On Nikkei
What is Nikkei? Ryusuke Kawai, a non-fiction writer who translated "No-No Boy," covers a variety of topics related to Nikkei, including people, history, books, movies, and music, focusing on his own involvement with Nikkei.
Stories from this series
Part 41 (part 3) Interview with Christine Piper, author with Japanese and Australian roots — Family roots and identity
Jan. 5, 2024 • Ryusuke Kawai
Read Part 2 >> Identity is created from within --Could you tell us more about your family roots? How do you perceive your own identity? Have you ever had problems with it? Or have you ever been glad about it? CP: My parents first met in Japan. My mother is from Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, and my father is from Bathurst, Australia. He studied economics and Japanese at university and came to Japan as an exchange student in the 1960s. My …
Part 41 (part 2) Interview with Christine Piper, author with Japanese and Australian roots — Japanese-Australian
Dec. 29, 2023 • Ryusuke Kawai
Read Part 1 >> Japanese Americans and Japanese in internment camps -- In After Darkness, there are characters of both foreign and Japanese descent, such as an Australian of Japanese descent. They are put in the same camps as the Japanese, but what was their position at the time? Were they in conflict with the Japanese? Christine Piper (CP): I spent a lot of time doing research at the Australian National Archives , where the military records are kept. And …
Part 41 (Part 1) Interview with Christine Piper, an author of Japanese and Australian descent — The story behind the creation of her novel "After Dark"
Dec. 22, 2023 • Ryusuke Kawai
The novel "After Darkness: A Japanese Doctor at Loveday Camp, Australia" (originally published in 2014) is set in Japan and Australia, and depicts the inner conflict and way of life of Ibaraki Tomokazu, a graduate of the Imperial University School of Medicine who became mentally ill due to inhumane research for the military. The novel was published in Japan in the summer of 2023. I introduced this book in my previous column , but I asked the author, Christine Piper, …
Episode 40: The story of a Japanese doctor in Australia during wartime
Nov. 24, 2023 • Ryusuke Kawai
Detention Centers, Institutions for Disease Control, and Wavering Feelings It is well known that at the start of the Pacific War, Japanese and Japanese-Americans in the United States were deemed "enemy aliens" and isolated in internment camps, but what is less known is that similar internment camps also existed in Australia. During World War II, Australia was an enemy of Japan as it was part of the Allied Powers, and the Japanese military attacked Darwin on the Australian mainland, among …
39th Racism: Structural Discrimination
Nov. 10, 2023 • Ryusuke Kawai
Read "Racism in America" Even today, discrimination and conflict over "race" continues to occur all over the world. In particular, in the United States, which has been called the "melting pot of races," incidents that appear to be discrimination and prejudice against black and Asian people occur repeatedly. For Japanese Americans, who are a minority in American society, this is an issue that cannot be ignored. Why do these racial problems occur? What exactly is race? How has American society …
No. 38 The Florida Emigrants made into a TV movie
Oct. 27, 2023 • Ryusuke Kawai
Kotaro Sudo in Miami Beach Writing a non-fiction book and receiving letters from readers with their thoughts and impressions is a great way to discover new things and is a joy. Two years ago, I received a letter through my publisher from a 91-year-old woman who said she had read my 2015 book, " Yamato Colony: The Men Who Left Japan in Florida " (Shunposha). "Yamato Colony" is a non-fiction book that follows the story of the Japanese colony that …
