AFTER Fas-ang's visit to our office, I realized that almost all of us must have some sort of Japanese in us; Karaoke, Japanese surplus, Anime shows, perhaps even a drop of Japanese blood."Nekkei-Jins" or Japanese descendants are widespread in Benguet (just like the Benguet Chinese business people). Contary to the belief that most nekkei-jins are seeds of Japanese atrocities during the second World War, more of them are actually descendants from legitimate Filipino-Japanese relationships before the said war.
Even before the Japanese occupation and during the American colonial period, Major L.W.V. Kennon had already employed thousands of Japanese laborers (known as “Benguet immigrants”) to complete the "Benguet Road" (now Kennon Road). After 1905, Japanese workers who migrated to the area (around Baguio) to look for better opportunities went into farming, settling mostly in La Trinidad. Many Japanese brought the technique of highland agriculture to cultivate vegetables. Most of these Japanese migrants are men who intermarried with the locals.
This is reflected in literary pieces like "Tanabata's Wife" by Sinai Hamada (one of the greatest Cordilleran story teller of all times, and a nekkei-jin himself). The peculiar love story was set in the old La Trinidad valley and Baguio area in the 1930s. According to Ms. Mai Fanglayan (Fas-ang) who is an Igorota from Baguio City and La Trinidad, the film adaptation of the story will be screened in SM Baguio on September 17-18, 2018. Let us support our local artists, creatives, and performers!
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When I was a toddler, some people would ask if I have Japanese blood because of my small eyes and fair complexion (before I was permanently toasted by life). It didn't help that I was addicted to Japanese Manga and Anime while growing up, occasionally spewing "Nani?" like an anime character. But perhaps one of the highlights of my life was that rare opportunity to learn in Japan and finally crossing that bucket list. It cannot be denied that almost all of us have some Japanese in us, my nephew, a bubbly white character with small eyes is even named "Akiro".
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Yesterday (September 10), the Municipality of La Trinidad, with its tourism services implementors, launched the celebration of the La Trinidad Tourism Week by having a press conference in partnership with the Philippine Information Agency - CAR. The general objective of the La Trinidad Tourism Week is to raise awareness about the importance of tourism to the community, as well as to nurture a culture of tourism-consciousness. The celebration includes the following activities; photo contest, digital poster competition, business marketing seminar, tourism conference, fashion show, concert, familiarization tour, eco-kulturamazing race, and an environmental forum. The La Trinidad Tourism Week celebrations follows the 2018 World Tourism Day theme : Tourism and the Digital Transformation.