Kizuna 2020: Nikkei Kindness and Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic

When my Facebook friend suggested a submission for Discover Nikkei’s Oshogatsu photo activity, it simply opened up a floodgate of cherished memories. In my family everyone calls me Scrooge MacDuck because I dread the Christmas hype, from gift giving to tree decorations, cookie-baking, and the card exchanges that for me, are simply “over the top.” Oshogatsu, on the other hand, is something I love and anticipate each year. Oshogatsu—the way my family celebrates it—is an event imposed by me in reverse to my family as if in repentance for the Christmas extravagances.

It dawned on me some ...

During the last week of October, there was a lot on my mind, including Covid-19 and the ongoing pandemic, and of course the November U.S. elections. But I also found myself at a moment in time, looking back one year that week to a 2019 family trip to Japan, and looking forward to next year with the hopes that we’ll be able to return.

Longtime readers know I was born in Japan and moved to the U.S. when I was a kid. You also know that I always advocate for Americans – and especially Japanese Americans – to travel ...

Located in Seattle, the Japanese Cultural & and Community Center of Washington (JCCCW) offers many quality programs to fulfill its mission, “To build and grow a central gathering place for sharing and promoting Japanese and Japanese American culture and heritage.” Our programs include community events, the Northwest Nikkei Museum, and the Seattle Japanese Language School, the oldest Japanese language school in North America.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, most of these programs went online in 2020. One of our popular events, “Bunka no Hi” (Japanese Culture Day), was among them. In previous years, we shared cultural performances such as taiko (Japanese ...

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Gaman (我慢) is a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”. The term is generally translated as “perseverance”, “patience”, or “tolerance.”

— From Wikipedia

Nobody likes hanging in a state of uncertainty.

One of the real blessings of being able to practice any kind of art at this time is that it gives us a point on which to focus. If you’ve ever practiced a martial art, you know that breathing deeply is important as a source of power and control, the head stuff just gets in the ...

What began last March as a few months of social distancing has now turned into the prospect of long-term isolation as COVID19 increases at a staggering rate. As a proud member of the senior population considered “high risk,” I can personally attest to the stresses and strains of home confinement.

Perhaps the greatest deprivation has been the loss of social interaction except for who we can see on a phone or computer screen — with Skype, FaceTime, and Zoom becoming regular activities, not to mention rising to Webster dictionary status of actual verbs. I still yearn for the social connections that ...