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Serving As Your Voice of the Nikkei Community Since 1902
Vol. 63, Issue 21 / May 14, 2008
Tea Master Presents One Green Bowl for Peace
By Shihou Sasaki
The North American Post
Genshitsu Sen explains a tea ceremony tool to Consul General Mitsunori Namba, Urasenke Tankokai President Tomio Moriguchi and his wife Jenny.
Photo by Shihou Sasaki
 | In a four-and-half-tatami-mat space, the room for tea ceremony is created equally balanced between water and fire, darkness and brightness or humanity and nature.
In the small and simple room, each person receives a bowl of tea from a server, the host of the ceremony. And having the bowl by both hands, a theme of chado (tea ceremony) can be seen. It's not a technique but a spirit.
It is simple, yet, very deep - and peaceful.
"A bowl is the earth, and tea inside the bowl is green, nature," said Genshitsu Sen, former Grand Master of Chado Urasenke. "You drink the nature of earth. At the same time, you would assimilate with nature. That's what I want you to feel."
The 85-year master visited Seattle to celebrate the Chado Urasenke Tankokai Seattle Association's 37th anniversary early this week. He was welcomed by over 120 Urasenke members in the Seattle area this Sunday at Fairmont Olympic Hotel Seattle. He lectured the chado at University of Washington Henry Art Museum this Monday and Seattle Asian Art Museum this Tuesday.
He was also invited by Consul General Mitsunori Namba's official residence this Monday.
Genshitsu Sen
Photo by Shihou Sasaki
 | According to him, this Seattle visit was his fifth time including the first demonstration in Japan Trade Fair in 1951 and dedication of Shoseian at Seattle Japanese Garden and establishment of the chado course at the University of Washington in 1981.
The 1951 visit to Seattle had a great impact on the community including young Nisei (second generation Japanese American). Florence Sumida, 75, was one among the audience at the demonstration.
"It was hard to connect to something," she said. "There was nothing I have ever seen before. It was so fancy and looked so great. I really enjoyed looking at it, and really wanted to learn."
She went back home and told her Nisei mother that she wanted to learn tea. Next year, she joined a local tea association instructed by Kiyomi Ohtani, a tea and flower arrangement instructor in Seattle since pre-World War II. Genshitsu Sen recalled that the Ohtani's dedication to the local chado was a big help in 1951.
Learning chado means to understand many aspects of Japanese culture, Genshitsu Sen said, that includes ceramics, calligraphy, flower arrangement and even kimono.
"It could be the easiest way [to experience Japanese culture]," he added. "It's very special to see how Americans are interested in Japanese culture. They are willing to learn Japanese culture. They wear kimono while Japanese tend to wear business a suit or follow the western culture."
According to Steven Collins, president of the Urasenke Foundation Seattle Branch as well as a University of Washington Bothell professor, the university's chado course has been successful in that about 90 students study the theory of the chado each year.
Serving in the Japanese Imperial Navy during World War II as a Kamikaze pilot, Genshitsu Sen was one of two survivors in his unit.
"I have survived for 63 years since then," the pacifist said. "My strong commitment is promoting peace through tea."
As Japan-U.N. Goodwill Ambassador since September 2005, Genshitsu Sen has demonstrated Chado elsewhere in the world including in a desert in Africa, on a top of a mountain, on a glacier and even in Afghanistan. Last month, he was invited to demonstrate at United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
"It does not matter to do tea ceremony on the tatami-mat or even on a chair," he said. "For example, everybody uses fork, knife and also they have no worry to use chopsticks in America. It's going to be one world."
And he hopes the tea, chado spirits, can help for the world peace.
"A bowl of tea," he continued. "Tea has a lot of green. I want you to be 'green people' to appreciate the earth."
Bainbridge Memorial Tied to Minidoka
By Shihou Sasaki
The North American Post
Click photo to enlarge
 | A memorial site on Bainbridge Island is now legally a part of the national park. President George W. Bush signed bill S. 2739 last Thursday regarding an expansion of national parks including making the island's Nidoto Nai Yoni memorial center a part of Minidoka National Monument.
This action "adjusts the boundary of the Minidoka National Monument to include the Nidoto Nai Yoni Memorial commemorating the Japanese Americans of Bainbridge Island, Washington, who were the first to be forcibly removed from their homes and relocated to internment camps during World War II," the bill states.
As the first group of Japanese Americans, who were evacuated by President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, the Bainbridge Island Japanese community has tried to build a memorial site at the old Eagledale ferry landing, where the island Nikkei were evacuated on Mar. 31, 1942.
"It's symbolic what happened to everybody," said Frank Kitamoto, the president of Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community. "It's a national monument that people can learn about what happened."
