Located in Broome – a pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia – the Broome Japanese Cemetery is an interesting piece of local history. It is a tribute to the contribution that the Japanese made to Broome and it’s pearling industry and also a sentimental reminder of the dangers of the early days of pearl diving.

The first recorded burial in the cemetery dates back to 1896 and is the final resting place for over 900 Japanese pearl divers who sacrificed their lives plying their trade in the lucrative pearling industry. The majority of deaths commemorated in the cemetery resulted from the bends (divers paralysis) or drowning.

The cemetery is an immaculately restored heritage icon with unique headstones crafted out of coloured beach rocks and inscribed in Japanese. There are also a number of unmarked graves scattered throughout the cemetery.

Specialist divers from Japan flocked to Broome in the late nineteenth century to harvest oysters and became an indispensable part of the industry until World War II. Many of these divers originated from Wakayama (southern part of Japan’s Honshu island). People from this region of Japan are historically famous for their abilities as fisherman and divers.

Ironically, Broome was attacked by Japanese aircraft on 3 March 1942.

Where’s Broome?

Nestled alongside the Indian Ocean, Broome is situated in the far north of Western Australia.

LLP.

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A submission to the September 2011 J-Festa with the theme “Events in Japan“.

The Namamugi Incident was a samurai assault on foreign nationals in Japan on September 14, 1862, which resulted in the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863, during the Late Tokugawa shogunate. It started out with a samurai attack on British nationals, ended up with the British engaging war on a province of Japan and has an interesting side piece on how the Japanese national flag was adopted.

Body of Charles Richardson, 1862

Charles Lennox Richardson, a British merchant and his three companions were travelling along the Tōkaidō road through the village of Namamugi. On the road they passed a 1,000 man procession of the daimyō (feudal lord) of the province of Satsuma, Shimazu Hisamitsu. The custom at the time was to stop and dismount when passing a daimyō as it was not permissible to overtake somebody with such a high status. Richardson and his crew apparently ignored the custom and refused orders. This was viewed as disrespect of the daimyō so the party were attacked by Shimazu’s guards. Richardson was killed and two of his companions seriously injured.

Monument at the site that Charles Lennox Richardson was murdered

In response, the British government protested and demanded restitution for the attack on British nationals from both the Government and from the Daimyō of Satsuma including the arrest and trial of the perpetrators of the outrage. The Shogunate were quick to capitulate and indemnified Britain for the loss paying a large bounty. However, the daimyō remained defiant refusing Britain’s demands. He argued that under Japanese custom disrespect to a daimyō was sanctioned by the immediate death of those showing disrespect. Legally, this claim was invalid, as foreigners in Japan benefited from extraterritoriality (the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law) meaning that Japanese customary law did not apply to foreigners.

Portrait of Hisamitsu Shimazu

This sparked what is often referred to as the Anglo-Satsuma war. After protracted and fruitless negotiations with Satsuma, a squadron from the British Royal Navy, trying to exact a payment from the daimyō of Satsuma following the Namamugi Incident, engaged the province of Satsuma a year later in a naval bombardment of the city of Kagoshima on August 15, 1863.

The bombardment claimed just five lives among the people of Satsuma, and 13 lives among the British. Material losses were more considerable with around 5% of Kagoshima’s urban area ravished by fire and a number of Satsuma’s steamships destroyed.

Each side recorded the result as a victory. Satsuma’s claim was that the British did not land troops or seize cannons. Nevertheless, the show of British military prowess appeared to impress Satsuma as following the conflict Britain and Satsuma developed closer relations and became major allies.

Bits and pieces

• Namamugi, meaning “raw wheat”, is a neighbourhood of Yokohama. These days the township of Namamugi plays host to the Kirin Brewery Yokohama and raw wheat is, of course, an ingredient of beer.

• 

  During the Bombardment of Kagoshima the Satsuma fleet fought under a flag with the hinomaru design. Hinomaru, meaning “sun disc”, has a white background with a large crimson red circle set in the middle. The British who saw the flag assumed it was the Japanese national flag. Word spread and the flag became internationally recognised as the flag of Japan.

• The 1993 historical fiction novel by James Clavell, Gai-Jin, is loosely based on the Namamugi Incident.

• “Nama-mugi, nama-gome, nama-tamago” (raw wheat, raw rice, raw egg) is a famous Japanese tongue twister.

LLP.

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Image source: Michael John Grist

These rebels without a cause can be found in Harajuku’s Yoyogi Park on a Sunday decked out in retro threads, donning psychobilly pompadours and towering quiffs, and gyrating to a boombox blasting rockabilly tunes of yesteryear as if Elvis had never left the building.

