Sister Cities

For the most eventful part of that weekend for me, see previous post.

June 5 — After the re-signing ceremony and reception, I was finally off the hook. I wandered over to Pioneer Place mall with some of the Sapporo delegation. (I think we did lose some people, but I don’t blame them; they’d just gotten off the plane from Japan that morning, and this was the longest flight some of them had ever taken.)

Now it was time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the children’s art exhibit that was in place in the mall atrium. There were more speeches — Mayor Fumio Ueda and former Portland Mayor Tom Potter. The English to Japanese translator for this event seemed much more at ease in her formal Japanese than I was — I’m guessing she’d spent much longer than my own 4 years in Japan — though at one point, she did get carried away and read her translation ahead of what Tom Potter was saying…again, translating is hard.

The children’s art from Sapporo was actually fairly intriguing. They seemed to be in two categories: features of Sapporo (snow, landmarks such as the government building and the clock tower, etc.), and — strangely enough for June — explanations of New Year’s in Japan. Mostly by fourth and fifth graders, they were a hell of a lot better than anything I could draw at that age, or even now, for that matter.

June 6 — I participated in the Grand Floral Walk, which kicks off the Grand Floral Parade, the main event of the Portland Rose Festival. I’d volunteered to help carry the banner for a Sapporo-related youth group, which I didn’t know anything about until I talked to some people that day. Apparently there’s an international youth summit that takes place in Sapporo, and this was a reunion of sorts for former participants.
Afterward, they kindly treated us to lunch at Todai, where I stuffed myself with sushi and those cute little cakes I love so much there.

June 7 — A light day for me in terms of Sister City involvement. I sat at the hospitality desk at the Benson Hotel for just a couple hours. There wasn’t a lot for me to do, since people were mostly getting ready to go to the “Sayonara Party” at the Japanese Garden that evening. I think the most significant thing I did was direct a woman to the Bath & Body Works for nice-smelling bathroom stuff. I mostly chatted up the other volunteer working the desk with me, a white American who’d lived in Japan for several years and spoke pretty good Japanese.
I didn’t attend the Sayonara Party because, well, the weather wasn’t looking so great and I was feeling pretty exhausted after a busy weekend.

I wish I could have done some of the tour group outings, or the dinners that people in the area were hosting in their homes. But I guess I can’t do everything.

Here’s what I took away from the weekend of sister city activity:
- Portland and Sapporo have an active, committed sister city relationship unlike — from the impression I get — many other sister cities.
- Both cities like to emphasize their shared love of: nature, environmentalism, and of course, beer.
- Best moment with the two mayors: During the signing, Fumio Ueda went straight to signing the document. Sam Adams looked up and held his pen up with a cheesy smile at the flashing cameras. Mayor Ueda figured out what was going on and did the same.
- It’s great that I got to do it, but I don’t think I want to do formal interpretation again.
- …but I would love to work with Japanese visitors more.

Translating is hard

Last week, the Portland-Sapporo Sister Cities celebrated their 50th anniversary in conjunction with the Portland Rose Festival. On Friday, June 5, a delegation from Japan, including Mayor Fumio Ueda and Sapporo City Assembly members, arrived for a weekend of activities commemorating our sister city relationship.

I enthusiastically volunteered to participate in the festivities. I figured I could use my bilingual skills to help with a tour group or do some basic translating. I was surprised when I was asked to be a translator for the official Re-Signing Ceremony. I was unsure of the rather high assignment, but I wasn’t about to turn down such a great, unique opportunity when presented with one.

The day before the ceremony, the other translator and I met with Fred Ross, the International Relations Director for the City of Portland. As he walked us through City Hall going over what we’ll be doing the next day — starting with the courtesy call in the Rose Room, the Re-Signing Ceremony itself in the Council Chambers, and then the reception in the atrium — I really started to wonder, what the hell am I doing here!?

Now, I’m a fluent English speaker (obviously) and a fluent Japanese speaker. When I’m in Japan, people don’t suspect that I’m an American that’s lived in the United States for most of my life. When I do have to explain that I’m visiting from overseas (because I have to tell them why I don’t have a Japanese address for a form something), they’re often impressed or even seem baffled at my perfect Japanese.

That said, when I looked at the mayor’s talking points that I was provided, I had pangs of panic. I was up most of the night looking up words and trying to familiarize myself with the unfamiliar. I may be able to carry on conversations with Japanese friends and family, and generally get along day-to-day life in Japan with relative ease, but a formal occasion with politicians? That was another matter altogether.

I learned scores of new words.
vice speaker = 副議長（fukugichou)
city assembly/council = 議会 (gikai)
honorary citizen = 名誉市民 (meiyo shimin)
Chamber of Commerce and Industry = 商工会議所 (shoukoukaigisho)
re-signing = 再調印 (saichouin)
written oath = 宣誓書 (senseisho)

The list goes on.

