etc.

I remembered immediately my Okinawa visit 10 years ago. I learned that the area was used for location of the recent movie Tempest (see Notes 1), depicting the declining period of the Ryukyu Kingdom and the woman-disguised eunuch's rendezvous with a Satsuma Samurai under a flame tree. I didn't know the floral language of the flame tree is melancholic love.

The two sister cities Naha and Fuzhou jointly created the Fuzhou Garden in 1992 to commemorate the 10th year anniversary of their relations. The garden was based on the basic design of Fuzhou architect. Most of the materials came from Fuzhou, and was completed with Fuzhou technicians' help and service. The area is 8,500 square meters (2.l acres), at the former location of the above mentioned girl’s high school, and destroyed during the war. Three famous mountains of Fuzhou are reflected in the miniature landscape and there is a statue of poet Li Pai holding a Sake cup. It is a very authentic garden in a quiet corner of a busy capital.


Notes:

1. This Kumemura area is where Fujian immigrants settled and their descendents kept tributes to the Ming Dynasty. The Confucius Temple exists nearby. Naha was the commercial center while the Shuri Castle was the political center of hereditary King Sho, who had bitter experiences with Commodore Perry's contacts. King Sho became a Buddhist and a peace seeker. The Kingdom surrendered to the Satsuma clan in Kagoshima and finally yielded to Tokugawa Shogunate.

2. Both Kadena and Pacific Pearls were disbanded when the Iraq War re-erupted. Soldiers were sent to the Middle East. My current contacts with the previous club members are all women. In 2011, the Oki-Orators was newly established as a new Okinawa community Toastmasters. Good luck, Oki-Orators!

3. Joanne Oppenheim, author of Dear Miss Breed, wrote that it was the first time she saw what the poinciana flower looked like in my blog. She was familiar with the flower name from the old song sung by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ahmad Jamal Trio, etc. I didn't know the song, so I checked it out. It goes like this:

"Poinciana, your branches speak to me of love,
Pale moon is casting shadows from above.
Poinciana, somehow I feel the jungle heat,
Within me there grows a rhythmic savage beat."

The music is by Nat Simon, lyrics by Buddy Bernier.

I found also the city named Poinciana in central Florida, near Orlando - an area that is growing rapidly.

4. According to Wikipedia, the flowering season differs in different countries.

* South Florida: May–June
* Vietnam: May–July
* Caribbean: May–September
* India, Pakistan, Bangladesh: April–June
* Australia: December–February
* Northern Mariana Islands: March–June
* United Arab
* Brazil: November–February
* Southern Sudan: March–May
* Thailand: April–May
* Zimbabwe: October–December"

5. The flame tree I saw in Mexico was in Cuernavaca. My friend in Morelia, Michoacan told me there were no flame trees there. Poinciana is also the name in Spanish. Morelia, Michoacan is 214 km or 150 miles from Cuernavaca, Morelos.

Revisiting Little Tokyo / Japanese American National Museum

On my recent trip to Little Tokyo branch library in Los Angeles, notices for two fund-raising campaigns were posted - one to build a Ryoma Sakamoto statute and the other to save Bunichi Kagawa's poem epitaph.

Ryoma Sakamoto (1836-1867), a legendary Meiji Restoration icon, who attempted to organize a peaceful revolution, but instead was assassinated, is one of the best loved historical figures of Japan today. Ryoma, a visionary Samurai, who deserted Tosa-Clan, conceived the first trading company and ocean support fleet, and believed all men are created equal (he was most likely familiar with the U.S. Declaration of Independence). Some people may think Ryoma's statue in Little Tokyo is not necessary. However, the planning committee sent its mission to Japan and toured cities where Ryoma's statues currently stand, including Sapporo, Kyoto, Nagasaki, and, of course, Kochi, where Ryoma was born. The mission returned with the tour report and had a meeting in late February. My guess is that the Association of Immigrants from Kochi Prefecture is deeply involved.

Bunichi Kagawa (1904 -1981) was a poet, essayist, and critic who started concentration camp magazines in the Japanese language during World War II. His friends, supporters, and Nanka Bungei (Southern California literature publishers) collectively, raised $20,000 and built the poem epitaph on his behalf in one corner of Honda Plaza in January 2006, but is now in danger of removal by the death of the land owner, leading to a possible title transfer. On March 11, a multi-faceted meeting was held, which included Bunichi's poem recitation, local Japanese American children's poems encouraging 311 Tohoku Quake/Tsunami victims, lecture by Prof. Kumei of Shirayuri University in Chofu, Tokyo who stressed the pioneering role of Kagawa in Japanese immigrant's literature.

Little Tokyo has another rare statue we Japanese can no longer see in Japan, of Kinjiro Ninomiya as a teen, carrying firewood on this back and reading a book, symbolizing the virtue of diligence. Ninomiya later became a prominent 19th century agricultural leader. There are also World War ll and Korean War Memorials in the San Pedro street Memorial Court.

I read that the Community Redevelopment Agency and the CC&R requires developers to assign and fulfill 1.25% for public art and statues like Kinjiro, Isamu Noguchi's stone sculpture, Friendship Knot, Astrononaut Onizuka's Memorial, which should fall within the guidelines and they should include maintenance costs. I heard Bunichi Kagawa's poem epitaph costs $100 per month for maintenance.

My daughter accompanied me to the Japanese American National Museum. We walked to Honda Plaza to see the Bunichi Kagawa's poem epitaph.

We found Kagawa's poem "The Sea Shines" printed on both sides – Japanese in front and the English translation by Masayuki Arai in the back.

The translation reads:

"My poverty saddens me at times
but at home they increase in number,
bit by bit.
(sung by Shizu Aida, aka Mrs. Kagawa)

Seen from the Hills, the sea is green
A color like the cucumbers we grew in the summer
Running so bitterness
All day long, the sea stabs
At my dry pupils
I have lived here for four years already.
Poverty, too, belongs to me
I have come to tell myself
Facing straight toward the bitter sea

My wife!
The sea shines today also
Embracing the land in which man lives
The sea shines keenly"

Bunichi arrived at Palo Alto in 1918 to join his father from Eastern Yamaguchi facing the Seto Inland Sea. He studied English and poetry on his own while living and working at Stanford University dorm. By age 25, he published his first anthology "Hidden Flame" with the foreword by Yvor Winters (poet, critic and scholar at Stanford University). Apparently this anthology was lost and possibly no longer exists. While thumbing through another Kagawa anthology republished in Japanese in 2006 in Oakland, I found Bunichi poems which were sung at the camp in Manzanar and at Tule Lake. Seemingly he spent time in both camps.

I have visited JANM many times, but it was my daughter’s first visit and she was enthused to see the exhibits. While touring the library camp exhibits, we were lucky to encounter Roy Kakuda, a volunteer docent. Roy had spent his youth at Poston Camp 1 in Arizona. Camp Poston, at its fullest, imprisoned a population of 17,814. The internees who corresponded with Miss Breed were in Camp 111. Roy Kakuda gave us a true-to-life graphic story using his brand new iPad. We intently listened to him, totally mesmerized.