VIFF -- Review: Our Mr. Matsura

Matsura (right) with a local in Okanogan County

Frank (Sakae) Matsura, was the son of a Samurai in Hirado, Japan, but by the time he was growing up, feudalism was in decline. In 1901 he left this deteriorating aristocratic lifestyle and got on a ship to Washington State.

Our Mr. Matsura opens with present-day locals pointing out their relatives in the photographs they have that were taken by the Japanese photographer.

But who was he? The documentary tries to piece him together in the film.

Matsura wasn't shy in front of the camera

Matsura first arrived in Seattle, but feeling adventurous, he went east to Okanogan County, a small town that had miners, ranchers, Indigenous people, and immigrants. Matsura was fluent in English, Christian (he converted in Japan), and learned photography.

Interestingly he was the only Japanese in Okanogan County, and because he spoke good English and was well-dressed, the locals took to him quickly. He took lots of photographs of them, some in their regular clothes, others dressed up, or of the scenery of the area, which are wonderful evidence of what the place was like in the early 20th century.

There are also many photographs Matsura took of himself and with others; in some of them he pokes fun of himself, showing his easy going humour. He was far from reserved and shy.

But it was sad to discover that he died of tuberculosis at the age of 39, though his funeral had a massive turnout of mourners.

Director Beth Harrington who also wrote and produced the documentary creates an interesting portrait of Matsura, gathering as much information as she could about him from Japan and Okanogan County. 

He also took pictures of Indigenous people

His Japanese relatives send postcards and letters to him, but we don't know what he replied back to them. They always asked how he was, and if he was coming back home. But perhaps he was having too much fun, or couldn't see himself being back in Japan.

"A Japanese immigrant alone in a region hundreds of miles from the nearest compatriot, forming deep connections with people of different backgrounds," Harrington says.

"One can't help but admire the combination of emotional intelligence, empathy, humour, and inner resilience it took to navigate the complex landscape of the Pacific Northwest during a time of great change."

She also says his photographs do not show stereotypes, but individual personalities; Matsura respected people for who they were.

"In Matsura's photographs, we encounter his humanity, the humanity of others depicted who may not be 'like' us, and we also feel our own humanity rise in a kind of sympathetic vibration," Harrington says. "That depth, that joy, that connection form a bridge."

Our Mr. Matsura

Directed by Beth Harrington

97 minutes

Fact of the Day: HK's Birthrate Falls Below 30K

Babies are a scarce resource in Hong Kong

A quick news flash from Hong Kong that isn't good for the city's future.

It is well-known the birthrate is low, but the latest figures are definitely concerning.

There were only 2,376 births in August, the lowest total for an August since monthly records began, and 112 fewer than last year.

This means Hong Kong is expected to have 28,818 births for 2026, the first time below 30,000 since World War II.

That was when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong from December 1941-August 1945 (three years and eight months). During that period the Japanese colonisers routinely executed Chinese residents, took over and controlled the police, hyperinflation led to financial hardships for locals, and there was a shortage of fuel and food.

For comparison, only 10 years ago (2016), there were 60,856 births in Hong Kong...

What further measures will the Hong Kong government take to boost the birthrate? Does it even care?

Tribute to Kusama, Queen of Dots

Kusama brightened our lives with dots

The Japanese contemporary artist Yayoi Kusama passed away on Thursday at the age of 97 in a hospital in Tokyo. 

We were just reeling after the death of country singer Dolly Parton when news of Kusama was announced, though she died on August 14.

Many fans went onto social media to post pictures of themselves posing with Kusama's giant polka dotted yellow pumpkin on Naoshima Island, between the main islands of Honshu and Shikouku.

Her pumpkin on Naoshima Island

I have seen her smaller sculptures at Art Basel in Hong Kong, but in May this year I was able to experience one of her installations at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto.

Entitled Infinity Mirrored Room -- Let's Survive Together limits a maximum of four people at a time, with only a minute in the room. Once you walk inside there are lots of shiny silver balls in a mirrored room, which makes it look endless, but is actually quite small.

In the middle is a hole you look through, and that too is infinity.

And your 60 seconds are up.

Since she was young she had hallucinations of seeing dots everywhere, and portrayed the world she saw in this way. Kusama seemed to have a penchant for wavy tentacles, voluptuous pumpkins, and balls. Lots of balls and dots.

When I first read about Kusama I was surprised to find she lived in a mental hospital, but perhaps it was easier for her to live this way, having others look after her while she just focused on her art?

It seems sad that her parents didn't appreciate her artistic potential -- they were more focused on getting her married off, something she completely detested. 

The mirrored room in the Art Gallery of Ontario

According to Wikipedia, her father was a womaniser, and Kusama's mother made her daughter spy on his affairs, which instilled a contempt for sex, and in particular men's sexual organs. Imagine how traumatic it must have been to deal with adult issues as a little girl!

