Japan's Princess Mako visits Brazil's Japanese diaspora

(19 Jul 2018) Japan's Princess Mako visited Rio de Janeiro's iconic Christ the Redeemer statue Wednesday to celebrate 110 years of immigration from her country to Brazil, home to the largest Japanese diaspora in the world.
The princess also went to Rio's Botanical Gardens where she planted a Pau Brasil tree just as her grandfather, Emperor Akihito, did during a 1967 visit.
The Pau Brasil is Brazil's national tree, famed for giving the country its name.
Princess Mako said she "felt the currents of time" during the planting ceremony.
She also addressed people at a Japanese-Brazilian cultural center, where she saw a recital by children and young adults playing Okedo-Taiko, a type of bucket-shaped drum, as they performed a traditional Eisa dance from Okinawa Island.
Princess Mako applauded the Japanese community's efforts to keep traditions alive.
Her trip commemorates the anniversary of the first immigrants' arrival on the Kasato Maru ship in 1908.
It was a time when Japanese peasants went serching for economic opportunities abroad, as their own country struggled with poverty and overpopulation.
Meanwhile Brazil, which had abolished slavery two decades earlier, needed workers for its coffee plantations.
The two nations signed an immigration treaty, which led hundreds of thousands of Japanese workers to settle in Brazil.
An estimated 1.9 million Japanese or their descendants now live in the South American country.
In the next two weeks, the princess will travel to 13 other Brazilian cities.

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