Happy Birthday to Panama!

Interviewed & written by Isao Tokuhashi Mail to: info@myeyestokyo.com   Rolando Encinas Quena player   A worldwide quena player whom all Latin music lovers must know – that’s today’s interviewee. We met him on referral from Luis Carlos Severich, Japan-based Bolivian guitarist whom we interviewed in 2007. We faced Roland Encinas, a Bolivian quena player, two days after we got a phone call from Luis Carlos. The interview was conducted right before his concert so we didn’t have enough time to go deep into his background. But he talked about his ties with Japan affectionately. However, he had an expression

An aerial photo of the capital St George’s. *Photo from Wikipedia February 7 is Grenada’s Independence Day, celebrates the independence of Grenada, a sovereign state in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, from the United Kingdom in 1974. First settled by indigenous peoples, by the time of European contact it was inhabited by the Caribs. French colonists drove most of the Caribs off the island and established plantations on the island, eventually importing African slaves to work on the sugar plantations. Control of the island was disputed by Great Britain and France in the 18th century, with the British ultimately prevailing. Grenada

Binondo, the oldest Chinatown in the world, in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. *Photo from Wikipedia June 12 is Independence Day, celebrates the independence of the Philippines from Spain in 1898. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in Homonhon Island in 1521 marked the beginning of Hispanic colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. With the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi from Mexico City, in 1565, the first Hispanic settlement in the archipelago was established. The Philippines became part of the Spanish Empire for