My maternal grandmother Tabata passed away from cancer in 1980. Grandfather Tabata passed away before I was born and unfortunately I never learned much about him. From what I know, both of my Tabata grandparents were from Wakayama and immigrated to Canada in the 1910’s. Grandfather Tabata was a fisherman and the family lived in...Continue reading
Tag: grandparents
Learning About Internment
Both sides of my parents’ families were interned during the war. However, since three of my grandparents passed away before I was even 10 years old, I never really had much opportunity to speak to them about their experiences. My paternal grandmother was the only one who really remembered the internment years and she lived...Continue reading
Steveston property
When I see the house on the corner of 4th Avenue and Chatham I recall the story I was told about my Jiichan who once offered to buy my grandmother that particular house which still stands to this day. Perhaps that was a good call on my grandmother’s part because they would have lost it...Continue reading
My grandfather
My paternal grandfather died in 1924 when my dad was 4 years old. My dad, his parents, and his younger sister were living in a small fishing community in Canoe Pass in Delta, BC with several other families from their village of Ibusuki in Kagoshima. My grandfather had been a fisherman and died at sea....Continue reading
Living in Japan and Learning Japanese
Knowing the difficult lives that my grandparents had here in Canada early on made me curious about the country they left behind. In spite of my staunch childhood declaration that I would never have any interest in ever travelling to Japan, I participated in the UBC-Japan Exchange Program, visiting Japan for six weeks when I...Continue reading
Parental Expectations, Passed On
I never met my paternal grandfather as he passed away before my parents were even married. Judging from the stories my father would tell of his childhood in the 1920s and ‘30s, my grandfather was a strict man who set high standards for his family. I saw this trait in my father, too, especially as...Continue reading
Grandma’s Impact on Us
Our grandma, Yukiko, was warm, caring, and loved us unconditionally. She never spoke Japanese to us or talked to us about our roots, but since we were young we thought nothing of it. Our grandma was a product of all that she experienced in her life, and while she took pride in being Japanese, she...Continue reading
Family History
Photo: George Chohei Endo and Tomie Endo with their first daughter, Doreen Fumiko Endo, my paternal grandmother, circa 1931, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan I will start with my grandmother. She was a nisei – her parents moved to Canada from a small town near Sendai in Miyagi-ken, and they settled in Saskatchewan. My grandmother was the...
Learning Kanji
I have been studying Japanese on and off for years now, and I still struggle with the basics. This past summer, I brought home a kanji workbook with 1000 characters that I had traced over the outlines of and tried to commit to memory. Sifting through the stroke order and the onyomi and kunyomi is...Continue reading
Denbatsuke
My grandmother, Connie (Kanako) Komori, is a nisei Japanese Canadian. When I come home to Kamloops for the summer, Connie always asks me how many dozens of jars of canning I can take with me when I go back to school. We pack up boxes of jars after sweating over the canner in the carport...Continue reading
Matsutake
My grandmother, Connie (Kanako) Komori, is a nisei Japanese Canadian who grew up in West Kelowna. Connie used to travel several hours north from our home in Kamloops to Valemount in the fall to pick matsutake. She walked in pine groves towards the hummocks that mushrooms make when they push their fleshy caps towards the...Continue reading