In the first place, there is a common understanding among Brazilians that nothing could be more incompatible than "Japonês" (Japanese) and "samba." For example, the author played percussion in several samba teams in the city of Sao Paulo for about 10 years, and felt frustrated when he heard a sambista …
A federal prison was built on Alcatraz Island in California, in the United States, which became known as the impossible-to-break “prison island” and was later featured in the movie Escape from Alcatraz (made in 1979 and directed by Don Siegel) starring Clint Eastwood. There is in fact a Brazilian version …
Read Part 1 >> It heals the turbulent world caused by the fight to win or lose, and spreads to the masses. In November 1948, after the end of the war, in the midst of the Japanese community being divided by the struggle for victory and defeat, the monthly haiku …
Haiku that crossed the ocean with immigrants When Professor Hosokawa Shuhei (International Research Center for Japanese Studies), who won the Yomiuri Literature Prize in 2009 for his book Tooku arite tsukuroku (What We Make in the Distance) (Misuzu Shobo), an interpretation of Brazilian immigrant literature, gave a lecture here, he …
The Japanese Pavilion in Ibirapuera Park, known as the "Central Park of São Paulo," held a ceremony to celebrate its 60th anniversary on August 29th, welcoming the 15th head of the Urasenke school of tea ceremony, Sen Genshitsu, and others from Japan. The building was designed to resemble the Katsura …
“Italian” sausage not eaten by Italians “Italian people do not eat our Mortadella (Bologna sausage).” I remember clearly a sense of disappointment in his voice in the interview I conducted with the one and only, hardcore Italian-Brazilian president Mario Benedetti (third generation, age 56 at the time) back in 2010.
How a single metal plate changed the fate of Japanese immigrants During the June and July 2017 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, nearly 10,000 Japanese spectators came to watch. Almost none of them visited this important site, but it is one that Japanese people who are interested in Meiji-period history …
There is no Japanese person who does not know of the genius manga artist Osamu Tezuka (1928-1989), who released a succession of masterpieces such as "Phoenix" and "Black Jack," and was called the "God of Manga" even while he was alive. However, few people know that his unfinished final work, …
In early May, a month before the 2014 World Cup, a judo film called A Grande Vitória (directed by Stefano Capuzzi) was released nationwide in Brazil. It’s a touching story of one juvenile, abandoned by his Italian immigrant father and raised in poverty, who finds a road to success in …
"I still practice karate every day," said famous lawyer Ives Gandra da Silva Mrtins (79) on April 15th, as he took a chopping stance and said, "I can still break a board." He is not known at all as someone with ties to Japanese culture, so the interview began with …
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