January, 2004, LOS ANGELES - Happy 2004! Despite the elevated terrorism alert, America managed to carry on with spirit and energy through the New Year holiday. Hundreds of thousands continued gathering at Times Square in New York as they always did, whoopee on the Strip in Las Vegas as they had before, lined Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, California, as they had for the last 115 years to watch the annual Rose Parade, and millions more celebrated the holidays with friends and family throughout the nation. We were careful and prudent but not daunted by the madness of fanatics.
The year 2003 ended for me with a joyful cruise around the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao, St. Maartens, and St. Thomas. Seatrek, a cruise with Star Trek fans, organized by Carroll Paige and hard-working Joe Motes, was our defiant thumb in the nose at the terrorists. What a glorious way it was to spend December. Bobbing around a sun-sparkled sea with fans that have become friends over the many years of Star Trek fan gatherings - cruises, conventions, and not just a few serendipitous crossing of paths was a great way to wrap up the year.
I love traveling to places I've never been before. All of the islands on our itinerary were firsts for me. Apart from the shared fun of the cruise, I learn so much about the world we live in on these trips. On Aruba, we went on a tour to, of all places, an aloe skin lotion factory. It was fascinating to see how the lotion was made. It is freshly processed at the site of the aloe fields, then bottled and sold right there. The cactus-like aloe plant, from which the lotion is derived, was brought to the island about seventy years ago when they discovered that it had powerful skin moisturizing and healing properties. The growing and production of a skin lotion was a good industry for the island. There was, however, a second agenda to bringing the aloe plant to Aruba. It was a time of worldwide depression. There was high unemployment on the island. The cultivation of aloe and the production of the lotion would create hundreds of new jobs for the islanders while raising, at the same time, the economy of the island. This creative political and economic leadership of Aruba impressed me. I felt good about buying an ample supply of the aloe lotion - and righteous to boot.
Curacao was impressive in a different way. I'm a historic preservationist. Significant old buildings teach us so much of the history of the place. We learn much about the culture, government and spirit of the people from historic structures. How well the built heritage of a community is preserved speaks volumes for its pride. I found Curacao to be a vibrantly proud island indeed. Curacao's colorful old, Dutch colonial buildings were stylishly restored and adapted to new uses as shops, restaurants, and museums. The great, stony fort that guarded the entrance to the harbor had been converted into a lively shopping bazaar with whimsical shops and fun restaurants. Old mansions had been transformed into elegant boutique hotels. On Curacao, I found as well, historic preservation of a very different kind. We explored a primordial cave of stalactites and stalagmites - icicle-like formations created by particles in mineral rich water dripping through the ages. These ancient forms seemed like fantastical works of modern art by Mother Nature. The cave had once served as a hideout for runaway slaves from the sugar plantations during colonial times. Slavery was abolished in the Dutch colonies in 1863 - the same year that President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. Half a day on Curacao just was not enough. There is so much that is intriguing about this island. I will definitely have to return to Curacao, an island with a richly preserved history.
The island of St Maartens has a dual colonial heritage - French and Dutch. There is a border running smack through the island separating the two parts. Yet, despite this division by virtue of its colonial past, the islanders have lived in harmony throughout its history. There are few cultural distinctions. However, we were told that the French side has nude beaches. The Dutch side does not. A few from our ship did spend some time at those beaches on the French side and later were complaining about sunburns in places where the sun had never shone before.
St. Thomas was our last island on the cruise - and a singular discovery. Here, I made - completely by chance - a great find. I was roaming around the busy main shopping district when I found a charming passageway between two ancient buildings. I walked through and found a small courtyard with a series of stairs leading up. My curiosity led me up. The second level had an even smaller open balcony with another set of stairs leading up. I followed it up to find an inviting art gallery at the very top. It was filled with works by local island artists. In chatting with the gallery director, I learned that I had stumbled onto a major historic landmark - the birthplace of the master of impressionist art, Camille Pissarro. Indeed, the gallery was named the Camille Pissarro Gallery. Pissarro was born and raised in this very building and his family had continued to live there after he left for France to become the father of impressionism.
By happy accident, my nosiness had led me to a wonderful historic discovery. I looked out the windows of the gallery. Each view seemed to have been composed by an artist - the planes of the rooftops, the aged tiles of the balcony below, and, most of all, the voluptuously luminous Caribbean clouds in the sky. It was no wonder that someone born there would become a pioneering artist. To commemorate the happy occasion, I bought a beautiful print of an island scene by a local artist named John Chinery. It will always remind me of my serendipitous discovery of the birthplace of Camille Pissaro.
