Iwate brewer urges holding cherry blossom parties with Tohoku-made sake
Apr. 6, 2011
While a mood of voluntary self-restraint is spreading following last month's deadly earthquake and tsunami, an official of a Japanese sake brewery in Iwate Prefecture has asked people to go ahead and hold cherry blossom viewing parties with sake made in disaster-hit areas.
Kosuke Kuji, 38, executive director of Nambu Bijin, a sake brewing company in Ninohe which was damaged in the March 11 disaster, has posted a video message on the YouTube website, asking people to support the disaster-ravaged Tohoku region in northeastern Japan by consuming alcohol products from the region at such parties.
''If things stay as they are, we will be subject to secondary economic damage,'' Kuji said of the existing tendency for people to refrain from taking part in leisure activities. ''Rather than exercising self-restraint, we would be grateful if people hold cherry blossom viewing parties.''
The Tokyo metropolitan government recently asked visitors to its parks to refrain from holding parties under blooming cherry trees -- a traditional Japanese custom -- in light of the catastrophic disaster as well as electricity shortages caused in the Tokyo area due to a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by the disaster.
As for the reason he posted the video clip, Kuji said he thought it would be ''meaningful'' for a disaster survivor to deliver a message directly.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on April 5, 2011)
Kosuke Kuji, 38, executive director of Nambu Bijin, a sake brewing company in Ninohe which was damaged in the March 11 disaster, has posted a video message on the YouTube website, asking people to support the disaster-ravaged Tohoku region in northeastern Japan by consuming alcohol products from the region at such parties.
''If things stay as they are, we will be subject to secondary economic damage,'' Kuji said of the existing tendency for people to refrain from taking part in leisure activities. ''Rather than exercising self-restraint, we would be grateful if people hold cherry blossom viewing parties.''
The Tokyo metropolitan government recently asked visitors to its parks to refrain from holding parties under blooming cherry trees -- a traditional Japanese custom -- in light of the catastrophic disaster as well as electricity shortages caused in the Tokyo area due to a nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant triggered by the disaster.
As for the reason he posted the video clip, Kuji said he thought it would be ''meaningful'' for a disaster survivor to deliver a message directly.
(Distributed by Kyodo News on April 5, 2011)
