Japan in San Francisco, Bay Area

US, being an immigrants country, it is not so difficult to find any ethnicity. Japan is not an exception. I already wrote about Japan Town, but even without visiting Japan Town, San Francisco, which is about 30 minutes drive from where I live, there are Japan anywhere even in San Mateo county, where we live.

5 minutes drive from our home toward South on El Camino Real, which runs across California as historic drive, there is a Authentic Japanese Garden, in Central Park San Mateo.

- Left Japanese Garden Gate -

The person who designed, built, and maintained is my friend, Sam. Sam came to US, when he was 10 years old. After he changed his job several times, he was hired as a worker in San Mateo County. Until he retired last year, he was the main figure who took care of the Japanese Garden. In winter he took out all the carps from pound and changed water. In spring, he took care of flowers and sharp wood branch tips so that children who play there were not hurt.

- Below Inside of Japanese Garden-

Still now after his official retirement, he goes to his garden and make sure everything is OK. This garden was well maintained all because of his continuous care and effort.

Of course, Japan Town is the best place for me to enjoy Japanese staff. It is now artificial sightseeing spot without actual living feeling of Japanese people, still can enjoy Japanese things. I can rent Japanese movies, my wife can buy cute cell phone straps, and both of us can enjoy Japanese food after the shopping.

-Japanese Decoration in Hotel Kabuki-
This picture is taken in Hotel Kabuki in Japan Town. If shown in Tokyo, I would not pay attention, but I admire them because I know it is the middle of San Francisco, one of main cities in US.



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San Mateo - Burlingame, City of Airport and SF Bay

I really cannot believe in my self that I have been living in San Francisco, Bay Area more than 12 years. It was really a coaster ride of life. Employed - Unemployed - Divorced - Re-married - Go Independent. One of the factors which has driven me to keep staying in SF Bay Area is that I love this area. I was born in Tokyo. Tokyo has its own bay and ocean side. But they are not as beautiful as this area. It took me for more than one hour to hit ocean side from the area I was living in Tokyo.

Here in San Francisco, Burlingame, San Mateo, it is 3 - 5 minutes drive to hit Bay Shore, whereas I can enjoy views of San Francisco Bay and Airplanes taking off and landing from San Francisco Airport. I would like to share and enjoy some pictures of my area.

First left is my house. We moved in this house October, last year. In major cities in China, there is no house for people to live. People live in apartment. So, my wife and my mother is law got excited.

Nest right is a picture taken in San Francisco Bay Shore. This is my favorite spot to think and relax. There are small path or trail to walk, jog, bike ride. A lot of people walk this trail with their family in weekends. They always smile and greet each other when they meet in the middle of trail.

2 white big buildings are airport area hotels. San Francisco International Airport is left side. Walking this trail, you can watch airplanes come and go. As you know, SF Airport has 2 parallel run ways. You can watch famous SF Airport parallel landing from here.

Below left is also a view to San Francisco Bay. There are always seagulls, geese, ducks, and other birds were seen. I like this area to be very close to nature.

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Happy Valentine's Day Weekend from San Francisco

Now, it is 12:42am in Pacific Standard Time in San Francisco. It may be a little late to say "Happy Valentine's Day". But this long weekend continues, so I would like to take a moment to share "Happy Valentine's Day" with you from San Francisco.

I continue to upload some of my favorite pictures today, too. First from my best favorite for these 5 years. Seagull and Alcatraz below left.

This picture was accidentally taken when I was trying to take a picture of Alcatraz island. The seagull almost posing in front of my camera.

I liked this picture so much that I use it as background picture of my PC's. I also used it in my web magazine several times.

Next one below right is world famous San Francisco Cable Car. Cable Car runs in San Francisco for many directions, but I like Union Square area Cable Cars with many sightseers.

Last picture today is Chinese Gate of China Town, right below. When I have a time in downtown San Francisco, I like to walk inside of China Town. There are lots of interesting souvenir shops selling T-shirts with Chinese Characters, Back scratchier, Jade Dolls, etc...

As I wrote several times, in comparison with Japan Town, which is more or less sightseeing place, I like China Town with lots of activities.

