100 year of Japanese Immigration to Brazil - Family albums added

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - When Shunji Nishimura decided to leave Japan in 1932 for a job in Brazil his mind was set on making money quickly and returning to Kyoto.Like thousands of Japanese immigrants that made the same trip before him, Brazil's booming coffee plantations held the prospect of a better life for Nishimura, 22 at the time.

"One of the things they used to tell people to lure them here is that in Brazil you could find money hanging from the trees," said Jorge Nishimura, the son of the 98-year-old Shunji. "The coffee beans represented that."

The family, who live in a remote town in Sao Paulo state, now run a company with 3,500 employees created from Shunji Nishimura's invention of a machine for spreading pesticide on crops -- one example of a strong Japanese influence on farming techniques here.

Nishimura was part of the first wave of Japanese immigration to Brazil that began in 1908, when 781 peasant farmers aboard the Kasato Maru steamship arrived in Santos port near Sao Paulo to work on six farms.

Brazil, which abolished slavery only 20 years earlier, needed workers for coffee plantations that drove its economy, while industrializing Japan had a surplus of peasant farmers.

One hundred years later -- an anniversary being celebrated this week with Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito's visit to Brazil -- there are about 1.5 million Japanese descendents whose influence on society has spread from the vast farmlands to martial arts to architecture and the business arena.

From being viewed with suspicion by many Brazilians in the early years and through World War II, the Japanese have been absorbed into the South American country's melting pot.

Third and fourth generation Japanese-Brazilians have intermarried with descendents of Africans, Italians and Portuguese. Those who go to work in Japan, as many have done in recent years in a wave of reverse immigration, often say they are treated by Japanese as "gaijin," or foreigners.

After tough years of labor on the coffee farms, Japanese immigrants looked for work in big cities like Sao Paulo, where they flocked to the downtown area because rent was cheaper.

SLICE OF TOKYO

Sao Paulo's downtown district of Liberdade, or freedom, is like a slice of Tokyo, its main street lined with red-colored torii gates of Shinto shrines. Soba noodle and sushi restaurants vie with karaoke bars and supermarkets selling sticky natto beans and myriad types of soy sauce.

"I feel Japanese but in my habits I'm Brazilian," said Kaoru Ito, a 71-year-old survivor of the Nagasaki atomic bomb who came to Brazil at age 18 and who sings karaoke in Liberdade every week. "I like Brazilian food, feijoada, that kind of thing," he said, referring to the Brazilian national dish of beans.

Food has been one of the greatest beneficiaries of the cultural blending.

The Japanese immigrants helped develop several varieties of fruits and vegetables that did not exist in Brazil including persimmon, fuji apples and ponkan oranges and improved local farming and fishing techniques, said Celia Abe Oi, communications director at the Japanese Culture Society.

"It changed Brazilian eating habits," said Oi. "They brought many products that weren't part of the local diet."

Brazil has even allowed a Japanese influence on its most famous drink, the caipirinha. Mixed with Japan's traditional rice wine instead of Brazilian cachaca, the sakerinhas have become a popular option at many bars.

Brazil's Japanese diaspora has provided a gateway for Japanese cultural influence from manga comics to monster fighting hero "Ultraman" in the 1980s to architecture and design.

Architect Ruy Ohtake, whose curvy buildings are often compared to those of Brazil's Oscar Niemeyer, said that while his Asian background was an influence, his designs were "distinctly Brazilian." He recalled his design of Brazil's embassy in Tokyo in the 1980s had surprised many who had expected a Japanese-style building.

"Some people thought I'd do something very Japanese but my education is all here so the design turned out Brazilian."

TOKYO: Japan's crown prince left Monday on a trip to Brazil without his wife, Crown Princess Masako, who was deemed too weak to make the voyage.

Naruhito, heir to the world's oldest monarchy, departed Tokyo's Haneda airport on a government plane, Imperial Household spokesman Minoru Osawa said.

The prince is embarking on a 12-day journey to mark the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil, which is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. The trip is to include visits to Brazilian cities including Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, as well as stops in New York and Los Angeles.

Do you want to have a great sushi?

Between the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, coffee was the main export product of Brazil. At first, Brazilian farmers used African slave labour in the coffee platantions. However, with the end of the slavery in Brazil the country suffered lack of workforce. The Brazilian elite decided to attract European immigrants to work in the coffee plantations. Most of the immigrants were Italians.

In 1902, however, Italy prohibided subsidized immigration to Brazil, closing the door for newcomers.

The end of feudalism in Japan has generated great poverty in the rural population. Many Japanese began to migrate in search of better living conditions. In 1907, the Brazilian and the Japanese governments sign a treaty for the arrival of Japanese immigrants to Brazil.

100 years after that, Brazil now has the biggest Japanese community outside Japan, there are 1.5 million japanese descendents living in Brazil. In São Paulo, Japaneses have their own subdivision, called Liberdade ( Liberty), that looks a lot with Tokyo or Osaka.

A more recent phenomenon in Brazil are intermarriages between Japanese Brazilians and non-Japanese. Though people of Japanese descent make up only 0.7% of the country's population, they are the largest Japanese community outside of Japan, with over 1.5 million people. In the areas with large numbers of Japanese, such as São Paulo and Paraná, since the 1970s large numbers of Japanese-descendants started to get marry to other ethnic groups. Although interracial relationships are not well accepted in Japan, immigrants in Brazil seem to be more acceptable to the miscegenation of Brazilian culture.

Among the 1.5 million Brazilians of Japanese descent, 40% have some non-Japanese ancestry. This numbers reaches only 6% among the children of Japanese immigrants, but 61% among the great-grandchildren of Japanese immigrants.The vast majority of Japanese Brazilians today speak only Portuguese. First generation Japanese can speak original Japanese dialects, but only a few Brazilian-born are fluent. A recent survey shows only 0.23% of Japanese Brazilians speak Japanese at home.

Many events were scheduled celebrating the 100 years of  Japanese immigration. Brazil is in love for that cultural infusion.

If you like sushi, and want to try a different version, with lots of tropical flavour, maybe São Paulo can be a great destination for you.