Ambassador Claudia Barnes: Head of Mission

THIS has certainly been an eventful year for Jamaica’s Ambassador to Japan, Claudia Barnes. Currently in her homeland for vacation following the recently concluded Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade convened Heads of Mission Meeting, she is convinced that having experienced the March 11 earthquake in Japan, there’s no challenge she cannot tackle.

“The experience has made me stronger. We (embassy staff) took strength from the Japanese stoicism and maintained composure,” she said.

There was, however, no stoicism when Barnes received a phone call from the only Jamaican citizen who the mission could not make contact with for some time after the earthquake.

“Tears came to my eyes. I was overjoyed, exceedingly happy. We were able to finally account for every Jamaican who we knew were in Japan,” she said.

Jamaicans were indeed anxious when the news reports identified one Jamaican as missing. Ministry staff — the permanent secretary, the minister, those from the Diaspora and Consular Affairs Department, indeed staff at all levels — hoped for good news.

“No one wanted to hear that he couldn’t be found,” recalls a ministry official.

Now in her second year in Japan, Barnes has been involved in two One Love Jamaica Festivals — a huge event on the Japanese calendar. Officially started in 2004 to celebrate the then Jamaica/Japan 40-year diplomatic friendship, the two-day May festival started off with over 30,000 patrons and has now grown to approximately 50,000.

Preceding the inaugural 2004 One Love Jamaica Festival, was the Bob Marley Song Contest, organised by Ryuichi Tsuruno, who owned a travel agency that specialised in tours to the Caribbean, particularly Jamaica and Cuba. The song contest saw Japanese artistes performing Bob Marley songs and vying for the prize of a trip for two to the Half Moon Hotel in Montego Bay.

In 2004, however, the Jamaican Embassy in Japan under the leadership of then ambassador Paul Robotham lobbied for the competition to be held in the Yoyogi Park — one of the largest parks in Japan. The mission, along with Tsuruno, also added new elements to the event, renaming it the One Love Jamaica Festival.

Today, the Bob Marley Song Competition is still the highlight of the festival. In addition to the Japanese singing Marley songs, Jamaican-born artistes living in Japan and children of both Jamaican and Japanese heritage are also featured acts.

Authentic reggae sound systems and DJs, jerk chicken, Jamaican paintings and photographs, art and craft and other souvenirs and a display of Jamaican tourism attractions are some of the offerings at the two-day festival.

Importantly, also, the festival is held under the patronage of the Embassy of Jamaica in Japan and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan.

Love for Jamaican culture

As the now animated ambassador explains it, the booth manned by the Jamaican embassy and which employs Jamaican JET participants, along with embassy staff, is the “cultural connection space” where dance, drumming hair braiding, patois and domino lessons are taught. She also explained that outside of the festival, patois classes are conducted by Jamaicans living in Japan on a long-term basis.

“They love the Jamaican culture and the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, so much so that the competition is using blue this or mountain that in their coffee branding too,” says Barnes.

As she explains it, the approximately 285 Jamaicans registered in Japan, do not mathematically correlate with the influence the Jamaican culture has on Japan. Aside from Bob Marley, Harry Belafonte and Usain Bolt, Barnes describes the Jamaican participants in the JET programme (introduced to Jamaica in 2000) and the other Jamaicans living in Japan as ambassadors of Jamaica.

“They play a major role in disseminating the Jamaican story,” she says. Speaking specifically of the JET participants, Barnes says they have an excellent reputation of service and dedication, and that the programme has been a character-building one for the Jamaicans through the years.

While Japan is Barnes’ first ambassadorial appointment, she has been in the Jamaican Foreign Service since November 1980. Her first posting was to Belgium (1982-1988), her second was to Venezuela (1988-1992), then she went back to Belgium (1996-2000), and her fourth posting and first ambassadorial appointment was to Japan in 2009.

From all her postings she found one constant — Jamaicans are the centre of attraction.

“They want to know about our culture, our food, our athletes, our music, our history. Other nationalities are drawn to Jamaicans because we are confident, friendly people who relate easily with others,” she says.