I recently joined the Bellevue Sister Cities Association and in addition to becoming an active member of the Yao committee I have become newsletter editor. The demographic make-up of the association reminded me of Bowling Alone and Putnam's discussion of the Long Civic Generation. Currently we are having difficulty recruiting new members and having some difficulty getting more enthusiastic support from City Hall. If any alumni living near the Eastside might be interested in joining and partaking in tax deductible trips to Asia and Europe you would be more than welcomed.
Several BSCA members were either involved in the occupation of Japan or were Japanese-Americans interned during WWII. A couple months ago I was given this 1942 Kenkyusha Japanese-English dictionary from Florence Metcalf, head of the Yao, Japan Committee. She worked in the Allied Translator and Interpreter Section (ATIS) using the dictionary to translate news articles and teach English. The dictionary was printed by Harvard and I was informed that the payment of royalties for these dictionaries was suspended because of the War. So in addition to helping plan for an upcoming delegation visit by Yao and helping sponsor high schoolers for summer exchange trips I have been given a valuable piece of history.
I thought this might be worthy of passing on and perhaps inclusion in the department's blog.
-Bill Bockman'06
