Tokyo Sogetsu Headquarters: By Wiiii (Own Work) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
On a sunny, late-September morning I enter the teaching room of the Tokyo Sogetsu Headquarters. After registration for the International Ikebana Class given every Monday morning except on holidays, I am introduced to Master Instructor, Suikei Sakaguch. Then we are directed to the bank of flowers and branches from which we are to choose our materials. Continue reading
I had time to kill before clearing security and boarding an Air Canada Rouge flight from Osaka Kansai (KIX) to Vancouver. Marketed as Air Canada’s “stylishly affordable service,” what that really means is fewer perks and comforts. When you pay less you get less. I get that. Never mind. If you can put up with it, you get there. Continue reading
After moving to Kanazawa my friend Kanako mentioned that she often couldn’t understand the regional accent and found it a challenge to communicate sometimes.
Fortunately, I remembered that when I couldn’t make myself understood in Japanese. Continue reading
If you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Or at least that’s the ages-old advice. Continue reading
He is a refugee. He is 37 years old. His Police Administration Report labels him as stateless. His occupation reads farm laborer. He has a wife and two sons. One is five, the other nearly four months old. Should he be one of the 25,000 (among the millions in limbo with nowhere to go) to be granted entrance into Canada? Continue reading
For the past while Japanese media has addressed topics related to the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in 2020. Once in awhile I see an article discussing what might be improved prior to foreign visitors’ arrival. Even after numerous visits and familiarity with the way things are done in Japan, during my travels I often experience things that hordes of Olympic athletes, dignitaries, staff and fans might find frustrating. Continue reading
This post is a modified version of a letter to the editor in The Abbotsford News on Friday, November 20, 2015.
Wednesday evening an altercation in a home in Abbotsford led to a stabbing. I had a view of the first responders—two fire trucks, two ambulances and three marked police cars—which arrived to deal with the aftermath and prepare the victim for air transport to hospital. Oh yes. And the press which arrived to get the story.
I watched as highly-trained and competent personnel worked to save a man in the cold pelting rain in a front yard littered with dog excrement. Continue reading
Something I noticed while travelling in Japan is how much I am a creature of habit, doing commonplace things on auto-pilot much of the time. In an environment where my normal way of doing things doesn’t work as I expect it to, I am surprised by how long it takes to adapt. Sometimes I don’t. Some things I never adjusted to while travelling in Japan. Continue reading
This morning I attended a New York Metropolitan Opera performance of Tannhäuser broadcast in HD at my local Cineplex Odeon. Fabulous music. The story, however, has not stood the test of time. Probably because there isn’t much to the conflict. That and periods of instrumental music devoid of any stage action to develop the plot. It’s in the music which is wicked-gorgeous but long. Well, it is Wagner, but he’s not the only one to write that way. Continue reading