The days at sea were times for socializing and enjoying the ship's many amenities. A feature on this ship that I had not seen before on any other cruise ship was a rock-climbing wall. It is a sheer wall the height of a two-story building studded with protrusions and nicks and crannies - sort of like a cliff decorated with odd shaped Christmas tree ornaments. When I was a student at U.C. Berkeley many decades ago, I used to do a little rock climbing. As a matter of fact, I was pretty good at it. So, I studied the wall and strategized. It didn't look too difficult to do. I decided to take a crack at that wall. I got into the helmet and had the attendant strap on my harness as I mentally plotted out the path of my climb. It'll be a piece of cake, I thought.
But, as I started to climb, I realized that the footings weren't as easy to stay on as I had figured. The grabbings weren't as easy to reach as it looked. With raw determination, I struggled on up. I pulled and I reached and I huffed and I puffed as my muscles began to tremble. Two thirds of the way up, I realized I was not a college student anymore. Gratefully and very humbled, I had the harness lower me down. But, I still did make it up two thirds of the way!
A memory of the cruise that still glows is the sunset catamaran cruise when we were at Aruba. It was all Star Trek fans on board. There were Casey and Aileen, Jack, Chuck, Ann, Donna, Paige, Sallie, Sondra and a whole crew of fun loving trekkers. The clouds on the horizon glowed like luminescent cotton candy - all pink and delicate with a softly shining halo around it. The bartender created a special Caribbean drink - a mixture of blue curacao, orange juice, vodka and something else. The mixture magically turned a Vulcan blood green and it was delicious. Soon, I was glowing like the now pale pink sunset. We chatted and sipped, laughed and sipped, and danced and sipped as the rhythm of the Caribbean music played on and the sun slowly sank into the darkening romantic sea.
December, 2003, LOS ANGELES -- It was sixty years ago that my family and I came to Arkansas. My father had told me that we were going on a "long vacation" to a far away place called Camp Rohwer. Together with some eight thousand other Japanese Americans, we arrived at a barbed wire enclosed campground of black tarpaper barracks. Soldiers with guns watched over us from high guard towers. Outside the barbed wire fence, thick, wooded swampland surrounded us. All we had was the luggage we carried. President Roosevelt had signed an executive order imprisoning Japanese Americans in 10 camps like this one simply because we happened to look like the enemy.
I had never gone back to Rohwer since we left. This was my first trip back to a place about which I actually have fond boyhood memories mingled with my understanding of the break down of American democracy under the stress of war. I remember the fun of catching pollywogs in the ditch and watching them turn into frogs. I also understand now the tears I saw well up so often in my mother's eyes at the sight of the barbed wire fence that symbolized her loss and confinement. I remember the joy of that wondrous winter morning when we woke up to find everything covered in white - my discovery of the magic of snow that first winter in Arkansas. And I cherish now so much more deeply my father's resilience, energy, and dignity under conditions of groundless injustice. I returned to Rohwer resolved that America must not forget the lessons of its history. I was coming back as the Chairman of the Japanese American National Museum working with the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to plan a series of exhibits next year on the internment camp history of Arkansas. I was returning to the place of my childhood memories to build a better future for our democracy.
The Rohwer that I came back to, however, was not that of my memory. It was utterly changed. The swamp that I remembered had been drained completely. The trees of the dense forest that surrounded us had all been chopped down. Rohwer today was mile after mile of open farmland. The only reminder that there had once been an internment camp was the cemetery - the rows of markers of those who had died in imprisonment. The most prominent of the markers was a tall, crumbling concrete monument to the Japanese American young men who left the internment camp to fight for this country and had perished in the war. The irony was excruciating. Standing before that soldiers' monument in an American internment camp, sharp, painful tears welled up in my eyes. These incredible young men had fought and died to make my America today possible. I vowed then that the ideals of this nation, the civil liberty for which they so bravely fought, shall not be tarnished - not in my time, when the tensions of war are again challenging those ideals.
Funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the Japanese American National Museum are planning a series of major events in Little Rock to coincide with the opening of our exhibits there in September 2004. One of them will be a bus trip back to Camp Rohwer. I will be there again. I hope many of you that live in the South - or, for that matter, anyone interested - might join us for that journey.
The much-vaunted southern hospitality certainly more than lived up to the legend while I was in Little Rock. I still savor the warmth and graciousness extended to me by so many people of Little Rock while I was there. A special treat was a hardhat tour of the construction of the President William Jefferson Clinton Library conducted by its President and CEO, Skip Rutherford. I was flattered to learn from him that a copy of "To The Stars," my autobiography that I'd sent to the White House because of our mutual Arkansas boyhoods, was to be a part of the preview exhibit of the Clinton Library. I will certainly look forward to the opening of the President Bill Clinton Library in November 2004.
