Enjoyed the cultural differences but how they adapted and make it work! The energy of the south Americans bring something to the table that a lot of Japanese don't have. They aren't so reserved and family dynamics show way more affection than a typical Japanese family. Great job Vice!
Good to say but it's very hard to get over cultural differences. Listen to the words of Paulo Fujita @ 4:45 mark. He clearly defined himself as meditator between Japanese Brazilian (Nikkei-san) and native Japanese (Nihhon-no-kata) but I think he's showing a little bit of emotional distance from native Japanese and much closer to Japanese Brazilian. it's impossible to hear the difference of these two words from subtitles (because it can not be translated into English) but I noticed it from his choice of words. The point is he definitely looks & sounds like native Japanese. I can't tell any difference. If he's living in my neighborhoods I would recognize him as our "homie" I guess. But he knows that's not the case and I could hear that from his words. Only Jesus can love everybody. The real people living in real world can not. And unfortunately Jesus is dead. The truth is, we all different and people from the other culture would be more different. Therefore, there will be a conflict. But we, civilized people must solve such conflict by compromising each other. I really really hate some people who believes the concept of the all humanity brothers...do you know what the consequence of this idea? Cultural assimilation. It is the excuse from the people who force the other to adapt their "all humanity brothers". But the truth is, it makes much harder for us to understand each other. To live together with the people who have different cultural background is difficult task. But if our nation accept them as part of our people they should pay for the education of seconds generation at least. If we can not communicate each other, it's pie in the sky, to live together as "hoime". Unfortunately politics always avoid such effort. Because regardless of left or right, the reason they accept foreign labors just for one reason. They're *cheap*. That's the request from the private sector where politics need to rely on to collect some votes. They don't count on the cost to take care of difficulty. But it will be needed in the future and someone must pay for that. I hope they'll live happy around there...especially the kids who grew up in this project because I think it's hard for them to "go back" and live in Brazil. This wouldn't be a beautiful story. We need to struggle to understand each other while some fat pig spoiling foreign labors and counting their money above us. It's sucks but I also think it's good to struggle with the people came from different culture and looking for the point we could stay together. Maybe that's something we need to do our nation for the future.
Too bad there's no English subs. I remember this area because of watching a documentary on vice, where a group of Japanese rappers grew up in these buildings.
The basic gist of this whole thing is, a lot of japanese went to brazil to start farming and also became owners of coffee plantations around 1907 where the Brazilian and the Japanese governments signed a treaty permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. Although most of them became slaves to the brazilian owners of plantations. The japanese worked hard under terrible conditions, in a country that hated all non-white people. Though they overcame the problem with educations and hardwork. By 1970 Japan became one of the richest countries in the world and as we all know, Brazil became a shithole pretty quickly in the 80's so a lot of japanese brazilians or so called "nisei" escaped to Japan - those japanese were called "dekasegi". But since they weren't "japanese" enough and didn't assimilate well, a lot of japanese brazillians were either forced to leave or lived their whole lives in "ghettos" like the homi projects. It's not necessarily that these people are poor or japanese, but they just don't want to leave their hood. In the documentary we see a photographer who documented their daily lives, they visit a food store specialized on brazilian foods and visits some families who'll tell them about the dishes they're eating, about works and other things.
