Paraguayan Ambassador to Japan Isao Taoka still remembers the first things he saw when he arrived in the South American country in April 1958.</PARAGRAPH> <PHOTO> <TABLE WIDTH='250' ALIGN='RIGHT' BORDER='0'> <TR> <TD><IMG ALT='News photo' BORDER='0' SRC='../images/photos2006/nn20060815f2a.jpg' WIDTH='250' HEIGHT='368'/></TD> </TR> <TR> <TD><FONT SIZE='1'><B>Isao Taoka, Paraguay's ambassador to Japan, looks back on the 70-year history of Japanese emigrants in the South American country during a recent interview at his embassy in Tokyo. </B> YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO</FONT></TD> </TR> <TABLE> </PHOTO> <PARAGRAPH>'When I first got there, I was surprised by all the nature.' Fish were swarming in the rivers, and puma, parrots and monkeys thrived in the jungle near the Japanese emigrant settlement.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Trees grew so thick that it was dark even during the day,' the 63-year-old said. 'I sometimes wonder if we could have saved some of that nature.'</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>But Taoka, a first-generation Japanese emigrant, knew that turning the area into farmland was essential for his family and colleagues to survive in the new world.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Japanese emigration to Paraguay began in 1936, with 123 families relocating in the first five years.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Suffering amid a long-term postwar economic slump, Taoka's family, hailing from Tokushima Prefecture, joined the government-backed emigration project in 1958 when he was 14.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Our ship left Yokohama on Feb. 5 that year, after the travelers from the Tohoku region got on board. We made stops at San Francisco, went through the Panama Canal and reached Brazil, before arriving in Paraguay,' he said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>As soon as they landed, his family began growing oranges and tea.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The early days were full of hardship and the emigrants feared starvation as they struggled to clear the land to plant rice and vegetables from seedlings brought from Japan.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'There were times when the sky turned yellow because the emigrants constantly burned and cleared areas for farmland,' Taoka said. Some gave up hope and committed suicide; others migrated to neighboring countries.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Taoka explained that unlike the Dominican Republic, which Japan promised emigrants was a 'Caribbean paradise' full of fertile farmland but turned out to have harsh conditions, emigrants to Paraguay 'received support from both the Japanese and Paraguayan governments upon their settlement.'</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The broken promises to the emigrants to the Dominican Republic were only partially rectified by an apology and settlement offer last month.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The Federation of Japan Overseas Associations –

, now the Japan International Cooperation Agency, played a key role in assisting the emigrants to Paraguay and improving their lives, providing them with agricultural knowhow.

Hospitals and schools were built with aid from Japan, while JICA experts collaborated to improve soybean strains and advised farmers to experiment in no-tillage cultivation.

Efficiency and productivity of soybean production made rapid progress, and life became less demanding.

Taoka eventually became a central figure in the Japanese-Paraguayan community as head of the local agricultural co-op association, and later was elected mayor of La Paz. He was assigned as ambassador to Japan in 2004.