Two days after returning from Arkansas, I was before the camera playing a Japanese priest in two installments of the CBS soap opera, "The Young and The Restless." Neil and Drucilla of the series run off to Japan to get married. The character I play, Rev. Tanaka, officiates at their wedding. It reminded me of Gene Roddenberry and Majel Barrett's marriage in Japan. Gene and Majel were married in a full Shinto ceremony elegantly dressed in formal wedding kimono. In "The Young and The Restless," however, I was the only one in formal Japanese attire. When the dresser came into my dressing room to dress me properly, I understood why the other actors were not similarly dressed. There were layer upon layers of under kimono. Each layer of kimono had to be worn in a specific way and tied with a certain kind of knot. Not only was it complicated, the process of putting on the kimono was extremely time consuming. But, for me, it was great fun wearing the costume. As I walked about, the layers of silk rustled softly with each movement. I felt elegant and transported in time and culture. It was hard to believe that only a few days before, I had been laughing and joking, enjoying southern fried chicken with Arkansans. The two episodes of "The Young and The Restless" in which I appear will air on December 22 and 23. I hope you'll be able to catch me on the show.
Immediately upon finished the soap opera, I was on a plane again to appear at a Star Trek convention in El Paso, Texas. I was once again back in the south - but the rhythm of the accent this trip had a different sound. That's what I love about regionalisms. They come in such wonderfully varied flavors - drawls, brogues, burrs, and that unmistakable Texan twang. Accents make language so savory.
This convention brought the four of us from the show, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Jimmy Doohan, and me, together again. I hadn't seen Jimmy in ages and it was wonderful to be with him once again. He had lost a lot of weight since his illness and had slowed down considerably but that bullheaded spirit of his was unchanged. The El Paso convention is one that we will all fondly remember seeing lovably irascible Jimmy back in action. It's hard to believe but Christmas decorations are starting to appear everywhere. December is already upon us. So, as we all start making lists and preparing holiday greeting cards, I extend to all of you, my heartiest holiday cheers. May the New Year bring us all health, wealth, and peace.
November, 2003, LOS ANGELES - The firestorm of the century raged through southern California last month. Its fury seared across more than 280,000 acres. At least 20 people were killed. More than 1,000 homes were destroyed. Property damage is estimated in the billions. The hell-fires were in the rural and suburban regions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties, but even those of us in the urban areas were not spared the anguish. The air we breathed was foul and acrid with smoke. Gray soot settled everywhere. At night, the distant skies glowed ominously orange. Then the rains came. Up in the mountains, it even snowed. The fires were out. Gloriously sunny blue skies returned to southern California. But, the tragedy of the people who lost everything - homes, loved ones and memories - is heart wrenching. In the spirit of neighbors helping one another, we have all vowed to help rebuild the homes and communities of our fire-ravaged fellow Californians more vibrantly than before.
A magnificent symbol of that spirit of regeneration emerged from the aftermath of the firestorm. It was the opening of a stunning landmark, Walt Disney Concert Hall, the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, designed by architect Frank Gehry. The building's stainless steel exterior gleams brilliantly in sunlight, soft and luminously in moon light; its sides swoop and swerve like the petals of some exotic alien flower. The concert hall is a silver blossom that bloomed on the cultural hilltop of downtown Los Angeles alongside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Mark Taper Forum, the Ahmanson Theater, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
I went to the first concert of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection," anxious to know if the acoustics of this new Disney Concert Hall is as fine as the critics had reported. The selection of Mahler's "Resurrection" was inspired. The theme of regeneration was so appropriate for a Los Angeles that had just suffered the devastation of a firestorm. And the acoustics of the new concert hall would be fully tested by this Mahler piece. The first sting of the violin attack cut through the air like an audible knife. The cello section responded sonorously. In a myriad ways - from the solo voice of the mezzo soprano to the full throated one hundred twenty voice chorale, from the delicate filigree of the flute to the thunderous, kettle drum pounding final movement, the concert hall played like the finest of instruments. I would venture to say that Disney Hall is among the best, if not the premiere, concert hall of the world.
October began for me jet lagged in England. The first few days were in Milton Keynes to participate in a massive autograph event called Collectormania. It was the perfect antidote for jet lag - signing my name over and over and over again for about seven hours every day. It was exhausting but, at the same time, a great opportunity to say "hello" to familiar faces from past conventions.