Image source: Lars Borges

The rockabilly style first emerged in Japan in 1958 when thousands of teenagers, heavily influenced by the new “rockabilly” music that had recently swept the U.S., fashioned a so-called “rokabiri-bumu” (rockabilly boom), the first popular culture movement of post-Occupation Japan.

Image source: Flickr

The influence of this musical genre and its fanatical following proved short-lived with the style waning in the 1960s, but during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a major revival of popularity reappearing on the streets of Harajuku.

Image source: Flickr

Harajuku had become a mecca for youth and youth fashion and saw groups of teenagers, such as the “takenoko-zoku” (bamboo shoot tribe), convened on the streets dressed in garish clothes and dancing to portable music. Within this landscape fifties nostalgia was resurrected and the rock ‘n’ roller relics of a bygone era, precursors to the new wave urban tribes – the gothic lolita and cosplayers – have been entertaining onlookers in Yoyogi Park ever since.

Image source: Grizzly Bear Modern

The official music video for “Nothing To Worry About” by Swedish indie rock band Peter Bjorn and John from their album Living Thing features the Tokyo Rockabilly Club in Yoyogi Park.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwcaQ3qJ88U

LLP.

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The celebration of the full moon typically takes place on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the old lunar calendar, which is in September or early October in the Gregorian calendar. Known as jugoya (full moon night) or chushu no meigetsu (beautiful mid-autumn moon), this is when the moon is at its fullest and roundest. Following are a few traditions that relate to the celebration of the mid-autumn harvest moon.

Tsukimi Dango

Tsukimi Dango are Japanese dumplings made from mochiko (rice flour) and are traditional food for Jugoya moon viewing. Rolled into moon-shaped, bite-sized balls, they are boiled or steamed and are usually presented in a pyramid-shaped pile. Along with taro and pampas grass, these little dumplings are traditionally offered to the full moon on the most auspicious moon-viewing day.

Tsukimi Soba

Tsukimi Soba (“moon-viewing soba”) are thin noodles made from buckwheat flour and served in hot broth as a noodle soup and garnished with nori (seaweed) and a raw egg that poaches in the hot soup. The buckwheat noodle resemble the sky at night whilst the egg yolk represents the moon surrounded by a thin milky egg white cloud floating freely in the sky.

Tsukimi Burger

Each year McDonald’s in Japan releases a popular limited time menu item, the Tsukimi Burger (月見バーガー, literally moon-viewing burger), which is available only during Autumn. The Tsukimi Burger is a hamburger that contains a poached egg with the yolk representing the moon on an egg white sky, a hamburger patty, bacon and a special teriyaki-like sauce.

Susuki

Susuki (also known as Japanese pampas grass, Japanese silver grass or Eulalia), is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant. During the celebration of tsukimi, vases filled with flower arrangements using susuki, which comes into ears by this season, and other autumnal herbs are offered to the full moon on Jugoya as a symbol of thankfulness for the harvest.

Satoimo

Satoimo (also known as taro) is a tropical root that has a strong association with tsukimi as it is at its best at this time of the year. It had been introduced to Japan from southern China and Southeast Asia, and was a regular part of the Japanese diet. In the eighteenth century, regular offerings to the moon and gods included boiled satoimo, and Otsukimi also became known as imo-meigetsu, or taro moon.

Moon Rabbit

Rabbits are always connected with the moon in Japan. In Japanese folklore the Moon Rabbit is a rabbit that lives on the moon making mochi (rice cake) based upon markings on the moon, that observers perceive in the bright disc of the full moon, that look like a rabbit pounding in a mortar and pestle. The Western perception is that there is a man in the moon based upon an imaginary figure resembling a human face.

LLP.

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Yoshitoshi's The Ghost of Okiku at the Dish Mansion

As the tale goes, Okiku was a beautiful servant maid who worked for the samurai Tessan Aoyama. Aoyama attempted to seduce Okiku making amorous advances, which she rejected. In anger, he hid a precious ceramic plate that belonged to a treasured collection of ten heirloom plates. He then ordered Okiku to fetch the plates and count them in front of him. She counted only nine plates. Aoyama blamed the loss of the plate on Okiku however, as a concession, he offered to overlook the small matter of the missing heirloom if she relented and became his mistress. Okiku again refused and so an enraged Aoyama killed her, disposing her body down a well.

The vengeful spirit of the hapless Okiku tormented and tortured her murderer as a ghost from the afterlife. Each night she was heard from the depths of the well obsessively counting from one to nine, after which she gave a heartrending wail. Desperately trying to find the missing tenth plate she would begin counting again.

As well as being famous Japanese folklore, the story of Okiku is also a popular subject for ukiyoue artists. Probably her most famous depiction is her appearance as one of the New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (print above). She was also included by Katsushika Hokusai (check out The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife) as one of the ‘kaidan’ entitled ‘Sarayashiki’ in his One Hundred Tales (Hyaku Monogatari) series (print below).

