by TAKEO "BABE" UTSUMI

A couple of years ago our friend Flo Dobashi sent me the cover of a book she had just read that discussed the possible sailing of Chinese ships to the shores of North America over 50 years before Columbus.

The book was written by a former British naval officer who made an intensive investigation and probed ancient sailing ships. He was especially interested in the annals of Chinese sea ships and came to the conclusion that a Chinese armada of huge junks came to our shores.

The trip began down the China coast, around the Malaysian Peninsula, across the Indian Ocean, down around Cape Horn in Africa, and then all the way across the Atlantic.

I thought the tale was a bit far-fetched, and made a scoffing remark that there was no evidence such as take-out food containers left around.

In Thursday’s Chronicle there was an article, accompanied by a picture, of a small Chinese junk that sailed into San Francisco Bay. It had a crew of seven and took over two months to reach here.

The ship’s captain claims the boat was patterned after those created in the Ming dynasty. He also thought that the Chinese landed here way before Columbus’ trip. It’s an interesting theory, and I hope some further investigation will follow.

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I notice in our local Japanese papers that there will be a couple of dances to be held soon. I hope it will be of the ballroom type. Since the popularity of “Dancing With the Stars,” I would think the young people would be interested in learning ballroom dancing.

There is so much more to dancing with the various rhythms and steps, and it should be a truly enjoyable experience for the young people. We used to have dances at graduation time, on any kind of holiday, and naturally on New Year’s Eve. Right after World War II, interest really perked up, especially with Latin rhythms being introduced.

I hope the young people will get into ballroom dancing techniques instead of just standing in one spot, shuffling their feet and shrugging their shoulders.

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As I get older it seems that I get more interested in ancient history. Actually, I am past history myself, but there was an interesting talk on the radio about the 5th century, when Attila the Hun and his hordes invaded parts of Europe.

A small town of about 20,000 people, upon hearing about the invasion, moved out onto a nearby bunch of small islands in the Adriatic Sea for protection from the invaders.

This movement of population is now Venice, Italy. The original ancient city was uncovered recently by an airplane flying above, utilizing infra-red rays.

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I am sure many are feeling the effects of the downward stock market. It’s very much like the action of a yo-yo; one day it’s up 900 points, the next day down 700. How long this will continue, no one knows.

One financial reporter expressed the thought that this may be one of the greatest opportunities to get into the market at this low price. I hope he is right.

The market crash in 1929 was basically domestic, but the goings-on now are truly global. As one pundit mentioned, “When the American market sneezes, they have a fever in Tokyo.”

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A medical guy on the radio made a statement that eating soybean products might affect fertility. When you say soy products, that covers a lot of ground — soy sauce, tofu, soy condiments, etc. There are hundreds of products made from the bean, but I question this lack of fertility thing. In China, which possibly uses the most soybean products, there are over a billion people.

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As we all know, especially here in California, there are many sister-city relationships with other nations. For instance, San Francisco is tied with Osaka and has sent many cultural and culinary groups there, and the Japanese have reciprocated by sending trade groups here.
Stockton’s sister city is Shimizu, and there is a road named Shimizu that goes by the Buddhist church.

Even Santa Rosa has a sister city in Kagoshima. This was possibly due to the fact that a Satsuma man named Kanaye Nagasawa resided in Santa Rosa many years ago and grew wine grapes. He was also a good friend of the famed botanist Luther Burbank. I always like to think that Burbank named a plum that he created after his friend, the Satsuma plum.

I was also interested to learn that Santa Cruz has a sister-city relationship with a town in Nicaragua. They sent a rebuilt garbage truck recently to the impoverished town for use in street cleaning pick-ups.

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There was a note in the papers that some bottled waters are not as good as claimed. The rationale was that the water that you get from your tap is just as good. However, if you want to be extra careful, there are filter attachments that can take away a lot of the chlorine.

I drink my daily quota of water with a shot or two of bourbon — strictly for purification, of course. We in San Francisco are truly blessed with water coming from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir in the Sierras.

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This week’s presidential debate reminded me of an old joke. A medical doctor had problems with a pipe in his kitchen sink, so he called Joe the Plumber. After Joe worked about an hour or so, the doc asked for the bill. It was for $300.

The doc was aghast and said, “Why, that’s more than what a doctor gets.”

Then Joe replied, “That’s what I used to say when I was a doctor.”