Recovered and refreshed, I began a tour of two of the stately manors - actually an abbey and a castle - of old England. The first was Woburn Abbey, the ancestral home of the Duke of Bedford. The grand buildings were magnificently and sensitively maintained and herds of deer roamed the vast grounds of the estate. Next was Warwick Castle, the home of the Earl of Warwick. I had first visited this historic landmark about forty years ago and remember being saddened to see a brochure at the entrance advertising dinner in the baronial banqueting hall with the then-current Earl of Warwick. How the mighty have fallen, I thought. The Earl was reduced to entertaining tourists for a fee. On this visit, I discovered that the fall had been even more melancholy. In 1978, Warwick Castle was sold to the Tussaud Group, the operators of the Madam Tussaud Wax Museums. Actually, I found that the Castle had been greatly improved by the new owners. Over twenty million in pound sterling had been spent to repair, restore, and refurbish the castle since its acquisition by the Tussaud Group. The Castle's long and distinguished history was brought more vibrantly alive. Life-like wax figures of the people who had lived or visited there - people like Queen Victoria, her son, Prince Edward, who later became King on the death of his mother, a 23-year-old Winston Churchill who had visited there, and, from our recent time, a ravishingly elegant Princess Diana brought an engaging new dimension to the visit experience. If one were to visit only one castle in England, I would strongly recommend Warwick Castle.
With jet lag completely shaken off, I dove into the theater scene. Stratford-upon-Avon is the birthplace of William Shakespeare and the home of the best interpreters of his works, the Royal Shakespeare Company. A few nights with the Company included a wonderful production of "As You Like It" and the most original interpretation of "Taming of the Shrew" that I had ever seen. I also enjoyed visiting the cemetery of Old Trinity Church savoring memories of my student days at the Shakespeare Institute when I spent many an afternoon reading the works of the great playwright in that cemetery alongside the River Avon.
Then into London for the grand banquet table of theater, dining and just plain fooling around. I went to the National Theater for a revival of "Tales from the Vienna Woods," the Drury Lane Theater for a Cole Porter musical, "Anything Goes" and the Donmar Warehouse for John Osborne's rarely produced play, "The Hotel in Amsterdam." I dined at my favorite London restaurant, Rule's, a homey family run French place, Mon Plaisure, and a hip French bistro upstairs in Covent Garden. Selfridges has a fantastic conveyor belt sushi bar that snakes around all over the place. I fall in love with this cosmopolitan, ever-fascinating city every time I'm there.
I had to abbreviate my visit on my agent's summon to come back for a work assignment, a guest role in a Canadian television series titled "Alienated." My agent said it was a role only I could play - a character named "George Takei." I flew back to learn that I was to again fly, this time to Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, for the filming. I arrived in Victoria in a pelting rainstorm. My first scenes were outdoors, so, of course, they had to be changed to work in the downpour. I played those scenes holding a drenched newspaper over my sopping wet head. I was chilled to the bones and courted my death of a cold. The people I performed with, however, were as warm and great to work with, as the weather was wet. "Alienated" airs only in Canada, alas, but the producer assured me that they are working vigorously to sell the series to the U.S. and British TV markets.
I returned from Canada to travel again for a long scheduled board meeting. Thankfully, this time I didn't have to board a plane. This meeting was to be on a cruise ship to Ensenada, Mexico - one day for the board meeting onboard the ship and one day free in Ensenada. We put pleasure before work and had our day of whoopee first. One of the unique natural phenomenons of the world, we were told, is the blowhole of Ensenada called "la bufadora." The guide told us that there are only three such marvels - one in Australia, another in Hawaii and this one in Ensenada. So, we took one of dozens of tourist shuttle buses to this highly touted wonder of the world. When we arrived after an hour's journey, there already was a crowd of tourists marching to the fabled landmark. We joined them and arrived at a cliff looking out at the ocean and a magnificent set of rock outcroppings. It was a beautiful sight. The highly hyped natural wonder, however, was a disappointment. Apparently, we were there when the tide was off. All we saw was a light spray spit up from the blowhole. A small redeeming feature was a pale rainbow that I was able to detect in the thin mist that sprayed up with each incoming tide. That made the trek worthwhile.
The return journey from Ensenada was the workday, the day of strategic planning and budget oversight. We worked as hard as we had played the day before. When we arrived back in Long Beach Harbor the following morning, an eerie sight greeted us. The morning sun hung ominously in the smoky sky like some malignant red planet. The newspaper headline read, "Wildfires Destroy Homes." It was a homecoming fraught with foreboding. The firestorm was raging through southern California.
October, 2003, LONDON - I apologize for the tardiness of this month's installment of my report. September was a hectic month with two out-of-town trips - one to San Francisco and the other to Honolulu - again. It was only two months ago that I was in Hawaii, and, now, here I am on the opposite side of this planet.