Her parents' inability to accept Kusama for who she was only made her more determined to pursue art in the United States and went to New York.

While there she was poor and living in obscurity, though Kusama persisted in her vision of polka dot motifs, and eventually was noticed. Many liked the accessibility of her work, which was not pop art, nor splashing paint onto canvases like Jackson Pollock. She established her own style and stuck with it her whole career.

Interestingly she befriended artists like Andy Warhol and Georgia O'Keeffe, though Kusama returned to Japan in 1973 after living in New York for 15 years.

She found success with her mirrored room in the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, and later collaborated with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton thanks to Marc Jacobs, and even established her own fashion brand in 1968 called Kusama Fashion Company Limited.

I admire her wholehearted devotion to art that never strayed from her motifs like polka dots. She was dotty to the end.

Calbee's Packaging Goes Black and White

Calbee's new monochrome packaging starts on May 25

The US-Israel war against Iran is hitting everyone around the world harder. Everyday in Vancouver we hold our breaths as we see how much more expensive gas is at the pumps, fewer people can afford to dine in restaurants, and many have decided to plan their summer vacations at home than shell out for overseas travel.

In Japan, the dwindling supply of oil has led to famed potato chip brand Calbee to change the colour of its packaging. 

It is temporarily ditching the colourful packaging that usually lures consumers for a monochrome look for the foreseeable future because naphtha is needed in parts of the ink manufacturing process.

Naphtha is a petroleum byproduct that is crucial in plastic production, used in cigarette lighters, and fuel for camping stoves, among other uses.

And prices for naphtha in Asia have almost doubled since the conflict began on February 28, when oil shipments halted in the Strait of Hormuz.

Calbee's new black-and-white packaging -- which could become a collector's item -- will debut on May 25 in Japan.

In a statement Calbee said the design change was in response to "supply instability affecting raw materials amid ongoing tensions in the Middle East. This measure is intended to help maintain a stable supply of products."

Before the conflict, Japan imported 40 percent of its naphtha from the Middle East. Last month Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said the country is looking to diversify its sources outside to other countries such as the United States.

Hayato Sumino "Cateen" Dazzles Vancouver

Sumino is very comfortable playing the piano -- a lot!

Last night was a memorable evening with Japanese superstar pianist and composer Hayato Sumino tinkling the ivories in a show-stopping performance at The Orpheum.

There were concerns the tickets would not sell out like Carnegie Hall a few weeks ago -- but the Vancouver venue was packed with music lovers, Japanese fans and the rest of us eager to watch Sumino make his debut with the Vancouver Recital Society.

An upright piano adjacent to the grand piano

And the 30-year-old delivered finesse and more, with a two-hour concert (with an intermission) that flew by. On stage was a Steinway grand piano, and perpendicular to it, another Steinway, but upright, with the front panel removed to reveal its strings and hammers.

In the first half of the concert, Sumino played Bach's Chromatic Fantasie and Fugue in D minor BWV 903, and Chopin's Nocturne in C minor,  Op. 48 No. 1, and Scherzo No. 1 in B minor, Op. 20.

In between Bach and Chopin Sumino played his own compositions, one a riff off of the latter, Recollection (after Chopin). Sumino's own works sound like movie scores, ranging from a bit of drama to tenderness, his fingers caressing the keys.

During the intermission fans rushed towards the stage to take selfies with the two pianos. They seemed to anticipate something more amazing was going to happen, and they were right.

The first half was just the prelude to what Sumino was capable of. He walked on stage and with a microphone greeted the audience and explained he had a big cat and the next piece he was playing was called Big Cat Waltz in a dedication to this cat who likes to jump around.

And indeed one could imagine a furry feline jumping onto the piano, or trying to distract his master from practicing on the keyboard.

Sumino has a science and engineering degree

Sumino then unleashed a lot of energy and emotion into playing his own arrangement of Gershwin's An American in Paris; Sumino seems to love riffing off of others and one could imagine he makes each performance slightly different. He brought out a melodica, a tiny keyboard with a mouth piece attached to a tube. 

In some parts he played the melodica with his right hand, while his left stayed on the grand piano; he went back and forth to playing the small instrument to the piano, and then ended with such an energetic finish!

He left the stage and moments later returned to play Ravel's Bolero. When the orchestra plays this work, it's the drummer who has the toughest job keeping a steady beat, but here it's Sumino who has to keep his "drum" going. He went to the upright piano and with a piece of felt fabric, the hammers on the piano created a gentle thud that he started and then was able to continue automatically.

Sumino straddled both pianos at first, and then focused mostly on the grand piano, continuing the drumming with his left hand throughout while slowly building the crescendo in the nine-minute piece. What dexterity and talent! We all jumped to our feet after!

Vancouver got three encores

Was there any doubt there would be at least one encore?