Image source: Wikipedia

Hokusai's Sarayashiki

The story also forms the basis for a number of books and movies. Most notably the story is also the inspiration for the 1998 Japanese horror mystery film, Ring (リング Ringu) adapted from the novel of the same name.

Fast fact: In 1795, old wells in Japan suffered from an infestation of a type of worm that became known as the “Okiku bug” (Okiku mushi). This worm, covered with thin threads making it look as though it had been bound, was widely believed to be a reincarnation of Okiku.

LLP.

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Philanthropist, volunteer worker and resident of Peru, Scott Jeppesen of the charitable organisation Sonrisas en Peru, explores the fascinating history of Japanese immigration to Peru and the strong influence that Japanese culture has played on various aspects of Peruvian society.

I currently reside in Lima, the capital of Peru. Every day I am faced with some characteristic of Peruvian culture that has been derived from Japanese origins. Urged by curiosity I soon discovered the intriguing story of the Japanese Peruvians, a large ethnic immigrant group in Peru.

The Japanese Peruvians

The Japanese Peruvians are Peruvian citizens of Japanese ethnic origin. They constitute around 0.3% of Peru’s population (estimated at nearly 90,000 in 2008) which is the second largest population of people with Japanese ancestry in Latin America after Brazil.

Peru was the first Latin American country to accept Japanese immigration. Back in 1899 the first wave of 790 Japanese immigrants arrived at the Peruvian seaport Callao aboard the “Sakura Maru” from the Japanese port of Yokohama and thus spawned the Nikkei ethnicity in Latin America.

The Sakura Maru

Most notably, Japanese Peruvians were brought to the world’s attention in 1990 by the election of Alberto Fujimori, son of Japanese immigrants and the 90th president of Peru. Fujimori was the first person of Asian descent to become president of a Western country.

Alberto Ken'ya Fujimori

Immigration To Peru

Peru and Japan have held close ties for well over a century. They established diplomatic relations in 1883 making Peru the first country in Latin American, and tenth country in the world, to establish this kind of formal link with Japan.

But what prompted the Japanese to migrate to Peru?

In the later half of the 19th century the Meiji Restoration brought an end to feudalism in Japan generating great poverty in its rural population and causing a surplus of skilled farmers. Seeking relief from the increasing unrest of the agrarian class, the Japanese government saw emigration as a tool to relieve some of the suffering caused by the nation’s rapid modernization during the Meiji era.

Japanese Peruvian farmer Carlos Chiyoteru Hiraoka and his wife Rosa Torres

The first Japanese settlers to arrive in Peru were primarily Japanese farmers escaping impoverished conditions in Japan’s rural areas. Most left Japan to work as contract laborers on Peru’s coastal sugar and cotton plantations who were suffering a labor shortage at the time. The Japanese arrived with a sojourner mentality or temporary intentions, that is, the dream of finding wealth in a faraway land and a view to eventually return home with their hard earned savings.

Based on statistics from Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 33,070 Japanese had emigrated to Peru by 1941

Settlement In Peru

When the Japanese immigrants arrived on the Peruvian farms and plantations, life was not as expected. They were subjected to hours of exhaustive work and often suffered physical violence. As a result, many Japanese immigrants abandoned their jobs or fled. Those Japanese who fulfilled their contracts remained free and went to the cities where they started small businesses that required little capital, such as stores, hairdresser shops, small coffee shops, or restaurants. Others opted to work as gardeners or household servants for wealthy families.

"Bodega Naka" - Japanese Peruvian store in Lima

Over time the Japanese Peruvians evolved into a dominating part of the Peruvian economy, but their growing success led to other problems.

Insularity And Racialisation

Rather than assimilating into Peruvian society the Japanese isolated themselves, lived in separate communities and generally only associated with other Japanese. They sent their children to Japanese-language schools and continued many practices typical of Japanese culture.

As the Japanese in Peru became economically successful, the Peruvians saw the Japanese as a threat that ultimately festered into a racist attitude towards the Japanese which led to discrimination not only at a social level, but eventually at a political level.

Japanese Peruvians

In 1940 riots broke out in Lima and Callao instigated by anti Japanese Peruvian sentiment that left 10 Japanese Peruvians dead, hundreds injured and numerous Japanese Peruvian businesses and homes destroyed. The Peruvian government reacted to the riots by suspending future immigration rights to the Japanese and by taking away the citizenship of native-born Japanese Peruvians.

The WWII Internment

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, the United States reached an agreement with the government of Peru and 1,771 Japanese Peruvians were deported from Peru to the United States and were interned for the duration of the war in American internment camps. At the conclusion of the war, the Peruvian government refused to allow the detainees to return.