I write this report to you from London, through the fog of jet lag. This travel woe called jet lag is a curse suffered uniquely by our generation. Through the vast span of history, only we are afflicted by this technologically created nuisance. Whether by horseback, stagecoach, train, or car, people a generation ago traveled at a pace in rhythm with the natural movement of the sun. Whether by canoe, three-masted schooner, or ocean liner, voyages then were made in cadence with the regular lapping of the waves. Now, technological advances have made it possible for us to hurtle through time zones and international date lines. For this abuse of the normal rhythm of nature, we are punished. We feel dazed and sleepy at the most inconvenient times and wide awake in the middle of the night, alert and utterly unable to sleep. So, through this bleary, modern-day travel fog, I will do my best to briefly recap some of the highlights of my September.
The trip to San Francisco was to campaign for a candidate for Mayor of the city, Tom Ammiano. This campaign is the second time up for Tom. He came in second by a heartbreaking margin the last time around, almost knocking out a grizzled, old politico, the former Speaker of the California Assembly. People have asked me why I campaign for a candidate for mayor of a city not my home. First, Tom Ammiano, the current President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, is a dedicated public servant with proven leadership qualities. A former schoolteacher, he is a passionate advocate for improved education. He is a strong voice for the voiceless underprivileged. And, having had a career as a stand-up comic in San Francisco clubs, Tom is a hilariously engaging campaigner. Most of all, I love the city by the bay - my father's hometown. I want San Francisco to have an outstanding Mayor to help make it an even more wonderful city. So, to all you voters in that endlessly fascinating city - vote for Tom Ammiano for Mayor.
Campaigning for Tom was also a great excuse for enjoying one of my favorite cities. San Francisco is a great eating town - almost like Paris. Restaurants are a good measure of the greatness of a city and San Francisco has more than its share. And, like all great cities, San Francisco is constantly changing. It is a dynamic urban organism.
New landmarks are built and old ones restored. The latest transformation is the spectacular renovation of the historic Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. Just over a hundred years old, the distinctive structure with its iconic clock tower was a busy transportation center of cross-bay traffic in the early part of the last century. With the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge in the mid 30's, traffic fell off and the building went into decline. Then, to add injury to insult, during the roadway building mania of the 1950's, the massively grotesque, double decked, elevated, Embarcadero Freeway was built right across the face of this graceful landmark obliterating it from view. We don't like earthquakes in California. There is, however, on some blessed occasion, good that can come from a disastrous earth shaking. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake caused extensive damage to the freeway requiring its demolition. The Ferry Building and the shining waters of the bay were once again visible. Work commenced on the restoration of the Ferry Building and the roadway in front of it. I had read in the newspaper that the work had just recently been completed. My visit to the restored Ferry Building on a Sunday morning was thrilling. There, where the ugly freeway had stood, was an urbane, palm lined roadway vibrant with people. There was a bicycle race going on along the embarcadero. Inside, the sensitively restored Ferry Building was filled with shops, markets and, of course, wonderful restaurants sending out savory aromas. On the side facing the bay, tables spilled out onto the wharf for waterside dining. It was exhilarating.
The Ferry Building of old was back, handsomer and more effervescent than I ever remembered it. The historic mosaic of the seal of the State of California had been moved but it was gloriously restored and happy in its new location basking under a bright sunny skylight. As I have done so often, I again left my heart in San Francisco - with my fingers crossed that when I return, I'll be able to call Tom Ammiano, "Mr. Mayor."
The trip to Honolulu was for a Board of Trustees meeting of the Japanese American National Museum. Because our trustees come from all over the nation, we move our meetings around the country to be fair to all members of the Board. Our last one was in Chicago. For some mysterious reason, our Honolulu meetings always seem to get outstanding attendance. The torturous part of a meeting in Honolulu is the meeting itself. To be confined in a windowless hotel conference room discussing policy, strategic planning, and fund raising, knowing that beaches, pools, and fun activities are just outside was tormenting. But we soldiered on valiantly. The meetings were productive and, after the business was concluded, I was able to enjoy the spectacular tropical sunsets from my hotel room window. In the evening, I threw myself into the fun. The "aloha" hospitality of the Hawaiians was, true to legend, leis, hulas and delicious food. It was delightful. But, alas, my Hawaii stay had to be abbreviated so that I could catch another flight - this one to England.
So here I am, in foggy London - not the misty, pea soup kind for which London is justly famous but the jet lag induced kind. Somehow, even in this addled state, I've been able to produce a report on my September activities. My next report on this sojourn in England will be from Los Angeles and, hopefully, fully recovered from this jet-age nuisance.