He performed Chopin's Etude in C major, Op. 10 No. 1, the audience couldn't get enough so he came back and played  Kapustin's Toccatina No. 3 from Eight Etudes Op. 40, and again the crowd was clamouring for more and Sumino played his signature 7 Variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

Throughout the concert Sumino looked like he enjoyed playing the piano and re-interpreting the music he way he likes to play it. At the age of three he began learning the piano, but when he was in university he studied science and engineering at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. He graduated just as the pandemic was starting in March 2020. He was also a drummer who wanted to play in a rock band!

But perhaps the piano was calling him, as two years earlier he won the Grand Prix at the 42nd PTNA Piano Competition, a Japanese piano competition, which helped start his fan base at home.

In 2021 he participated in the XVIII International Chopin Competition in Warsaw (where Canadian Bruce Liu won), and Sumino advanced to the third round.

He also seems to enjoy performing with other people, from fellow pianists to orchestras; when he played his own arrangement of An American in Paris, it would have been even better with him performing with a bassist, saxophonist and drummer, each with their own solo.

Nevertheless, Sumino has done a lot for classical music, garnering a lot of young fans thanks to his Youtube videos, showing them classical music doesn't have to be stuffy and boring!

 

Picture of the Day: Kanzan Cherry Blossoms

They look like deep pink popcorn on trees

Cherry blossom season isn't over yet in Vancouver!

A second wave of cherry trees are blooming now, featuring kanzan cherry blossoms that are a deeper pink in colour and appear in bunches, like popcorn popping up on the branches.  

Cherry blossoms continue to bloom

This type of tree was developed in the Edo period in Japan as a result of many hybrids. It is a deciduous tree that grows well in cold regions, making it popular in Europe and North America.

Each year I learn a bit more about cherry blossoms and have a greater appreciation for them! 

Review: The 7-Eleven Tamago Sando

7-Elevens in Canada now have the tamago sando available

A few months ago there was a lot of excitement that 7-Elevens in Canada would finally be stocked with the famous Japanese-style egg salad sandwiches, the tamago sandos featuring shokupan, or slices of fluffy milk bread with butter, and a creamy egg salad in between.

Last December, the executive chef of 7-Eleven Canada, Benny Cheng, went to Japan for seven days and ate two tamago sandos each day, trying to memorise the taste and texture, and then recreate it back in the convenience store's headquarters in Surrey, British Columbia.

They are a reasonable $5 each

Before that he was already researching the sandwich and told The Vancouver Sun it took a year to source all the right ingredients, including Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise and the milk bread; he found a bakery in Vancouver to make it to his specifications.

Finally the Japanese-style egg salad sandwich was launched on March 6, and while some influencers were too polite to be critical of the Canadian version of the tamago sando, others were not shy in saying it was not the same as the ones from Japan.

Over a month later I finally tried the sandwich myself. I bought it downtown for $5, ($5.25 plus tax) and opened the packaging.

Inside are what looks like it could be fluffy slices of bread, but a bite into them and they're on the dry side. The egg salad filling has a cheery shade of bright yellow, however the dominant taste is butter not egg. 

Examining the ingredients listed at the back, it's not butter, but actually margarine... and there is a long list of non-natural flavours.

The egg salad is a bright yellow

For example, for the shokupan bread there's vegetable monoglycerides, soybean lecithin, and potassium sorbate, beta carotene. In the egg salad there's xanthan gum, mustard, lemon juice concentrate, paprika, tumeric and garlic powder.

It only takes minutes to demolish the sandwich, and then you're left... unsatisfied. Maybe a Japanese fruit sando would do the trick?

Sake to the Hollywood Stars and Beyond

Dassai Junmai Dai Ginjo 23, 39, 45 and Nigori 45

In the late 1980s sushi and sashimi came to Vancouver, and along with it, sake.

At the time Japanese restaurants served sake warm, presenting them in silver buckets meant for ice, but instead filled with warm water.

Bluefin tuna crudo with blood orange

For a long time that's how many of us thought that was how sake was supposed to be imbibed.

However it turns out warm sake is typically lower-grade sake to mask the harsh flavours, while premium ones are served chilled, much like white wine.

Last night I got a chance to try some sake by the brand Dassai, which I have tried a few times with Japanese food.

At the Governors Ball following the Oscars last Sunday, Hollywood elite were treated to Dassai sake to have with food prepared by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, along with sushi prepared by sushi chefs. And for those curious, it was Dassai 23.

But the exercise last evening was to sample the sake with Western-style food to show non-Japanese that sake can be paired with anything from cheese to pizza and steak.

Rice polished at different percentages

The Sake Samurai for Canada is Patrick Ellis and he loves talking about sake. He became a Sake Samurai in 2018, where he was inducted in an hours' long ceremony where he had to give a speech in Japanese about what sake means to him.

He explained that sake has umami, the fifth sense, described as savouriness which can be found in food like tomatoes, mushrooms, soy sauce, anchovies, cheese and dashi.

