Ikebana Festival-my interpretation

Today I had the chance to go to an Ikebana Festival in Osaka. In English "Ikebana" would be translated as "flower arranging". I know it doesn't sound very interesting. I mean who takes their whole Sunday afternoon to go to a "flower arranging festival"? Ikebana, however, is actually very interesting and fun. Each of us had our own mat (to stick the flowers into), scissors (to cut the flowers-obviously) and a bunch of flowers to use in our arrangement. Each pattern, each flower, each color has a meaning. It is a very traditional Japanese art. Unfortunately, I never actually caught the meaning of our arrangement. I was too busy concentrating on how to get my arrangement to look like the model and noticing how the girl across from me (who was from Korea) was doing a significantly better job than I was. Actually, a quick glance around the table told me that everyone was doing a better job than me. Oh well, at least the Japanese are encouraging and kept telling me what a good job I was doing. Liz and I even got interviewed by a reporter from a Japanese newspaper. Maybe I'll be famous for being the foriegner who "just kept trying, no matter how good it looked." Well, it was a fun day and another Japanese cultural experience.


me and my arrangement. Maybe it is supposed to be the picture of a person growing out of oppression, among the pressures of this world and standing tall, being all they were meant to be. (This must have been set in the 70's because according to this flower, the person had a 'fro)