It’s not all fun and games at The Fair. In this episode, Raymond is joined by guest Erica Isomura to talk about Hastings Park in East Vancouver, better known as the PNE Fairgrounds, and its role for Japanese Canadians from up the coast and Vancouver Island in internment.

In this episode, Raymond and Carolyn explore the fascinating history of Japanese taiko drumming, from its ancient roots in folk culture to the emergence of taiko ensembles in both Japan and North America after the Second World War. Taiko ensembles first began in North America in the 1970s, and were closely tied to Asian American and Asian Canadian political activism.

Sewing was an important occupation for Japanese Canadian women before and during the Second World War, not only to clothe themselves and their families, but also as one of the few professions which was not barred to them in the racist climate of the time. Many pre-war issei and nisei women were skilled technicians, attending schools to learn how to draft their own patterns. In this episode, Raymond and Carolyn discuss some of what they learned about this history from the Nikkei National Museum’s online exhibit, Our Mother’s Patterns.

Just what is it with Japanese Canadian cultural centres, anyway? This episode, Raymond and Carolyn discuss this phenomenon, from the JCCC in Toronto to centres in Montreal, Steveston, and even the Nikkei Centre which they’re recording out of. Different centres across Canada have unique and interesting origins related to varying histories of postwar Japanese Canadian settlement, and today continue to provide space for their local communities in many ways. Many were built with the help of the redress settlement, and are important venues for celebrating multiculturalism and Japanese heritage today.

The harmonica was the musical instrument of choice for young nisei Japanese Canadian men in the 1930s and 1940s. Raymond and Carolyn look at some reasons why it became so iconic for this generation, some of the more prominent players, and story of the Lemon Creek Harmonica Band.

Join Raymond and Carolyn as they discuss figures in ancient Japanese folklore, botanical attractions in Vancouver and across Canada, and…mutants and clones? The Japanese ornamental cherry tree is all of these, not to mention a feature of spring in Japan and many places in Canada.

In this episode, Raymond and Carolyn discuss the Japanese Canadian favourite of baseball. While the Vancouver Asahi are the most famous Japanese Canadian baseball team, there were many Nikkei teams and leagues throughout BC before the forced removal, in the camps during internment, and even some established east of the Rockies in the 1950s and beyond.

For our twentieth episode, Raymond and Carolyn look at the fascinating history of Japanese Canadians in the village of Cumberland on Vancouver Island. Coal baron Robert Dunsmuir began importing workers from Japan and elsewhere to Cumberland in the late 19th century. Labour disputes and racism were rampant, but the Japanese immigrants were also able to build lives there, moving from mining to logging and service industry work, and even bringing over their families and establishing a Japanese Language School. After the community was forcibly removed in 1942, efforts have been made by Cumberlanders in more recent years to uncover, preserve, and celebrate the multicultural history of the village.

In this episode, Raymond and Carolyn discuss the who, what, where, when, and why of Japanese place names in Canada, from Ikeda Bay in Haida Gwaii to Bonsai Street in Vancouver, and even “Matane” in Quebec. While some are named in honour of early immigrants from Japan, others are more like tributes from afar to the idea of Japan and Japanese culture, or arrived at their names through a variety of interesting and surprising occurrences.

In this episode, Raymond and Carolyn discuss the samurai way of life – from the Satsuma clan to Inazo Nitobe’s Bushido – and its possible influence on Japanese Canadian history and culture. While the figure of the samurai has been popularly mythologized in Western culture by the likes of Tom Cruise, many real-life samurai emigrated from Japan in the late 19th century to build new lives for themselves in places like Canada.  Some went on to become Canadian citizens, and fight for their adopted country in the First World War.