The numbers on the bottles indicate how much the brown rice has been polished. In the case of Dassai 23, that means 77 percent of the rice has been polished, and for Dassai 45, 55 percent of the rice was polished. The more the rice is polished, the cleaner the flavour and brighter the aroma.

We started off with a sparkling sake which was milky in appearance, followed by Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 23 Centrifuge paired with bluefin tuna crudo with blood orange segments. The centrifuge helps filter the sake from the lees for a cleaner taste, or so they say. This pairing extended the sweet taste of toro and chutoro.

Foie gras torchon with brioche and apricot

The tasting continued with Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 39, which tasted cleaner, and a bolder taste, paired with foie gras torchon on toasted brioche with apricot gelee.

The main course of USDA prime Omaha striploin was rolled with proscuitto and served with stewed San Marzano tomatoes, black truffle and whipped potatoes, and was paired with Junmai Dai Ginjo Dassai 45. This was similar to Dassai 39 with a clean taste that had no trouble holding up to the strong flavours of the beef.

For dessert, Madagascar vanilla panna cotta with poached pear sauce together with Nigori Dassai 45.

After dinner, Ellis also told us that Dassai sake ingredients were sent to the International Space Station last fall to try sake fermentation in space! It returned to Earth recently and will be made into sake soon. He was hinting that if we end up living in space, the easiest alcoholic drink to make there will be sake, not wine.

Striploin rolled with proscuitto in tomato sauce

Representing Dassai were two executives who specifically flown in to Vancouver just for this event and left today: Shohei Yamane, director at Dassai, and Takenari Yamamori, manager of international business.

I asked Yamane about how Dassai managed to get served at the Governors Ball and he explained that one of the Dassai partners is in the movie business. What a great marketing strategy! Apparently director Steven Spielberg pronounced their sake as "exceptional".

When I asked Yamane about the biggest sake market outside of Japan, he said it was China. Before it was Hong Kong, but like seafood and steaks, some of it goes across the mainland and it's hard to know exactly how much.

We also talked about Hong Kong, and he knew of a sake bar called Sake Bar Ginn that he had visited, and I had been too! Too bad it closed during Covid.

Yamane talking to the sake crowd

Dassai is hoping to grow sake consumption in Canada, and it starts with dinners like these to educate diners what sake is and how it complements pretty much everything you eat.

 

Japan's National Dish

Japanese curry but make it vegetarian

I made some Japanese curry tonight using the packaged roux.

However, unlike the usual combination of beef, potatoes and carrots, I made mine vegetarian, chopping up potatoes, eggplant and kabocha.

First heat up oil in a big pot and saute the onions, stirring occasionally to get them caramelised a bit. Then add garlic, and in my case the vegetables. 

Let that cook for a minute or two before adding water that almost covers the ingredients and let it simmer for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked through.

Now it's time to add the roux. Turn off the heat and a new tip I learned on YouTube was to melt each roux cube in a ladle to ensure the flavour permeated the sauce.

Then turn on the heat again and let it simmer for about five more minutes. When it's done, serve it with some white rice.

The end result was a comforting dish that will get better with time.

Interesting to note Japanese curry is practically a national dish, with its origins from Indian cuisine introduced by the British during the Meiji era (1868-1912).

In 1945, a powdered instant curry roux was developed, making it easier for households to make this popular dish. 

By 1968 the pouches of curry roux came out, much like the ones we have today.

Itadakimasu!

Review: Rental Family

Fraser plays a token white guy trying to help Japanese people

An unemployed American actor in Tokyo is desperate for work and stumbles on an opportunity -- to play the part his client is paying him for -- a journalist, a second gamer, a groom, a father.

That's the premise of Rental Family, starring Brendan Fraser as Phillip Vanderploeg as the aforementioned gaijin, or foreigner in Japanese. It seems the part is made for him until you see that he executive produced the comedy-drama, which is not particularly hilarious, but sweet at times during the 110 minutes.

Phillip connects with an actor with dementia

At first Phillip is confounded with the idea of playing a character in real life, but his boss Shinji (Takehiro Hira) says this is what clients want, to be seen, or he is a means to an end. 

In the case of single mother Hitomi (Shino Shinozaki), she needs a "token white guy" to be the father of Mia (a very cute Shannon Mahina Gorman) so that she can get into a prestigious school, and for adult daughter Masami, Phillip is a journalist to jog her father Kikuo's memories, a famous elderly actor (Akira Emoto) with dementia.

Being told her father disappeared, Mia is angry when she first meets Phillip, but soon she grows attached to him and draws him pictures; he feels hey, this is a job I can do. The same could be said with his relationship with Kikuo, who feels comfortable around the American, even though he doesn't act like a journalist taking notes or recording interviews.

However, Phillip's initial reluctance becomes real when the situations he's in become more complicated, or don't go according to plan, and that's when Shinji tells him to cut the cord and extract himself from the client.