Fisherman's Wharf, Union Square, and China Town are 3 "Must Visit" spots when you first visit San Francisco.

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Delicacies in Fisherman's Wharf

It was 2005, November, when I was invited to write Web-magazine started by one of biggest Japanese web-hosting provider. I had a rare value as a strange Japanese living in foreign country. I have been writing articles at least once a month since then. Although copy right belongs to me, as a writer, they have asked writers not to post dead copy of articles, not to use pictures posted in other sites' posts or blog articles. Quite recently they relaxed their regulation and have OK'ed on putting out same articles and pictures in some other sites.

I love San Francisco. That is why I live here. So I wrote many articles about San Francisco. I would like to post some pictures and articles here in this blog. They are small my San Francisco scenery's. All the pictures are my own original.


Top Left - San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf. I have never seen this place is not crowded. It looks like there are visitors from all over the world, 24/7, 365 days a year.

First picture on the top is out door eat-stand style restaurant of Dungeoness Crabs and Seafood's. My recommendation is Salt Water Boiled Dungeoness Crab and Clam Chowder Soup in San Francisco Local Sour Dough. Now it is getting into the season for Crab, my wife and I will visit there soon. Oh, I cannot wait!

Above Right - My wife's hands eating her most favorite part of crab.

Below Left - It is outdoor served Crab Lunch Dish.

Last picture in left is San Francisco Clam Chowder Soup in Sour Dough Lunch set. This is my favorite. My wife is going to be angry if I finish this during she is just attacking her crab.

San Francisco is very romantic place with lots of histories, scenery's, natures, oceans, mountains. This city is unique in ethnic delicacies, too. The best place to enjoy Chinese foods, at the same time, Italian restaurants are superb. Japanese Sushi is compatible with New York. Seafood's, centered on Dungeones Crab are one of the best even in the world.





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Important Part of My Family

Since I introduced my wife and my mother to you in previous articles, I would like to introduce you important part of my family. They are cuties, but not babies, unfortunately. They are birds who we keep.

Biggest bird is "Goldy". She is 13 years old Cocktail. She came with my wife when we started live together in San Francisco in year 2000. My wife has full 13 years with "Goldy" and I have 7 and half years history. She is very active girl and she is free flying inside of our house. She is given her own space in kitchen shelf and she always come out every morning when either I or my wife get up and start activity.

She vigorously fly around inside of house mostly and her favorite place landing is on the top of my wife's head. Please take a look at the picture, left. She sometimes land on my shoulder or back of my working chair when I am working on PC, stays there for long time. Problem is she likes biting papers. So, when I work on PC opening some important document on my desk, I need to be careful so that she does not damage my document. She has record of biting our marriage certificate or immigration application document, etc... She bites even my business cards stocked on my working desk. She is such a Tom Boy.

It was winter 2003, when my wife and I were out almost all night, returned home early in the morning, we found "Goldy" bleeding from her toe. It looks like she got stuck her toe nail in some place, trying to get herself out, and resulted in pulling out her toe nail. We took her to veterinarian and got treated. Still, she was almost died from the damage. She lost her left foot, but fortunately, did not get infected. Several months later, she recovered from the injury and started to fly around. During she was still sick from her injury, my wife continuously talked with "Goldy" so that she could be conscious that my wife cared. It appears when one has strong will to be alive, anyone can be alive. When she recovered from injury and started to fly around again, my wife and I were very happy.

We have 3 more parakeets. I will talk about them some time later.

Related Posts:

She hated to be leashed
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/she-hated-to-be-leashed.html
Why didn't I attend my wife's new year party.
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-didnt-i-attend-my-wifes-new-year.html

One additional picture for our birds out of cage:















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Knowing the Path is Different from Walking the Path

"Knowing the Path is Different from Walking the Path." This is a quote from my favorite movie "the Matrix". I remember Oracle gave Neo gave these words when he visited her for the first time. I believe this is really true. You can Google Map the route and make sure that you do not get lost. Google Map is so powerful that it can give you traffic conditions or updated situation of the route. Still, one minute before you get to certain point, there may be an accident and need to detour. My process of applying and obtaining US Green Card was "I thought I have known how, but what happened was totally different from what I expected.

