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Published: June 30th 2007
The good times crew
Here we are, B Banks, Shiz, her kids Elijia and Isiah and myself. Every summer there are a lot of festivals and events in downtown Denver. During this summer before traveling, I had an opportunity to enjoy one, the Cherry Blossom Festival. This is in Sakura Square, kind of a Japanese block. The event of course is a Japanese cultural festival. Overall, I was able to see some really interesting things. The festival actually took place partially inside a Buddhist Temple, which allowed for further exploration.
As all festivals, this one had food, drinks and numerous things to buy. Being a Japanese festival, there of course was sushi for sale, but they also had green tea ice cream. This seemed to be pretty popular, and unfortunately I forget to try some. Besides that, numerous crafts, culture books, toy swords and of course, anime for sale. In fact, you could pay to have your name written in Japanese. However, having a Japanese girlfriend, this seemed to have lost its charm on me.
Besides the things for sale, the numerous events were very interesting. I was able to watch a Judo demo, a tea ceremony (in the previous year I went), see the bonsai tree demonstration and participate in a dance. Overall, there
My talents
Here I am showing my amazing affection for children. was a certain underlining culture that I was able to pick up. I noticed that the Japanese culture has a very detailed, or meticulous mindset. It almost feels like saying they are detailed oriented doesn't really do justice. In an attempt to explain it, it seems as though to be able to perform a piece of Japanese culture (such as dances, martial arts or even the tea ceremony), one has to put their full selves into the action. Having no outside distractions or concerns, one is then able to notice and become involved with the smaller details that can be missed by a rushed person. This is certainly true with the dance at the end, and that's because this damn thing was hard. While I have been in martial arts for awhile and a decent athlete, I thought the dance would be easy. More so since it was little old ladies leading the dance. I thought wrong. As the pictures show, performing this dance was very difficult. The leaders were in the inside circle, while every one else attempts to follow in outer circles. The little old ladies were very focused, and very graceful. In this example, I was shown
Re-incarnation
If Barry and I are reborn as Japanese, here is how we will look. some of the fundamentals of Japanese culture (although one of my favorites is having pure fun via drinking and then karaoke!). To me, the best way to understand it is to learn some about Zen Buddhism. Buddhism, with a Japanese flavor is then called Zen, really focuses upon gaining enlightenment through becoming one with the moment. If one can come to truly live in the moment, and have no hang ups for the past, nor unnecessary worries about the future, one then is able to make truly sound decisions, or actions. The idea certainly has merit, especially in our Western culture which can be very future oriented, thus, forgetting the joys of daily life.
Other good highlights were of course having good times with friends. I was able to go with Barry (longtime friend) and Shiziru and her kids (which could not be bored if they tried).
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Rachel
non-member comment
Aaaaawwww....
All this journal entry made me think is that I miss my mom!!! She used to play the Koto every summer at the Sakura Festival. Wow...this entry brought back a lot of memories for me...thanks!