Phillip plays a dad to 11-year-old Mia

But is is that easy? As Phillip accuses his boss of running a soulless company that claims to help clients make personal connections, but they are really fake.

Most heartwarming was the "jailbreak" that Phillip and Kikuo make to go to the latter's hometown, but viewers can sense what will happen next.

The ending seems to be neatly tied up in a bow, but Rental Family is not meant to be too deep either. Nevertheless it brings up the theme of loneliness and how people yearn connections with others. Fraser is thoughtful in his role and respectful of Japanese culture, even if his character doesn't completely understand it.

Rental Family

Directed and co-written by Hikari

110 minutes

Popularity of Heated Rivalry Spawns Numerous Tangents

Heated Rivalry has blown up as the hottest show now

This week my social media has blown up with either clips of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's decisive, call-to-action speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, or of scenes from Heated Rivalry, the Canadian TV series that has turned the two stars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie into celebrities overnight.

In real life and in fiction, both are pushing back against angry men who want to aggressively take over the world and demand subordination from trad women.

There is so much analysis of Heated Rivalry that it's pretty crazy how everyone has fallen for the two characters, Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov, who are hockey players on rival teams and are smitten with each other.

Analysts opined why the show appeals to women

Aside from the sensual sex scenes, many say female viewers are so obsessed with the show because the two actors are gorgeous men who play a very physical game, but when it comes to their relationship, they are very sensitive -- which analysts like psychologists say is what women want in men.

There is the yearning in the dialogue as well as subtle body language to hint their intentions which female viewers love picking up in the show.

Heated Rivalry was inspired by the book of the same name written by Canadian Rachel Reid in 2019, but it turns out there was a real heated rivalry story many years earlier between two female hockey players, Canadian Caroline Ouellette and American Julie Chu, who faced off against each other in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Both were team captains and both wore the number 13. While they were fierce rivals on the ice, Chu and Ouellette became friends and then lovers, but kept their relationship private for many years. After they were both played in the Olympics four times, they hung up their skates and have two girls and live in Montreal. Ouellette is the assistant coach for the Canadian women's hockey team for the upcoming Milano Cortina Winter Olympics next month.

Storrie and Williams became celebs overnight

Another tangent is that the phenomenon that is Heated Rivalry the show, is not new in Asia. As pointed out in Lingua Sinica's Substack, BL, or "Boys' Love" has been going red hot for years in Thailand, Taiwan, Japan and China.

The shows appeal mostly to women and some men, with storylines that range from mutual love without physical touching to those that include sex scenes. Thailand has the most mature BL scene, which generates a lot of revenue not only from the shows but also from meet-and-greets with the fans.

These events in Thailand can last five to six hours, where tens of thousands of fans from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, fill stadiums to see their favourite stars in person. The fans snap up all kinds of memorabilia, which means lining up for an hour just to buy them. General admission to these fan events alone costs HK$2,600 (US$333), and together with airfare and hotel, means these fans are around 30 to 40 years old, and mainly female.

So in a way the West is finally discovering BL, which is already hundreds of miles ahead in Asia. And with Shane Hollander the character and Hudson Williams the actor both half Asian, Heated Rivalry has gained a huge fan base across the Pacific.

Review: The Space Architect

Adams designed living spaces for astronauts

After watching the documentary Changing Lanes, I had a quick break eating a Japanese sausage roll (a sausage wrapped in a croissant-like fluffy, flaky pastry), I returned to VIFF to watch The Space Architect, directed by Rebecca Carpenter.

Who's the space architect? It's Constance Adams, a woman who took her skills as an architect and applied them to space, imagining how astronauts live outside of the Earth, what their lives will be like, what they would need, and how they would survive.

She got to experience zero gravity

But she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer and contacted Carpenter, her college classmate who is a filmmaker, asking her to come film her last words.

Carpenter rushed over to Houston and filmed Adams, who by this point was quite ill, needing oxygen to help her breathe. Dressed in a green shirt and black vest, Adams looked very animated, and her nails were painted bright red.

She got a bachelors degree in social studies at Harvard, then a masters in architecture at Yale. She interned with Cesar Pelli, then went to Tokyo to work for the architectural firm Kenzo Tange, then Berlin to work for Josef Paul Kleihues.

However, the economy in Germany wasn't doing well following the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Adams returned to the US to interview for a firm in Houston. While she was there she toured NASA and thought it was so interesting she left them her resume.

Her inflatable TransHub project

They later contacted her and asked if she was still interested. She was. Lockheed Martin hired her as a consultant and she worked on various projects, though she was best known for TransHab, or Transit Habitat, an inflatable module where astronauts could live and work.

Her way of solving problems was to gather all different kinds of experts together, from engineers to psychologists to talk about various scenarios and imagine what it would be like to live in space and how that would affect design and architecture in space.

Adams says all her work with NASA isn't really about humans going into space and finding the final frontier, it's about finding ways for humans to survive on Earth with climate change happening. To find solutions, she created the Mothership project.

