Japan and Brazil: the Emperor Comes to our Prefecture

The Emperor of Japan made a visit to our fine prefecture of Gunma on Monday, stopping by a community of Brazilian-Japanese citizens who worked at a large Sanyo plant. He was there with his wife, Gunma-born Empress Michiko, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the beginning of immigration between Japan and Brazil, when a ship from Kobe departed with 791 Japanese farmers in search of a better life there. During the first half of the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Japanese resettled in Brazil and neighboring countries, and many of their descendents have returned to Japan, forming one of the largest ethnic groups here. The town of Oizumi, about 30 km from J-List, has the highest official foreign population in the country (10%), although everyone knows that the real number about double that when people without valid visas are taken into account. It was quite a special event to have the Emperor in our neck of the woods, so naturally everyone dropped what they were doing to go try to get a glimpse of him, causing huge traffic jams everywhere.