December 2000

    Moshi moshi, Portland! | Holiday Ale Festival 2000 | Internet2 Day | Computer Woes | Parental Inspection: Olympia WA / Ichidai Japanese Restaurant / Timberline Lodge / Jake's Famous Crawfish | Seattle Christmas: Turkey Reprise / Mount Rainier / Safeco Field / New Uwajimaya | Film: Snow Falling On Cedars

  • Snow Falling On Cedars (USA 1999; Dir: Scott Hicks) ****
    Dorami-chan recently finished reading a Japanese translation of David Guterson's best-selling novel, so she wanted to see the film version. I thought it looked beautiful and had interesting plot twists. Quite bravely it showed that bigotry sometimes goes both ways: fisherman Carl Heine's mother sells the land that Kazuo Miyamoto's family was in the process of buying; Hatsue's mother warns her about "white boys". Some of the dialogue was a bit over-the-top, but if anything the film overall was too subtle. The shorthand storytelling made sense to me because I know the historical background of the Internment, the nisei 442nd, etc., but without that, filmgoers from the general public would have trouble following the plot. Still, if it encourages people to explore these issues further, that is a plus. KUDOH Youki did a better job as nisei Hatsue than I had heard -- kudos to her dialogue coach for eradicating her Japanese accent (or was it dubbing?).

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    (29 December 2000)

  • Seattle Christmas
    Three hours up I-5 brought us to the Seattle home of my sister and "Bill", where they had a decorated tree and crackling fire in place for Christmas festivities.

    • Turkey Reprise
      Just as delicious and filling as at Thanksgiving.

    • Mount Rainier
      To work off some of that turkey, we went cross country skiing on the south slope of the highest mountain in Washington state, in Mount Rainier National Park. At Paradise (elevation 5400 ft), it was T-shirt temperature, but cloudy, and snow was ample, though less than when we were here two years ago. We made it about 2/3 of the way down the Paradise to Narada Falls trail (about 2 miles), built some snowmen (and a snowdog) then came back.

      Snowshoes seemed to be ever more popular. They are great in that they allow people who otherwise wouldn't go out in the winter to be more active, but they do chew up ski trails in a big way. For us aftercoming skiers, it was like having to break a new trail. I could only glide for a few strides at most all day long. Can't snowshoers just stay to the side of the ski tracks? The mountain is big enough for everybody.

    • Ichiro, Wherefore Art Thou, Ichiro?
      We went to Safeco Field, new home of the Seattle Mariners and site of the 2001 MLB All Star Game, in search of Ichiro memorabilia for "Gino". No luck -- just signed, he is not yet a member of the player's union, and so is not eligible to have his name on official team merchandise. SUZUKI Ichiro is the second Japanese player on the Mariners' roster (pitcher and 2000 AL Rookie of the Year SASAKI Kazuhiro was the first). This has created great interest in Japan. The Mariners have responded with a Japanese version of their website.

      I have already seen Ichiro in action once, with his old team Orix (Kobe) Blue Wave at the Osaka Dome during my 1997 Typhoon Tour of Japan. That game he hit the winning home run -- a regular feat of his, I was told. Best of luck in North America, Ichiro-san. Ganbatte!

      The team store had a whole table of deeply discounted "A Rod" merchandise. A shortstop for the Mariners until this year, Alex Rodriguez earlier this month signed an obscenely rich 10-year, $252 million free agent contract with the Texas Rangers, an event that hopefully will cause all concerned to rethink the long-term viability of such economics. Why should I care? I'm not even a baseball fan! But this kind of madness threatens all professional sports, including my favourite, hockey. On his website A Rod says, "the only person who truly deserves such wealth is the person who finds a cure for cancer." Too bad the baseball owners and society at large don't share his views.

    • New Uwajimaya
      Seattle's biggest Asian food store got bigger recently with the opening of Uwajimaya Village, a shopping/housing complex just south of the site of the old store that should revitalize the International District.
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    (25-27 December 2000)

  • Parental Inspection
    My father and my mother came to Portland to check up on their investment, the newlywed couple:

    • Olympia WA
      I had considered swinging out to the coast on the way back to Portland from SeaTac Airport after picking up my parents, but it was raining, so we just drove directly down I-5. Olympia, the Washington state capital is about halfway along, and the dome of the state capitol, visible from the freeway, seemed to promise an interesting coffee break. But there were only offices, offices, and not much in the way of food services in the vicinity. What do all the civil servants eat?

