Forgotten history remembered: I took a Digital Storytelling class through StoryCenter that was held at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, and this is the story I produced as a result. The focus on Hiroshima and Nagasaki have obscured in history, the months of firebombings and air raids on dozens of Japanese cities in 1945 before the atomic bombs were dropped. Tokyo suffered more casualties from one night of firebombs on March 9 dropped by 334 B-29 bombers than Hiroshima from the first atom bomb on August 6. My mom’s hometown was destroyed just weeks before Hiroshima, in July. She never tal ..read more

Even if you haven’t seen the opera, most people know the title “Madama Butterfly,” Giacomo Puccini’s famous work which debuted in 1904. More people today are probably familiar with “Miss Saigon,” the gaudy but popular Broadway musical based on “Butterfly” that takes the same plotline as “Butterfly”—American soldier stationed in Asia falls in love with a local woman, and returns to the States, not realizing she’s pregnant—and places the story during the end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s. “Butterfly” is undeniably part of the operatic canon just as “Miss Saigon” is a perennial musical moneymak ..read more

Maybe not surprisingly, I’ve been a stickler for “authenticity” in food—especially Japanese food. I was born in Japan, and I’ve loved Japanese food all my life. I even wrote a book about the history of Japanese food in America, Tabemasho! Let’s Eat! I’m a foodie who takes #foodporn shots of many of my meals. I love all cuisines and seek out new dishes to try. And I try to make sure that the food I like reflects traditional culture, accurately and with respect. That doesn’t mean that I won’t eat “fusion” food—in our modern, shrinking world where economies are interconnected, you can’t just stop ..read more

I had a blast talking to John Daub, a YouTube creator who runs several “Only in Japan” channels. He’s lived in Japan for decades, and lives with his wife and son in Tokyo. He travels throughout Japan finding fascinating stories and telling them like a journalist, doing research and putting the subject of his videos into context for viewers ..read more

We are in a moment. An important moment for Asian American Pacific Islander and Desi representation in American pop culture. The film “Everything Everywhere All at Once” received 11 Academy Award nominations, in categories including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, TWO Best Supporting Actresses, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. The Internet, and especially the YouTube universe, is awash in accolades for the film. And yet, I suspect that many people who watched it were left scratching their heads and saying “whaaa? I don’t understand. I’m confused. What was that?” O ..read more

It’s been a long, sometimes lonely three years since COVID-19 arrived in the world and changed all our lives. For many of us, this holiday season may be the first since the pandemic shutdowns when we’ll be traveling to visit family once again, and dining with them. (Of course, we didn’t know a historic deep freeze would disrupt nationwide travel over the Christmas weekend….) If we’re lucky, we live not far from our parents and grandparents, and have been able to drive over for Sunday dinners or pick up takeout to enjoy with them this whole time. But if we live far – if we live across the count ..read more

I haven’t really posted a lot of stuff about cooking (or even my #foodporn photos) on the blog, but I thought I’d share this video I uploaded to YouTube. I’m an “ambassador” for Syosaku-Japan, a company that sells handmade Japanese knives. I ordered my first knife, a Santoku chef’s knife, back in 2019 and fell in love with their knives as well as their incredibly artistic lacquered glass plates. As an ambassador, the company has sent me a Nakiri vegetable slicing knife, and most recently, the 9.5-inch Sujihiki meat slicing knife I feature in this video. Hope the video leaves you hungry ..read more

Pop culture can be a mirror that reflects the issues and values of its time—for good and bad. For instance, Hollywood initially embraced Asians, and two of the early film era’s biggest stars were Los Angeles-born Chinese American Anna May Wong and Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa. Anna May Wong is now featured on a quarter; Sessue Hayakawa is probably best remembered today for “The Bridge over the River Kwai.” But as the 20th century progressed, Hollywood began casting white actors with eyes taped back and “yellowface” makeup on their faces to play Asian roles. Some of our greatest actors, like ..read more

My family moved from Japan to the Washington DC area in 1966 when I was eight years old, and I fell in love with American ways and U.S. pop culture. I like to joke that I learned every American cuss word and forgot most of my Japanese in three weeks. One of the things I embraced wholeheartedly was American pop music—specifically, Top 40 music on AM radio stations that played hit after hit. I loved the energy of the fast-talking DJs, the commercials for everything from fast food to car dealerships, even the melodious jingles (“WPGC, good guy radio,” “More music! WEAM!” or the always popular “Th ..read more

Racial stereotypes used to be part of the American consumer landscape – everywhere you turned there was a depiction, playful caricature or a ghastly exaggerated image of a person of color on commercials and ads on television or publications, or on packaging on store shelves. But if nothing else, the recent years of anti-racism protests in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and the many Black men and women before him and since, has awakened mainstream Americans and the media and institutions that serve them and let them know in no uncertain terms that racial images are no longer acceptable ..read more