Towards the end of the film, it says that four days after Carpenter finished filming, Adams died at the age of 53.

We were lucky that Carpenter came to Vancouver to talk to audiences after the screening. She started by saying Adams wanted her to tell everyone to get a colonoscopy after the age of 50... if she had done so she would have detected the cancer earlier.

Then she talked about filming Adams, that she was sicker than she thought she was, and they did the best they could.

Adams when she was filmed in 2018

After filming wrapped, Carpenter didn't know what she had and let her daughter watch some raw footage; she said this woman is iconic, and that her story had to be told. Her daughter's friend said the same, and so did a film editor friend.

Then the pandemic hit and Carpenter couldn't deal with this project while isolating, finding it a depressing subject. But it seems like it was a group of women in the film industry who encouraged Carpenter to keep going, and they helped her out to eventually finish the film this year.

Adams' daughters have seen the film and say it captures their mother well, and Carpenter confirms they are doing well under the guardianship of Adams' friend.

One audience member asked Carpenter what she learned from making this film and she replied that she is so grateful for every moment, sharing the moment of being with us, being thankful for everything... it seemed like she basically meant that she was grateful to be alive.

Adams accomplished so much in her short time on Earth, and we need to remember trailblazers like her, and be inspired by her great ambitions for all of us.

The Space Architect

Directed by Rebecca Carpenter

40 minutes

Canadians Keeping Their Elbows Up

Canadians are showing their true colours this year

Ever since Donald Trump tossed out the possibility of Canada becoming the 51st state, Canadians have fought back with their "Elbows Up" mentality and there's now a lot of data proving that.

Travel is the biggest sign in Canada shunning the United States. When it comes to Canadians traveling across the border by car, there is a whopping 34 percent drop in August compared to the same month last year. That's the eighth consecutive month of declines apart from the Covid-19 pandemic period.

Many are upset by Trump's calls for the 51st state

There is also a lot fewer Canadians traveling by air to the US too. In August, the number of Canadians returning from the US by plane fell 25.4 percent compared to the same month last year too.

Canadians used to love traveling to Las Vegas for entertainment, gambling, and food, but not so much anymore.

Flair Airlines saw the biggest plunge of 62 percent of Canadian passengers, while Air Canada's was 33 percent, and WestJet 31 percent. As a result the airlines have shuffled their planes and are using smaller ones going to Vegas these days.

Instead Canadians are traveling to Europe, the Caribbean, South America, and Japan. This year Air Canada added 28 international routes to satisfy demand.

Meanwhile when it comes to books written by Canadian authors, Indigo reports a 25 percent jump in sales compared to last year, and the CBC has seen a 34 percent increase in people checking out Gem, its streaming platform.

Even Historica, which promotes Canadian history through programs like Heritage Minutes has seen a noticeable uptick in the number of people checking out the Canadian Encyclopedia with more than 14 million views this year.

It's great to see how Canadians are determined to do as much as they can to keep their elbows up!

Earthquake Prediction in Japan Scares HK Tourists

An earthquake prediction has scared HK tourists to Japan

Last year a friend told me about a prediction that there would be a massive earthquake in Japan on July 5 -- an exact date.

Luckily I had already planned to go to Tokyo in March -- and was perhaps even luckier to miss the 7.7-magnitude earthquake in Bangkok by two weeks. 

The March 2011 prediction did come true

The prediction, which was published in 2021, is from a manga artist, who had forewarned of a major disaster on March 2011, which was when an earthquake caused the Fukushima nuclear accident.

As a result of the upcoming July date, a lot of Hong Kong tourists did not plan to go to Japan these few days, and bookings for flights and hotels were down.

Because of this, Hong Kong Airlines has cancelled flights to two Japanese cities in July and August, citing sluggish demand.

However, there are some tourists in Japan who had no idea about this prediction and shrug, while others take no stock in what a manga artist thinks will happen with no scientific evidence.

And people who study earthquakes say it's impossible to predict them, while the Japanese Meteorological Agency has warned of an 80 percent chance of a large-scale shock measured at a magnitude of 8 or 9 would occur along the Nankai Trough running along the country's east coast in the coming 30 years...

HK tourists plan travel to Japan after mid-July

But things are looking up -- Hong Kong travelers are looking to visit Japan from mid-July onwards.

"Travellers may consider that it will be safe after that date," said Tommy Tam Kwong-shun, managing director of a travel agency. He believed the demand would soon recover, as Hongkongers love going to Japan and people will come when they feel it's safe to travel there.

The Japan National Tourism Organisation's figures show overall foreign arrivals increased by 21.5 percent, a historic high for May, though Hong Kong was the only place that had fewer visitors to Japan in that period.

The organisation attributed the drop in Hong Kong visitors to "information that an earthquake was occurring in Japan spreading on social media".