    • Ichidai Japanese Restaurant
      This is one of the oldest continuous sushi restaurants in the Portland area, having started in 1974. The latest incarnation is just four years old, and is clean, bright and spacious. Our group of four got to sit in one of the nicely constructed wooden booths to the side. The glowing review in The Asian Reporter newspaper, which prompted our visit, mentioned that you can get by speaking just Japanese because the wait staff are Japanese. But our experience was similar to what used to happen (still does?) to gaikoku-jin (foreigners) in Japan, except with Japanese, not English: if we tried to communicate in Japanese, the wait staff (who admittedly _looked_ Japanese -- sansei or yonsei?) would run away in search of the one waitress (a nisei) who could speak Japanese. That aside, I thought the varied sushi we ordered a la carte was very good. One order of maki-zushi was rolled too loosely, such that it fell apart when picked up, an inexcusable error of presentation in Dorami-chan's eyes. But it tasted fine once you got all the fragments in your mouth. The many other customers would probably agree -- the place was packed!

      Ichidai Japanese Restaurant, 5714-A SE Powell Blvd., Portland OR 97206, 503.771.4648

    • Timberline Lodge
      Not a flake of snow in Portland, but plenty just two hours away on the slopes of Mount Hood. This historic landmark was the product of a federal government make-work project during the Great Depression. It provided the external shots for Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film The Shining.

    • Jake's Famous Crawfish
      Jake's is one of Portland's oldest restaurants, serving seafood "since 1892." Crawfish is apparently out of season in December and so was not on the menu. (Jake's once had a crawfish pond in its basement, but now it buys from local producers.) Instead we had fresh oysters (including Kumamoto oysters) and three different kinds of fish.
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    (23-24 December 2000)

  • Computer Woes
    Things might have seemed quiet to you here at the Runker Room lately, and there is a reason: my computer is in a coma! I am writing this using the Geocities Web editing interface. Don't expect to hear/see much from me until I solve this. I will wish you all Happy Holidays now!
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    (20 December 2000)

  • Internet2 Day
    My university, OHSU (or, more accurately, the Portland Research and Education Network) joined Internet2 today. The regular Internet has become so crowded with commercial websites and things like this website that researchers need Internet2 as a relatively congestion-free testing ground for next-generation Web technologies, such as videoconferencing and virtual reality. The day-long program ended with a series of speakers that included pathologist and former JAMA editor (now Medscape editor) George Lundberg, who presented his thoughts on the effect of the Web on medical publishing.

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    (12 December 2000)

  • Holiday Ale Festival 2000
    This afternoon I went with some pathology lab folk to the fifth iteration of this celebration of the release of the region's craft-brewed seasonal ales. Beers produced by 24 craft brewers from up and down the West Coast were being poured in a huge heated tent in downtown Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square. I was again impressed by the number of women at this event. Microbrewery beer is clearly not just a guy thing in Portland! Winter beers are "created specifically to bring warmth and cheer to the holiday season", i.e. they have a higher alcohol content than regular beer (on average 6% or 7%), so I could only taste a few or risk toppling over:

    • Auld Nutcracker Strong cranberry auld ale
      Bill's Tavern & Brewhouse, Cannon Beach OR
      "Strong" describes the cranberry taste, not just the alcohol content. Subtle this isn't. **
    • Imperial Curmudgeon Stout ale
      Alameda Brewing Company, Portland OR
      Black and chewy. ***
    • Old Hardcore Barley wine
      Cascade Lakes Brewing Co., Redmond OR
      Full-flavoured. ****
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    (02 December 2000)

  • Moshi moshi, Portland!
    Following up on a lead in an article I clipped from The Asian Reporter newspaper last year, Dorami-chan has volunteered to be a teacher's assistant with the Moshi Moshi Project, an interactive Japanese language distance learning program for elementary students that has been going on in Portland Public Schools since 1996. The project aims to help prepare Oregon's children for the global society of the 21st Century. Today is Dorami-chan's first day -- wish her luck!

    Oregon has more students of Japanese per capita than any other state except Hawaii, with programs at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. The Oregon legislature has made second languages one of six core content areas in which students must demonstrate proficiency for high school certificates and college entrance.

    The foreign language teaching programs of most Canadian schools emphasize European languages, especially French, which is one of the country's two official languages. I had 7 years of instruction in French from Grade 6 to high school graduation. A Canadian cannot even contemplate a high-level career in the civil service without being bilingual (English and French).

    The French language is beautiful and historically significant, but has diminishing international influence. Today there are as many Japanese-speaking people worldwide as there are French-speaking people. And until Japan's economic bubble burst, it could be argued that the Japanese speakers have more financial clout. Commenting on Canada's language policy, Mike Harcourt, former premier of British Columbia, Canada's Pacific Rim province, was once quoted as saying, "B.C. kids are bilingual -- in Chinese and Japanese."

    The more languages one knows, the better. I have a personal stake in Japanese, but I predict that in the coming years the important languages to know (after English) will be Spanish and Chinese. Portland Public Schools teaches Spanish with its ¡Hola Hola! Project. I hope they aren't under the impression that teaching Japanese covers Chinese. The two languages are quite different!
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    (01 December 2000)

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