Today is kokuu (穀雨), one of nijyushisekki (二十四節季), the 24 solar terms. The last one was seimei (清明) on April 4 and the next one is rikka (立夏) on May 5. Kokuu literally means grain rain. Spring rain makes the grain grow.
April 20 is a special day for me. 20 years ago of this day, there was the opening ceremony of the Expo '92 in Seville, Spain. I was working at the Japan Pavilion at that time.
Today we had the 20th anniversary party of the Expo '92 in Tokyo. There were about 100 people there including the ambassador of Spain.
At the 15th anniversary in 2007 we had a party at the Embassy of Spain in Tokyo.
I met colleagues and enjoyed the reunion. Some became mothers, others are still single. But to my interesting we look almost the same as 20 years ago.
The year 1992 was very special for me. I was a graduate school student and took a year leave, then had worked at the Expo '92 for 7 months and traveled around Europe after that for 5 months.
This experience changed me a lot. After coming back to Japan I started studying as many languages as possible though I have already forgotten most of them.
I have seen many places and met many people and learned so much things during that year. Therefore I wanted to publish a book about the year.
It's been 20 years now.
I will publish my first book on my birthday May 8 this year. It is not about the experience in Europe, but about the Florida experience from 2006 to 2008 when I was a JOI (Japan Outreach Initiative) coordinator. I hope many people will enjoy reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment