The largest fundraiser of the year for the jcccnc, the Japanese Cultural Community Center of Northern California. The event this saturday will feature Culinary Creations from the bay area, hawaii, and japan and will help the center continue to serve its 185,000 visitors every year. And we will end with a unique mission as a former child interned at the manzanar camp searches for his classmates. Well show you how he hopes to track them down. All that on our show today. Well, were big fans of books and the written word here; and thats not always an easy thing to promote in this digital age, but it is a Crucial Foundation in education and understanding your own culture and community. Joining me now is christina newhard, the publisher of sarisari storybooks. She was born in the philippines and moved to the us when she was 10, but has held onto her roots and is helping to pass it along to others. Sarisari storybooks are geared to english and many of the other languages associated with the philippines and to connect young filipinos to their own heritage through illustrated storytelling. Welcome to the show. Christina newhard thank you, robert. Robert give us an idea, first of all, how this got started and where we are right now with it. Christina back in 2012, i was just thinking about things that were important to me and my background asim a graphic designer, and i think was just feeling some life stagnation and feeling a pull to go back to the philippines as more than just being a tourist. So kind of out of that mishmash was this idea to do a press and create books in these different languages that i didnt even know about. And im half filipino. My mom never mentioned all these other languages. So it was sort of a way for me to spend time in the philippines and really connect with a lot of the creatives and language activists and kind of dig deep into culture. Robert yeah, certainly. Personally as well as what turns out to be professionally, you saw a void there, right . In terms of like something there that wasnt there for filipino youngsters, right . Christina these type of booksthe Publishing Industry theres very robust, but these particular languages werent very present in the kids books there and then definitely in the us ori think there was just two books on amazon so, yeah. Robert yeah, two is not a lot. Gearing to what kind of age, what age range and why . Christina ages 5 to 8, and i think because thats where you can have the most fun with visual storytelling. Those havethat age you can tell a real story, but its really still very picturebased so. Robert and of course like my own children, you know, they got more distracted by phones and computers and things that laterthey were much heavier readers when they were younger, but it laid a foundation for them. Is theare the stories original . Are they retelling of old filipino stories or what . Christina they are original stories thats intentional because i want these stories to be modern. I want them to reflect filipino culture, but also were a global audience now. So sometimes old folk tales dont translate well, and theres also laws in the philippines about appropriating certain kinds of stories. So i just didnt want to do the wrong thing that way so. Robert are there a lot of authors out there with their stories that they were coming to you with or did you kind of seek out people to try to write these kind of stories . Christina when i started, i really was just kind of making it up as i went along really, honestly. So ideally thats what i wanted, was to find authors and work with them, but i mean i had no background in publishing, i had no real network to start with. So i did some networking. I wasnt able to connect to writers for these first three. I collaborated with a friend, alyssa sarmientoco, on the ivatan story, melo, and she worked with the community in batangas and then we collaboratively wrote that story. And then the next two i wrote, but the nextthe fourth book that just came out is by voltaire oyzon. So hes a author and waray language activist and a poet in the central philippines, and the next two books will be by philippine authors. Robert it will be hard to kind of cover all of them, but give us a couple of examples in terms of the books that were written, the ones you collaborated on, and sort of what the idea was behind putting these books together. Christina this is aill hold up for the camera. This is melo. So this is a language from the far north. Its a small Language Group and a small community. So this book was done in collaboration and it was very much sourcing themes from that Community Robert go ahead and hold it up so that people can see it as youre talk about it, okay. Christina and this was the one cowritten with my friend, allyssa. These two books, amina and kalipay werei wrote them, but did quite a lot of research. And this book, amina, i worked closely with a translator, floraime, whos from the city that the book is based in, and she interviewed a lot of people from zamboanga. And then the fourth book that just came out, this is by voltaire. So this is the waray story that released here in the us in june and released little earlier in philippines. So hes writing to his own community, and thats sort of the ideal model, yeah. Robert explain for people, because i was even a little bit thrown by it, the number of languages and kind of the multilanguage approach cause i dont think people really realize that you have to deal with that. What is that kind of situation . How did you kind of address it . Christina well, it was something i didnt know about the philippines andi mean, im half filipino and my moms a tagalog speaker and she never mentioned 181 other languages, and its just delightful like people who loveits very special. I think it makes the philippines a very culturallyrich place and robert and a challenge for you, huh . Christina a bit of a challenge, but also people, i think, along the way that i met in the philippines when they learn i was working on this were really generous and welcoming and theres just a lot of enthusiasm, and also here in the us robert real quickly, whats the future . Whats in the future here . Christina so book number five is a maranaw story from mindanao. So that is by hannah ossman, maranaw writer. So that book will be comin out the end of next year. Its in production. And sandangaw has a launch in portland on september 29th with Filipino Community there, and the informations on the website, sarisaribooks. Com, and theres also merchandise launch. A line of merchandise will be coming out featuring the art, which is so beautiful. Robert youll have to come back and keep us updated on this, right . Okay, thank you very much for being here. Christina thank you, robert. Robert all right, well, to purchase books, its through arkipelago books at 1010 Mission Street in San Francisco or go to www. Arkipelagobooks. Com. Now, stay with us. One of the most beautiful sites in the bay area, the Hakone Gardens in saratoga, is getting ready for its annual gala celebration. See the beauty, hear the stories next. Robert my family has been going to the Hakone Gardens in saratoga for many years. It was literally my grandmothers favorite place to visit. It reminded her so much of the beautiful gardens in japan. I have the honor of once again emceeing theakone foundations annual gala celebration next sunday. Here with me now is the executive director of the Hakone Foundation, our old friend, shozo kagoshima, who has been the executive director since 2015 and was born and raised in the santa clara valley. Welcome back. Shozo kagoshima well, thank you for having me. Robert for people who dont know, give us a brief history of not only the Hakone Gardens, but also how it sort of evolved to where we are now. Shozo certainly. So hakone estate and gardens was actually started in 1915 when oliver and isabel stine visited the 1915 panama pacific exposition in San Francisco. They visited the japanese pavilion, fell in love with japan, and decided they wanted to build their own Japanese Garden here in the bay area. So they being residents of San Francisco came down to saratoga, purchased 8 acres of garden and they designed their own garden by going back to japan, touring all the various gardens, coming back, hiring a japanese Landscape Architect and building architect, and created their own japanese estate and garden. And its a traditional hillandpond style garden, and they named it hakone because mrs. Stine visited fujihakone National Park and loved that garden so much that she wanted to have her own hakone here in saratoga. Robert right, and the landscapers are as much of a hero as some of the other people here too in terms of authenticity, huh . Shozo it is. You know, its a very skilled job to have. And so thats one of the reasons why the city of saratoga when they purchase it in 1966, they were managing it for a period of time and decided that they really didnt have the resources to maintain the park. So in 1981, they created a foundationa nonprofit foundation, the Hakone Foundation, and made the foundation in charge of managing and operating the park on their behalf. And so the foundation has been out there, theyweve had gardeners whove been maintaining the gardens on behalf of this city and theyve done a great job because it takes a very special skill to maintain a Japanese Garden. Robert it was a little bit ahead of its time, too. I mean, not a lot of places were being kept that way, and a lot of the ones that were taken over by a foundation tended to evolve into something maybe more commercial or something different. Hakone has kind of stayed the same and kept that, you know, authenticity throughout the years. Shozo right. And, you know, you have to remember this was built as a private estate. And so thats how it was tried to be maintained. The first 50 years it was privately owned as a residence, the owners used it as a retreat. And so thats really the focus of how we try to maintain it as well, as if somebody is still living there. And so theas far as the maintenance is concerned, trying to maintain the integrity, the historical integrity is really key for us. Robert yeah, like i said, it wasas ive said before when i was at the event, my grandmothers favorite place, and it wasnt just because it was beautiful. It had to have that feeling of being back home. Shozo it is. You go up there andyou know, were in the middle of Silicon Valley and its all hustle and bustle, but you take a 15minute little drive up the hill and its just serenity, its peaceful and thats where the meditation comes in and itsit really is. When i get there first thing in the morning, you get there you can hear the birds chirping and it is really just a different part of the world. Robert yeah. Okay, now aside from having to settle on your mc, what are some of the things that you plan to do at the gala . Whats to celebrate this year . What do you want to focus on . Shozo well, this is our fifth year, and the previous four years it was more of a formal sitdown dinner with honorees. This year we wanted to do a little bit different so we decided to focus on the entertainment. And so this year, we were able to get June Kuramoto of hiroshima to perform for us. So shell be doing a little concert in the evening. Robert yeah, she was one of our first guests too when we launched the show and she really is sort of a pioneer when it comes to not only just like current culture, but contemporary culture too, huh . Shozo right. Its bridging traditional Japanese Culture with current culture. Robert so for the people who are going to go there, what is it that you sort of want them to sort of experience . Shozo well, we want them to experiencewe want to bring them as if theyre in japan. So what they would experience in japan, we want them to experience at hakone. Robert a lot of things going on. Is it hard to maintain . Are you facing any kind of like obstacles . Do you see anything on the horizon youre concerned about . Shozo well, you know, the garden is 100 years oldover 100 years old. So theres a lot of maintenance that needs to be done, and one of the main thingsone of the first things that were going to work on is actually the renovation of the pond. We started that last year with a new filtration system, and its capacity is 60,000 gallons. Currently, its only running at half that capacity because the pond is only 30,000 gallons. So our next phase will be actually the renovation of the pond and the surrounding pathways for accessibility. And so we just hired a designer to design the renovation. And so once we get all the design work done, then we can start into the construction. But before we do that, well have to get into a fundraising. Robert thats right. Th s a whole other ballgame there, too. But people are enthusiastic about the place, and it still looks beautiful no matter what stage you guys are in. So congratulations on that. Shozo well, thank you. Robert all right, looking forward to see you next week. Shozo well see you. Robert all right. Robert well, the Hakone Foundation annual gala will be sunday, september 15th from 5 30 p. M. To 9 30 at the Hakone Gardens at 21000 big basin way in saratoga. Ill be the mc along with, as you heard, the musical guest June Kuramoto of hiroshima. For more d, goto nbcbayar. Stay with us. Its time for a feast. Tabemasho 2019 is coming to San Francisco this saturday. Get a peek at some of the great dishes that will be served up and how it all benefits the community. Thats next. Jcccnc in San Francisco for many years. The japanese cultural and Community Center of Northern California serves about 185,000 visitors a year with dynamic cultural, educational, social, and outreach programs. So im always honored to help, but some volunteer efforts are not really much of a sacrifice such as being at tabemasho, the culinary feast and fundraiser. With me now is the cochair of tabemasho 2019, diane matsuda, who has been a volunteer for the jcccnc for 30 years, but this year is her first as the cochair of the event. Welcome to the show. Diane matsuda thank you. Robert all right. Robert so you excited and nervous about being in charge of everything . Diane yeah, this is the first time an official cochair and im cochairing it with donna kimura who has cochaired it in the past. So im very happy to work with her and utilize her experience to do this. Robert yeah, ive emceed the event before, sobut give people an idea, who havent been there before, what the sort of the event is about . Diane sure, so the event starts with the silent auction that will start at 3 oclock, and then at 4 the doors will open and its like astyle, a festival stylejapanese festival style atmosphere where all the guests can go around to the different food booths and the different craft booths that we will have set up around the room and freely roam and chat with all of our vendors and get to know what they do and be appreciative of what theyre serving. Robert yeah, you have chefs from everywhere too, right . Bay area, hawaii, japan and everything. And so people get to actually interact as well as eat, right . Diane they do and thats what they enjoy the most. Robert yeah. Really . More than the eating . Diane well, i would say robert its kind of a tie. Robert now of course, again, its not all about food. What are some of the things that are going on there . Diane right, so this year were inviting some guests frooita prefecture, which is in kyushu, japan, and one of the guests is a geta maker from a town called hita and hes going to be actually showing the guests how to make hitastyle getas, and i have one right here and have one on my feet. Hita geta are made out of cedar wood, and cedar is indigenous to oita prefecture, and what hes going to do is hes going to show the guests how to actually make a geta by putting on the hanao, which is the strap here, and then how he wraps it up on the other side like this. Robert oh, yeah. You know, when you turn it around everything, you can really see how more complex it is than it looks so simple on top. Diane youre right, every single geta that he makes is handmade, from cutting the tree down to making every pair of geta. So i think itll be a treat for all of our guests. Robert you know, a lot of japanese things are that way, right . They look so simple and yet its the complexity that makes the simplicity work. What other things besides that . Diane were also inviting a guest from kobe and shes a modern calligraphy artist, and she designed our invitation this year. Robert you have that in fact. Diane i do. I have it right here. And this is the japanese kanji of shoko, which means eat. And traditionally its done with just with black sumi ink on white paper, but what she does is she takes acrylic paints and she really tries to jazz it up and show a modern way of looking at calligraphy and appreciating the art. Robert yeah, yeah. So really is literally arts, crafts, and foods, right . Diane right. Robert yeah, okay, so i know you dont want to go through all of them, but what are some of the kind of the foods that people will be able to maybe experience or see that maybe they dont see normally . Diane right, so through cochair donna kimuras connections, we were able to secure a lot of new vendors this year. I think one of the highlights is featuring b. Patisserie belinda leongs cookies, which will be at the tables. We are also going to have nintarose sylvan mishima bracket make some food, and then we have a guest from hawaii, chris manabe, who has started his own food truck and he is also the fourth generation owner of diamond bakery, which is a common household name in hawaii, traditionally making soda crackers, but now venturing into a bunch of Different Things as all kinds of different kinds of cookies from hawaii. Robert yeah, now how do people get to this event . How can they go . Or is it sold out or . Diane we have the capacity to seat 400 people and i think were almost at capacity right now. Robert so people have to hurry if they want to try to be a part of this. You know, lance lou, one of thewhen wehes one of the producers here and we kind of created this show, and we had talked about the fact that, you know, arts and culture need to be a part of this show because they tend to be ignored and things like that, and the other aspect that we always say we have to not ignore was food. Food really is a big part of, like, a culture and its also a big part of the why people tap into a culture. Isnt that right . Diane yeah and were the jccc, so the japanese cultural and Community Center. So within Japanese Culture is definitely food as well as, i think, the artsthe traditional as the modern arts that artists do in japan. Robert yeah, now the artistry, the calligraphy, theall the crafts that are going to go on, is that sort of maybe indicative of how you want to maybe broaden the tabemasho in the future . Diane i think we always want to focus in on traditions because we do want to preserve and promote japanese tradition and Japanese Culture, and one way is to actually invite specific artists from japan. Another person thata company that were inviting from japan is a Company Called momotaro nori, and theyre going to be featuring three different kinds of seaweed and one is a type of seaweed that they have created called kabotsu seaweed, which is made with a fruit of lime and mandarin, and i think itll be a great treat for our guests. Robert nor is it something that a lot of people know about, huh . Diane right. Robert all right, thank you. Robert looking forward to it. All right. Tabemasho 2019, saturday, september 21st from 4 p. M. To 8 p. M. At the center, Nisei Community Hall at 1840 sutter street in San Francisco. Our colleague, mike inouye, the traffic reporter for today in the bay will be the mc. For more information, go to nbcbayarea. Com. Coming up, a former child of an internment camp is looking for his classmates. How . Thats next. My grandparents were interned at the heart Mountain Camp during world war ii, and for the young people in the family, they went to school there, or at least classes; and even though it was not a pleasant experience overall, like many youngsters being classmates is a bond and that was the case at all of the camps, including manzanar, but the circumstances, of course, made it hard to stay in touch. A member of a First Grade Class at manzanar is looking for his classmates. Manzanar was one of ten internment camps, a 500acre housing section surrounded by barbed wire, guard towers, and patrolled by military police. More than 10,000 japanese americans lived at manzanar by september, 1942. It was located in the owens valley of california between the Sierra Nevada on the west and the Inyo Mountains on the east. The first grade photo is from the 1944 45 school year. One of the kids pictured is konishamura and he is searching for his classmates and wants to have a reunion. He asked for help. So if you happen to know someone from that camp or if you were there and know someone from this class, please email Ranger Patricia at Patricia Biggs nps. Gov. And you can find out more on konishamuras search as well as about the other guests and their events on our website, nbcbayarea. Com, and of course were also on social media facebook and twitter, and you can follow me on twitter rhandanbc. And thats it for our show today. We want to thank all of our guests for coming here and accommodating us as we did this show on the new set instead of our familiarlooking studio. Asian Pacific America will be on our usual set and on our usual times next week. So hope to see you then. Hope to see you at the Hakone Gardens gala, or say hi to mike inouye at tabemasho. Thanks for watching. Cc by aberdeen captioning 18006886621 www. Abercap. Com we have nothing left alabama was in the original forecast. There are some things you cant unsee. He was in a car accident earlier tonight. Im so happy to be back. Good morning. Welcome to sunday today on this september 8th, im willy geist. We approach the 18th anniversar of the attacks of the september 11 President Trump announcing he has called off a secret meeting with taliban leader at camp david this w