Acquisition of Yasushi Yamazaki’s 1913 Trophy

Interview with Debbie Jiang with Sam Frederick

The Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre has an exciting new addition to our archives, all thanks to incredible support from the community!

Yasushi Yamazaki’s trophy, awarded to him by the Canadian Japanese Association in 1913, is now safely in the hands of the museum after being listed for public auction over the holiday season. Thanks to historian Debbie Jiang’s incredible leadership and the generosity of the community, we were able to secure pledges to make a competitive bid possible and save the trophy for the museum’s archives.

Debbie recently visited the museum to see the trophy for herself and we asked her questions about how this acquisition came about and the significance of Yasushi Yamazaki to the Japanese Canadian community.

NNMCC: How did you learn that Yasushi Yamazaki’s trophy was available for auction?

Debbie: As a First World War enthusiast, I am a member of a few military history and research groups on Facebook. Andrew Webb, a top contributor in the group who knows of my interest in the Japanese Canadian soldiers who served in the First World War, sent me a private message on social media to alert me. He had seen the trophy on his internet auction travels and thought I should know about it being sold off.  He knew the significance and who Mr. Yamazaki was.

NNMCC: Can you tell us more about Yasushi Yamazaki and why this was an important item to secure for the museum?

Debbie: Charles Yasushi Yamazaki was a pioneer Japanese Canadian activist, co-founder of the Japanese Fishermen’s Benevolent Society in 1900, which founded the Japanese Fishermen’s Hospital in Steveston, owner and publisher of the Tairiku Nippo newspaper, President of the Canadian Japanese Association (1909-1917), and philanthropist. He is also noted for opposing sex work among the JC community at the turn-of-the-century. In 1916, Mr. Yamazaki proudly became a naturalized British subject. When Great Britain declared war against Germany in 1914, people of Japanese descent in Canada were excited to enlist as allies. When recruitment offices turned them away, Mr. Yamazaki personally funded an all-Japanese battalion (200 men strong) in Vancouver to fight in Europe when JCs were not even given the right to vote. His vision was that if you were good enough to die on a foreign battlefield for Canada, then Canada would have to grant the franchise.

NNMCC: You had a very quick turnaround from learning about the auction to the bidding going live. Can you describe your process of preparing for the auction and what this timeline looked like?

Debbie: The timeline was extremely tight. The auction had started on November 28, 2024 and it was to wrap up on December 16, 2024 at 7pm EST. On the evening of Thursday, December 12, 2024, I was literally packing my suitcase two days before a flight to go on a family vacation when I saw a notification on Facebook Messenger. I couldn’t believe what I was reading – I automatically knew that I had to act, and quickly. The website link that Andrew had sent me showed that there were only 72 hours remaining to get into a position to win before the close of the auction. That meant less than three days to come up with at least $800 to place the next bid, and then how much more would be needed to be the winning bidder? There was no telling because I did not know who the first two bidders were and how high they would venture to secure it. I also did not know if there were silver hunters out there waiting to pounce on the trophy in the last minutes of the auction. The description of the trophy included its maker and its weight: Birks Sterling Silver, 1.34 kg. My first move, after phoning Mary Kitagawa (who fully supported my idea of bringing the trophy back to BC and into the Nikkei National Museum’s hands), was to calculate the current value of sterling silver in Canada. Research revealed that it was worth $0.91 per gram on Dec. 13. That meant it was worth at least $1219.40 to anyone wanting the trophy for its silver. This gave me a framework of how much money I needed to raise to have a chance at beating out the probable highest bidder.

My flight to Toronto would take over five hours, precious time I would not get back and not gain as many supporters if I waited till I landed to take action. So on the night of December 12, I created a sheet with a plea for help: a description of the trophy, who it belonged to and its significance to the Japanese Canadian community, and an opportunity for interested supporters to make a pledge of $50-$500. I sent the campaign link via email to Sherri Kajiwara, Lisa Uyeda and dozens of other leaders in the Japanese Canadian community. I used every avenue I had including members of my Japanese Canadian Fishing Boats Facebook group and contacts within my Japanese Canadian Legacies Teacher group. After the generous first pledge of $300 on December 12, an astounding $2,200 was pledged twenty-four hours later by eleven individuals and a committee! I boarded the plane early on Saturday, December 14 knowing that I had gotten the ball rolling to a great start. When I reached Toronto, I sent more emails out to more contacts and supporters began spreading the word themselves. Soon, the Shin Asahi baseball organization found out and by the end of December 14, another $575.00 had been pledged by five more individuals. I had gotten connected to Sherri Kajiwara on the first day and we were on text basis concerning the trophy but I had not yet heard from Lisa Uyeda. Little did I know that she was also in Toronto and that the admin I reached out to for help in pinning the post about the auction on the Japanese Canadians Facebook group was Lisa’s best friend, Kristin Kobayashi-Reid. When Kristin heard what I was doing, she pinned my post right away and then mentioned she would run it by her friend Lisa Uyeda whom she would be seeing in a few days. Kristin connected Lisa and me on December 15, one day before the auction was to close. I was finally able to strategize with her. I found out that she was planning to speak to the auction house and try to get the seller to take the trophy off the auction block and be paid privately for the trophy. By the end of December 15, there was another $475.00 in pledges from seven more individuals and a society, now totalling $3,250.00. On December 16, another $375 came in from six more individuals. The total number of community members who promised funds was thirty-one individuals and two groups from all over Canada and Japan, pledging a total of $3,925.00! It would be enough to place the highest bid on auction night.

