{"id":24597,"date":"2012-04-07T22:53:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-08T02:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=24597"},"modified":"2012-04-07T22:58:56","modified_gmt":"2012-04-08T02:58:56","slug":"wit-life-196-dc-sakura-matsuri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/07\/wit-life-196-dc-sakura-matsuri\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #196: DC Sakura Matsuri!"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life<\/a> <\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em>is <\/strong><\/em>a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting<\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/a> tidb<\/strong><\/em>its and t<\/strong><\/em>rends together with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

I’m down in DC to begin a new business trip, and was thrilled when I found out my assignment would coincide with the famous Sakura Matsuri.\u00a0 This year is extra special as it marks the 100th anniversary since the 3000+ trees were gifted from Japan to the U.S.\u00a0 Even the Metro gets into the spirit, as you can see with their turnstile decorations.\u00a0 Due to the warm weather it is doubtful that the blossoms will last until the conclusion of the festival at the end of the month, but I’m hoping to do some hanami while I’m here.<\/p>\n

On another Japa\"\"<\/a>n-related note, today I went to see an interesting exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery entitled “Asian American Portraits of Encounter<\/a>.”\u00a0 It features several different Asian American artists, including three Japanese.\u00a0 One is Satomi Shirai based in New York, the second is Shizu Saldamando based in California, and the last is Roger Shimomura based in Kansas.\u00a0 I was especially taken with the work of Shimoura, who as a child was relocated to an internment camp in Idaho along with his family during World War II.\u00a0 His displayed works are all self-portraits, and according to Shimomura through them he strove to battle “oriental” stereotypes or conversely become them.\u00a0 As an example of the latter I particularly liked the two works shown here side by side, American Pikachu and American Hello Kitty, where the artist takes the form of these iconic images.<\/p>\n

The non-Japanese artists also share some really thought-provoking work, so this exhibit is definitely worth checking out.\u00a0 It runs through October 14, admission is free and it is open daily from 11:30-7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. I’m down in DC to begin a new business trip, and was thrilled when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[75,53,368,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-events","category-traveltourism","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-6oJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24597"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24626,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24597\/revisions\/24626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}