Chretien's Words of Advice Dealing with Trump

Chretien says world leaders should ignore Trump's "crazy"

The G7 Summit will be held from June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta, and a convicted felon by the name of US President Donald Trump will be attending.

Former Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien has some words of advice for not only current PM Mark Carney, but also other world leaders attending -- don't engage with the "crazy" from Trump.

Speaking at a conference in Calgary on Thursday, Chretien said leaders can't predict what the American president will do. Chretien said Trump can be a bully and it would be best if the other G7 leaders ignored his outbursts.

Carney had a relatively smooth visit with Trump

"If he has decided to make a show to be in the news, he will do something crazy," Chretien warned.

"Let him do it, and keep talking normally."

He cited the example of how Carney handled Trump during his visit to the White House last month.

"When Trump talked about Canada to be part of the United States, [Carney] just said, 'Canada is not for sale, the White House is not for sale, Buckingham Palace is not for sale," Chretien said.

"Trump said, 'Never say never,' [but Carney] didn't even reply. He just moved on with the discussion. It's the way to handle that."

On Sunday, leaders from France, Germany, Japan the United Kingdom, Italy and the European Union will be attending, as well as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

Cherry Blossom Season in Vancouver

The pink blossoms are beautifying Vancouver

Vancouver is deep in cherry blossom season, with lots of fluffy pink blobs covering trees around the city.

After having recently returned from Tokyo where I saw some sakura, I am biased when I say the ones in Vancouver are much prettier!

The cherry blossoms in my neighbourhood

Our city is celebrating 100 years of cherry blossoms, as it was in 1925 when the mayors of Kobe and Yokohama presented the Vancouver Park Board with 500 trees of the Ojochin variety to plant at the cenotaph in Stanley Park in honour of the Japanese-Canadian veterans of World War I.

Then from the 1930s to the 1950s, the Park Board planted cherry tree seeds that were donated by Japanese Canadians, around Vancouver. 

Three hundred more cherry trees were donated in 1958 by the Japanese consul Muneo Tanabe as a symbol of friendship between Canada and Japan. The trees were planted along Cambie Street, between 33rd and 49th avenues, in Queen Elizabeth Park and around the cenotaph in Stanley Park.

In 1990 the Park Board did a comprehensive inventory of street trees and found nearly 36 percent of the 89,000 trees on city streets were flowering plum and cherry trees. 

Fluffy pink popcorn on trees

Every year Vancouver has the Cherry Blossom Festival, encouraging residents to check out the city in pink, write haiku and have a picnic, and learn more about cherry trees.

Despite the rain earlier this week, most of the cherry blossoms managed to hang onto their branches, dry off and continue to beautify the city. They and magnolias are also a treat to look at these days. Magnolia are also fleeting, as once they bloom, the petals fall off and that's the end of the season.

Cherry blossoms remind us to stop and appreciate the beauty around us, even if it might cause those of us with pollen allergies to have some sneezing episodes!

Weak Yen Attracts Foreign Money

No cars on the road in the shopping area of Ginza on Sundays

The depressed yen has been a boon for tourism to Japan. People around the world have been flocking to the Land of the Rising Sun for great deals on everything from sushi to clothing. Tourists are lapping up the deals, but leaving those in the hospitality industry burned out.

For example, an izakaya dinner for three including six alcoholic drinks, sushi and king crab, the total bill came to around 28,000 yen (US$190), which is very reasonable by most standards, and for those from Hong Kong, cheap.

When it comes to shopping, bring your passport and the value added tax is deducted at the till -- no need to line up at the airport to process refunds. A friend went to the Ralph Lauren outlet store and bought two pairs of trousers, a pair of jeans and a hoodie for his five-year-old nephew which came to around 69,000 yen (US$470). 

I went on a shopping spree at Uniqlo and the total came to 17,240 -- but with my passport it was deducted further to 15,673 (US$106.80). That was for a pair of jeans, a cotton knit top, an adult T-shirt, three kids' T-shirts and two pairs of kids' shorts. 

Eager to get a pair of sneakers, I headed to well-known brand Onitsuka Tiger, the precursor to Asics. The two-storey shop was swarmed by tourists, grabbing whatever sample shoes they could get their hands on and asking staff to give them the footwear in their sizes.

I couldn't help but feel sorry for the staff, who probably by now are used to aggressive foreigners demanding these sneakers that they perceive as cool. For me though, they aren't comfortable footwear, as the heel area doesn't have much support.

Instead I wandered down the street to an unassuming shoe shop in the basement and there I could browse other sneaker brands without anyone fighting over them. I also had attentive service, trying several shoes before deciding on a pair. 

The Japanese-made sneakers were priced at 19,250 yen (US$130), and with duty free it came to 17,500 yen (US$119.27). 

While tourism does bring in foreign currency into Japan, investment does too.

