SAO PAULO - Agence France-Presse


A visit by Japan's Crown Prince Naruhito next week is to mark the high point of celebrations in Brazil celebrating the foundation of the country's big Japanese community 100 years ago.

The prince is expected June 17-25 and will be attending the main event in the program: a ceremony on June 21 in the city of Sao Paulo where most of the country's 1.5 million Japanese descendants live.

A packed program of shows theater dance exhibitions and other spectacles are already underway and are to continue to late in the year said Osamu Matsuo the head of the Centenary Association organizing the anniversary.

The Japanese community in Brazil -- the biggest in the world outside of Japan itself -- started on June 18 1908 when a ship named the Kasato Maru arrived with 781 Japanese looking to work in the booming coffee plantations around Sao Paulo.

Since then the Asian inflow has swelled and contributed to the make-up of this metropolis where a noticeable Japanese influence is felt among the strong European and African currents.

Little Tokyo:

Sushi restaurants abound lessons in origami and calligraphy are legion and many streets in the center have the feel of a Little Tokyo albeit one driven by tropical rhythms and the freewheeling Brazilian character.

Celia Oi a historian and journalist specialized in the Japanese immigration explained that World War II was a defining event.

"Those who came before the war retained a sense of Japan as a conservative fairly militaristic society. They had ties to that Japan and often couldn't read Portuguese" she told AFP.

"Those after and especially the generation that followed were more influenced by Brazilian society" she said adding that the links to Japan were further weakened by Brazil's wartime prohibition on the Japanese language.

In Brazil there are names to distinguish each of the generations.

The first wave of Japanese immigrants are known as "Isseis" and most were rural workers and small storekeepers.

Their offspring the first native Brazilian-Japanese are called "Nisseis" many of whom took over their parents' businesses.

The third generation the "Sanseis" make up the bulk of the Brazilian-Japanese in Brazil today. Apart from their Japanese appearance (altered in some cases by having mixed-race parents) they are culturally almost indistinct from other Brazilians -- and many don't even speak Japanese.

Their "Yonsei" children are even more integrated and it's not unusual to see some from this group leading traditional Brazilian samba drums bands or acting on television.

After the "Goseis" come the newest generation the "Rokuseis" whose links and bloodlines to the Land of the Rising Sun are distant.

Oi said she believed there was a resurgence in interest in Japan for the later generations spurred by the perception of Japan today as a cutting edge wealthy society.

"Near-instant communications -- the Internet cable television -- have also made it easier to stay in touch. And don't forget there are 320000 Brazilian-Japanese in Japan acting as a sort of conduit to transfer influence" she said.

For Brazil the celebrations this month go beyond honoring a cultural legacy; the government is also hoping to renew economic ties with Japan that have been languishing since that country's recession in the 1990s.

According to official figures Japan accounts for only four percent of the foreign investment in Brazil; 648 million dollars' worth in 2006. Trade last year amounted to 8.9 billion dollars.