Right before Christmas 2000, when my employer told me that I needed to go, I started to prepare changing my visa status from E-2 (Investor Status) to H visa. My lawyer was confident that it could be changed and could be changed in relatively short time. I waited, waited, waited,
and received rejection notice. I tried to be re-hired by a group companies in US of my then employer, and could not get one. Economy was starting to be bad, dot com company recession. So, I needed to go out of US returned back to Japan, re-enter US as non-visa status. I continued to be back and forth between US and Japan for about a year.

My girl friend, my present wife, offered me to marry so that she can sponsor me for Green Card. She hoped that I continued to stay so that we could be together instead of 3 months in US and another month in Japan. If you continue to do this for long time, so many times, US Immigration starts to notice and start to give you problems. A couple of times in re-entry, I was sent to separate office and could not re-enter to US for 2 hours. So we married. I re-hired a lawyer and applied for Green Card. It took us almost another full year to get to the point of interview. We were so glad and happy to go to interview. We went to USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Service) and took interview. We thought it should have been no problem. Our marriage is real and we did not see any flaw. But my case was sent to higher position for re-examination. We needed to wait for another half a year to take next interview.

We took another interview 8 months later. Here I needed to point out that if you apply for Green Card, you need to obtain temporary work permit and emigration (traveling out from US) and re-entry permit for working and even traveling to outside US. Since they expire in 12 months and needed to re-apply for them, it was hectic process. USCIS attitude and reaction was far from friendly or cooperative. Even my lawyer advised me not to be angry no matter what they say or do. One day in USCIS office waiting for my turn, I found somebody curved cursing words to base of chair "XXXX USCIS". I myself would not have done that, but I could easily imagine the feeling.

The 2nd Interview was not so bad. Interviewer was friendly and cooperative. Since it took me so long time, I could get Green Card valid for 10 years straight. Usually they issue 3 year valid Green Card and wanted applicants to re-apply for next 10 years when 3 years have passed.

There are some people who are advertising in the net in Japanese saying that they can EASILY obtain Green Card for almost doing NOTHING. I hope they have a magic wand and help their clients. But my experience was quite different from what they advertise.

The lesson was "Be prepared, study all the possibility, make sure you are comfortable and confident. But be flexible enough to cope with unexpected happens." So the words I came across in a movie definitely helped. It was "Knowing the Path is Different from Walking the Path."


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She hated to be leashed

I keep hearing that my mother was very sick in her young days. She was 2nd daughter of 4 sisters and 1 brother in Russian side of Japan, snowy country side. Age 23, she graduated local university and became a teacher. It was unusual for a Japanese girl to graduate from a university. It was 1940's. She said she was lucky to be sick because she could keep reading books in bed while her other sisters and brother needed to work in rice field. That's my mother's mentality. It looks like sickness let her down a while physically, but it could not let her spirit down.

She became a teacher of Japanese language. She had her own style of teaching which her principal did not like. She had continuous problem of arguing against her principal and vice principal. But, she was just first year 20+ years old new teacher, there was no argument against them. At the end of the day, she needed to say "Hai - Yes, sir" to her supervisors. She hated the feeling. She did not like to be ordered in the way she did not agree, she did not like, and she did not understand. She thought many times that she would have agreed with them without arguing, if they can persuade her, explain to her, and made sure she is comfortable with their orders. But in those days, things did not happen that way in Japan. Most of the cases they just ordered her either to stop what she was doing or ordered her to do what they do. When she asked back why, they just say do as what they tell her to do. No explanation.

She started to explorer her possibility to get out of her problems. She started to attend Hair Dressing School at night and obtained national license to be a hair dresser. As soon as she got licensed, she resigned the school and jumped into a train to Tokyo. She opened small humble hair dressing shop downtown Tokyo. I heard that when she was planning to open her shop, she met my father who was an architect and helped her to design her shop. She unleashed herself.

