The centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil

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Japan & Brazil

The centenary of Japanese immigration to Brazil

Brazilians and Japanese are celebrating 100 years since the arrival of the first Japanese boat in Brazil. Today, 1.5 million people of Japanese origin live in Brazil, most of them in the State of São Paulo

   On June 18^th 1908 the Japanese ship “Kasato Maru” dropped anchor at the port of Santos, bringing dozens of families to work in the coffee plantations in the State of São Paulo.  That was the first group of Japanese immigrants to arrive inBrazil in search of work. In the following decades a growing number of Japanese came to Brazillooking for new opportunities. At that time Japan was going through a serious economic and social crisis. The Japanese colony in Brazil is now one of the largest in the world. There are about 1.5 million Japanese and descendents living in Brazil – 80% in the State of São Paulo, 12% in Paraná and the rest in other States.

Liberdade, a Japanese neighborhood in SP

The city of São Paulo is home to about 326,000 people of Japanese origin. The famous neighborhood of Liberdade is a good example of how Japanese culture has influenced the State capital. Whoever walks the streets of this neighborhood feels as if they were in Japan. Japanese writing covers the facades of local bars and restaurants, and even Japanese architecture is in evidence in many buildings.

The influence of Japanese culture in Brazil

   The strong influence of Japanese culture can be seen outside the State of São Paulo. Millions of Brazilians certainly know the meaning of a lot of Japanese words, such as samurai, karate, judo, kimono and “nisseis” and “sanseis” (children and grandchildren of Japanese who were born on the American continent).  Another well-known word is “geisha,” who are women who use art (dance, music or theater) to entertain customers at tea houses or other places of business. Typical dishes such as sushi (made with rice, vegetables, eggs and fish) and sashimi (made with fish) have also been successful in Brazil, as well as sake, a drink made from rice.

Japan

The land of the rising sun

Located in the Asian continent, Japan is a rich country offering its population a good quality of life

In the Japanese language, Japan means “land of the rising sun.” In this country, rice is the staple food, used in sweet and savory dishes.  Japan has a population of 127 million and is one of the richest countries in the world. The political system is parliamentarianism, the currency is the yen, and the predominant religion is Buddhism (80% of the population).  About 88 million people have Internet access and life expectancy is one of the highest in the world, at almost 82. However, nature has not been kind to the country. Earthquakes are common in many regions of Japan. Tokyo, the capital, has a population of about 8.5 million people, but the most unforgettable city for Brazilians is Yokohama, where Brazil won its fifth World Cup in 2002.

Matéria publicada na edição de junho da Revista Magananews

Foto 1 – Ituverava-SP promove festival para comemorar os 100 anos da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil – crédito “Shigow”

Foto 2 - (batata, pronta para a venda - década de 30) – crédito - Acervo do Museu Histórico da Imigração Japonesa no Brasil

Vocabulary

1 boat – aqui = navio (ship)

2 to drop anchor – ancorar

3 growing - crescente

4 writing – letreiros / luminárias

5 facade - fachada

6 customer – freguês

7 tea houses – casas de chá

8 rice – arroz

9 sake - saquê

10 rising sun – sol nascente

11 staple food – ingrediente principal

12 savory dishes – pratos salgados

13 currency – moeda

14 earthquake - terremoto

Japan’s Early Warning System One of the Best in the World

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Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

A man searches for a family member in the ruins of a tsunami-hit area in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

A powerful earthquake struck the northeastern coast of Japan at two forty-six p.m. local time on March eleventh. Japan’s Meteorological Agency released its first tsunami warnings just three minutes later. The country has one of the best earthquake early warning systems in the world.

There are more than four thousand Seismic Intensity Meters in place throughout Japan to measure earthquake activity. These meters provide information within two minutes of an earthquake happening. Information about the strength and the center of the earthquake can be learned within three minutes.

There are also concrete sea walls around much of the Japanese coastline. But these measures proved no match for the powerful earthquake and tsunami.

Costas Synolakis is a tsunami expert with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: "Japan is one of those most well-prepared countries on earth in terms of tsunami warning. They had a warning. I think what went wrong is that they had not anticipated the size of this event.”

He says there are two reasons for this. Japan has not had any event anywhere near as big as this one in the last one hundred fifty years. And scientists had not expected such a large earthquake happening off the coast of Japan.

