The Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival was held the past two weekends in San Francisco’s Japantown. Dan and I took my sister on Sunday, the day of the Grand Parade, since Miwa had never been to the festival before.
I love going to the Cherry Blossom Festival, and haven’t missed it once since moving out here. This was my third year attending San Francisco’s festival, and although a lot of things are the same, it’s always great to see the celebration of Japanese and Japanese American culture and heritage.
The highlight for me, as usual, was the taiko. If only I had better rhythm, I would totally want to take on taiko lessons. It’s a great workout for your arms and I just love the sound and energy of taiko drums…. Can’t wait to see Taiko Dojo again next year!
We have a lovely cherry blossom tree in front of our new place, along with some other pretty little flowers that have come into bloom this spring. Over the weekend, we decided to have a little fun photoshoot with Diesel. Here are my favorites!
Quite the photogenic one, isn’t he? Excuse my oya baka moment, but I had to share… 😉
Three years. My heart is in Blacksburg today as we remember the 32 Hokies we lost on April 16, 2007. It was exactly three years ago that our cherished Virginia Tech campus was branded as “the site of the deadliest peacetime shooting incident in U.S. history.”
Never before then or since have I felt the magnitude of pain and heartbreak that I experienced on that day and the weeks that followed. The trauma of losing a friend among the 32 victims in the horrifying tragedy, coupled with the unrelenting harassment by reporters for a comment as a representative of the Asian campus community, was too much for me to endure and I underwent counseling at the campus clinic for a week. I would quietly cry myself to sleep every night, which regrettably kept my roommates up and made them sick with worry. There was simply no escaping the tragedy, with yellow tape and police cars everywhere on campus, and our school being the top news story every time we turned on the television. I felt like I shed a lifetime of tears that week — you’d think that eventually, you’d run out of tears to cry, but they just kept coming.
They came at the convocation the day following the shooting, when the sky was a serenely calm blue in comparison to the stormy skies of the day before.
They came at the candlelight vigil later that night, as thousands of candles lit up the drillfield in the middle of our campus.
They came at the organizational board meetings for AASU and VTU, where I saw my fellow officers more broken than ever.
They came at the memorial picnic, where I shook hands with Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum and saw such indescribable sadness and utter exhaustion in his eyes, which had just witnessed the worst bloodshed he’d ever seen in his lifetime.
They came on graduation day, as my heart screamed that this was not the note I wanted my college years to end on.
They came as I laid down my graduation bouquets at the memorial, for my fellow students who were forever robbed of the opportunity to walk in their own commencement ceremonies.
But amidst all the heartache that left me bleary-eyed, there were countless tearful moments that helped me to heal. I was so humbled to see how many universities, communities and individuals reached out to us in support and love from all over the country and across the world. Students from our rival school at the University of Virginia painted their Beta Bridge in Virginia Tech’s orange and maroon colors with the message “Hoos for Hokies,” reminding us that we share more in common than we have historically been prone to admit. Colorado State University sent us thousands of paper cranes symbolizing peace. Penn State paid their respects to Virginia Tech by dressing in our school colors for their annual Blue-White football game. Niagara Falls was bathed in orange and maroon lights in a moving tribute to the Hokie spirit, marking the first time the falls had been lit in the wake of a tragedy. Every flat surface in Squires Student Center was covered in banners, posters, and memorial items sent in from around the nation, and so many arrived that they had to switch them out every day. It was these sights and more that moved me to tears and really showed our campus that love can surpass the hate that brought about such a such a horrific event.
Above all, I was inspired to see the strength and solidarity with which our campus community stood in the face of this unexpected and unprecedented tragedy. I am not sure how I would have made it through the final month of school were it not for the support of my fellow Hokies — my roommates, friends, classmates, professors, managers and coworkers.
Three years later, we are still healing. I know I have not completely healed yet, and I’m not sure if I ever will. There’s still not a day that goes by without April 16th crossing my mind in one way or another, however fleeting it may be. There are still moments when tears spill over inexplicably, when there isn’t even anything conscious there to trigger them. It’s painful to remember, but too important to forget. The world stopped and watched in horror as a nightmare unfolded on our campus three years ago — it is my sincere hope that we will never have to see another April 16th.
I ask each of you to take the time to be a Hokie today. Appreciate life a little more, take in every moment around you, count your blessings, tell the people around you that you love them, slow down, remember what’s truly important in life. And live for those 32 that do not have that chance anymore.
Although I’m all the way on the other side of the country, I will be proudly wearing my orange and maroon today in remembrance. Hearts have been broken, lives have been taken, but we will always be here standing tall and proud to be Hokies.
We are Virginia Tech. We will continue. We do it for 32.
We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. Never Forget April 16, 2007
Last night, Dan and I went to the much-anticipated Muse concert in Oracle Arena in Oakland. Muse is one of Dan’s favorite bands, and so when I heard that they were coming back in December, I immediately picked up a pair of tickets as a birthday gift for Dan. I’d also grown to become a fan, from listening to Dan’s music library, so I was pretty psyched to see them live too.
The stadium was packed and Muse put on an awesome show that did not disappoint! They sang all of their much-loved classics, such as Uprising, Resistance, Supermassive Black Hole, Unnatural Selection, and my personal favorite, Starlight. Their set was incredible, too! They had these massive skyscraper-like structures onstage that opened up to reveal them inside each at the start of the show, and they kept being lowered and lifted and spun atop them while all sorts of motion graphics and effects played on the sides of them. It was visually stunning; I’d never seen anything like it before.
Here’s a video of Muse performing Starlight last night. Amazing!
It was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to, and I came out even more a fan than I was before! Definitely looking forward to seeing them live again sometime. 🙂
Still Walking resonated with me because I could see a lot of my own family in the film (not just because we share the same last name… haha*). I’m not sure if it’s specific to Japanese family culture, but no matter how close-knit your family is, there’s still a degree of awkwardness that comes into play. You love each other, but oftentimes it’s sort of an unspoken thing that never really surfaces as open affection. Though born and raised in America, I grew up in a fairly traditional Japanese family, and restraint, moderation, and gaman (quiet endurance) were always emphasized. It was a slight culture shock to come into Dan’s family, where everyone is always hugging each other and openly affectionate. I do think that traditionally, many Japanese families are too stoic and often as a result incommunicative, but I think that their culture of respect and filial piety is very important to preserve. It definitely made me think about what sort of a “family culture” I’d like to nurture when we have our own family someday. I’m sure it’s a common struggle for a lot of Asian Americans to find a happy medium….
I would recommend Still Walking, although I’m not entirely sure if it is deserving of the 100% it got on Rotten Tomatoes. I personally think it pales against the striking masterpiece Okuribito (Departures), a Japanese film which also got a lot of attention last year.