By about 5:30am, when I lay down for a “nap” so I can — ridiculously — go to my regular job for a few hours before I head over to my translating gig, I was hating Japanese.

I arrived at the Mayor’s Office around noon and hung out with the other translator, comparing notes. Morgan, a community college Japanese teacher, was doing Japanese to English, which I already suspected was the much easier job. (She later told me that she’d responded to the e-mail about the translating assignment and requested Japanese to English, which is why I got stuck with English to Japanese. Damn.) Fred Ross introduced us to Mayor Sam Adams, and then I watched as they walked around, the IR director briefing the mayor on the day’s events.

At 1pm, the dignitaries from Sapporo arrived and we went into the “Rose Room” for the “courtesy call.” I didn’t know what a courtesy call was before, but everyone was seated along a big table, where there were some formal words by the two mayors and a few others, a gift exchange, and then some time for mingling and picture-taking. I was seated behind Mayor Adams, and Morgan was seated behind Mayor Ueda.

This was definitely the most difficult part of the day. One of the first things I had to do of course, before I was really even settled into translating-and-speaking-formal-Japanese mode, was translate Mayor Adams’s unscripted speech. He talks. He pauses. I spit out what he just said, in Japanese.

A few more considerations about myself:
a) I consider myself someone who is generally comfortable with being in front of people. I enjoyed giving presentations in school. I’ve been in performing arts my whole life. During my short involvement with Model United Nations in high school, I got an award my very first conference out.
b) In a sense, I’ve been translating for people my whole life. My parents’ English never got very good; my language skills surpassed theirs by the time I was about 7. I was the family translator.

But:
a) I’d never done anything of quite this much level of responsibility when it comes to speaking. When I was looking around the room at two mayors and the Sapporo City Assembly among others, looking at me expectantly, yes, I was very, very nervous. I’m sure my lack of sleep wasn’t helping either.
b) Translating for errands and casual, friendly conversation is just not nearly the same as translating a speech for a mayor. Japanese has a very distinct formal language that I’m not accustomed to speaking in, let alone trying to translate into. It’s because of this that makes English->Japanese translating so challenging, and it’s this point where I think it really shows that my English is much better than my Japanese.

In case you’re not bilingual yourself and you think translating would be easy for someone that is — well, it’s not. The thing with being bilingual is, I do no translating when I talk. I don’t think in my head, “how do I say this?” and translate it; I just speak in Japanese or I speak in English and it comes out. So imagine trying to think of synonyms for a particular word. How about completely rephrasing an entire sentence? Now how about doing that on the spot (quick!) in front of important people in an unfamiliar setting?

I was just relieved that I was able to pull out the phrase for “recession.” 不景気 (fukeiki)–that’s one I just happened to have picked up on my last trip to Japan.

At 2pm was the actual Re-Signing Ceremony. We were joined by many more people for this in the Council Chambers, including Portland city commissioners, former Portland mayors, and members of the Sapporo citizens delegation (important businesspeople and such). There was some time before the ceremony started, and I was greeted by Russ Lewis, the local news anchor who was MC’ing the ceremony. He was very friendly and did much to put me at ease. He had never had a translator before (other than for sign language), and he asked me about places in his speech he should be pausing. I told him he doesn’t need to worry, because for this, I had a pre-translated speech in hand.

Armed with speeches I can actually read from (I didn’t even translate them myself — someone from the Sister City Association did, though I did make a few changes), the ceremony went fairly smoothly. The only speech I didn’t have pre-translated was the one for Sam Adams, though I did at least have his speech (in English) in hand to follow along, which made it infinitely easier than the earlier speech. I got it the day before but hadn’t bothered to pre-translate it, since I was under the impression that these were just talking points and not the actual speech. Well, he did follow the written speech, and I had at least looked up some key vocabulary words, so I think I did fairly decently, if with a few stumbles.

Finally, we moved out over to the atrium for the toast, where I ended up not having to do much.

The reception was the fun part. I tried to keep my “translator hat” on and did what I can if I spotted people that looked like they needed translating, but I got a chance to also just mingle and talk to people. I asked people from Sapporo what they thought of Portland, or of the U.S. One woman told me that this was her first time in Portland, but she had once lived in Louisville, Kentucky on a homestay when she was younger. Funny enough, the people from Sapporo often started with the same question everyone else here seems to start with: “Are you a student?” I suppose it’s my age (I’m 25 but look younger), but maybe they thought I’m in the U.S. for college?

I was relieved when it was all over, but all in all, it was a good experience. I feel grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to take an active part in the Portland-Sapporo sister city relationship!

For the rest of that weekend: To Be Continued…

Stubborn Twig and Mochitsuki

It’s been quite a week for Japanese-American culture in Portland.

