A taste of Japan and one man’s story

We were cresting the red wooden bridge across the artificial pond when we realized that we didn’t have to cross it to get to our tables. But the temptation was too strong to resist, and our slow progress across the steeply arching bridge was the best introduction to “Japan,” or at least the vision of it created by designer Pido Villanueva.

The ballroom of the Dusit Thani Hotel was a wonderland of bamboo and foliage, with branches of “cherry blossoms” filling the tables with tiny pink and orange flowers, and serving as both a colorful and delicate backdrop to the stage. Thus were we introduced to the Travelife Japan Night, a celebration of Japanese culture and cuisine that also served to mark the first anniversary (in March) of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan.

With the cooperation of the Japanese Embassy, Japan Night brought a taste of Japan to the guests, who ranged from former President Fidel V. Ramos, sitting senators and Cabinet members, the diplomatic community, and business and society figures. A degustacion menu prepared by the executive chef of Umu, Dusit’s Japanese restaurant, brought Japan literally to our palates, with a selection of appetizers, clear soup, salmon, tuna and eel sushi, tuna sashimi, nori-wrapped rice and Wagyu beef, and finished off with sake-flavored ice cream topped by hand-made green-tea flavored mochi and sweet cherry.

But the highlight of the evening was the appearance and performances of two maiko or young geisha flown in from Yamagata Prefecture in northern Japan. “People from the Japanese Embassy were surprised we were able to bring in the maiko,” said Christine Cunanan, Travelife editor in chief and publisher who was the moving spirit behind the event. Apparently, geisha are not allowed to travel much beyond their houses, and only at night, perhaps for fear of losing the mystique that to this day surrounds their persons and calling. But here the geisha were, exquisite in their colorful kimonos and intricate headgear, looking suitably frail and ethereal.

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Perhaps the fact that Christine lived for over 20 years in Japan, with her Japanese husband and daughter, explains her extraordinary ties to the country and the influence she wields, so much so that she was able to get the very traditional Japanese (and authorities in the closed world of the geisha) to breach convention and allow two maiko to come for a visit.

But there is also the imperative to fast-track the recovery of the Japanese tourism industry which plummeted after last year’s “triple-whammy”: the earthquake, tsunami, and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, which still raises concerns to this day.

But as a brochure assures, “except for the proximate areas near the nuclear power plants in Fukushima, there is no dangerous level of radiation detected in Japan. Tokyo is not within (the) radiation contamination concern area.”

Actually, the best time to travel to Japan is now, with the “sakura season” fast approaching, when streets and parks are blanketed with exquisite white and pale pink cherry blossoms. It’s a perfect time for communing with nature and with the gentle, polite people of Japan.

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Unfortunately, February for Filipinos, especially of the older generation, is marked by painful memories of the Japanese invasion and occupation, and most especially by the horrific events of the “liberation” of Manila, where hundreds of thousands died in the course of the brutal street battles between Japanese troops, American artillery and Filipino guerrillas.

But while watching the History Channel recently, I stumbled upon a documentary that shows a different face of wartime Japan, a stunning story of one man’s heroism.

The documentary is “Sugihara: Conspiracy of Kindness” that tells the story of Chiune Sugihara, a vice consul at the Japanese Consulate in Lithuania from 1939-1940. At the time, Germany had just invaded Poland, compelling thousands of Jews to flee Nazi persecution directed at Jews and other minorities.

With hundreds of desperate families gathered outside the consulate gates and clamoring for exit visas, Sugihara wrote repeatedly to authorities in Japan asking for permission to issue the documents. When authorities ignored his entreaties, Sugihara, upon consulting his wife Yukiko, decided to go ahead and issue the needed visas.

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“I knew I was disobeying my government,” Sugihara said when asked why he embarked on such a risky mission. “But if I did not help these people I would be disobeying God.”

In all, Sugihara is believed to have issued some 6,000 visas, each one of which had to be painstakingly written out by hand and stamped. So great was the demand that Sugihara had to work on the visas well into the early morning, and even as he and his family were on board a train bound for Berlin after the consulate was ordered closed, he was still writing out visas, even throwing out of the train blank sheets of paper stamped with the official seal to the hundreds gathered at the station.

The refugees then had to cross Eastern Europe before landing in Japan where, due to pressure from the Nazis after Japan signed a treaty with Germany, the government then shipped them off to Shanghai were they lived until war’s end.

After the war, Sugihara and his family returned to Japan but upon reporting for work at the foreign ministry, he was abruptly told to resign his post “because of the incident in Lithuania.” Sugihara worked a series of menial jobs, and neither he nor his wife talked much about their wartime exploits. That is, until the “Sugihara survivors” searched for him and honored him as one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” paying tribute to his courage and kindness in the face of unspeakable inhumanity.