He added that the memorial is not only for a few hundred Nikkei or the island community but also for all persons who recognize the human rights as well as the importance of "Let It Not Happen Again." The site will be reachable for the Puget Sound residents although their campsites are hundreds miles away.
The memorial site project is still on going, but the funding problem postponed building a story wall including names and stories of 272 Bainbridge Island Nikkei before the evacuation.
"A lot of people are dying, especially a lot of Nisei died this year," Kitamoto said. "It's pretty important that we try to get it done as soon as we can."
REMEMBERING PAUL OHTAKI, "A MODEST LITTLE GIANT OF A MAN"
By Gerald Elfendahl
For the North American Post
Paul Ohtaki
 |
Paul Ohtaki, 84, passed away on Sunday, April 27, in San Francisco where he'd spent most of his adult life. Bainbridge Island had been his home, too. He once was a reporter for the Bainbridge Review.
Paul was a soft spoken, gentle man, somewhat shy, humble and very bright. "An upright guy," his childhood friend Shig Moritani would say.
My wife and I first met Ohtaki in 1996 in the Bay area. I liked Paul immediately. We spent the day talking, reminiscing about the Island where he grew up. We almost missed our plane home. We corresponded.
Paul's father was born in Nigata, Japan, and left Waseda University in Tokyo to seek the dream of America. Though life here was a struggle, he never returned. Paul described his parents as "educated non-farmers." Paul had a brother (an executive with NW and Japan Airlines) and a sister. All are gone now.
The family lived on the north side of Shepard Way in a residence adjoining the Japanese Community Hall in Winslow. Paul's parents were caretakers of the hall and teachers there.
Kay Nakao recalls, "Mrs. Ohtaki taught me how to read and write Japanese."
Paul had judo lessons in the hall with neighbor kids - Moritanis, Nishimoris, Kouras. He was in the Bainbridge HS class of 1942.
Ohtaki was hired in 1940 by new Review editors, Walt and Milly Woodward, to do clean up work in their Pleasant Beach print shop.
"I wasn't really that serious," Paul said, " but every Friday, I would drive down there in an old Model A truck. Walt called me 'the clean up kid.'"
When the WW II internment order came, the Woodwards made sure uprooted Island neighbors were not forgotten. Paul was sworn in as "camp correspondent"-- the first of five reporting from Manzanar, CA, and, later, from Minidoka, ID.
Ohtaki recalled Woodward saying, "'Paul, you gotta report the news. When you go down (to California), I want you to send me a wire.' (Woodward) made arrangements with one soldier. I'd give it to the soldier and the soldier would get it to the Associated Press and send it by wire. That's how they got the first article."
"In the beginning, I didn't feel Walt was a friend. (He was) a very honorable person, but I don't think he intermingled and socialized with the Japanese. It might have started out that way. "
From camp, Paul could go east, but not west. After receiving his high school diploma at Manzanar, he turned his reporter job over to Tony Koura and went to Chicago to find work. Because he knew what a print shop looked like, he sought work as a printer, little knowing he'd spend his life in the printing business. Prospective employers needed references.
"I was using Walt Woodward's name, (BHS coach) Walter Miller and (our neighbors) the Cumles, as references. I never knew companies would write and ask them (about me). Years later, I wrote to the National Archives ... and found copies of letters that Walt had written on my behalf and from Miller and Mrs. Cumle, too!"
"There is only one other newspaper (than the Review) that said the evacuation was wrong- The Orange County Register - a good paper! It had one, maybe a couple, editorials. But Walt not only wrote editorials, he kept camp reporters throughout the war ..."
Tony Koura notes, " Paul asked me to take over as correspondent when he left for Chicago. When I finished high school a half-year later, I passed the job over to my late sister Sa (Nakata), a classmate of Paul's . In Chicago I batched with Paul and others from Bainbridge. He introduced me to my first parttime job in a printshop where he worked.
In July, 1944, Paul joined his friends in volunteering the Army. He was sent to Minnesota to military intelligence Japanese language school.
"Talk about a good school, they taught us how to speak, read, write, history- normal and military - Japanese psychology, and all that stuff, getting us ready for the invasion of Japan."
Ohtaki served in the Military Intelligence Service in the Phillipines and with occupation forces in Japan. He was modest and almost embarrassed to wear the label "intelligence service." Paul would say, "The real heroes were guys like Mo Nakata and Art Koura who fought with the 4-4-2 in Europe."
Last February, Paul wrote, "A new book, "Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the MIS during WW II" by James C. McNaughton, PhD, is the most thorough and true (about his service).
"I really feel that I want to go back (to Bainbridge)," Paul told us in 1996, " even if its symbolic, to say 'Thank You!' to the old people, but most have passed away. "
He did return out of curiosity "too briefly"while attending a 1995 MIS reunion in Seattle). He wanted to see what his former community had become after a half century. He apologized, "I just tore right through and only saw a few friends." He returned again for the funeral of his one time boss and long time friend, Walt Woodward, at which time Paul thanked many old friends at a reception.
