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Howie Severino Presents ‘Sakai Na!’ on i-Witness

In his bicycles docus, Howie Severino and his team have traveled on two wheels to Sagada, Bohol, Catanduanes and through the mean streets of Manila.

In their next biking adventure, they hit the clean streets of Japan, a land full of contradictions.

A nation better known to Filipinos for its cars, Japan is also a bike-loving country where old and young alike commute by bike, cyclists are so respected by motorists that few bikers feel a need to wear helmets, and train stations come with large bicycle parking garages.

Howie and his team do most of their cycling in the quaint city of Sakai, the country’s bicycle capital.

Cycling through Sakai’s streets enables Howie to see up close the often uneasy co-existence of old and new in Japan – the virtues of traditional crafts like samurai making and the demands of a modern economy; the frenetic pace of Japanese industry and the slower speed prescribed by Buddhism.

But Howie also observes Japan’s need to adjust to a changing world. It is an aging, racially homogenous population which accepts fewer migrant workers than most other modern societies.

Sakai itself is only beginning to reach out again to the rest of the world, recalling its history as a global trading city. Howie and his team are part of a small group of Southeast Asians invited to Sakai to share their culture with Japanese youth rarely given the chance for exposure to foreigners.

De La Salle student Anne is one of the Filipinos in the group who stays with a local Sakai family, who reveals to her a side of Japan that few outsiders know.

Howie himself realizes that Filipinos and Japanese have more in common than meets the eye. And cycling is an ideal way to get to know a strange place.

Catch the story in detail this Monday on I-Witness after the late night newscast Saksi on GMA.