A Chinese friend I met up with in Hong Kong told me her brother had moved to a small town outside Tokyo -- as an investor. He has put money into a school for disabled children in this town and in return he and his family are allowed to have residency there. 

Apparently they are learning Japanese, his young children go to school there, and they really like the laid-back lifestyle. 

Since 2023, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been strongly promoting foreign investment in Japan, with a goal of achieving a balance of 100 trillion yen by 2030. 

There also seems to be more foreigners living and working there, some doing manual labour like repaving roads, to making takoyaki (ball-shaped Japanese snacks usually filled with chopped octopus) in a street-side stall. 

As the population is shrinking because of the low birth rate, more help is needed, which is why the country has had to become more inviting to foreign workers; it has forced the previously insular, homogenous culture to be more accepting of others.

"Necessity is the author of change", says adventurer Tim Hansel. 

Indeed.

Tokyo: Looking at the Japanese Capital from Up High

Looking up at Tokyo Tower at night

A good way to have a grasp of a city you're visiting is to see it from up high, and Tokyo, a metropolis built vertically, has not one, but two towers from which you can perch from and look down. 

When I went to Tokyo for the first time in the mid-1980s on a school trip, going to Tokyo Tower was a big deal. I still remember the guide book I bought and some souvenirs like key chains. 

Fantastic night scenes of the city

Shaped like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, but 9 metres taller, Tokyo Tower was built in 1958 and stands 332.9 metres and has an observation deck at 150 metres, and a higher one at 250 metres. We went after dinner and were surprised to find there was no line up. We just bought tickets and went up the elevator to see Tokyo at night. 

Admittedly it was difficult to make out everything in the dark, but it was enjoyable with less visitors. As it is sakura season, the observation deck area was decorated with a fake sakura tree and pink petals decorating some of the windows (making it harder to take pictures). Nevertheless it was a clear night and so our night pictures were pretty good.

A day later we had afternoon tickets for Tokyo Skytree, which is also a broadcast and observation tower, the tallest in Japan at 634 metres. And because it opened in 2012, visitors are more interested in coming here than Tokyo Tower.

Women in kimonos at Sensoji Temple

We first went to Sensoji Temple and it was packed with people, as it was a Sunday and beautiful weather, and most importantly sakura or cherry blossoms had bloomed. Many young women were dressed in kimono, but we could only tell where they were from when they opened their mouths -- some spoke Cantonese, others Mandarin. Then there were a few non-Asians who managed to squeeze into the kimonos, and one guy went barefoot, perhaps because there were no socks in his size...

They rented these outfits in order to have their pictures taken by professional photographers. 

Looking across the river we could see Tokyo Skytree in the distance and began walking towards it. Along the river are restaurants and cafes, while others sat on the grass or ground and had hamani, or picnics to appreciate the cherry blossoms.

We walked around 20 minutes and arrived at the base of Tokyo Skytree, which includes a shopping complex with various brands, and yes McDonald's, and other cafes.

Walking towards Tokyo Skytree

Luckily we decided to line up "early" for the 4pm slot because others had already begun standing in line. We soon realised that it zig-zagged around and it was quite the ordeal waiting for one of three or four high-speed elevators to get up to the observation deck. 

Finally after 4pm we finally made it to the front and allotted to an elevator where we had to wait for it to go up and then come down before opening its doors to collect us. We got the combo tickets where we could visit both observation decks at 350 metres and 450 metres. 

I could see how tiring it was for the staff to corral people all day, repeat the same spiel about Tokyo Skytree every 10 minutes or so and to bow as the elevator doors closed, then repeat. Again and again.

There was a tour group from India and they were able to bypass lines to get their own elevator spot; the Tokyo Skytree staff were used to this and gave them priority, making the rest of us wait another several minutes.

But once we were up on the 350-metre high deck, it was quite the sight. Seeing Tokyo by day it made me realise how many rivers there are snaking through the city, and as a result there are numerous bridges. 

The observation tower at 450 metres high

We could barely see what we going on down below, just tons of buildings like Lego bricks poking up from the ground and standing straight, while the curves of the river forced the structures to conform to the shape. The city stretched out as far as the eye could see, with a population of over 14 million. 

There were some glass skywalks inside, where there was nothing holding you up except the thick glass. Some found it scary, others exhilarating. 

One young woman was dressed up in a cosplay outfit so that she could take pictures at Skytree; many were willing to pay for the privilege.

We walked up an incline to get to the next elevator at 450 metres, but here it was even higher and everything looked even smaller down below. There were also more supports on the windows, which didn't give clear views for photographs.

Many rivers snake through the city

Getting back down was also an ordeal, again waiting in line for the next elevator, though once we were in (at the 350 metre level), we were warned we couldn't go back up again, and that was that. Lots of souvenir shops below, though none of them sold any printed guidebooks. 

Finally getting out of Skytree we were relieved to get away from the mass crowd of visitors. It must be so tiring for the staff dealing with so many people everyday.