A large vegetable garden at their home in Revelstoke, BC, helped Yoshi Hashimoto’s family survive the difficult years of WWII, though they thankfully avoided being interned. Despite the hardships of their largely rural upbringing, his parents made sure Yoshi and his siblings got an education. He took their enthusiasm for learning to heart, deciding to become a teacher after being inspired by the excellence of some of his own teachers. His teaching career began with elementary school in Revelstoke, and later took him to Prince George, where he taught grade 5 and then high school art and counselling for many years.
Now residing in Abbotsford, Yoshi discovered British Columbia’s public broadcaster, Knowledge Network, after retiring some 25 years ago. “I found, through the wide range of Knowledge programs, that I could expand my horizons and continue to be educated and entertained,” he says.
Along with the weekend dramas, Yoshi appreciates the historical programming on Knowledge, which he finds fills a vacuum that prevails on some of the other television channels. Not only do the shows delve into the stories of historical figures and events, in some cases they’ve enlightened Yoshi on what happened in his own past, particularly the wartime years and the Japanese experience in BC – something he wishes more people knew about and understood.
To that end, Yoshi has volunteered at the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre in Burnaby as Chairman of the Auxiliary Committee since it was formed in 2002. The Auxiliary and its army of volunteers helps the Centre put on many educational programs and events related to Japanese history and culture, and while those opportunities have been limited lately due to COVID restrictions, Yoshi and his fellow volunteers are looking forward to the day when they can all get together and resume their activities.
Along with volunteering, Yoshi has kept up with a number of hobbies and interests over the years. He continues to garden, mostly flowers and a bit of bonsai, and is an avid curler, a sport he picked up as a teacher in Prince George. It was a principal in high school who fostered Yoshi’s interest in art, and his sketchbooks are filled with delicate black-and-white drawings and watercolours of nature and scenic landscapes, many of them created on his travels.
“The old saying ‘if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it’ is so true,” Yoshi says. “Not only that, it makes life interesting if you are constantly learning and open to new ideas. And keeping your mind active will help keep you younger and living longer.”
Yoshi appreciates the fact that he can watch Knowledge programs on his television or his computer, which is a handy way for the busy senior to catch up on any episodes he’s missed. “The joy of that is I can scan all of the programs and pick and choose at any time, any day, any hour. I’m just glad that Knowledge is there for all of us so we can access that kind of information any time we want. It’s right there at our fingertips.”
Being a regular viewer, it wasn’t a hard decision for Yoshi to take the next step and become a Knowledge Partner. “Knowledge is a channel that you can get for free, but I pay for it because I think it’s very important to maintain the type of commercial-free programming that raises your television watching to another level. I support Knowledge semi-annually and I’m very happy to do that because what I get out of it is worth so much more,” he says.
Lifelong learning is important to Yoshi and so is giving back, whether that’s by donating to something he values or imparting his knowledge and skills to help improve other people’s lives. “I feel that I didn’t get here all by myself. A lot of people helped me along the way. I think that’s my role in life, to turn around and pay all of that forward.”
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