Her friends laughed at her because she abandoned respectable and honorable job being a teacher and became a hair dresser. But her shop was busy because she opened it close to "Geisha" Place and lots of Geisha girls liked her shop close to their working place. She continued to work. She hired 2 additional hair dressers. When her husband became sick, diabetic, she continued to work supporting her husband to be hospitalized and take proper treatment. She could save enough to get her family a house. She bought a house in western outskirts of Tokyo and decided to retire at the age 58. When she was 69, her husband, my father passed away. Her saving enabled her to buy out the place where she used to have hair dressing shop and build an apartment. She had almost perpetual income.

Today, my mother is 85 years old and alive and kicking in Tokyo. When I asked to go back to Tokyo to take care of her, she said "NO". She wanted me to do what I wanted to do as she did. She is the largest investor in my company and most reliable partner with my wife.


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Why didn't I attend my wife's New Year Party?

When starting something new, when changing your status more than 90 degrees, when you decide to do things which seems not to be easy, rather difficult, who do you turn to? Who do you find most reliable? I think its your family. It is your spouse, mother, father, brothers, sisters, I guess. In some certain age relatively long time, we all are shy to turn to our family members on the things we annoy, worry, feel unsecured. When my mother asked me if I am OK. I tend to say "what are you talking about, I am OK, of course". You do not want to show you are afraid to your spouse, right? Especially if you are a man. I was, too. But, your family knows about you better than what you think they do. If you ask them for help. They will help you better than anybody else can. In this article and the following article, I would like to introduce you my family, 2 key women who helped me to overcome tough times. One is my wife. The other is my mother.

It was 1994, a Chinese woman from Beijing accompanied her then husband and landed in San Francisco. Her husband took her to US in his professional study in the US. They started to live Richmond district in the city. She did not speak enough English and her husband was constantly busy. If just buy, it might have been okay. But as his study did not go well, he started to be violent home. She, from the beginning the bearer of independent spirit, wanted to go self-support. They fought every night and one day it became extremely violent. There was no other choice for her to call help and she herself landed on "Asian Women's Shelter".

This Chinese woman spent there for almost full year and looked for her own opportunity to go independent. She studied herself there and went to business school. Fortunately, her then husband left her Green Card status. She found a job and started to work. She was not satisfied being employed. Later she went independent and became a business owner. Then she met this Japanese guy, who at that time, had so-so status in a Japanese company. This guy became her boy friend and they started to live together. When this man lost his position, spun out of employment, but hoped to stay in US for pursuing his own possibility in San Francisco, she changed her status from Green Card base to an American Citizen so that she can sponsor her boy friend by marrying.

You might have realized by now that this Chinese woman is my wife and the Japanese Guy is me. Without her help, I could not even continue to stay in the US. As Japanese or Asian culture goes, there are some people, especially from my previous employment, telling me that it is a shame on me who accepted my wife's help. It annoyed me a bit honestly, but I am thankful to my wife for her help and my wife and I believe that is enough. That is the period. We do not have to worry about what other people say. And most importantly we are happy. I am happy to help my wife's side of business, and she is happy to help my business, as well.

The reason I did not attend my wife's New Year Party was that this Party was for women who once was under protective custody and succeeded in getting out of "Women Shelter".

Related post:
http://zheninternational.blogspot.com/2009/02/japan-town-san-francisco.html



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Japan Town, San Francisco

Today is Sunday, February 08, 2009. My wife and I visited Japan Town in San Francisco, for the first time this year. Actually, my wife needed to attend her friends' new year party and I drove her there. Since I am not a member (a man cannot member for my wife's gathering. I will write an article about it later), I needed to kill 2-3 hours in Japan Town which is close to the place where my wife's party was held.

It was the summer 2007 I visited to National Japanese Association to learn about Japanese American History to write in Japanese Web-magazine. Since then, my feeling about Japan Town changed quite a bit. Before, the place was just a convenient place to get Japanese stuff or eat with my Japanese friends, but I feel a little melancholy about what happened for Japanese Americans.

It is Sunday, Today. Melancholies should be put aside, I wanted to introduce some pictures I took some of them I used in my Japanese Web-magazine article.

Left:
Tower located in North Center of Japan Town on Post Street. It says "Japan Town" in Japanese.

