My father, Fukujuro Murakami, passed away on September 11 at 2:38 pm. He was 87. He had suffered from Alzheimer's disease for the past ten years or so, and finally succumbed to multiple organ failure due to metastatic cancer that spread throughout his body from the liver. He had supported his family as a cab driver. In the 1960s, our family lived in the midst of poverty. He was not a smart man, so all he could do was to work incessantly, sparing no time even to sleep. My younger brother and I grew up watching him do so, and are here now thanks to him. As his sons, we are copies of our father; also not very bright, all we know how to do is to keep working, sacrificing sleep. In order to survive in Japan that had lost the Pacific War, he chose to join the Self-Defense Forces. There, he obtained a variety of licenses, from a standard driver's license to a large special vehicle license. After leaving the Forces, he got married through an arranged marriage and moved to Tokyo. He had lost his mother when he was in junior high school, and in his later years with dementia, he often seemed to have visions of her. It can readily be surmised how happy he must have been to meet his beautiful wife, Itsuko, as someone starved for love from his mother, from the fact that he lived a single-mindedly serious life thereafter, devoted to his wife and family. (I apologize to my followers here, but I'm going to make a few more posts to sort out my feelings. Thank you for your understanding.) To be continued... translation: @tabi_the_fat

[#central] Ordered their 7 course dinner set and my suggestion is DO NOT do this and pls only order a la carte. As a typical italian restaurant, started with breads, then 1st course was Oyster and Champagne Jelly, which was good and a fresh combination 2nd was the Carpaccio di Tonno - as you can see, we were shocked, that was purely 5 tiny pieces of fishes and too tiny to the extent that we couldn't taste anything..... 😑 3rd was the beef tartare with caviar, of course they are good, its tartare and caviar and they cant be wrong 4th was the tagliolini and top with black truffle - the portion of the tagliolini was really too too too small and it is nothing fulfilling 5th was the little turbot "xiao long bao" with crayfish and citrus - which was good, cute, special and finally its something that worth ordering, but only 1 little dumpling wouldnt satisfy me - special texture for the outside and refreshing as a whole with the citrus on the side 6th was the grilled fish? Nth special and i got nth to comment 😑 look like sth that try to make u full, but not working at all 7th as the last one was the sorbet with caviar on top. Again, nothing special Since we were not full at all after finishing the above, we ordered the Chitarra with Braised Oxtail Ragout - it was so good, al dente chitarra with the yum braised oxtail We also ordered 3 more desserts, didnt show the chocolate lava cake (as it was just normal). Other 2 were - cannoli filled with ricotta cheese, brinte's pistacchio and orange peel - that was good, crispy and fulfilling and worth trying - tiramisu - it cant be wrong for an italian place, if it's wrong, that would be a disaster, but i would say, pici one is good enough already Overall the 7 courses were $1500pp, and with everything its $2000pp. Also, they served really slow and we were almost starved to death 😐

I'm honored to have been a part of Giap, Thanh, and Phuong's amazing reunion and not because a video I made helped bring them together again, but I'm more honored to have their trust for me to tell their story. With many of our parents aging now and with the current atmosphere of ignorance and violence towards Asians, it's more important than ever to tell our stories before we forget them or before our opportunities vanish. The Vietnamese boat refugee experience is still under explored and not enough spot light has been been shown on it in modern times, especially in school books or in contemporary media. I mean, why are there so many Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam? How did beef pho turn into seafood pho, tofu pho, and pho eaten with a fork? How am I even writing this in English right now? Most people might assume it's because of the war... But that's about it. They probably don't know anything about boat refugees, labor contracts, sponsorships or how we left Vietnam and what happened to us. Maybe they hate us because they don't know the truth about us. Real Asian pride: know your history and make sure your non Asian friends know too. I'm proud to do a small part with these three friend's story because even if you've never starved at sea with rotting pants that peeled away your skin when you took them off after a month on a boat or if you never had to steal a can of condensed milk just to survive, or if your parents never had to make a decision and not know whether you'll make it not, I'm sure you'll still feel some sense of relatability with Giap, Thanh, and Phuong's friendship. Their video will be on my channel at 5 PM Pacific today. My hope is that after seeing this vid, you ask your parents and document about how they got to America, Canada, Australia, Europe etc. I'm sure you'll love them more for their struggles, appreciate your own lives, and more importantly, preserve their memories in order to preserve our history. If we want to be in the mainstream, the world has to know who we are first. And it all starts with our own stories. Please talk to your parents and then to your friends. #vietnamese #boatpeople #vietkieu #viet #refugees #asian