On January 15th, I went to a reading/talk by Lauren Kessler, the local author of Stubborn Twig, the selection for the Oregon Reads 2009 program. The idea is that people across the state will read this book over the next several months. Because of the subject matter — “Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese American Family,” the book cover says — I’d decided I better participate in this program and had picked up the book earlier in the week (with a Barnes&Noble gift certificate that was gathering dust!).

Lauren Kessler proved to be charming and smart. She read some passages from the book, yes, but she went beyond what most authors do at these readings and took some time to just talk, about the members of the Yasui family who are the subject of her book, about the immigrant experience, and about what it means to be an American. To be honest, I started out slightly skeptical of a white author writing about a Japanese-American family, but that seems to have been a result of my own prejudice. It’s obvious that Lauren Kessler, this woman of third-generation European descent, fully immersed herself into all aspects of this book, cares about the Yasui family and others like them, and has given a lot of deep thought into the nature of this Nation of Immigrants.

Over and over, I found myself mentally nodding at what she was saying. To grossly paraphrase, she talked about how America is a “patchwork quilt” and not a “melting pot,” that we can celebrate our differences and not become all the same while still being a cohesive unit, how there are some aspects to the immigrant experience that are universal no matter where you came from, and yet how in other ways things are different for a descendant of a Japanese immigrant versus a descendant of a European immigrant because some of us “wear our foreignness on our faces.”

One thing I found particularly insightful is when she said that it “takes the third generation” to want to recapture their grandparents’ culture and reconcile it with their own, after the first generation tends to cling on to their home country’s culture and the second generation tries to eschew their parents’ foreignness. I find that that’s very true despite the fact that it doesn’t directly apply to myself. But I’m neither first nor second generation, but an in-between “1.5 generation” as I’ve heard it called. Having been born in Japan and spending a short few years there (which makes me technically first generation) and then growing up in the United States (which also makes me have much in common with the second generation), I seem to have somehow gone through and transcended all three of these steps that Lauren Kessler talked about.

So now I go to events like Mochitsuki.

(Picture “stolen” from the Mochitsuki website, since my camera broke in Japan)

This year’s annual Japanese-American New Year’s celebration took place yesterday, January 17th at Portland Community College’s Sylvania campus.

There was the Cultural Fair with booths, an ice-carving demonstration through the Portland-Sapporo Sister City Association (it was definitely COLD enough outside!), and yes, mochi-pounding and mochi-eating. But the big event was the show that occurred in the Performing Arts Center.

And as with last year, the highlights for me were the performances by Portland Taiko. I love these guys. They’re imaginative, loud, and lots of fun. I love their bits of choreography and their powerful sound, and I love that they really have a modern sensibility that works. I actually took a class with them a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed it (I’ve always wanted to be a drummer, too!) but haven’t “gotten around” to continuing to take any more. I feel inspired…I wonder if they have spots left for the next class?

…And if you have no idea what I’m talking about with this taiko, go look it up! There’s other ensembles elsewhere in the country, particularly if you’re on the West Coast.

Film: 人間の條件 (The Human Condition), Part 1

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
First Released: 1959
Runtime: 208 min.

I went to see this film at the Northwest Film Center on Friday night.

Set during World War II, Tatsuya Nakadai plays Kaji, a “bleeding heart” who, ironically, accepts a job as the supervisor for a large group of Chinese prisoners forced into hard labor at a Manchurian mine. As he works to better the conditions of the laborers and actually treats them as human beings, he faces both distrust from the very Chinese people he’s trying to help (“Japanese devil!” they shout), and harsh repercussions from his superiors at the mining company and from the ever-menacing kempeitai (the military police at the time).

Audiences who may not be accustomed to “foreign” films need not worry much. Despite the heavy themes and historical/geographical context, the film is quite accessible and will seem familiar to anyone that watches old Hollywood films (the sweeping, dramatic music particularly reminded me of classic Hollywood epics). I was watching the movie thinking the main character could be Jimmy Stewart, and the New York Times did me one better by comparing him to Gregory Peck.

Either way, Kaji is a somewhat unwitting yet tireless hero, fighting from within the system against a war-driven, ethnocentric Japan. The things he fights for feel timelessly relevant: that the ends do not necessarily justify the means, that we should not dehumanize even our war enemies, and thus we must not lose our humanity.

Kaji is most flawed when it comes to his relationship with his wife, Michiko (Michiyo Aratama). Believing that she would not understand and wanting to shield her from the horrors of his work, Kaji through most of the film stays stubbornly distant. They reconcile their differences at the end of the film, but now Kaji is to be drafted into war (under suspicious circumstances).