A supporter tipped me off by letting me know that there would be taxes and a buyer’s premium to pay on top of the winning bid, and cautioned me to have more funds than too little. A seasoned online auction bidder, he also drew my attention to the increments after a certain amount. I had touched base with Lisa earlier in the day, awaiting news of her negotiations with the seller. However at 6:15pm, Lisa received confirmation that the seller would not agree to a direct purchase and we knew we would need to participate in the live auction. Lisa said that she would take care of the bidding and had use of the Nikkei National Museum’s credit card. I would be the back-up bidder should a technical glitch happen or what have you. The first bid had been placed on December 5 at $700. The second one was placed on December 12 at $725. On December 16, the final day of the auction, four new bidders began placing competitive bids. Starting at 1:26pm EST, the bid increased to $750, 3 minutes later $775, and in a series of bids in $25 increments it climbed to $950. As Lisa prepared to place our first bid at 6:30pm, a $1,000 bid was placed at 6:27pm. A strategic move because bids over $975 were expected to increase by $250 increments. We then realized the increment amount had been scaled down to $100! At 6:34pm Lisa adjusted our strategy and placed our first bid at $1,100 and set an automatic proxy bid of $2,600 hoping the final bid would not go that high or higher. It came down to one bidder and us. They placed a bid of $1,200 and our proxy bid immediately out bid them at $1,300. They tried again at $1,400 and $1,600 and we out bid them again and again. It was 6:59pm with a minute to go before the auction closed and our competitor bid for a sixth time at $1,800. Our proxy bid $1,900 right at 7:00pm and we won! What a nerve-wracking experience!

NNMCC: What was the reaction from the community as you were gathering support? Why is it important to involve the community in these projects?

Debbie: Everyone, both non-Japanese Canadians and Japanese Canadians, who received news of this trophy being auctioned was adamant that the Japanese Community acquire it. Here are some remarks left by those who made pledges:

• We cannot let this go into private hands. Thank you for alerting us to this matter…let’s do all we can to win the bid and bring the trophy home.
• What a beautiful trophy that holds a historical connection to Steveston.  My Dad was born in that hospital along with many of his siblings.  Thank you for everything you do to preserve the importance of Japanese Canadian history. Arigato!
• You may also want to reach out to the Japanese Canadian Legacy Society for support.
• Good luck!
• The WW I exhibit is the rightful home of the Yamazaki trophy.
• Best of luck! I’m honored to be able to contribute.
• Thank you for organizing this to help our community
• I hope this is successful
• We care about Japanese Canadian History
• Thanks for doing this!
• Proviso that the artefact be donated to the City of Richmond or the NNMCC.

NNMCC: What does it mean to you to now have this object in the NNMCC’s collection?

Debbie: What a relief! I could not stand to think that this piece of history could be reduced to a puddle of silver by a greedy trophy hunter who would have no regard for Japanese Canadian history. Objects tell stories and I felt that the JC community can really benefit from this piece of pioneer JC history, once belonging to a key leader in the early days of JC history.

NNMCC: Are there any final messages you’d like to share with the community and supporters of the NNMCC?

Debbie: When there is a will there is a way.  I knew that I, personally, did not have the resources to save this trophy from auction. However, I knew that there would be many people in the JC community who cared enough – even if only twenty people pledged $50, that would be a thousand dollars right there. So the more people who get involved, the lesser the burden on any one individual and the greater the sharing of joy when success comes! Supporters came from the following places around the world:  Richmond, Vancouver, North Vancouver, Delta, Burnaby, Langley, Cumberland, Nanaimo, Hazleton, Edmonton, Hamilton, Toronto, Deep River, and Japan. The love was felt both near and far! I was touched by the fact that two individuals said that if more funds were needed to only say the word!

NNMCC thanks Debbie and the vast support from the community to help us bring Yasushi Yamazaki’s trophy back to Vancouver. We’re looking forward to sharing more about this trophy and Yamazaki’s collection at the NNMCC in the coming months.