Most detainees, fearing never being able to return to Peru accepted transportation back to Japan. The rest stayed in the US where they eventually obtained US citizenship.

Japanese Peruvians in the Panama Canal en route to U.S. Internment Camps in 1942.

Japanese Peruvians in the internment camp in Texas

The Japanese In Peru Today

The Japanese Peruvians have made a substantial impact on the economic and cultural diversity of Peru. Today, they are basically a closed society with a tremendous pride in preserving traditional values and Japanese culture and heritage. They have managed to maintain a strong attachment to Peru but without abandoning their Japanese roots.

The embedded video below shows a slideshow of an amazing collection of historical images of the Japanese Peruvian people.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayaQcBjuFLg

Sources:

• Wikipedia – Japanese Peruvians
• Discover Nikkei

Please take the opportunity to visit my website Sonrisas en Peru, meaning “smiles in Peru” in Spanish. It is an organisation dedicated to improving the lives of under-privileged children in rural Peru.

LLP.

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The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

A movie was made about Katsushika Hokusai called Hokusai Manga (aka Edo Porn). Below is a scene from the movie.

Hokusai Manga

Artists over the years and across cultures have seemingly been inspired by this piece of artwork and have attempted their own interpretations. Australian artist David Laity created a storm when he exhibited his interpretation.

The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife by David Laity

Norwegian sculpture Rune Olsen examined censorship in society and within ourselves with For Everything I Long to Do, based on Hokusai’s Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.

Rune Olsen's representation of The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife

In 2001, Masami Teraoka painted Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven.

Masami Teraoka's Sarah and Octopus/Seventh Heaven

Katsushika Hokusai is often considered the grandfather of Japan’s hugely popular hentai genre of anime and manga, tentacle rape or shokushu goukan (触手強姦), where women are attacked and penetrated by tentacled creatures.

LLP.

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Hiroshima is the first city in history subjected to nuclear warfare when the nuclear weapon ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on the city by the B-29 bomber Enola Gay on August 6, 1945 during World War II. The city was destroyed and an estimated 80,000 people were directly killed by the bomb.

Following are some of the monuments and memorials found in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park:

A-Bomb Dome

The A-Bomb Dome, almost the hypocenter of the atomic bomb blast, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The uranium bomb detonated almost directly above this building. Surprisingly, the skeletal remains are one of only a few buildings to survive the blast.

Hiroshima Peace Memorial, commonly called the Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome

Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound

A grassy knoll that contains the ashes of 70,000 unidentifed victims of the bomb.

Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound

Children’s Peace Monument

A statue dedicated to the memory of the children who died as a result of the bombing. Inspired by the true story of Sadako Sasaki , a young girl who died from radiation from the bomb, who believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would be cured. Unfortunately she never reached her goal and, to this day, children from around the world fold cranes and send them to Hiroshima where they are placed at this monument.

Children's Peace Monument

The Peace Flame

Burned continuously since it was lit in 1964, it is said that it will remain lit until all nuclear bombs on the planet are destroyed.

The Peace Flame

Memorial Cenotaph

Representing a shelter for the souls of the victims the cenotaph holds the names of all of the people killed by the bomb. The Peace Flame and A-Bomb Dome can be seen through this monument.

Memorial Cenotaph

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Dedicated to educating visitors about the bomb, the following two images had a long-standing effect showing the contrast of the city of Hiroshima before and after destruction.

Hiroshima Before Destruction

Hiroshima After Destruction

Check out some further photos over at Neil Duckett’s site.

LLP.

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Hachikō was a real dog who faithfully waited for his owner at Shibuya Station. His story was popularised by the demonstration of a dog’s unyielding loyalty and devotion to a departed master.

The Hachikō Statue

Hachikō

The dog was born in 1923 and owned by Hidesaburō Ueno, a professor at the University of Tokyo. Hachikō’s ritual was to wait at Shibuya Station each day for his master to return from work. One day, in 1925, Professor Ueno suffered a stroke and never returned.

The Hachiko Entrance at Shibuya Station

Hachikō mural on wall at Shibuya Station

For the next 10 years, until his own death, Hachikō sadly kept vigil over Shibuya Station waiting for his master to return.

The dog has been immortalised as a bronze statue, the Hachikō Statue, erected in 1934 (Hachikō was present at the unveiling). His stuffed and mounted remains are kept at the National Science Museum of Japan in Ueno, Tokyo.

Hachikō has been the inspiration of a number of movies, notably Hachiko: A Dog’s Story starring Richard Gere. Also, the 1987 Japanese movie Hachikō Monogatari.

Hachiko: A Dog's Story

Hachiko Monogatari

Below is the music video, Bittersweet (by Within Temptation), which features scenes from the movie Hachikō Monogatari.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3s11acb7Z8

LLP.

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