The nine point zero magnitude earthquake was the fourth most powerful earthquake ever recorded worldwide. It was also the worst earthquake ever to hit Japan. The tsunami waves that followed were reported to have reached as high as thirteen meters in some areas.

Costas Synolakis says Japan’s concrete sea walls were not built to handle such high waves.

COSTAS SYNOLAKIS: "The concrete seawalls in many places in Japan are about 10 meters, that's about 33 feet. In Sendai, they were about three meters, that's about 10 feet. So that shows you that at least in that area they were not expecting such a sizeable wave because they would have built a higher seawall.”

A tsunami wave can travel as fast as eight hundred kilometers per hour. To get to higher ground people would often have to travel for many kilometers. This can take more time than a fast traveling tsunami will permit. This is especially true in cases like Japan, where the center of the earthquake struck so close to the coastline. The tsunami waves followed almost immediately.

Experts say early warning systems will continue to be limited by these facts until earthquakes and tsunamis can be predicted

And that's the VOA Special English Technology Report, written by June Simms. You can find more news about the disaster in Japan at our website, voaspecialenglish.com. You can also find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports. And you can find us on Facebook and YouTube at VOA Learning English. I'm Steve Ember.

Force of Nature, Japan Earthquake

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Learn more about earthquakes

What causes an earthquake?  Is Brazil at risk? The answers are below

   Recent earthquakes in Haiti (January-2010), Chile (February-2010), and Japan (March 2011) have not only chocked the world but have also raised a lot of concern [1] in other nations in South America and Central America. The ground has shaken [2] in a number of regions in Brazil in recent years, but they were low [3] intensity shakes. Experts say that Brazil’s chances of suffering from a major earthquake are minimal. Earthquakes are caused by geological cracks [4]. Major shakes happen when two underground [5]  tectonic plates [6] collide. The most affected countries are those located on the edge [7] of such plates. Brazil has been lucky. It is located in the middle of a huge plate, away from a dangerous “contact zone” between two major plates. However, in some cases, an earthquake may also be caused by a volcanic eruption. The most common scale used to measure the intensity of an earthquake is Charles Francis Richter’s. His scale ranges from 0 to 9 degrees.   

Chile and Haiti

Every year, thousands of shakes strike [8]  the ground around the globe, but most of them are of such low intensity that they are not even felt by people. The higher [9] the intensity of the earthquake and the closer the epicenter is to a major city, the higher the risk of great tragedies. In Chile, the earthquake reached 8.8 on the Richter’s scale, which was higher than the one recorded in Haiti (7.7). However, the tragedy in Haiti was much more intense. In Chile, the epicenter was 115 km away from the city of Concepción, but in Haiti, it was only 25 km away from the capital Port-au-Prince. This is one of the factors that explain why over 220,000 people died in Haiti and “only” a little over 700 died in Chile. There are other factors that made the consequences worse, such as the quality of constructions and the depth [10]  of the earthquake. In Chile, the epicenter was in the sea at 35 km depth, while in  Haiti it was only 10 km below the surface.  

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Picture - Vehicles are crushed by a collapsed wall at a carpark in Mito city in Ibaraki prefecture onMarch 11, 2011 after a massive earthquake rocked Japan AFP PHOTO / JIJI PRESS

Vocabulary

1 to raise a lot of concern – aqui = deixar preocupada (s)

2 the ground has shaken – a terra tremeu

3 low - baixo

4 geological cracks – aqui = falhas geológicas

5 underground - subterrânea

6 tectonic plates – placas tectônicas (gigantescos blocos de terra)

7 on the edge – nas bordas

8 to strike – sacudir

9 the higher the – quanto maior for

10 depth - profundidade

Earthquake and Tsunamis

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Written by Carlos' Tour guide

The earthquake and Tsunamis hit the Japan is recorded in history, I decided to write something in memory of those who lost their lives in the tragic Natural event who marked that country. Remind the horror of the biggest Asia's Tsunamis hit Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka in 2004. We cannot figure out the pain of the people who lost their homes, parents disappeared, and the victims of the tragedy. English tips' homage Japanese' family and respect all readers who visit and appreciate this blog, my sincere condolences. Let's pray for Japan and don't forget to love each other and always supporting for peace and justice. Even, though have a blessed weekend friends.