This tower copies Fire Watching Tower in Japan. In Edo era of Tokugawa Shogunate, volunteer and professional fire fighters were watching if there is fire. When they find a fire, ring the bell inside and alarm residents and signal fire fighters depart from base station.




Right:
Japanese style 5 stories Pagoda. It is said that Pagoda was build to preserve and protect Buddha bones after he deceased. This Pagoda is located in the Center Square of 2 main buildings in Japan town. The square is good place for having lunch with your friend in weekdays. The square today was full of young Asian tourists.









Left:
The Characters written on the Wall read "Peace" in Japanese. This square is for preserving and recording what happened in the World War II to teach people how war can affect people.


Right:
Street Name is shown both in English and Japanese. This is the only place where I know the street name is shown in both languages. Maybe Los Angeles' Little Tokyo have similar arrangement. But I have not been there. I would love to visit to Little Tokyo next time when I visit Southern California.

I cannot imagine 2 countries have history of war in taking a look at this arrangement.

Left:
Inside of Japan town. It looks really like walking in some shopping mall in down town Tokyo

There are Kimono (Japanese Traditional Clothes) Shops, Japanese Traditional Dram Training Place, Japanese Antique Shops, Lots of Japanese Restaurant. Sushi!!! I love Sushi restaurant in Japan Town, San Francisco.




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The General Who Prevailed "Love" in Japan's Dark Age

Japan had its own Dark Age. After Ashikaga Government (Shogunate) lost its Power early 16th century, all the local lords started to fight each other hoping to stand on the top of entire Japan unifying the country.

Wars and Battles were all over the country, government buildings were attacked, people's houses were burned, innocent non-worrier people were killed, kids are also killed or lost their parents. It was a matter of daily practice subordinates killed their masters to become a new master. There were so many new local lord who either killed or purged even their parents to grab their powers. There was no moral. There was no mercy. There was no justice. Only the justice was power.

It happened to be my parent home town where this local lord, Kenshin Uesugi (1530 - 1578) was ruling. Kenshin worshipped Buddha and he believed himself to be a reborn of Buddha's guard general in heaven. In his youth, he fought against his own older brother and defeated him. Later he regretted it and adopted his brother's son to be his own son, treated him like Kenshi's own son. He is Kagekatsu Uesugi. Actually after Kenshin's death, Kagekatsu became local lord after Kenshin. Kenshin's principle of ruling and fighting was "For Justice".

In addition to his adopted son, Kagekatsu, Kenshin grew, trained, and educated a boy out of low level subordinate family, so that he could later become his son's support. His name is "Kanetsugu Naoe". Kanetsugu became a very talented strategist and excellent governor. Kanetsugu worshipped Kenshin and loved Kagekatsu. As Kenshi's principle was "For Justice", Kanetsugu's principle of ruling and fighting was "With Love".

Left : Kanetsugu Naoe's Armor. The Character on his Helmet is Chinese - Japanese Character means "Love".

Right: Portrait of Kanetsugu Naoe. He looks more religious people than a general or worrier. He was an excellent governor, premier.

Copyright Notice:
Copyright (c) 2009 Shaw Funami.Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this documentunder the terms of the GNU Free documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

He fought for love and motivated by love, and driven with love. His priority was for his lord Kagekatsu and his country's people. It is said that he never tried to fight in farming season and gave high priority to his people's happiness. This affected his strategy fighting, but he never lost fight because of this. We can easily imagine how talented he was as a strategist.

He was also known as a family guy. In his days in his position, it was said to be rare, but he kept loving his wife for his life. There was no record of concubine or ex-marriage affairs.

As history went by, most of powerful family disappeared and perished, Kagekatsu family survived thanks to Kanetsugu's effort in dealing with any of central power people. They needed to move home base twice. But the local lord family survived. One time, the local king who almost unified Japan, impressed by his talent and personality, wanted Kanetsugu to be his direct subordinate to help him unifying Japan.

Kanetsugu declined it courteously said to this person in power "Only the lord I work for is Kagekatsu, and will not be changed even you give me your own position."


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