Showing results by narrator "Brian Nishii" in All Categories

A stray kitty gets a job in a sumo stable, chasing mice in exchange for food. But when eating like a sumo wrestler slows our feline hero down, he realizes he must train like a wrestler, too. Through hard work and perseverance - and with a little help from a big buddy - SumoKitty is born! A funny and heartwarming story inspired by the Japanese saying, "Fall down seven times, stand up eight."

Fiona Barnes has a secret. One so big she's afraid it will destroy everything she holds dear. Not even her beloved music can save her. Li Wu has fought prejudice his entire life. But he's always felt safe and protected within the fierce love of the Barnes family. If only the object of his desire were free to be his, all would be well. Will he risk everything to be with the one he loves or will societal pressures keep them apart?

Burned by napalm as an infant and adopted by the guardian spirit of a river, Numamushi spends the first years of his life catching frogs to eat and learning to shed his skin like his serpentine father. Then one day, a lonely man moves into the abandoned house next to the river, and curiosity for all things human awakens in Numamushi. This mysterious man shares Numamushi’s penchant for eating frogs but also carries the scars of war, a love of the written word, and knowledge of the secret history of the house and its river.

After losing multiple contracts, Shuichi must make restitution to his company. Faced with this large, unanticipated debt, the trip to Paris he and his wife have been planning for a year must be canceled. Traveling to Europe was more than a vacation; it offered the hope of reaching their teenage daughter who has stopped going to school and will not leave her room. Feeling despondent and directionless, Shuichi believes he’s the unluckiest person in Japan.

Adults wage war, while children are unwitting victims, pulled into a maelstrom of fear and hate without any choice. This is a story about two groups of teenagers on opposite sides of the world, forever connected by an act of war. It is a story about the adults some of those teens became, forever connected by acts of forgiveness, understanding, and peace. And it is a story about one remarkable man, whose heart belonged to both America and Japan, who put that peace and understanding in motion.

Fiona Barnes has a secret—one so big she's afraid it will destroy everything she holds dear. Not even her beloved music can save her. Li Wu has fought prejudice his entire life. But he's always felt safe and protected within the fierce love of the Barnes family. If only the object of his desire were free to be his, all would be well. Will he risk everything to be with the one he loves, or will societal pressures keep them apart?

How does witnessing a crime change a person? This powerful collection of stories by a star-studded roster of contributors examines this very question.

Deep in the Kunlun Hills lives a deer whose fur has nine colors. One day she hears a cry for help and discovers a man drowning. Then, leaping from wave to wave, she saves him. When the man asks how he could ever repay this kindness, the Nine Color Deer simply requests that the man never reveal her whereabouts. Will he be able to keep his promise when the King and Queen offer a reward to anyone who can locate the Nine Color Deer? Inspired by a 1,500-year-old mural in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang, China, Kailin Duan brings listeners a beautiful story about the power of kindness.

It’s the night of senior prom, and eighteen-year-old Julia has made a pact with her friends. (Yes, that kind of pact.) They have secured a secluded cabin in the woods, one night without parental supervision, and plenty of condoms. But as soon as they leave the dance, the pact begins to unravel. Alex’s grandmother is undergoing emergency surgery, and he and his date rush to the hospital. Zoe’s trying to figure out how she feels about getting off the waitlist at Yale―and how to tell her girlfriend.

From the editor of the award-winning Children of Manzanar, Heather C. Lindquist, and Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara comes a nuanced account of the “Resettlement”: the relatively unexamined period when ordinary people of Japanese ancestry, having been unjustly imprisoned during World War II, were finally released from custody. Given $25 and a one-way bus ticket to make a new life, some ventured east to Denver and Chicago to start over, while others returned to Southern California only to face discrimination and an alarming scarcity of housing and jobs.

As a boy, Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history.

This classic and integral memoir recounts the events in the life of the first Chinese student to graduate from a major American university, Yale College. An avid advocate for education, Yung Wing convinced the Qing Dynasty government to create a program that would send Chinese students to American schools in order to study science and engineering, giving them opportunities that would never be open to them if they stayed in China. Both enthralling and educational, this historic memoir from an important voice in history will take listeners back in time to the late nineteenth century.

Three Wishes in Bardo draws an intimate picture of twentieth-century Hong Kong while telling the story of a typical Hong Kong bright boy and his devoted mother. It is also a story of scientific labor and discovery, where single-mindedness, integrity, talent, and skill rise from the mire of academic sharp-practice and envy. Different strands of the plot weave together to form a climactic ending where all characters’ lives resolve into fulfillment with a touch of humor and true catharsis created from genuine surprise.

After Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. military was desperate to find Americans who spoke Japanese to serve in the Pacific war. They soon turned to the Nisei—first-generation U.S. citizens whose parents were immigrants from Japan. Eager to prove their loyalty to America, several thousand Nisei—many of them volunteering from behind barbed wire—were selected by the Army for top-secret training, then were rushed to the Pacific theater. Henderson reveals the harrowing untold story of the Nisei and their major contributions in the war of the Pacific.

Fred Korematsu liked listening to music on the radio, playing tennis, and hanging around with his friends - just like lots of other Americans. But everything changed when the United States went to war with Japan in 1941 and the government forced all people of Japanese ancestry to leave their homes on the West Coast and move to distant prison camps. This included Fred, whose parents had immigrated to the United States from Japan many years before. But Fred refused to go.

Award-winning poet Brandon Shimoda has crafted a lyrical portrait of his paternal grandfather, Midori Shimoda, whose life - child migrant, talented photographer, suspected enemy alien and spy, desert wanderer, American citizen - mirrors the arc of Japanese America in the 20th century. In a series of pilgrimages, Shimoda records the search to find his grandfather and unfolds, in the process, a moving elegy on memory and forgetting.

Former Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) sniper Patrick Featherstone has been hired as the head security consultant for the Tokyo Olympics based on his success in thwarting a plot to foment a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula.

◆あの山形弁のダニエル・カールさんの英語本が登場。 日本に来てから30年以上、 山形で鍛えた方言で、テレビ等で活躍している著者が 8年7カ月ぶりの新刊を出版。 「ダニエルさんは、もう英語を忘れてしまったのでは？」 と思っている方、それは誤解です。 彼は日本でも英語を忘れないために、年に数回アメリカに帰省しており、 英語教育や国際交流などに力を入れているのです。 英語、日本語、山形弁、それに少しのドイツ語と、 マルチなタレントとしてだけでなく、マルチに語学も駆使されています。 そんなダニエルさん、外国人には通じないカタカナ英語、 いわゆる和製英語は"便利な英語？"で、 本人もアメリカで普通に使ってしまい通じないこともしばしば。 ということで、これから日本にワンサカやって来る外国人に通じる、 正しい英語をお伝えすべく、久々の本の出版となりました。 ◆これから大勢やって来る外国人に、本当の「おもてなし」を。 2014年に観光で日本に訪れた外国人は1300万人以上。 この10年で倍増しています。 日本文化が世界で流行り、これから2020年の東京オリンピックに向けて、 さらなる外国人観光客が日本にやって来ます。 おそらく外国人と交流する機会も増えるはず。 その時に困るのが、外国人に通じないカタカナ英語。 このカタカナ英語が実

ジョブズが残した数々の名言、そしてあの歴史的スピーチも収録！

Japan faces Korea in the World Baseball Classic at Dodger Stadium, and curmudgeonly gardener Mas Arai finds himself embroiled in a murder. A Japanese tabloid writer drops dead on the field, and Mas gave the victim his last drink. It turns out there's more at stake than a baseball championship - international diplomacy depends upon uncovering secrets buried decades ago.