"Our family were newcomers," Paul said gratefully. "We received at lot of help from the Moritani, Nakata, Nakao and Sakuma families; other Japanese pioneers; the Grow families, our neighbors the Cumles, Oaklands, Smiths, Olivers, Henshaws, Wyatts; and high school teachers, such as Miss Statira Biggs, Roy Dennis, "Pop" Miller, and Phil Rudl. "
Ohtaki praised many acts of kindness. "Lavonne Oakland - she's an Ericksen - when I was ready to be discharged from the service, she said, "We have this room in the back of our shop. There's nobody back there now. You can use it, commute and use your G. I. Bill to go to school and maybe work part time. Those are things that I wanted to tell. I tried to get the story read into the Congressional Record."
"Paul devoted his later years to publicizing and commemorating Walt and Milly Woodwards' supreme efforts to defend our Constitutional and moral rights to be treated the same as all Americans," Tony Koura states, "And, by extension, to prevent this injustice from ever happening to any other specific group of Americans."
Paul created a book It Was the Right Thing to Do from correspondence and news articles of the Bainbridge Island internment experience for the Island's Museum and other friends. It helped inspire Mary Woodward's upcoming book In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story (Pre-sales by Eagle Harbor Book Co., 206-842-5332).
"Paul spent a great deal of time, money and effort in researching and compiling his book, having it printed, and mailing copies. His work contributed to the first chapter of In Good Conscience: Supporting Japanese-Americans During the Internment, by The Kansha Project and Shizue Seigel... I'll miss this modest 'Little Giant of a man.' "
Ohtaki's sister-in-law, Barbara (Setsuko) Ishikawa recalls. "Paul used to say that he was so proud of Bainbridge Island."
Paul is survived by his wife, Kitty. A public memorial will be held 2 PM, Sunday, May 18 at the Ashley & McMullen Mortuary, 4200 Geary Blvd., San Francisco. Remembrances are suggested to the Bainbridge Is. Nikkei Memorial, PO Box 10355, B. Is., WA, 98110.
Greater Seattle Japanese Community Queen Scholarship Pageant set for May 24, 2008
Three area women make up 2008 court
(L to R) Michaela Satomi Kusumi, Erina Tami Aoyama, Amber Renee Minato-Mines
The 49th annual Greater Seattle Japanese Community Queen Scholarship Pageant is set for 7 p.m., Saturday, May 24, 2008, at the Museum of History and Industry, 2700 - 24th Ave. E., near Husky Stadium in Seattle. For tickets, call (206)669-2535.
Biographical Information - 2008 Contestants
Erina Tami Aoyama
Birth date: May 18, 1988
Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
Parents: Lori Sumi and Masaru Aoyama
High School: Roosevelt High School, Seattle
College: University of Washington
Major: International Studies
Talent: Flute
Michaela Satomi Kusumi
Birth date: September 17, 1989
Birthplace: Redmond, Washington
Parents: Jean Okamoto and Raymond Kusumi
High School: Hazen High School, Renton
College: University of Washington (Fall 2008)
Major: Pre-major
Talent: Odori (Japanese classical dance)
Amber Renee Minato-Mines
Birth date: February 5, 1988
Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
Parents: Marilyn Minato
High School: Franklin High School, Seattle
College: Western Washington University
Major: Pre-major
Talent: Singing
| This year's three contestants are Erina Tami Aoyama, Michaela Satomi Kusumi, and Amber Renee Minato-Mines. Aoyama, 20, is a student at the University of Washington, Kusumi, 18, is a senior at Renton's Hazen High School, and Minato-Mines, 20, is a student at Western Washington University.
The Greater Seattle Japanese Community Queen Scholarship Program is open to young collegiate Japanese-American women of the greater Seattle region. The contestants are offered scholarships, prizes, and the opportunity to enhance their cultural and community awareness. Each year a community panel selects a queen based on her academic achievement, leadership skills, community involvement, personal accomplishments, self-expression, communication skills and creativity. The queen is given two titles: The Greater Seattle Japanese Community Queen and the Seattle Cherry Blossom and Japanese Cultural Festival Queen. The court is made up of the queen and the other two contestants.
Throughout the year, the queen and her court represent the Greater Seattle Japanese community at numerous local community events as well as at the Cherry Blossom Festivals in San Francisco and Honolulu, and the Nisei Week Japanese Festival in Los Angeles. The queen also represents the Japanese community in the Seafair Scholarship Program for Women in July, and the annual Kobe Festival next May in Seattle's sister city, Kobe, Japan.
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