Part 2 screens at the Northwest Film Center on September 27th and 28th, and Part 3 screens on the 27th and 29th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to make it to Part 2 (1959, 181 min.) and probably won’t make it to Part 3 (1961, 190 min.) (depending on whether I decide I can sacrifice sleep on a Monday night).

Go to the Janus Films website to check for screenings in other parts of the country.

Random video this time

Apologies about my increasingly sparse posts, but I’m still figuring out how to get back on a full-time work schedule.

In the meantime, here’s what’s been going on right across the street from me:

No, I haven’t wandered into a Hitchcock movie. It’s the swift migration that happens this time of year at Chapman Elementary School here in Portland, OR.

East Asian Christians?

I visited The Grotto over the weekend. It’s a Catholic sanctuary that features this main altar with the Pietà replica set in a cave. Beautiful, yes (and I’m not religious at all). But it was after I paid the $3.50 to take the elevator to the upper level gardens at the top of the cliff where I found some intriguing surprises.

In a small chapel there was, among others…Asian Christian art. I never took Art History and I promptly slept through just about all of History in Japanese school, so if anyone more knowledgeable wants to educate me a little, please do so. These artwork didn’t have any sort of labels on them telling me what they are.

And then on the garden path was this “Peace Pole”:

This side says “May there be peace among the world’s people” in Japanese. The other sides are in English, Spanish, and Russian.

Curious, I looked up this “Peace Pole” when I got home. Apparently, it’s a project of the World Peace Prayer Society founded in Japan in 1955. According to their website, they have 200,000 of these in 180 countries, all with “May Peace Prevail on Earth” (or a close translation of it, I suppose) in various languages.

Japan’s Catholics number 0.4% of their population (0.75% in China, and of course more in some other Asian countries particularly in historically European-occupied Southeast Asia). Finding material for this blog was the last thing I expected when I went to this Catholic sanctuary on a whim.

Free culture by the river

Yesterday (8/28 ) was one of my favorite summer events here, the Oregon Symphony’s annual Waterfront Park Concert. They do a preview of their season, along with selections from Oregon Ballet Theatre’s and the Portland Opera’s seasons as well.

Pictured is Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Yuka Iino (originally from Japan) and Ronnie Underwood, dancing a piece from Swan Lake.

India Festival

One of my favorite things about summer is all the events that go on around town. I briefly dropped by the India Fest yesterday.

I mostly wanted to get food, so I got a masala dosa and split an order of samosas. I also finally tried a mango lassi, which I’ve often seen in Indian restaurants but have somehow never gotten. It was quite good, basically like a mango smoothie, a bit thicker than I’d imagined, but not overly sweet. I don’t generally drink anything other than water when I eat out (unless I’m at a bar), but I’ll have to keep mango lassi in mind next time I get Indian food.

I didn’t stay very long for the performances and such, but as you can tell from the picture, there were tons of people and it was all a very festive atmosphere. You can tell me if I’m being horribly stereotypical here, but I feel like Indian people have more fun compared to say, Japanese people, at least in their celebrations. Japan, particularly traditional Japan, seems to like things a bit more…restrained.

In my book at the very least, you can’t go wrong with a culture whose main contribution to world cinema is musicals!

Asian Food

My mom liked to joke to me, 「口だけ日本人」(“The only Japanese thing about you is your mouth.”) It was probably pretty accurate, especially at the time, when I had pretty much renounced any Japanese-ness about me except for all the Japanese food I loved to eat.

Yesterday, my friend alerted me to this website alllooksame.com which doesn’t ultimately prove anything but it’s interesting and fun. Embarrassingly enough, I more or less crashed and burned on these quizzes — except for the “Food” one, in which I only missed 2 out of 18 questions.

Portland’s a big foodie town, and I can name a lot of great Asian restaurants (or often, carts) here. Just off the top of my head, there’s the India Chaat House, Baan-Thai, Cha’Ba, Pho Hung, Swagat…

…but wait, the selection seems a bit lopsided! There’s a lot of Indian places, more Thai places than I can possibly keep track of, some Vietnamese, some Chinese places (mostly way out East on the other side of town from me, so I don’t get out there much), but…where’s all the Japanese and Korean restaurants??

I spent most of my life in California so I’m completely spoiled. And at the time, of course I didn’t think anything of the fact that there was an abundant, wide variety of delicious, authentic food from all over the world, so I completely took all that for granted. Also, my “hometown” of Osaka (still where most of my relatives live and where I spend most of my time in when I visit Japan) is particularly known for the food — my dad likes to say “Tokyo is the heart of Japan, and Osaka is its stomach” — which makes me a bit of a snob when it comes to Japanese food.

I’m still figuring out this blog and I thought maybe doing restaurant reviews would make it a bit too local-interest, but I might not be able to resist…particularly about the few Japanese eating establishments around here.