I escaped the ski life Saturday and met up with my family (minus my older brother who's working too hard in law school to go cavorting in the far East) to check out the sights of Hokkaido.

Let's start with the basics. We're in Japan, a country. Got that. Sapporo is the capitol of the prefecture of Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, which is connected to Japan by the underwater Seikan Tunnel. Sapporo is a big city with a population of about 1.9 mil. Incidentally, it's also the home of the Sapporo Brewery and the Ishiya Chocolate Factory. Hokkaido's economy is based in agriculture and tourism and it leads Japan in producing rice, fish, and vegetables.

Back in the day (pre 1800) the Northern islands were inhabited by the Ainu. The Ainu were the indigenous (at least as far as we know now, but they probably took the island over from some other poor group of previous inhabitants) people and were very similar to the Laplanders of Finland and the Inuit of Alaska. They had a sustenance based on fishing, hunting and some basic agriculture. They began trading with the Matsumae clan in the 1750's.

Because those dang Russians were sailing and trading around the very northernmost islands, the Japanese and Russians entered border negotiations to determine who would get the "unclaimed" islands North of Japan. A border was set in 1855 but was altered in 1875, 1905, and 1950. Anyway, so by the time of the Convention of Kanagawa (1854), the Japanese were starting to take control of Hokkaido and suppress the Ainu. It appears as though the Japanese "settled" Hokkaido, setting up villages and government similar to the Westward movement in America. Just, you know, Northward.

From what I've picked up, it looks like the Ainu were pretty repressed. Cultural practices were banned including the practice of piercings in the men and tattoos on the women. The Japanese basically told the Ainu that the Japanese had a superior culture and the Ainu culture was worthless and should be squelched. So squelched it was and only recently (20 years ago the Ainu Cultural Society/Museum was established) has there been a mainstream resurgence in interest in Ainu culture. I thought that it was interesting that the Ainu women were tattooed because tattoos are really looked down upon in Japan and they have signs outside the baths and public pools prohibiting people with tattoos from entering.

So that's a little background on where I am.